Deep mapping in the real
A paid subscriber post that is for everyone.
Most Wednesdays I email paid Soul Shed subscribers with a post to offer deepenings and further offerings, and to express my profound appreciation for their upholding of this project. Once in a while I open this post out to everyone, because as much as possible, this project is about sharing. This is one of those!
Here are some threshold-type journaling prompts you might enjoy, as ways of being in correspondence with the weekends post in the reflective energy of this waning moon. Pick a couple that feel good, or try the whole sequence!
Here’s a link to the post in case you missed it…
Local deep mapping & the seasons
1. Beetling in your square mile.
Go outside, or sit by a window. Spend ten minutes noticing what is unfolding this season in your own square mile. Imagine you are experiencing this through the eyes of a tiny beetle. What do these movements in the more-than-human world seem to be teaching you about your own season of life?
2. Mentors in the everyday.
David Whyte wrote, “Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.” Take a wander around your home and let your heart lead you to an ordinary object you live with. Imagine its witness to your life. See if you can hear tone of voice and register, and ask them to speak in the first person…. “What do you want me to know, frying pan?”
“I want you to know….”
Healing spiral focused
3. Becoming ready
Step Six on a recovery journey speaks of becoming “entirely ready.” Is there somewhere in your life you are trying to manage, control, or outrun what simply needs to be lived through? It might be helpful to imagine this place of becoming ready as a threshold you can step through. Can you step through it into your presence to this actual moment? What is most alive in it for you?
4. Survival strategy or living response?
Think of a behaviour that has helped you survive but now feels too small for the life you are growing into.Thank it for what it has done. Then ask: What deeper need has this strategy been protecting? Sit with the need as it arises with a lot of tenderness and maybe honor this place in a collage or a poem.
Enneagram journeying
5. The Three in all of us
Whether or not you identify as an Enneagram Three, notice the part of you that seeks love through doing and achieving or imaging success. What can you witness in yourself that is perhaps more raw and less polished. Hold both parts in the light of your self-compassion.
6. Corresponding with your real life
Every Enneagram pattern has blinkers on and ways of dodging seeing more of what is real. This week, where have you left your own life? What practice might help you return to a rhythm that includes your heart and your mind and your body, all three.
Closing.
7. The Beetle gratitude.
Come back to prompt one, and the beetle. See if there is a final message to hear about your actual life in your imaginary beetle’s terms. If you like, write it down and put it somewhere safe.
If you’d like to share about any of these, please feel warmly invited.