"Babe, we need to break up.” The words came spilling out of my mouth before I had a chance to stop them. The arguing had started up again. Before he had a chance to finish his sentence, I said the words I’d been avoiding for months.
The thing about answering your soul’s calling is that it’s a call to you and you alone.
It’s a spiritual initiation on a sovereign journey and one that often requires enormous sacrifice. Sacrifice of things like financial security, relationships and our hard-fought-for identities.
I spent a portion of my thirties interviewing nearly 50 women who had achieved various levels of success in the traditional sense, but whose souls were calling them toward something else. They had all “answered the call” after a myriad of catalyzing events (divorces, depression, health crisis’, abandoning or sabotaging 6 figure jobs, etc).
Nearly every one of them was asked to sacrifice their lives as they knew them.
Their relationships, careers, titles and income all eventually dissolved and entirely new lives were born— lives not always monetarily rich, but rich in human connection, authentic, creative self-expression, deep meaning and personal fulfillment.
The forest teaches me every day that the death stage of the life cycle is not only something to expect but something to embrace. The death stage within the human experience is no different.
Answering our soul's calling depends on the death of our former selves.
The reason this death cycle is so painful for most of us is because we’ve gotten attached to aspects of our lives. We hide in our comfort zones and cling desperately for as long as we can until one day we find ourselves diagnosed with an illness or in an Eat, Pray, Love moment sobbing uncontrollably on the bathroom floor.
The calling to sacrifice and move forward has come on several occasions in my life. The most painful were the callings that required sacrificing my relationships. The first was when I left my friends and family at the age of 17 to move from rural Montana to California. The second was when I drove up to my pretty suburban home (that I had shared with my husband of nearly 10 years) and sat paralyzed, unable to get out of my car and step another foot into that house or the life we shared.
The most recent soul sacrifice was, ironically, the painful and gradual separation from a man who was a soul mate. Ours was the most profound relationship of my life. He loved me so completely and purely that my fears and insecurities dissolved in his presence. We healed deep wounds in the safety we created for each other.
It was beautiful, until even older and much deeper wounds began to emerge.
For me that included tapping into, what I can only attempt to describe as, women’s collective anguish and rage.
We hit a wall. Neither of us had any idea how to move forward. I desperately needed space to explore and heal this part of myself. The call came loud and clear. This next stage will be a solitary one of reclaiming your personal power.
Ancient mythological characters began appearing as symbols and helpful guides.
At first it was the snake-haired Goddess of death and rebirth Medusa. She offered me a powerful reminder of how rage often precedes the death of something whose time has come— whether a relationship or a tired, worn-out system of male domination. Artemis, the protector of nature has guided me to my latest passions for target archery, environmental protection and advocacy work, and plant medicine.
Even though I can't see the full picture, I'm learning to trust the process.
Experience has shown me that life is infinitely easier and more magical when I answer the calls and allow the life cycle to move forward.
What’s the real reward for all our sacrifice? It’s an adventurous, highly risky, ecstatic, heart-bursting, and gut-wrenchingly beautiful soul-driven life. The kind that initiates us into greater and greater versions of ourselves. Is it worth it? Absolutely.