Turning 30

Coming Home To Myself

Coming back from this Saturn return has been challenging to the core and has opened up many opportunities for self-inquiry that I could not have imagined. But all in all, I have returned, and I truly feel that.

I started to feel it in my body when my cycle returned after my most recent pregnancy. I rejoiced when my moon came to greet me. Although she came in telling me all kinds of things through my skin—acne, for example. Gosh, adult acne can be confronting for some reason.

For me, at first, I felt some shame. Which feels funny to write because why would I feel shame for my body trying to communicate with me in the way she knows how?

I think the shame came from the idea that acne is only held for the maiden era, or at least I thought I would just get to a certain age and it would stop? Maybe I needed to challenge that unrooted belief that I somehow become less embodied when my skin breaks out.

Well, maybe that’s the point.

After a little self-loathing, I felt like I got to a point where I could see myself for the amazing, gifted human being that I am and allow the wounded child who was seeking outside validation to rest.

I have nothing to prove, y’all.

I am just a human living life, a forever student to my experience and to the collective.

Yes, so my cycle returned. I held a little ritual for myself to mark that point in time. Little altar moment, smudging myself, the elements, the directions, my family, and the collective with love, presence, and grace. Oh, and lighting a candle for myself as I danced my heart out in the morning with my sweet angels, my daughters, and went for a lovely walk, convening with the Mother.

Then I needed time to integrate.

Big time.

I found it almost unbearable to even consider posting something on social media. Yet, I still longed to share my life, insights, and reflections in many ways.

Another teacher presented themselves to me in this time. The one confronting my fear of being seen.

That one goes back many generations.

And when I really allowed myself to sit down and hold the discomfort, I quickly realized that it truly was not about my crooked bottom teeth. It was actually something that doesn’t belong to me.

Gosh, I love this concept of taking inventory of what feels heavy on our hearts or minds and being frank about it.

That feeling of being terrified of being seen as a woman—so you don’t get taken from your family and forced into servitude, burned at the stake, banished from the community, or whatever else has happened in the family line.

Those feelings are real and deserve to be seen in their own way.

AND they do not prevent me from living this short life I have been given.

Here we are. Here I am. Doing this as a practice of sharing my self-inquiry and coming back to my core values.

That is where we are going here.

Well, at least that is where this Saturn return has taken me.

While the ride has absolutely been a rollercoaster—think the openness and haze of pregnancy, birthing a human into existence while also birthing myself anew in the process, the utter chaos of emotions of postpartum, the disintegration of the codependent relationship I had with my child’s father, and mothering and building new capacity for all of the things—I have genuinely begun the process of taking control of my own life.

I am over here living MY life now.

That is a pretty big deal, I would say.

It definitely freed up quite a bit of energetic capacity and allowed me to return home to myself in the best way yet.

This era of my becoming has notably brought me into presence.

This presence starts at my spinal structure and radiates out into all facets of life: the way I hold myself in everyday life, how I hold my daughters, how I choose to do my movement practices, how I communicate, and more.

The thing about presence I have been chewing on is that it really is the times when we feel like we are going to break that are our biggest teachers.

The ones that have no bullshit and go right to the core.

Like when I see my daughter whining on repeat about something we already took care of and her eyes are glazed over.

At first, I notice frustration, fire in my body, and then realize I have been the one who taught the dissociating behavior as my own coping mechanism that I picked up in my childhood.

See, it’s an oof moment.

Definitely not a time to start crying about being a terrible mother, whining about my own childhood, or trying anything to just make it stop.

No, mama. We are more evolved than that.

We are always learning. We get to see things we haven’t seen before and make the changes we see fit.

This is the time when I do my practice of coming into my body.

I hold steady with empathy, love, and patience.

I create space for the emotion that wants to come through my baby girl right now and just be.

That’s it.

No explanations to the 2.5-year-old. No fussing about schedules. Just being with the moment.

It is honestly so much harder than it sounds, but it gets easier with practice. And the behaviors constantly change and evolve.

I think that is what this Saturn return has really been about for me.

Returning.

Returning to my body. Returning to my values. Returning to my life. Returning to presence.

And realizing that this practice is ever evolving.