On the difference your body knows and your mind keeps forgetting 

"I'm ready" is one of the most terrifying things someone can say to themselves.

I'm willing and I'm ready are not the same thing, even if in our minds we treat them as though they are. I'm willing to take this step, I'm ready to take this step — they seem interchangeable. But they're not, and the difference is felt in the body, and in those parts of you that are still finding one more reason to not send that email, to not pivot in the way you know you need to pivot in your business or your wider life, to not let go of the friend or the person on your team who is no longer aligned. You're finding reasons not to do things, most likely by finding reasons to do other things. Or you're not doing any of the things.

And all of that is saying: I'm not ready.

There are aspects of your human self, or maybe just an aspect, that is not ready, and to that aspect those two words are an absolute no. Because to that aspect, everything that is familiar has a kind of safety to it, even the discomfort, even the tightness and constraint of a situation that has outgrown you. You are at that point where you need the next expansion, you are ready for the next expansion, and yet to that part of you, I'm ready is unthinkable. No, we're not ready. We're doing fine here. We know this kind of discomfort.

And when I say expansion, I want to convey in that word everything it actually contains: spaciousness, nourishment, rest, as well as momentum, flow, action. Expansion is, excuse the pun, a wide term. So, when we say I'm ready for my next expansion, what we're really saying is I'm ready to be different, to do different. And your inner higher self, divine self, multidimensional self, whatever you choose to call it, could be one hundred percent on board with that, giving you the insights, giving you the guidance. You know this.

And yet there is that part, gripping the doorframe, and persuading you otherwise.

I'm willing is different. To that aspect, I'm willing is less terrifying, because it's not a full-on commitment. It's more of a let's dip our toes in and see how it goes. And that might be exactly what you need.

We hear a lot about the “all in,” the “throw yourself into this next stage,” the “if you're not all in you're all out.” It's quite a pushing energy. And then the flip side is this very passive energy that has been marketed as divine feminine energy — “you're just receiving, there's no doing, you'll know the perfect time.” And neither one of those is actually that helpful, because they're both taking complex energies and constructs and turning them into something flat and easy to explain in a social media post. The divine masculine is all action, the divine feminine is all receptivity! When in reality these are multifaceted, multi-aspected ways of being in particular streams of energy. They are not tick-the-box states.

Sit and receive is one of the hardest things we can do as humans, because we have been conditioned for generations, for lifetimes, that we need to be doing in order to survive. And there's truth in that! Our ancestors could not just sit and hope that food and shelter would drop from the sky. They had to go in search of it, grow it, take care of it. The doing was essential. The difference was that there was a reciprocity, an understanding that they were dependent on Gaia, on the Earth, and there was a reverence for that. Those learnings became eliminated over time, and it became a doing without the reverence, without the holiness, without the love and care and understanding of the rhythms of the natural world. And with that disconnection, you’re just left with the endless doing.

So to be with the receiving is hard, especially if you are someone who has made your own way, who has operated within systems that are not designed for the thriving of everyone. And just as each of those systems is complex, and can't be flattened down to good or bad, the body that we operate in — the literal system that conveys us around our incarnated lives — is complex. It is multifaceted, and that's going beyond even the physical, mental, emotional bodies. Even within each of those there are different aspects. And all of this is not to add to any overwhelm, but more of an invitation to expand back, look at the wider view, and see how I'm ready might cause a complex chain of events within your energy system in a way that I'm willingmight not.

Because I'm willing holds the energy of receiving in a way that's quite integral to it. I'm willing to open the door, I'm willing to take the next step — that carries within it an understanding that not all conditions have to be perfect. When we say I'm ready, no matter how much we are in flow with our divine guidance, there is going to be a part of the human self that asks: what do we need to do to prepare, what needs to be in place? And that can be helpful — just as our ancestors had to grow the food, there are steps that need to be taken — but the risk is that all the energy goes into the getting ready rather than the being ready. I'm willingcreates a softer space, a more flexible space. It says: these conditions aren't perfect for the absolute end game, but I'm willing to put these seeds in the ground, and I'm willing to take care of the soil, and I'm willing to water them, and I'm willing to see what happens. Rather than: I'm ready to grow these crops right now this very second and this is my only chance and aaaaaahhhhhh...

I offer it as an invitation, especially to those of you who carry a lot — the accomplished, courageous, talented women running their own business, running their family, holding so many things in the air and doing all of it extremely competently. To look at what I'm ready is actually costing you in terms of energy. Would I'm willing offer you more in the long run, because you get to not have to push through? You get to move incrementally in less than perfect conditions, but with far more capacity for observation, for insight, for pivoting, for taking the incremental steps, than you would have if you said I'm ready! and then spent the next six months pushing through every single objection, every single obstacle at considerable energetic cost.

So just that invitation to be with I'm willing and I'm ready, and what lies beneath each of those for you. Does one feel more doable, more be-able, than the other? Does one allow more spaciousness? Does one allow conditions to be less than perfect and still know that you are held within them, rather than requiring everything to be right before you can move?

And just to share personally: we lost our beautiful cat last November. It's been over six months, and I've realised that I have tried to manage my grief through work, and then through trying to create these perfect conditions for when we might welcome another cat into our home. I’ve ended up going round and round in circles — do we get an older cat, do we get a kitten, we have a dog, what about the other animals — and even at the vet's the other day the vet was advising me about a list of conditions that would need to be in place for these introductions, and it all just felt so overwhelming. How could I possibly do this perfectly? When, maybe, I don't need to do it perfectly. Maybe I just have to be willing to be open to the love again. To do my best to prepare but to understand that no cat I have ever welcomed in my heart and my home has behaved how the books say and I was never, ever ready for them. But we all muddled along because we were willing. So for now, maybe I just have to be willing to be open to the right cat for our household to come in our lives.

Something to be with, to reflect on, to look within. And as always, with that invitation of real care and gentleness as you do so — that you are precious, that your energy is precious, your whole being is precious, and that you deserve to be able to use your energy efficiently, lightly, and with compassion for yourself and for others.

This is the heart of the work I do privately with women — moving from the push-through into something far less costly. If that's the season you're in, you can read about working with me here.