The Ecological Renewal of the Soul

Photo by mike dennler on Unsplash

What brought me to this moment was, at first, a haunting. A rotten, gnawing Emptiness inside of me that came to the surface anytime my life felt difficult. The Emptiness pushed me to leave job after job and city after city until I became resilient enough to turn around and look at its ghostly face. There I saw a deep sadness. A spirit with no home, cast out because its host didn’t know how to honor its presence.

I came to learn that this energy was never truly Emptiness. It wasn’t a ghost here to haunt me for the rest of my life. It was my creativity, my lifesource, my freedom looking for a channel in which to express itself.

Too long confined to hobbies, verbose journal entries, or jobs it didn’t care about, my spirit had up’ed the ante and would no longer settle for anything less than its true and meaningful expression in the world.

What was once a haunting became a longing in my bones to write, to express, to hold space for others, to make an altar in my home, and to resuscitate the barren creative landscape within me.

The ecological rejuvenation of my soul has not been a tidy process.

There have been landslides, droughts, and serious miscalculations that have wreaked havoc on the tiny seedlings I’ve planted.

But Nature, in her defiance, has begun to take over again, and I am grateful. Even amidst the dense haze of new motherhood, I see rhythm and seasonality forming. I see plants, or old knowings, and animals, or new vitality, returning to enjoy the once-empty landscape.

As the wilderness inside of me is reinvigorated, it becomes reflected outside of me as well. Slowly, life feels richer. Slowly, I feel more regularly renewed. No longer barren inside, I recognize the paths that my spirit wants to journey down, and I enthusiastically step forward.

One such path is the one you are on with me right now.

I use the term “career coaching” only because it provides a common starting point. Really, this path is one of inner wisdom nourishment, unTeaching, sacred space tending, and way-showing.

The life-giving call inside of me is to regenerate the ecosystems within each of us - the vast and lush landscapes that thrive when we honor our creativity, spirituality, and truth.

I do this work not only because it’s how my inner richness wants to be expressed, but also because I believe the crisis that confronts our planet is a reflection of a culture that is imbalanced, impoverished, and in pain. A culture plagued by its own Emptiness.

But beneath the hurricanes, earthquakes, and tornadoes lies a strong stillness - a sense that something deeper and more ancient is holding all of this together. I seek to tap into that ancient wisdom so that myself and others can be nourished at a deep and meaningful level.

When we take seriously the ecological renewal of our internal landscapes and commit to expressing their inherent beauty in the world via our good work, we can create pockets of wholeness that lift up others in our communities.

By being Present, using words as incantations to call forth our inner wisdom, and creating a felt, Earthen experience for us to journey through, I help awaken myself and my clients to what we already know: that we’re called to be fully, unapologetically, and deeply alive.

I’m inviting you to walk this path with me.

If you feel that sense of haunting or if you intuit that there’s a vast wilderness inside of you that’s been neglected, I encourage you to turn and face it.

Your spirit, however forcefully it may have been dampened by others’ expectations of you or by your own confusion about how to nurture it, is still there, powerful and full of creative energy.

I won’t give you answers or tell you what kind of work to do in the world, but I will create a sacred space for you in which to connect with your own knowing. I will show you the tools and practices I’ve used to find my way, and I will challenge you to become the guardian of your own precious, wild work.

The Winter Solstice is ahead of us, and a new year awaits. If what I’ve shared here has touched you in some way, consider walking into A Wild New Work with me. It’s a journey that can rearrange, rejuvenate, and restore the ecology of your soul.

In her own words, here’s what a recent client of mine, Danielle, had to say about the process: This experience has lifted me to the next level in my life. I feel like I am emotionally ready to grow, learn and experience life! This experience was like a spring cleaning of my spirit. Everything is in order, dusted off and the excess baggage has been hauled off to Goodwill. I have clarity and calmness in my life again.

The first step is always to connect over the phone, for free, so that we can learn more about one another, and you can schedule that call here.

Megan LeathermanComment