Madison White, Editor at Breathe Magazine recently wrote “What if true freedom isn’t about following the familiar path but about daring to carve out your own? When we’re constantly nudged to conform and blend in, how do we find the strength to be authentically ourselves?”.
I was both challenged and struck by the possibility this paragraph contained. Like many of you, when I am faced with life’s challenges and opportunities, I often struggle to know what the right path is. How do we find the strength to embrace our individuality, to cease being moulded by a society whose standards resonate less and less with who we want to be and how we want to live?
I deeply want to “freely assert my right to exist as I am – unrestrained and unapologetic” and instead “step boldly in the unknown in an act of profound courage”… but I find the unknown scary and overwhelming in its uncertainty!
I no longer want to be “diminished by narrow definitions”. Instead I want to “dismiss the noise of external judgements and focus on what resonates within me”… but a little voice inside me asks how will I pay the mortgage if I don’t dance to the right tune?
Today I have decided that my first step is to cultivate more time for soul work, which I offer at Rainbow Ridge Farm through both Capall Coaching and Equine Informed Awareness and Barantuil Leadership and Coaching. This requires external planning and inner commitment to work on the business, trusting the income will follow. It might sound basic, but the key is to find a ‘comfort point’ in change so that fears, doubts, and anxieties cannot take hold. A ‘comfort point’ is only ever a single-point-in-time destination, like a railway station, that we pass through on our way elsewhere. But that does not negate the importance of arriving! Once we do, we can rest, refocus, and prepare for the next stage of the journey. While I already have the second ‘comfort point’ organically forming in the back of my mind, I am not focusing on it. This is because I have not yet fully arrived at my first station stop!
This approach to cultivating a fulfilling life is based on horsemanship training principles where we endeavour to “set the horse up for the win”. Horse trainers invest time, consideration, and energy into creating a learning atmosphere and environment that fully supports the horse to have a positive experience in his training and development journey. When a horse learns something in this way, a really solid and positive foundation is laid. The horse’s comfort in his own abilities increases incrementally, over time. There is no battle, no fear, nothing to overcome just gentle, slow, organic growth and expansion.
It can be hard to make decisions at times. Even once we have, it can be just as challenging to map out a way forward and navigate road blocks along the way. If you too “feel the call to freedom” please reach out for an online, or in person coaching session or an in person equine informed awareness session. I would love to help you find your ‘comfort point’. You can contact me on 0456728961 or at elizabethdenniss@bigond.com
Curious about what an equine informed awareness session might look like? Check out my session snapshot video, alternatively grab a free e-book covering equine informed awareness topics!