If I had a nickel for every time I heard a woman tell me that she didn’t feel good enough to be part of the “cool-kids club” or the clique du jour, I’d be a rich woman.
We have to look at this and talk about:
a) Is this phenomenon really true?
b) Do we need to perpetuate our feelings of not-enoughness?
c) Can we build safe and sacred community that is free of judgment, cross-talk, exclusionary policies, etc. etc. etc.?
I have much to say on the subject.
Wolf is having none of it. While wolves find instinctual reason to leave their packs and begin their own or join up with other mavericks, this can be done with grace and intention as humans. Wolf medicine and the curriculum we’ll be engaged in starting next week will uncover some of the myths about who we are in community and how to address our deep desire to belong.
I believe that the desire to belong is as strong as our need for food, warmth and shelter.
Leave a comment about your experiences in community which you would like to heal and move forward from and shoot for a seat around the sacred fire under the flap this session + share this link in your special social places. OR, head on over to my Instagram account (@pixielighthorse) and share + tag me and say hello.
Good luck! Awrooooooooo!!
~
Congratulations to Lakin, Julia, Jen and Meg! Can’t wait to howl it up with you by the fire!
Your words remind me of feeling uncool in high school.
So important to build a community where all are welcome and everyone checks their egos at the door.
Thank you for this generous and exquisite offering. Would love to be in community with multiple facets of my being, sharing tender spots and rays of light. All in the warm embrace of love.
This couldn’t have been offered at a better time. I am ready to let go of a group of friends who I felt had betrayed our friendship, who literally go by the moniker of the wolf pack. Serendipitous? 😉
I have past trauma regarding my mother. This has caused me to have trust issues with fellow sisters and moving on has been hard. I honestly don’t know how to move on and I would love to learn…..
I want to truly be heard. Sometimes I don’t feel that I am.
YES! This topic/concern has always been one I’ve struggled (along with so many, I’m sure). As my 40th birthday approaches (FEB 2nd), I’m finally feeling like I’ve started to find and truly love myself after many years of being driven too much by the need to “belong”. While I realize the need is still there, the dynamics have been shifting as I get more comfortable in my own skin. Would LOVE to be the blessed recipient of your give-away spot and participate in my first SouLodge with you. Thanks for the opportunity!
Julia, congratulations! Email lilyseahawk@gmail.com and she’ll invite you to the group!
I would love to win a giveaway for this Wolf Soulodge. I have felt often out of the “in” group with other women. It bothers me less and less as I am in my 50’s, although I continue to be hurt or at least disappointed by “us and them” thinking. It scares me when women try to compete with each other and one up each other. I think it is especially harmful when it is sneaky and passive aggressive. I think women do it to each other without even being consciously aware of it. Since I have read books by Brene Brown I have realized how important it is to be “safe”and accepting when other women are vulnerable with us. Being in TRUE community with safe sister friends is one of the greatest healing and growth tools available.
Dear Pixie,
I am Clair Oaks’ sister, Becky. We were on the phone talking just now and I was telling her about some art I was just doing inspired by some interest in the medicine cards/animals. I started howling and she said, “I just got something from Pixie about the wolf! So I just had to send!
Darn, I can’t paste here…If you want to see it, email me 🙂 accesstoarts@gmail.com
This lesson couldn’t be more timely. Wolf has been a sacred shadow in my world over the last three years, as I have felt a need to cut loose from the pack. I have forever been a solitary fairy, making my own magic, but my instincts have led me to practice in the light.
I’ve struck my own path with intention, and have been feeling a growing howl in my throat. It’s always been there, but the more I have made Myself, the stronger it has gotten. I want to be able to move in and out of community with integrity, and to hold that door open for others to understand my intention. So much of what I need to heal is in community; I have acted as necessary and without bad intentions. However, it is hard to wander through and out when the society and community around me has no context for what I do.
I want to make sure my words are understood. That my path is clear and leaves inspiration for others to move in and out. Integrity is high value, and I believe it to be possible in communities. But, I have to be willing to make the first step if the community I’m building is to understand.
Thank you for this beautiful space, and your beautiful words. I have only just discovered SouLodge and this healing sisterhood, and am awestruck! Much gratitude to you. xxo
Lakin
Lakin, congratulations! Email lilyseahawk@gmail.com and she’ll invite you to the group!
My heart is EXPLODING with love!! Thank you, Pixie! xxo
So happy to have you!! Awrooooooo!!!!
No matter how thin or how attractive I ever got, I was still that awkward fat kid who didn’t get invited to be with the cool kids. No matter how successful I became, I kept waiting for someone to figure out that I was a fraud. I can portray an immense sense of self confidence on the outside, but always have the fear of being exposed on the inside.
I would love to be roaming out in the wilds with wolf filled women and talking about community and belonging… i had long held stories of being other, of being not the right shape for connection and about, i am sad to say, the untrustworthiness of women. Much of which came from broken thinking in my beginning family. Since i found a rare kind of sisterhood under the first flap with you Pixie, i have begun to heal those misthoughts… i am still a work in progress and will always have things to learn about connection so i am here, raising my hand for the chance to be with wolf <3 such big love to you <3
I walk the line of feeling a need fit it more with other women ~ and pulling away. I have learned it is more beneficial for my soul to have a smaller circle of friends are more in line with my values. Feeling the need to connect with others, but trust is a road block.
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Ever since I was a child I was the shy girl. My parents did the best the could but with conventional parenting I beileve I have internalized so much shame about who I am. This has translated to a constant mental dialogue of “I’m not good enough.” “Nobody will like me.” “If I talk I might say something stupid.” and so on. My husband and I have a some really awesome people in our life and he has been able to really connect with them but I struggle so hard with being close with them. I fear years off being the shy and quiet one combined with a lack of emotional tools has built many walls to guard myself from hurt and rejection. I would love to break down those walls and hang out with you and wolf!
I have always felt that I personified a lone Wolf. Growing up I never really had a group of friends, just one friend at a time, or really no one at all. Now, as an adult, I love hosting events; moon gatherings, healing circles, and enjoy teaching and being a part of that feminine movement. However, after that, I separate myself for a time. I am still trying to understand that part of myself that desires the solitude, but at the same time wants to keep ties to the community and help when I’m needed. We live in a society where you are either super social and part of facebook and this social media movement, or you are not and pretty much are off the grid and forgotten, for the most part. I am trying to find that balance as Spring is about to emerge, and I am slowly coming out of the dark forest.
Yes, this. Definitely. I’ve always been an outsider but it hurts worst when circling with other creative women. Nothing is quite as painful as being among people who are supposed to be peers, but don’t seem to feel your spirit to be enough to join with in community.
It’s generous of you to offer a spot. I’ve been feeling the call to study with you this year in person but with a young child it isn’t possible. Perhaps I’ll win. 🙂
Jen, congratulations! Email lilyseahawk@gmail.com and she’ll invite you to the group!
I spent much of my life in non-resonant community – beginning with my birth family who were pessimistic and dark and didn’t appreciate my natural light and joy (and love of both in world). Then I did work to heal, grow and open my heart to share my inner core energy and now I’m no longer in direct connection with my family or non-resonance in the community around me, but I’ve yet to create a physical sense of community around my kids and I to replace what we’ve left. We have lots of energetic love and support around us, but the void is in the physical creation and experience. As of November 2015, wolf became my totem animal – I don’t know much about the energy beyond the bits I have read since then. I am curious, excited and a little cautious about exploring further.
Feeling like I never quite belong is way too strong in me, and I’m ashamed of some of the ways in which I’ve behaved in order to be part of a group. Yet, I am resistant to start my own groups … even though I eventually do, but I doubt my abilities the entire time.
I often know when I need to walk away, but how to do so gracefully would be appreciated.
Wolves are teachers of hyperpresence and belonging to a tribe even when you feel you are not part of of one. This has been a big part of my life, feeling unable to “make the cut” therefore be “cut down”. I can be a literalist. I once met a group of rescue hybrid wolves. I cannot forget that utmost sense of welcoming I felt yet there was clearly an alpha, the woman who cared for them and she had the skill to know when they were about to cross a line.
I am curious about the inward time of Winter season and Wolf. How does Wolf speak and teach about the inner recesses of repose and solitude which I personally value so much. And how does this strengthen our ties of belonging?
I would love to heal my wounded sense that once I get connected deep enough to a pack…once I unfurl…and let my guard down, it will come. Betrayal, agendas of others, and unresolved issues. And while I am a dominat presence I have such a soft soul in this area and it hurts so much. I am at a point this year where I think it may be best to pause on making friends, or connections or a circle for a few years…but what I truly want is it heal.
Community. Its so hard to find one,build one. But like with having children, so worth it. I started a grove, since there wasn’t one where i am, only to have one of the first people to join me turn out to be a serious stalker! It took a little while to realise why this had to happen to me! Why me? I found out that he has been doing this for close to twenty years and to do no one has taken him to court fully over this like I am. I have been talking to his victims as more and more contact me and we are building a pack of our own. Helping each other heal. If we are able to ignore that shitty voice for just a moment we are able to reach out.
I am longing for community. I would love to heal the feeling of being unwanted and desperate seek connections where there´s no connections to be build.
I am so grateful for your offer!!!! I do hope to win a seat!
I teach health and wellness classes at the high school level. I watch young women circle around each other. They talk with me about their feelings of insecurity, of not being enough, of not belonging…. I tell them that they are enough. They are beautiful. They are strong. They belong. I hope that wolf finds a place in her heart to help me guide these young women.
Meg, congratulations! Email lilyseahawk@gmail.com and she’ll invite you to the group!
ps: I’ve heard that oxytocin has particular physical healing effects for women.
pps: so good that the need for alone time as well as relationship and community belonging styles will be addressed in the course.
It would seem that at the age of 58 I would be over being hurt when excluded by my family because of my differences. I have always resonated with the lone wolf analogy. Thank you, Pixie, for your generosity.
Such a lovely offering, thank you! I think I’ve always been more of a rebel loner, running ahead of the pack rather than with it. It seemed easier than trying to fit in where I never would. The one time I tried led to so much heartbreak for me and my children. But now… I may be getting ready to start my own pack and there is a sense of loneliness that would be so lovely to heal with your help… x
I love wolf an have a deep connection to wolf from many lifetimes ago. I crave community but since my move 2 years ago, I have isolated myself and crave a sense of supportive community. Even within my own family – I’d like to create more of a sense of a pack and working together and teaching my kids to support each other with love. Thank you Pixie for all that you do and offer, you are such an inspiration.
I’ve been ruminating on this. I’m finally part of a tribe where I feel accepted and loved for who I am. And still the feelings that I don’t belong creep in. It takes me a while and deliberate trust and openness to connect with women. I am ever so grateful for my soul sisters.
My experiences have been mixed with community. I have been both on the (attempted) building end of things and simply joining and participating.
I have made a few great connections but still crave a deeper connection to a soulful community in person and online.
yes, for reasons untold, I have always been a loner wolf and somehow took pride in that. However, my greatest longing has been to be a valuable member and a real essence of my dreamed of pack, while outside of and always watching from a distance. oh, self-esteem, an ache crouching in the shadows, howling. Need guidance in how to greet & join my pack & show my great strength as a part of it
Pixie, I shared your post and these thoughts on FB: I’ve been dissed and dissed and dissed three times a lady from the community of the religion I was raised in. I often feel I don’t belong in any community. And when I am in community it begins to feel isolating even surrounded by loving human beings. Our mom was put out of the same religion when my sister and I were tender ages. And mom has been basically cut off and isolated since 1975. Being in company and community with like minded sisters and brothers can be and should be a happy occasion, but we have experienced a lot of arbitrary and punitive treatment and it caused our family heartache which has affected us until now. We have a hard time with trust. Trust in others and ourselves. Pixie Lighthorse and her SouLodge community endeavors to bring healing to the world from the hurts of long ago. Awrrooooo!
Hi, Pixie…
Powerful words, Pixie. I’ve been thinking of joining the community of Wolf in February. Part of what stops me is the fear of getting lost in community. I can lose my voice sometimes, or, simply can’t find it when in community. Not because of others, but because I get overwhelmed sometimes by so many voices. How to hold onto oneself, and hold space for oneself, and even be quiet sometimes, while at the same time connecting meaningfully in community. Oh, and fear of judgement. Yes, it’s in the mix, too. These are my questions and what I”m seeking in the community of Wolf. It’s about meaningful connection without getting lost or overwhelmed.
Thank you for the beautiful work you do. Love from here.
Oh thank you for all you said here! I’d love to heal more around imagining that others are better than me or judging me.
Pixie,
The timing for this is serendipitous! Wolf has been calling to me through my daughter for the past couple of years. I’ve never been the popular girl and struggled to fit in with the cliques in life (not just in high school!) I’ve struggled with serious health issues all of my adult life, that was diagnosed as Crohn’s shortly after I gave birth to my daughter.
Sometimes being sick and in pain puts up invisible barriers to community and feeling like you belong somewhere. My beautiful 11 y/o daughter, a natural social butterfly, is always encouraging me to spread my wings and her animal totem is Wolf. Isn’t it amazing how things are interrelated and interconnected?
I hope to be a part of this class, but if not, I thank you for the opportunity to open up and share some of my story. Many bright blessings for you always, Dear Sister!