Spring Migration Reflection
A difficult childhood left me with an intense belief that I was alone in the world. There was no one was around to provide support, and, as a result, I learned not to ask for help or to rely on others. I spent the majority of my life setting goals, rolling up my sleeves, and working to achieve. In any number of timelines, this work could have been a community effort where I and those with whom I worked all rose together. But my timeline was decidedly darker. So I struggled to be seen and I fought to have my work validated and I achieved, but it was exhausting and isolating. And I was lonely.
When I said yes to Migration I’d come full circle. I’d raised four happy kids to their ‘tweens and teens, and I’d built a thriving business. But my marriage was stagnating and my support network was thin at-best, the result of sporting decades’ worth of iron studded armor. I needed help.
Transformation is a heady mix of acceptance and opportunity, but at its molten core swirls surrender. I could keep on keeping on. Continue to go it alone. But I knew where that path led, and I wanted more out of life. A deeper sense of fulfillment had to exist; I just wasn’t sure how to find it. In that silence, I considered what could be possible if I opened myself up to community.
Enter Spring Migration.
For six weeks, Jess and Heather curated experiences encouraging self-exploration and self-knowledge designed to investigate and embrace what came before in order to nourish something new. This resonated with me. First, we turned inside and acknowledged what lived there. Then, we made choices about what we wanted to keep and what we were ready to surrender. And finally, we gave voice to it all. After a moving session of breathwork or meditation or empathetic listening, in weekly sessions of Bring to Counsel, we would share.
Bring to Counsel was easily the scariest part of Migration for me. My hands shook when it was my turn to speak, but each week I shared a small tidbit and got through my turn. Meanwhile, I listened to the other women speak about their lives, about hardship and grief, about loss and yearning, about desire and want. I marveled that every time they spoke, it was as if they touched on a piece my own hidden programming. Because what are our shadows comprised of if not years of programming installed by others. I am not strong, not smart, not pretty, not courageous. I can’t say no, ask for what I want, complain, speak up. I am invisible. I watched these women acknowledge their fears, give them a voice, and experience catharsis in the sharing. I saw the beauty in courageous vulnerability but was still afraid.
A few weeks into Migration, however, and unbeknownst to my conscious self, a deeper part of me chose to be seen. When it was my turn in Bring to Counsel, I opened my mouth to speak. I had prepared another small tidbit, something that would check the box but keep my truth hidden. What tore from my throat was not at all what I’d planned to say. “I am afraid of other people,” I sobbed. It was so unexpected, so primal that I gasped in shock. It was as if watching these women share and be seen week after week acted as a mic pass to an injured part of me that I knew existed but did not know had a voice.
After my turn, the woman sitting next to me softly placed her hand atop mine. When I glanced at her, she smiled at me and gave my hand a squeeze. My foundational fear spoke, and I was seen. I received not answers, but comfort and support. In that moment, I was not alone. And in Migration, none of us are. I’d been so secretive in my pain that I’d foregone the opportunity to lean on and learn from others going through maybe not the exact same thing, but something surprisingly similar. Migration introduced me to a sisterhood. One where we support and validate one another. One where we realize we might not all be walking the same path, but that sharing our experiences unites us and makes us stronger together.
-Migrating Bird
