_{When I came to realize strength, or maybe toughness is the better word (it’s all semantics really), was not an external characteristic but an internal one, I spent a lot of time contemplating what the word actually meant. While this post explores a few topics, such as hustle culture, survival energy, and fertility, much of it is a contemplation on what true strength really is…following my heart in world that is often led by the mind.}

Strong isn’t about surviving.

Fertility isn’t about being a mom (although it can certainly encompass motherhood).

Strength and fertility, I am certain, go hand in had. But not in the way most of us think they do…

****************_.

I was a tough kid with an empath’s heart.

Scrappy. Always hustling. Not afraid (or maybe more accurate, not caring) of flinging my body across the basketball court or acquiring the next bruise.

“Only the strong survive” read my well-worn armband, a quote from my favorite NBA player Allen Iverson (pre-domestic abuse allegations).

This was my rough exterior. Like a soldier going into battle, only with life being the enemy, I armored my heart and prepared for a life a struggle and having to fight my way to…the top? Happiness? Something better? I didn’t have a whole lot of examples of anything else to look up to, I just knew I wanted something different.

Of course, all my friends saw through my baggy basketball shorts and cut-off t-shirts, sometimes earning the nickname “mom” from some of my male friends. I hated it, but I really couldn’t help myself as I reminded them to study…I just wanted the best for them. As much as I tried to hide it, I could never bury this loving, nurturing part of me.

But with this part came my emotions, and I knew- learned early on in life- that was unacceptable.

My equation? Physical pain= good. Internal pain= bad.

Back to the grind.

Working hard to earn my worth. Slaying my way through another report card of straight As, berating myself for anything less. Hours exhausting myself first spent in the gym, then running outside as I got older. Never really stopping for. a. chance. to. take. a. breath.

To listen to my heart.

Figure myself out.

Even in my 20s as I rebelled and rejected America’s 8-5 (or longer) culture, the hustler in me couldn’t really let go. Dropping the habit was one thing, dropping the mindset was another.

The armor, although softened slightly, remained a vigilant guard around my heart.

Honestly, I didn’t even know it was there, I was so used to it. Or rather, I only became conscious of the protective shield in my early 30s. I didn’t realize there was another way of living.

*************

I’m not sure what made me decide that the intention for my rights of passage during my second year of grad school would be to embody my Divine Feminine. I don’t think I even really understood the feminine and masculine energies back then. And still, even when I received signs of fertility, abundance, healing, and closeness with Mother Earth (namely snakes and wild turkeys), I wanted to reject them.

(In case you’re wondering, the masculine energy embodies the “doer”and gets things done. The feminine energy is the creative, life-force energy. These two energies work great together…but only if we lead with the feminine. …Did I just explain where America went wrong?)

Fertile? I had never once in my life wanted to have kids. I may have had a very short time period during childhood playing with barbie dolls, but the stories I told during play never involved families. I definitely wasn’t interested in baby dolls. Maybe I knew fertility had a bigger meaning than just having kids…but I’m not sure my mind ventured further than fertile vs. barren soil. And I figured that, at least, I honored and fulfilled my nurturing side at work. For a long, long time I left it at that.

*************

It has really been only recently, as in two weeks ago, that I started to put two and two together. And really, it was only “kinda” me. Or maybe it was the actual me, the higher self me. Let me explain….

One of the things that has helped me the most in the past few months are my free writing sessions. I also call this channeling, but I don’t want to scare anyone away. Maybe I’ll write about that at another time. In short, the message I received from the quick writing of my left hand was that I didn’t have to fight to survive, that I just needed to allow the earth to provide while living in harmony with it. That this is my Divine Feminine. My only fight was to come back Home to myself.

I likened this to hunters and gatherers I learned about in school. Despite being vegan for a decade (again, habits can die while mentalities live on), I embodied a hunter, risking my life in the search for food. Yet I was always meant to be a gatherer, sometimes growing, but usually just picking, and harvesting the fruit, nuts, and vegetables that were already gifted to me.

In short, fertility is my inherent abundance, my power, and in that is my manifestation* abilities. The only thing I can do is block it. Which I’ve gotten really, really good at after 30 years of practice.

_{*I actually told my Reiki therapist the other day that I needed to drop the word “manifestation” for a bit and just “be and allow.}“

My block? My hustle. Or rather, my hustle mentality. The voice that told me I had to do, do, do in order to be worthy anything good. The voice that said I could only have nice things if I worked hard for them. The voice that said I had to earn even my rest.

My Reiki therapist (his really name is Anthony, but maybe I should give him a name like “Ghandi” or maybe even “Obi-Wan Kenobi”, as Dan Millman nicknamed his teacher “Socrates” in The Way of the Peaceful Warrior) encouraged me to meditate and practice Being, to find the serenity within myself as I also fought to challenge my negative thoughts. Once in awhile, as much as I doubted it, the Universe showed me it working in my favor* , whether by circumstance or intuition.

_{*The obvious “duh” here is the free, almost daily sessions with Obi-Wan Kenobi and having a place to live (even if I always worry about being a burden) during this wanderlust period.}

First, when I blew the tire on my sister’s mountain bike (downhill mood), and then after a laser therapy session (uphill mood), my intuition led me into a nearby bike shop. Still walking in the door, I almost instantly locked into the blue eyes of the bike mechanic behind the counter (I swear, if there was a high resolution camera put in slow motion, you’d see me taken aback and stutter for just a millimeter of a second as my soul registered his). And, whether it’s a summer fling or something more, somehow I found myself spending time with both a teacher in flow (being with movement) and someone that I simply like Being with…sometimes talking, often not, looking at the horizon for hours on end. Could I really not doing anything and still be liked? Or course my mind tried to abandon ship and self-sabotage within a week and a half. Why? Because my Ultimate Block, I realized as I was discussing accepting and allowing Love* in with Anthony/Obi-Wan Kenobi is that I don’t believe I deserve Love. So how could I possible allow Love and joy to flow through me, let alone accept a guy being nice to me? (Empaths and narcissist come from the same wound, even if they fall on opposite sides of the spectrum, which is a big part of the reason why an empath may find themself in a relationship with a narcissist.)

_{*Capital “L” Love = Unconditional Universal Love.}

However, saying this untruth out loud (deep, deep, deep down I know it’s just a cognition I’ve been conditioned to believe) for the first time seemed to help loosen the lie’s death grip. Maybe I could fight this thought (while accepting my ego) and allow Love in.

Herein lies my strength…my choice to fight this internal battle of Love over fear, heart over head, intuition over ego. To stay true to my heart in a world ruled by a conditioned mind. I’ve wanted to give up more times during this run than I ever have during an ultra race. Yet with a soul that demands to be free, I know my life my life depends on me staying in it.

And this is where this story of quitting the hustle, strength, fertility, and following my heart becomes a story to be continued…

^{“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”― Rumi}

*Nuance: I use the word “fight” a lot as it’s the best word I have at my fingertips. I kind of mean it and I kind of don’t. In some sense, it absolutely does feel like I am fighting for the freedom of my heart and soul. I am constantly challenging my thoughts and the rule of my mind over my heart. Yet in this, I’m not labeling my mind or thoughts as “bad”. The goal is to be able to witness my thoughts without giving in to them, which allows more room for the heart to lead.