Reconnecting with your Younger, Truer Self

May 24, 2016

Reconnecting with your Younger Self | www.nalumana.com

It probably started in Grade 5, when I chose to spend my recesses writing my novel.  It was about a ghost, and a girl, and it was written on looseleaf in a colourful binder, and it won out over dodgeball every. single. day.

 

Even when the dodgeballs got aimed in my direction.

When I was thirteen, I spent a good portion of my time wearing full combat gear and writing poetry.

Despite the taunts of my classmates.

I turned fourteen and decided to dye my hair blue, keep wearing the combat boots, add a flowered skirt, and play bass in a band.

I got laughed at for that too.

There were the red leather ankle boots.  The dark plastic glasses decades before they became cool.  The dreadfully unpopular humanitarian work when everyone else I knew was trying out for the volleyball team.  Later came my love for Ani Difranco, Margaret Atwood and youth parliament.

All of which cemented my status as The Weird One.

Oddly, though, despite the laughter, my desire to express my uniqueness persisted.  Perhaps it was confidence; perhaps my inner rebel making herself known.

But for many years afterward, that confidence or rebelliousness waned.  My life – and my appearance, for that matter – started to look a lot more like that of the people around me.  My inner rebel took a backseat as I became increasingly entranced by the trappings of grown-up life, as I saw it.

Something about a degree, a career, a marriage, a home, maybe even kids.  Oh, and a dog.

I’m not sure what changed exactly, or how, but I remember the feeling I had when

I took off the heels I thought I had to wear to work because everyone else did

and wore Birkenstocks and some funky tribal-patterned earrings instead.

And the day I went to a film festival dressed in exactly what I wanted to wear and found myself looking in the mirror and staring back at a flowy skirt-clad, scarf wearing hippie.

The glimpse I had into my younger, carefree self manifest first in my physical presence in the world – in what I chose to wear.  It was both a simple reminder, and a bold one, for perhaps it would be easier to quietly write novels in my spare time rather than show up at client meetings with pink hair.  But there I was, pink hair and all, as if my body couldn’t wait for my mind to catch up:  it was time to start looking and acting like myself again.

I don’t think this experience is unknown to women.  In fact, so many of the women I speak to who are going through their Third-Life Alignment share that their alignment process often involves remembering, and sometimes becoming, who they were before they cared about what anyone else thought.

 

Your turn:

 

What were you like before you cared about what anyone else thought?

 

Do you find yourself returning to her….or have you never left her?

 

How does it feel?

The Becoming Podcast has been on a short hiatus while I focus on writing my book, but oh what a comeback episode I have for you!

This month, I spoke to Toko-pa Turner, who many of you may know as the unofficial patron saint of many of my circles and gatherings because of the sheer number of times I’ve quoted from the wisdom of her book, Belonging.

Toko-pa is a Canadian author, teacher, and dreamworker. Blending the mystical teachings of Sufism in which she was raised with a Jungian approach to dreams, she founded The Dream School in 2001, from which thousands of students have graduated. She is the author of the award-winning book, Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home, which explores the themes of exile and belonging through the lens of dreams, mythology, and nature. This book has resonated for readers worldwide, and has been translated into 10 different languages so far. Her work focuses on the relationship between psyche and nature, and how to follow our inner wisdom to meet with the social, psychological, and ecological challenges of our time.

Here’s some of what Toko-pa and I talk about in this episode:

> The dream that changed Toko-pa’s life, causing her to question her career and, ultimately, her identity

> How we can court our dreams to support us during times of radical transformation – and the reasons so many of us have a hard time remembering and working with what shows up in our dreamscape

> Toko-pa’s perspective on the message of Belonging after the divisiveness our society has experienced in the years since it was published

> What happened for both Toko-pa and I when we fell out of belonging from the ideologies of the “wellness world”

> How to build community when you’re under-resourced

> “The Big Lie” when it comes to belonging, and how we can reclaim a sense of belonging to the greater family of things, as Mary Oliver so famously wrote

Listen to the episode on iTunes

 

Show Notes

Toko-pa’s Website

Belonging:  Remembering Ourselves Home, Toko-pa’s book

The David Abram video about animism mentioned in the interview

Toko-pa’s self-guided program, Dream Drops

Companion, the program that accompanies Belonging

 

Also, while you’re at it, if you enjoy The Becoming Podcast, I would be so grateful if you would rate and review, and even subscribe to it on iTunes.  That goes a long way to helping more and more people find and benefit from hearing these interviews!  Thank you so much!