The world is so loud right now, isn't it?

It's hard to hear what's true and real and matters when it feels like some amped up engineer passed out on the soundboard,  pushing up all the dials to maximum volume.

Then there's the voice that lives inside you. How hard is that to hear these days, hmm?

And yet, what's the alternative? Not hearing? Tuning out? Burying our heads? Abandoning our bodies—hearts, minds and souls?

It's a lot. But then again, you know this, .

Distraction and creating a constant stream of chaos to feed it is the primary strategy at work these days—we know this. It's a tactic of war that's as old as time.

Which means focus is a form of power—something that can cut through the noise in our heads and hearts and streets.

The ability to focus has the power to steady ourselves in gale force winds when we're in a terrifying transition. Think of a tightrope walker, and how she focusses her eyes straight ahead and resists the urge to make sudden, sharp movements or look down.

Having worked for nearly 30 years (what!?) with people in transition, I also know this:

Movement helps, too—slow, steady, intentional, and step by step.

Again, think of the tightrope walker—she uses movement (not stillness) as her momentum, eyes always looking forward.

But therein lies the rub, doesn't it?

Sometimes what it takes to focus and keep us moving forward—time, space, inspiration, and energy—feels like a luxury we can't afford. Especially when we don't know how long this tightrope we're walking is—or what's on the other side of it.

I was thinking about this earlier this week, when I was reading the headlines, going down rabbit hole after rabbit hole on Substack, and clients were feeding me a steady diet of links from social media.

I was feeling the pressure to take action—and yet I was also feeling ungrounded, untethered.

I was feeling all kinds of UN.

I thought back to that group of 12 Thai boys and their soccer coach in 2018 who got trapped in the caves when the flash floods forced them deeper and deeper into them—until they were in complete darkness with no food for something like two weeks—remember that?  (apparently, there's a documentary about it now)

When the coach was asked how they kept their sanity for all that time in darkness before they were discovered and began the harrowing rescue mission, he said they all huddled together and meditated a lot.

Huddling.
Meditating.

It felt so counterintuitive at the time—and also alluringly powerful and wise. Would I have been that mentally strong? Or would I have lost my shit and thrashed about wildly eating up precious oxygen?

I'm an American—which means I have been fed a steady diet of "fight" energy, shaped for centuries by my white ancestors.

And that definition of "fighting" is loud, in-your-face, aggressive and individualistic.

We're seeing that play out a lot right now, aren't we? That hyper-masculine, toxic, power-over model of "governance"? Command and control. Taking, seizing, stealing—laws and human rights, be damned.

I don't want to participate in that. Because to participate (like that) is to perpetuate it.
And yet, I am committed to fight.
So what to do?

Years ago, when I went to a "soul path reader" (roll your eyes if you must, but it was one of the most illuminating hours of my life...), I was told that one of the invitations of this lifetime for me is to learn how to fight from "feminine assertion" rather than "masculine aggression").

To some degree, that's exactly what I set out to learn when I wrote my first book Unscripted: A Woman's Living Prayer.

That was in 2014 when I was 45 and still bleeding. Now I'm 56 and post menopausal.

Now people are starting to refer to me as an "older woman" (which still cracks me up, but I kinda like.) I take it to mean that my wisdom is showing more (probably because I have less f*cks to give, and I don't need as much affirmation or permission as I used to).

(Can I get an amen from the "older" women reading this right now? I see you.)

I don't have as much time in front of me as I used to have, and I feel it.
Kind of like the earth, and how she feels it.

There's something remarkably liberating in that realization—like, what-have-I-got-to-lose energy starts to course through your veins after a life time of asking "Am I enough?" or "Am I ready?"

How to fight with feminine assertion?
How to move forward when you're feeling UN?
How to not lose the faith when all you see is rot?
How to stay whole in the gale force winds—for as long as it takes?

Being the visual artist that I am, I grabbed a pen and my reMarkable (my new favorite thing...) earlier this week and drew this map to sort through those question. Here's what I came up with: