Why Rising for What You Love, Matters!

What’s your relationship with standing tall in the world? What comes up for you when you consider rising to a calling that matters to you? Where do you stand with ‘’making a stand’’ (which is an embodied agreement with yourself) for unleashing your full presence and gifts in the world? Is it easy for you or tricky? Over the past four weeks, I have been creating the content and outsourcing the build of my new website. I have had more than my share of challenges with that. They included a host of technical issues and delays, which I feel reflected the inner conflict that was playing out in my head – of not feeling ready to be born or ‘’announced’’ into the world yet, and my fear that the world I would be birthing into might be hostile to my arrival. A few times I struggled to keep my heart open, to not run away and hide when standing tall was called for. Do you know what I mean? What is it really about standing tall and about rising that has us so spooked?

If you’re anything like me then rising and standing tall is – or may have always been – a bit of a double-edged sword. When I think back to all my photos of my class at school, I was placed in the front row where, even sitting down, I felt that my body towered like a mountain above my friends either side of me. To compensate, I often hunched over. I hated my height and what I felt was a big body. It drew attention to me in ways I didn’t want, and I think on some level I internalized that it made me not belong. At the same time though, I still stood tall at school for other reasons: I was bright, a grade ‘A’ student. Though a gang of girls seemed to take exception to this and bullied me for it with beatings and snide taunts, I couldn’t help but still stand tall. In fact, I stood tall throughout all my academic life and did the same in my first career. In retrospect, perhaps all that was easy because it had never revealed my core, or my essence, to the world.

But today is Friday.

I just launched stage 2 of my new website.

And I am quivering inside and out.

My shakes of course, come from a fear of being fully seen as me. Can you relate? After all, when we are seen – when we rise up like a mountain – we are exposed, vulnerable. At least that is what we tell ourselves.

We fear we might be misunderstood. We worry we might be rejected. We terrorize ourselves with imagined scenes of failing and falling flat on our face in front of everyone. We are anxious we might be snubbed or called audacious for being heart-opened enough to just be ourselves and claim our gifts and birth-right.

In this new website, I am the most stripped-back professional version of me I have ever shared with the world. I no longer have a business name but simply use my own. My site is the place where I take my first official steps as an author with a powerful message to share. The place where I give the first reveal of my forthcoming book, including a sprinkling of comments from early readers. The place where I make a stand for my creations and my work.

I have had to come out of hiding to do this. The launch today marks the end of a long period of withdrawal since the huge life changes to rock my world from 2009 – including the aftershocks of my husband’s coma in 2012, which reverberated through and around me for another two years before I even sat down to write my book. Sometimes periods of retreating (rather than rising) are necessary. Many gifts can be found when we make the time to retreat and listen to our hearts. For me, I needed to transition through grief, move with respect through deep post-traumatic stress, and regroup. Back then it wasn’t time to rise in my outer world, despite the many rumbles and increased friction between the tectonic plates deep in my core. Yes, I was no longer the person I had been and no longer my old professional offerings to the world. But first I had to grieve that, and then I had to still myself so I could hear what wanted to rise up next. Hiding, or retreating into stillness and out of the public eye, was vital to the nourishment of my being and to my ability to receive the new.

But there comes a point when it is time to come out of hiding. For me it announced itself after I completed the final draft of my book. To share the message of what I had written, I understood I had to be visible again. The tension could no longer be held between the two opposing forces of needing to now be visible and move out into the world – and the reality of still being in hiding. In my core, my tectonic plates were pushing together, bashing up against one another, rumbling for that third and new expression to thrust itself skywards!

I had to rise, stand tall.

Birth myself as mountain.

And so here I am. In the mountain of my soul I am exposed yet I hold my head high. I am open to attracting others to my energy, to climb me, to partake in my offering in the world and to benefit from wisdom I hold as mountain. I offer the means by which others can find their own clarity. I offer the means by which others can rekindle feeling more alive and connected in every facet of their life. I offer the means by which others can understand what it takes to live true and create a life pulsing with heart. And in the mountain of my soul my freedom lies in my dynamism, and it lies in my having learned how to hang with the tension to bring forth something new and beautiful into the world. This indeed is all of what I teach in my professional life. This is what I am walking as much I can in my own world. My site feels such an affirmation of this for me. And it is so powerful for me to receive it. I am excited to be at this stage!

I wish for you to rise in your world too in whatever way that might be.

I wish for you to stand proud in your heart and tall in your gifts and passions and creations.

Yes our knee-jerk reaction to being seen can often be to close down by pulling back, hiding, even literally slouching as I did in school photos! Yes we feel can feel exposed, our bare slopes vulnerable to the elements. But for those of us now who feel called to rise – whether for our talents and passions or creations or within our family, intimate relationship, circle of friends, work, community, or for the planet – we must remain openhearted. This means to heed the call within to rise for our chosen thing, to be willing to feel our vulnerability about that…and to stand in true action anyway. If you are struggling with this, know you can be helped out of that. You can change it. Indeed you are meant to change it.

Because in truth, the world needs more of us to stand as mountains.

Because in truth, when you rise you inspire others to rise who were scared to do so before.

Because in truth, our hearts and voices matter, our presence is a gift, and our rising is what stops the world from being flat and boring

Invitation: I am super curious to hear from you – what do believe stops you from rising, from making a stand for your creations or for what matters deeply to you? If you could take the power out of that notion, what would you stand for – what do you love, what calls you deep within? What is ONE way you can be more visible in your world and rise for something you love this week? Please do email me, leave a comment below or tag me on FB to celebrate when you have done that! Bear in mind: it’s only stage 2 of the site…stage 3 (my juicy services page) is yet to come!

As always, I would love to hear from you too.

Hopefully I will have risen out of bed from a good night’s sleep by then – it’s been quite the week!

I look forward to writing back to you

With love, Caroline x