Walking the Spirals of Life

[00:00:46] Hi, and welcome to my first ever episode of the Spirals of Life podcast. Just so you know, I am walking outside while I record this, so in case you hear me huffing a little bit, it’s because I’m in the woods and sometimes there are little hills that I walk up. But I found it very fitting to talk about walking the spirals of Life while actually walking.

[00:01:23] Yeah, today I am coming to you on my day four of my cycle, which means I am still bleeding, I am still in pain every now and again. I feel inward and also excited about a few things that happened just before this bleed started, one of which was that I finally got the kick to start this podcast. To finally do it, to just go with, yeah, with what feels fun to me. Which is, I want to share my thoughts. I know I have so many deep thoughts, so many spiralling thoughts and when I let those out in one-on-one conversations, people are intrigued by where my mind goes.

[00:02:25] So yeah, I really love my thoughts and where they are going sometimes. Not all the time, obviously when they are criticising me it’s not the most fun part, but I like the depth to which they travel and the reflections on humanity, on the state of the world. But always with a lot of curiosity for our human mind, for our brain, for our psyche, for why we do what we do, for what we are motivated by, and ultimately to understand ourselves better. To know ourselves better so that we can move through this life with more ease and clarity with being okay with who we are in every moment. Which is really hard in a world that tells us that who we are, how we are, is not okay right now, and that we should start becoming someone else or something else.

[00:03:50] And, yeah, Spirals of Life. For me, the spirals have been with me for a while because I believe that life works in spirals. I mean, yes, life is cyclical and there is a certain rhythm, like the same seasons come every year, but spring in this year is never exactly the same as spring in the next year. And there’s always an evolution and a growth happening. And I believe that holds true for our life as well.

[00:04:42] Maybe you’ve come across this phenomenon as well, that you’ve worked on yourself, you’ve done all the things, you have shed beliefs, you have done your inner healing work. And then suddenly you arrive at a point and you look back and you go “Wait, I’ve just been here. Was all the way I did in between, all the journey, was that for nothing? Why am I in the same place again?” And I dare to say that you are not at all in the same place that you were when you started.

[00:05:24] I dare to say that you’ve come around one spiral and now you are at a similar place, but with a lot more life experience, with knowing yourself on a different level. So you are at a similar place, but kind of one layer deeper. You’ve worked through so much, or you have been worked by life, and now you are one level deeper. And so, the journey begins anew until you might, in the future, find yourself at a similar place, but again, a level deeper. With more understanding, with more awareness of how you do things, how you do life, what you need in order to take care of yourself, what you need to soothe your nervous. And so, you are not the same person, even though the place you’re at might be similar. Or sometimes we can find that we’re not at the same place, like one kind of fear might be gone, but that in its place, another fear is showing up. A similar pattern to the old one, but it’s not exactly the same.

[00:06:51] And again, it shows us that life is this big spiral that brings us deeper and deeper and deeper into connection with ourselves. Deeper and deeper to our truth, to who we are, what we love, what we are excited about. And I want to provide, like, I want to dedicate my thoughts and the explorations and the musings that my mind does, to support you in walking the spirals of your life with more ease, with maybe more confidence, with a deep inner trust that yes, you, exactly as you are right now, are a wonderful, amazing human being! There is nothing wrong with you. You are not broken. You don’t need to improve. Yes, you can evolve, and I believe humans love to evolve and grow, but from a centred place that feels safe to our nervous system and not as a means to an end, to improve “so that you can X, Y, Z”, but rather evolving because it’s fun to get to know ourselves better. It’s fun to know our truth even deeper.

[00:08:41] And there were even in ancient times, think way before the Christian Church became an institution, way before the Romans built their patriarchal societal structure, way before that, there were wisdom traditions, cultures who honoured this spiral, the spiralling nature of our life. And women were initiated into walking these spirals because we walk the same spiral every month.

[00:09:29] We walk a spiral deep down into the depth of ourself to the truth of ourself during menstruation. And then we come out of it and we bring that to the world and we might get carried away and we might just experiment and try new things. And then going back down towards menstruation, we are learning, distilling the lessons.

[00:09:56] And then going back to this deep truth of who we are, to connect back with what gives our life meaning. Which is unique to everyone and which can change over time. And there were these cultures or wisdom traditions that helped women to walk these spirals with a conscious mind, so they understood what they were going through and could make sense of it. And then it doesn’t feel as confusing or fearful as it does if we don’t understand what’s going on. And there is another thing I have come to appreciate about our cycle, our menstrual cycle.

[00:10:54] But I must say it, it also pertains to the cycle that we have, or that you might have when you’ve already crossed into menopause or when you don’t have a uterus for a medical reason. Because all beings are cyclical and it’s women and people who bleed, who are more attuned to this monthly rhythmic journey. And so, if you’ve already crossed over and you don’t bleed anymore for any reason, then you still cycle with the moon, right? So your inner winter, or your ”menstruation” would be the Dark Moon phase, when the moon isn’t visible in the sky.

[00:11:48] And so while this cycle might not be felt as profoundly as the menstrual cycle, you can probably still feel it, especially when you start paying attention to it. Because when we bring our attention to something, our senses are heightened and we become more and more aware.

[00:12:14] Anyway, what I wanted to say was that what I have found to be true is that in these spirals that we are walking each month, the centre that we walk towards is us. Like, the centre that you are walking towards in your spirals is you, because your cycle is almost like a compass. The compass that shows you your True North, that shows you who you are on a very deep level, on a soul level, if you like. And our seasons, the different phases of our cycle, they kind of revolve around this “you”, this truth, this essence of you.

[00:13:13] And the whole experience just leads you back to yourself over and over and over again and that’s what I love so much and why I believe this journey isn’t over someday, you know. Because we change, we shift, things around us shift, we get new ideas, we make new friends, we meet new people, and so we are never the same anyway.

[00:13:55] And so this journey is probably not going to end somewhere, when you’ve finally found the “Holy Grail” that is You, but it’s rather an ongoing practice of coming back to the You that you are right now in this moment. Over and over and over. And I don’t know about you, but for me, I can say that it takes the pressure out. It takes out the pressure that I think I have to get somewhere, that I have to become someone else, other than I am right now. It’s not that I have to get to an end goal, to an end point as quickly as possible, but I can take my time because I will be spiralling for the rest of my life. And so I can take it at my own pace.

[00:15:00] And it’s fine because the point, the whole point of these spirals is to be closer to myself and THAT I can do in any moment. I can start right here, right? And for me that feels very comforting and soothing. And it also allows me to see that everyone around me is also walking their own spirals. And that is just a beautiful thing that we are all walking our own spirals and are still somehow connected by this invisible thread that holds the whole web of life.

[00:15:45] I hope this first episode was somehow useful, helpful, hopefully also entertaining. Maybe it gave you some food for thought. I would love to know, so if you like, please feel free to reach out. Everything is provided in the show notes. And if there is any topic that you would like me to explore further on here, let me know, send me a message. I’m always happy to let my thoughts wander and to share what I have learned, witnessed, experienced, or what I know others have witnessed and experienced.

[00:16:33] Because I’m by no means an expert on anyone or anything. The only expert on you is you and I can only strive to become a better and better expert at being myself. But I do love to muse. I’m definitely a deep thinker. As a Scorpio I am a “deep everything”. I’m also a very deep feeler. But yeah, if you’ve got anything you’d like me to ponder and muse upon, I would love to know and do that. And speak to you on the next episode.