My husband loves to run. He’s highly active, taking and teaching marital arts, dabbling with archery, newly converted to Wild Movement philosophy, and he runs – all the time, any weather, barefoot.

He doesn’t just like to run he loves it; he’s passionate about it. So, it makes sense that he’s built himself up a following. He runs twice a week at work and he has a growing band of guys whom he’s evangelized, converted, and brought into his lunchtime running fold.

Bliss.

This summer he determined to hit one of his targets, he ran 50km in one day (and then did it again – 51k – a month or so later). His running posse were so impressed – 8+ hours of non-stop running – they started bragging about him at work.

Enter Fit Runner. Fit Runner had heard about the group, but he was more a solo runner so he never joined in. Until inspired by my husband’s awesomeness, he decided to give it a try. But where my husband (and therefore his band of Merry Runners) ran for the love of it: the joy, the thrill, the Life of it, Fit Runner ran for the time, speed, and prowess. The group vibe was foreign to him.

So, one day my Lover Man is talking to his Buddy – Buddy is a rock hard body builder just learning to run – Buddy is highly Fit, but he also has asthma and My Man is teaching him stride and breathing tips to enable him to keep running despite it.

He says, as they lace up their shoes, “Run with me today.”

Fit Runner interjects, looks my Lover over (finds him wanting) and asks Buddy, “Why would you listen to him? You should run with me.”

There is a collective intake of breath that Fit Runner is oblivious to and he sets out. (He just never gets this group thing, maybe he sees them as something to prove himself against rather than prove himself with.)

My Love tells his peeps he’s sorry, but he feels he needs to run at his own pace today. They nod, concurr, agree they will encourage each other just fine.

And he’s off.

My runner man who runs for joy and prayer and laughs with bliss fast or slow, who competes only with himself easily passes Fit Runner reveling in the run itself. Freedom is his catchphrase and running feels like that to him, I think.

Then he lies on the grass to wait, breathing easy.

Fit Runner is shocked, and out of breath, to find My Man casually pondering the sky. He’s forced to nod in recognition; my runner man outpaced him without even trying.

His mistake was, that looking at my husband he assumed he was Fat.

What Does Fat Mean Anyway?

I weigh 235 lbs and I do not consider myself Fat.

I am not Fat when I wake up in the morning. And I don’t see Fat when I do my hair in the morning (but there is this one suprememly annoying cowlick).

And I have no Fat moments when I write and when I paint. And Fat never comes into the picture when I laugh and when I hug.

And I don’t think of myself as Fat when I stand up to teach and I never even consider Fat when a client lights up in front of me.

And no Fat goes with me when I clip my dog to the leash for a walk in the woods or on the beach.

And I definitely don’t feel Fat when my husband’s eyes magnetically follow my naked body.

I Do Not Think of Myself as Fat

(because I’m not.)

So, why should anyone else have the power to judge me as such or try to make me feel that way?

Because there are only two times when I ever even consider that I might be Fat:
1) When other people tell me so with their eyes, and sneers and words.
2) When buying clothing.

And you know what? Neither of those has anything to do with me, and everything to do with others.

Did you Know that “Lose Weight” is the Most Common Goal on my Client Intake Form?

And there’s really no rhyme or reason to who will tell me this. Underweight, Overweight, On Weight, Fit or Not – Boy and Girl.

Which is why I know that Fat has no basis in reality. None.

So I don’t want to hear it; I don’t want to talk about: Dieting, Waistline, Thin, 10lbs, Watching, Should Eat, Shouldn’t Eat, When I…

That’s not my life, consumed by pounds and food and self-flagellation. I choose to live as me – not as Fat. What are you choosing?

This post has been percolated with help and inspiration from two supplementary sources:

1. The Article: Plus Size Bodies, What Is Wrong With Them Anyway?

2. The Video:

Discuss.

I have the honour of being a guest over at Tanya Geisler’s place today as part of her Thing Finding Thursday feature, but of course, just as I was finishing up my Thing Finding story I found I had a few more things I wanted to say about it. So go on over to Tanya’s site, read the story, and then come back here and read this follow up to find out the things I’ve figured out along the way on my journey from there to here.

• My Thing, my purpose, isn’t the bull’s eye at the center of a dart board, it’s the whole friggin’ board and the bull’s eye doesn’t have the highest points anyway.
• Jobs change, living my purpose doesn’t mean I have to pick a job that I’ll do for the next 20-40 years. I’ll keep my Thing – always my thing – but the vehicle it is expressed through is no big thing (I’ve been a Writer, a Receptionist, a Teacher, a Preacher, a Retailer, a Coach, a Tarot Reader, and a Chinese Face Reader, but my Thing has never changed).
• Things don’t change, but our understanding of them (how to define and apply them) frequently does. Your thing is inside you (it is) but it may still be in embryo form. Be with it. Be open to it. It will come out and it will grow, expand, focus and narrow as you move deeper and deeper into it.
• You don’t have to get it just perfect the first time.
• You can’t logic or reason your way to your Thing. You are more than likely to trip over it, do a facepalm when you see it, collect it through a series of tiny revelations. But never find it with list making and practical conclusions.
• Just because you can’t define your thing doesn’t mean you aren’t doing it right now!
• Your ideas are so much narrower than the options your Thing will open for you if you let it (most kids think they want to be ballerinas and firefighters not Face Readers – your Thing makes almost anything possible).
• The greatest joy and success belongs to people who carve out their own jobs (to suit their thing rather than cramming their thing into a good job idea.)
• You have a Thing that is the perfect complete expression of your Self – you really do.

And really, it’s the journey (the searching and working it out) that counts!

I’d love to hear what you’ve learned on your journey toward your own Thing: Go!

Yours,
Megan

Follow Me:

My son moved away last month; it’s weird suddenly being child-free, my house is so quiet and I’m touched by sadness at strange times. Though, for the most part (except for the loneliness of being home alone all the time) I’m quite glad for the change – we were both ready for it.

He’s moved into my mother’s home about a 6 days drive from us. The intent is that he will, eventually, have his own “in-law” apartment, but while they are fixing it up he’s living in her spare room. He called me to chat last week (seems he misses me too) and told me:

“Mom, I feel like I have no ‘home’.”

What I wanted to say was, “Oh Darling, I know.” In fact, I totally expected him to begin having issues about Home throughout his life; it’s one of his nature’s Life Lessons.

There are two ways for me to determine and explore the Elements that form your nature. The first is through Face Reading and the second is with your birthday. When you come for a session I work with both parts together blending and balancing out the flavors the make up Who You Are, but even just knowing someone’s birthday is a powerful piece of information that tells me about who you are, where you’ll struggle, and about what’s going on in your life right now (what season you are in).

My son’s birthday tells me that his Life Challenges are going to revolve around issues of Home, Nurturing, Foundation, possibly issues of Partnering and maybe even me (his Mom). My sister, who shares his challenge element, has moved every year almost her whole life, and as an adult has often commented to me about not feeling like she has a home. So, needless to say, I’m not at all surprised to hear him struggling with it, but instead of saying that I offered him some tips on creating that sense of home for himself because I know how important that is for him.

Just one of the gifts that being tuned into this Five Element wisdom has allowed me to offer.

I Love This Shit

Seriously, it’s no joke when I say it’s life changing (ask my son, ask my husband, ask my clients). And I just can’t get over how this Elemental teaching is forever useful – that there’s no part of someone’s life it can’t speak to.

Here’s Why:

• Because, last week when a friend lamented about why her lower back always aches when she sleeps past 7am, I was actually able to tell her why – and what to do about it. (Cause every time of day and every part of your body relates to an element and 7am happens to be a key energetic shift point in the day.)
• Because, I got a message from someone telling me she’s been noticing a shift in her energy and she wondered if I could give her some advice about dealing with the transition. She said it suddenly felt like she was having to “cope with” changes that had already happened.

  And knowing her birthday, I could tell her that she was moving out of a year meant for celebration, for reaping the rewards of all your hard work and allowing yourself the pleasures of that and what she’s moving into is a year of turning inward and reviewing how things are going (making decisions about what’s working and what’s not) – it can often be a very difficult year for people as they process everything that’s happened so far. She’s totally right, she is moving into a phase of “coping” with everything that’s happened across this latest era of her life.

• Because, when another friend posted that she’d made the heart breaking decision to walk away from her business, I was able to give her the courage to hold on by explaining that she was just ending that very same difficult, inner reflection year and was about to move into a year of light and attention. That it wasn’t her life, or her business, that were going to “be like this” forever, but simply the energy of the year she was in.
• Because, I was chatting with someone about what their birthday told me and he said he’d spent a lot of time working out what his life purpose was with a coach, and when he shared it I was able to add the one piece he was missing – the thing that would make his focus encapsulate all of who he was. Months of work confirmed in only moments with a simple birthday.
• Because when my friend had her first Grade 1 Parent Teacher meeting, and the teacher told her that the only problem her daughter was having was timing, my friend simply nodded and said, “Yep, we expected that.” And quietly thanked me for mentioning it when we talked about her daughter’s nature.
• Because people tell me they save what I tell them and refer back to it when they need to.
• Because it’s not unusual for me to be told (on a weekly basis even) that I’m looking into the heart or soul of the person I’m talking to.

Because It Works

And if I could have one Christmas Wish granted to me it would be that I could teach it to you too.

Seriously.

I’ve spent the last month pondering what I want to focus on this year: Where do I want to go? What do I want to do? What do I want to build? One of the things this system tells me is that this next year promises to be overwhelming – and easily distracting – if I don’t have a goal to focus on or something to work towards. As the energy of the year is beginning to shift and I’m feeling the overwhelm I’ve become more and more focused on answering this question.

But really, if I’m completely honest, I’ve known where I want to go and what I want to build for months and months now; I’ve known that what I really wanted to do was impress on you how powerful this can be in your life, and then help you change the world with it – it was really just a matter of biting the bullet and putting it out there. (Have you ever noticed the more you love something, the more true it is, the harder it is to shove out into the big wide world?)

So, I’m doing it, I’m sharing my full, real passion with you. Because:

According to Robert Holden: Success is Knowing Who You Are.

And the Circle of the Five Elements is all about, not just knowing who You (your clients, your family, your friends) are, but also knowing where they are and where they can expect to be going.

Because more than anything, I want you to be Authentically Successful, to be Happy, to be Whole.

I can’t think of anything better than that. And hey, it’s just my nature to share!

Intrigued? Swing over and check out the Full Circle Mentorship Program – I can’t wait to see your application!

I love stories; I am a rabid devourer of books (give me three days alone – no obligations – and I can eat through four or five novels). I switched schools mid-way through the year back in grade five and I still won the reading competition for the year. I had consumed over 100 books in five months, some ten more than Scott – the runner up – had read all year. I imagine he’s still convinced that I cheated.

We are people of story

Our souls speak to us in the language of characters and fiction. But, like with so many of the other ways our souls and spirits communicate, most of us have lost the ability to translate those stories into something meaningful to our everyday lives.

Despite the glut of story we constantly suck back, like champions in an eating competition: books, movies, TV, video games – even advertising appeals to our natural love of story. We have little to no idea how to make use of the hidden messages our souls are offering to us.

I suspect it’s because we’ve lost the habit of communal story telling, of listening to and discussing what we heard together.

As a grown-up I am only slightly less voracious (all those silly obligations like work and family get in the way of my reading), but stories are so much more than delicious past-times to me now. Now I see them for what they really are, one soul calling out to, and pointing the way for, another. Stories – whether modern or Ancient – are rich with archetypes (patterns and promises for this life we are living); nothing can be more inspiring, or enriching than a well crafted story.

Re-Telling It Like It Is

That’s why so many of them are eternal; we rehash them and tell them over and over again in a hundred different ways. Anthropologists tell us that as cultures evolved, or new people groups moved in, the old myths and stories would be revamped and updated so that their meaning could be retained for, and applied to, current day life.

That must be why so many of us love things like Elle Enchanted, The 1oth Kingdom, and Once Upon a Time so much.

That’s why I love Amy Palko’s Virgin’s & Lovers: Ancient Wisdom for the Modern Goddess so very much.

Amy’s entire project is a reminder that stories are so much more than just fairy tales and silly explanations for why the sky is blue. Stories are deep wisdom. They hold the secret truths about human nature, about your Goddess soul, about your brilliance and why I keep tripping up and just how ok it is to be most authentically me.

Virgins & Lovers is like a course in how to digest and suck the nutrition out of any story.

It’s a primer in how to speak the language of our souls once again. Not through exegesis – there’s no explanations or interpretations – not through talking or defining. Nothing like that. It takes you into story through exactly what you would expect: Story – rewritten, updated, made more applicable to me (to you) – and complimented with guided meditations and journaling prompts.

It’s learning the language of your soul by speaking to your soul with Amy as your go between.

Your soul is speaking to you, it has so much to say. If only you knew how to hear Her, She would enrich every aspect of your life (these are one of the things I know for sure) and Story is Her language, Story is Her medium: Story is your doorway into all the areas of your life.

As an introduction to Soul Whispering and story interpreting Amy’s project (Playbook) is by far the best I’ve encountered. It isn’t an academic tool for dissecting how story speaks to us, and it isn’t focused on just one subject (modern Goddesses say, or being our own Heroes) – like any good story should, Lovers & Virgins takes you into all the areas of your life.

Where do you want to grow? Where do you want to dig? What do you want to expose? Amy’s work will help you move into it.

Lovers & Virgins is not just about who you are as a woman – not just about your womanly roles and expectations – but if you let it (want it to) it will deepen you as a Whole Person – like any story can if you only know how. (Let Amy teach you how.)

I love story because stories are the stage on which Archetypes dance and play and teach – they are the vehicle of my life’s work. Story deepens you; it brings me to my core; it helps me to better understand how to be authentic in the world. Story is my food for thought, my preferred teaching tool, my favorite past-time, the language of my heart and soul, and my greatest spiritual weapon.

Stories are medicine.
Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run With Wolves (Introduction)

If I could give you only one gift, share only one thing with you, it would be for you to know the language of that healing – to taste that medicine. (Everything else will fall into place from there, I know it.)

What are the Stories (the Medicine) of Your Soul?

Disclaimer: I was given a free copy of Virgins & Lovers for review purposes; I requested it because I know and love Amy’s work and expected this to be a true Soul Gift for all of you. My opinion is still my own and not influenced at all by Amy. I know reviews aren’t common here, but this was something close to my heart, so I tried to share my thoughts on Amy’s work in a way that would still have relevance and meaning to you, my readers. I hope you find something rich here, and in Lovers & Virgins too.

p.s. For the sake of Full Disclosure, I have a different definition of what makes a Virgin archetype (Hey, I’m a Virgo, I should know “Virgin” when I see it), but despite our minor difference I still found the Virgin stories to be rich and informative for me, which is just one reason I respect Amy’s work so much. If this blog post had been a straight review I might have gone into more detail on this, but I figure it’s so much more elegant this way… even with the p.s.