09/09/2024
I have written about this before, but recently someone responded to me with "oh I could NEVER do that" when I told them I had to sell my chooks and put my saddle into storage after our life completely crumbled.
I thought - couldn't you? I bet you could. We never know what we are truly capable of until we either have to GROW or DIE.
You have no idea how much this has taught me and how I wouldn't trade this experience for the world.
At the moment this is feeling more poignant for me.
Maybe because I am pregnant, which for me is a deep time of reflection, rebirth, death, reevaluation and always a massive period of growth for me.
What is coming up for me is that I am realising how much I had attributed my self worth/identity to everything I have “lost” -
Farm? Gone
Job? Gone
Barn? Gone
Horses over my back fence? Gone
Cows as far as the eye can see? Gone
Working dogs? Gone
Even my damn horse float is gone.
I live in a house in town and I have neighbours and garbage collection and pizza delivery and tarred roads. My saddles are dusty and my boots are forgotten.
It’s heartbreaking and liberating at the same time which is really wild to admit.
I realised this shift hasn’t happened recently, it’s been a metamorphosis over time.
I had built my entire identity around a persona - I was a cowgirl. A bloody good one.
When I had my kids, I realised it was hard to be that girl, “one of the guys”, hard to prioritise saddle time, and competition started to feel a little bit shallow to me.
I hung on pretty tightly for a while, which built resentment in me towards my husband (still a professional cowboy) and my kids (the reason I was “sidelined”).
When I got real, I asked myself, who am I without this label?
It began a whole journey of self discovery, re-evaluation of my priorities, noticing where I was distracting myself instead of staying present, and the biggest one was realising that the labels I had attached to myself ultimately were not serving me as they were keeping me:
Busy
Stressed out
Snappy with my family
BROKE
Hustling
Wanting but never achieving
I realised I was keeping myself one-dimensional because it was easier to fit in a box that way, and when you fit in a box people like you and accept you.
Could I be a fun, loving mum, wife, sexy, in good shape, successful online entrepreneur, homeschooling, travelling, horse loving, cowgirl, friend, baker, book lover, spiritual, plant lady, coach, tea drinking, sober, fit woman?
Yes, I can.
I don’t need to make sense.
Right now I’m going through another uplevel as I work towards another HUGE milestone in my business which definitely doesn’t “fit” (cowgirls aren’t supposed to be rich! They are supposed to work hard forever!) my old identity that if I take a hard look at, is another shedding of a layer that wasn’t really serving me anyway.
The liberation I feel in not having to conform and I can just be my full, multidimensional, fun, passionate self feels big, uncomfortable at times, but so freeing.
I hope my kids see me being unapologetically ambitious and supremely comfortable in my own skin and not limited by labels or boxes, so that they can do the same.
I think the freedom in this experience comes from rolling with the punches.
I could hang on by my fingernails with white knuckles to my old life, or the ability to just embrace each wave of change and be okay with whatever that “looks” like is honestly the key to my success, my happiness in the present moment - wether I am wearing wranglers, Birkenstocks, a dress or gumboots, I am okay, like really okay.
One of the most freeing things is that I KNOW (because I have lived it), that in time, everything will come full circle again and I’ll be riding the range (my range!) one day on my beautiful horse with cows galore and all my beautiful chooks back and I’ll probably miss sandy toes on the beach and our caravan and nappies and garbage collection and pedicures and flowy dresses because THAT is the beauty and freedom of being ALIVE and truly LIVING - is having the CHOICE in who we are.
