1. A New Initiation

“Wow. I can’t believe I just did that!” - Those were the first thoughts running through my head as I had just given birth to my second daughter. Alongside the thoughts of, “Thank God it’s over!”.

After 7 hours of active labor, including 30 minutes of pushing, I was holding my sweet baby girl. I remember feeling the thoughts of familiarity as I held her in my arms. Two and a half years ago, I’d gone through a similar experience giving birth to my first daughter. That time, I remember how CRAZY it felt that there was an actual baby that came out and that I was holding her in my arms!

My body remembered this moment. It felt familiar, and yet different. 

How many times do we all go through such experiences in our life where things feel or look familiar, and yet somehow they are different? I bet you could name quite a few. And with that familiarity, we often come to the conclusion that we know how to handle the situation.

At least those were my thoughts, which weren’t necessarily wrong, but little did I know that there was so much more unknown and growth that I was about to step into. Things that I could never have prepared myself for. That this wasn’t just about the birth of my daughter, but actually it was a rebirth of myself. This was my initiation into something greater than I could have ever imagined.

This book is the story of my rebirth. A new level of awakening. And my hope is that by reading about this journey, it will help and inspire you as you walk your own path of initiation and rebirth. I find that this is an experience that comes through in many different forms and times in life.

I don’t believe we are just “rebirthed” or initiated once or twice. In fact, any time we are facing a moment of growth, a challenge or major life change, we are being awakened to something deeper within ourselves. In the evolution of humanity that we are currently facing, I believe that this represents a coming closer to our true selves. An initiation into our spiritual truth. Coming closer to God and the Divine.

In every moment we have the choice to be led into the initiation or to stay the same. What I’ve found is that it is much more painful to try and stay the same instead of going through the growing pains of evolution.The thing is, we often are subconsciously choosing to stay the same. And not because we don’t desire growth, but because we feel that if something is familiar to us, then we already know how to handle it, and therefore we simply lean into what we already know.

This is the area of growth that I don’t see often talked about and that I think, in some ways, is even more challenging than going through a situation that is completely new to you. At least with something that is totally new, you literally have nothing familiar to lean into and so your expectations are non-existent because you don’t even know what to expect!

When you are facing something that has that feeling of familiarity, we approach it from a completely different lens - it’s an energy that says “Oh I already know this” versus approaching something as a beginner and being more open to a new way of doing and being. For me and the birth of my second daughter, this looked like being fully prepared for the constant night wakeups, less stress and anxiety about every little cry, and just an overall confidence in our ability to go through all of the ups and downs of taking care of a baby.

This is often what happens - on the outside, things look taken care of and under control. But on the inside? Things are shifting, changing and evolving into a whole new level that is very unfamiliar. For me personally, I was already a mom, so being in “mom-mode” was totally familiar and comfortable for me with the arrival of my second daughter. But what I didn’t expect is that my capacity to hold it all was going to be stretched and expanded beyond anything I could have ever imagined. This included everything in life: motherhood, spirituality, entrepreneurship, relationships… EVERYTHING. In short, this stage of my journey had me feeling like my emotional capacity and empowerment to hold it all was crumbling.

It’s the stretch from the unseen that takes us by surprise and that also holds the opportunity to expand us beyond what we think is possible. While God and the Divine are ready to stretch through us, we must go through our own internal processing and evolution to allow it in.

This right here is where I felt a lot of resistance coming up for me. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I didn’t actually realize what was happening. Again, being in a space of familiarity and thinking I had everything handled, when in reality I was being stretched into more. 

So what did handling all of that look like? For me that looked like trying to control the things I thought were within my control, leaning back into my tried and true way of doing things, and holding onto feelings of frustration and bitterness.

But before I could move through those feelings and that resistance to get to the other side, I experienced a level of confusion and uncertainty that I hadn’t experienced in a long time, if ever.

Stay tuned for Chapter 2 - What Am I Doing?

Leave me a comment below if you are enjoying this series!