Or perhaps it hasn’t been that hard and really, you know that life is good and you are grateful and it’s not entirely heavy. But there is an undeniable feeling of disconnect. Of distance. Of separation from self and purpose. Close enough you should be able to touch it, and yet – for some reason you cannot. And the frustration of this dips and loops and causes confusion and fatigue.

I see you, and I know these spaces. Intimately.

I have come to refer to my essential self, my innate center, the pulse and spark and beat that is wholly me – as my wild heart. It beats steady and true. It is untamable, unbound by expectation, unconstricted by rules and regulations. This is my way of naming and knowing that piece of myself that is unchanging and true. My compass and guide. The space I return again and again.

And it is true that, in the course of living this life, I have lost my wild heart – my connection to self – again and again. Perhaps this is also true of you.

It may also be true that you believe that you’ll never find your way back.

But what if your wild heart is not truly lost or gone or missing?

What if it is simply that in order to survive you closed the door, locking it tight or ramming it shut or hiding the whole thing behind a brick wall so you wouldn’t be reminded of it or tempted to go looking when it was not safe or wise to enter. And over time that door became obscured by debris and covered in tangled vines and perhaps you even forgot it had ever been open.

But what if making your way back to your wild is not a complicated affair – not as complicated as we would make it, at least. Sometimes it is simply a matter of finding the portal that clears the path, the one that lets the door swing wide open – intentionally and yet without force.

So all that is needed then is to walk through, into the light that pulses with remembrance, and reunite with that which has been denied.

It is true that most of the time your wild heart – which is to say your truest essence – is closer than you think.

25 portals to your wild heart

1. In the music, the low base, hip spin of the downbeat. In the lyrics that take you home. In the melody that sounds exactly like freedom.
2. In the way that as the day has settled into night and the house is finally quiet and the candles throw your shadow against the wall, casting the curves of your body as art formed of darkness and light.
3. In the darkness when no light remains and suddenly everything is finally seen, full and whole and holy.
4. Under the moon, with only her as your witness, bare feet on wet grass, and the spin and the howl and the hands clasped in unspoken prayer.
5. In the wilderness where a tangle of trees and mossy forest floor whisper and the wild things blink their eyes in the darkness to silently welcome you home.
6. In solitude. In silence. In becoming and belonging wholly to yourself, responsible to and for no one else.
7. In the ocean. In her pounding surf and relentless force and eternal return, in the salt and wet of her – the baptism of the way she brings you to a state of almost painful aliveness.
8. In the unknowns. Inside of the questions for which there are no answers and yet you could write novels without trying – because the question itself holds that much.
9. In the strength of allowing the questions to hold that much.
10. In the liminal spaces. The in-between. The worlds between here and there where all is suspended.
11. In the heat and sweat and salt of desire. In the space where body meets body and it all slip-slides into everything and nothing, all at once.
12. In the contradictions. The hard and holy. The grit and grace. The juxtapositions and the paradox and the things that shouldn’t be but are – and in the breathtaking beauty of this.
13. In community. In tribe. In a village of souls who see and honor and know. Who lift and hold. In the gathering around the campfire, where the pain slips away in favor of the music and the dancing.
14. In truth spoken after long silence. In the reclamation of voice, the throat chakra set free, the deep knowing finally said aloud.
15. In boundaries held – the hard spoken no that is the deepest honoring of self. In the holding of this, even in the face of hurt or misunderstanding or loss.
16. In the harsh acceptance of unmet want. In the grief that drives you to your knees and the love that lifts you back up again.
17. In the forgiveness. Not of him or her or them or the wider world. In the way you extend that toward yourself, and say yes. self – I love you. Yes, I honor you. Yes, I forgive you. For all of it. You did what you had to do, and it was the best that you could. Now, let it rest. It is time to rest. The time for penance is over.
18. In the yes delivered clear, full-throated and honest. The holy yes that ushers in all that has been longed for and everything that has been waiting for you.
19. In the spaces where wholeness is chosen over goodness.
20. In the discovery that you already have all that you need and even more, all that you want.
21. In the demand. The requirement. The statement of this is what I need and I will not settle for any less. Not ever again.
22. In the burning and in the rising. The fire of initiation and the forging and the ashes and rubble and collateral damage. And in the painful forming and uncurling of wings, the stretching and tentative first attempts at flight. And then the soaring, high and free.
23. In the revolution. In the hand painted signs lifted over heads and the marching and the chanting and the solidarity and the spilling into the streets in righteous anger.
24. In the surrender. The acquiescence. The laying down the weapons and walking away from the battle. Because the fighting is over and it is now time for peace.
25. In the words. Always, always in the words. The words that flow like honey from lips or that scrawl messy on page or click rhythmic from fingers onto keyboards. Not just the pretty and purposeful words – no. The raw and the gritty. The dark and unholy. The words that drip like hot wax onto waiting skin.

The words that shape the stories you once thought untellable. The words that are received and held and known and lifted by people you once called stranger. The words that stack one on the next on the next until they begin to form themselves into the story that changes the course of all things. The words that don’t just unlock the door, or swing it wide open – the words that blast off the hinges and knock down the walls until your wild heart floods your entire being with light and energy and freedom.

In the end, it is always the words that bring me home. The words that unwind the chains and break open the locks. The words that return me to myself, to my wild heart, to the truth of my being.

Tell me, is this also true for you?

If it is, grab paper and pen. Find a quiet sliver of space. Sit down and get ready to write yourself free.

The post 25 portals to return you to your wild heart appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.

Darling, it has been such a long journey.

An epic quest. No such thing as stillness and complacency for you. There never has been, has there?

No. You’ve always been made for bigger things that that.

You know it’s true. You never were like the rest of them.

The ones whose peripheral vision never saw past the nearest horizon. The bloom where you’re planted, stay close to home, safety-first, keep the same friends and the same job and the same habits – forever and ever amen.

No, not you.

Your restless rose up early. Teased you every time you felt that far-away wind tangle through your hair.

You were always called elsewhere. A daydreamer. A wanderer. An explorer of worlds nobody else could see. Long before you could leave you learned the limitlessness of your own mind. No geographic boundaries or sensible borders for you. You were made to move.

You’ve always followed the pull of your wild heart. For you there is no other way.

Lost and found. Found and lost. Souls like you know that they are really just one and the same.

Over and under and around and through. Barefoot and dirty. Among strangers or in the center of the vast alone. Traversing foreign lands and barefoot dirt country roads or the farthest reaches of your brilliant mind.

You wild and beautiful vagabond. You’ve wandered and you’ve searched and you never stay still for long – no matter what the outside world has seen and believed.

You are a universe unto yourself. You know no borders, swirl through the liminal spaces, live on the edges and dance in the margins and croon under the moon. You have no fear of the wild – for the wild is your second home.

This is how you were born, this is the way you’ve known and named your own self.

Because you were made for that restless wind. You were made for the trail into the shadows and the pathway straight into the blinding light. You were made for the cavernous depths of night and sunrise over the mountain and the crash of ocean against shore.

You know how to pack light. The second nature knowing of moving on and beginning again. No, you’ve never shied away from that.

And you are being called now, just as you are always called – into motion, into the wild, into the wind.

Into the truth and into the grit and the light and the wide-open world.

But this is different. Not like all the other times.

Sometimes you can search for so long that you lose track of the one place that matters the most.

Home.

It is time to go home.

Home to the earth that named you. Home to the ground that flows with that which brought you to life. Home to the root, to the heat, to the core of it all.

Home to yourself.

This is not about home on the map. Not about where you were born or raised. Not about where anyone lives or where the good jobs are or where you’re expected to turn up eventually. Not about the lover who weaves words into the heat of desire. Not about ties that bind or anything that feels like obligation or giving up or giving in.

It’s not about staying or leaving or anything in between.

It may not even be about movement at all, not the way most people think of it.

No. This time, you are called home to yourself. You are called to integration. To the point of intersection. To completion. To the center of the paradox and the white heat of your own knowing. You are called to a claiming of place and space and intention and desire.

And even if you don’t yet know who or where or what that home is, you will be guided on your journey and you will know, with absolute clarity, when you arrive.

This is just the way of things.

So look around you now – at all you’ve collected on your many journeys. Take stock, give thanks. These are the things that have brought you to who you are, that have delivered you here – to the greatest journey of all.

Gather up the few things worth keeping; the ones that speak the memories of the love that gave you life, the talismans that brought you knowledge of your power. The magic bits, the crystals, the torn love notes you wrote to your own goddess self. Tuck in only the things which nourish your soul. The rest is no longer needed.

You don’t need much to hold the most precious of your belongings.

Tie all those bits in a pack over your back. Use the silk scarf that held your hair in the sea breeze that day when you sat in the sand at the edge of the world and the sun shone warm on your shoulders and you saw all the way to infinity.

That day. Do you remember that day? When you were all the way broken and all the way lost and then somehow you found yourself there? You had that silk scarf tied around your head and your old black converse were full of sand and your heart had was in pieces and somehow you managed to save your own life. You found your way home that day. You will do it again.

You know what to do. You always have.

So heed the call. Set off on the path. Whistle that long slow whistle, the tune you’ve been hearing since birth – the one that always calls you home.

There will be choices to make along the way. It will not always feel safe or be easy. No – real journeys rarely do.

But the choices are all yours. This is the time of complete agency and ownership of self.

It always was, you see, you just were not ready to know it yet.

Here is one important truth.
Nothing is forbidden.

Someone taught me that once, and I read that line over and over the words became a steady drumbeat guiding me into my own life.

Do you hear me now – nothing is forbidden.

Stop right now and read those words aloud.

Now speak them again and again.

Nothing is forbidden.
Nothing is forbidden.
Nothing is forbidden.

Your life belongs to you. It always has, but it is so easy to forget. In the losing and the finding and the finding and the losing – sometimes we lose track of that one essential truth.

And in case you have, I will repeat it one more time.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing, is forbidden.

There is nobody walking with you on this leg of your journey – truly there can never be. The journey home is always a solitary one.

But solitary does not mean lonely, or even alone.

You know this, dear one, don’t you? You are never truly alone. Get quiet now. Pay attention. Can you feel your hand in mine? Can’t you feel the weight and warmth of it? Don’t you feel the touch of every loving soul and the light of all the wild things? The whole entire universe is lifting you up.

The fire keeps you company. And the spirit of the wolf. And the wild white mustang. And the essence all of those you met along the way. You carry them inside you and all around you.

You’ve become a part of their journey as well.

This is the way it always is with kindred souls. This is the way of the wild. This is the way of the pathway home.

Quickly now. It is time to leave. The full moon lights your way.

Your life belongs to you now. Your life and your story and your body and your precious wild heart. Every last bit of what makes you the miracle that you are. Regardless of what the rest of the world demands, here, there is no compromise. No settling. No making do.

This is reclamation. This is hallowed ground.

And it is entirely true.

Nothing is forbidden.

In the wild that is your home, nothing is ever forbidden. Not now, not ever again.

Welcome to your life, wild one.

Welcome all the way home.

“When did you know your life belonged to you?”
“When nothing was forbidden.” Isabel Abbott

Do you, like me, know you have a wild heart? And do you, like me, lose connection with it through the whirl and swirl of life?

If your answer is yes, please consider joining me on a journey back home as we step into sacred space together for 30 days of questions and prompts aimed at taking us back to that wild heart of us – which is our one true home.

The space is already filling with open minds and pounding hearts and sacred mystery.

And having you there, wild heart open and ready to write, would make it even more holy.  The Summer Session begins on July 25th – as a gift of love to ourselves.

Please join us.

“I loved this course. It was the reason I woke up in the morning. No really, it was the most heart centered real, present space, so  lovingly created, crafted and nurtured by Jeanette and a bunch of wild hearted writers from all over the globe –  brought together with a love of the written word and expression. I highly recommend this course. It’s totally totally worth it!”
~Hanizan Abdul Hamid

The post Nothing Is Forbidden {It is time to go home} appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.