Bring out the Bitch, Bitches
There’s been a change in the weather.
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If you’re a starseed, sensitive empath, or chronic people-pleaser like me, you’ll likely share this experience:
You think you’re doing something SO radical, SO ‘out-there’, and SO beyond your regular realm of reality that you literally feel like the earth will shake once you’ve made the move. Maybe it’s a decision about something — or an internal boundary you instate. Maybe it’s a choice to do things differently, or a change that feels so monumental that it’s going to shatter your life as you know it.
You feel empowered when you make this decision. You feel the earth quake with the Kali Ma energy of change. Make way people, hear me roar. Then, when you next meet up with your safe-friend (the one you actually feel safe sharing vulnerable internal decisions with), you tell them about this monumental decision you’ve made.
Their response?
“Oh wow, good for you! I’m so happy for you!
…
I think that’s just a regular boundary, though.”
…Oh.
Well then.
Maybe I’m roaring a bit more like a kitten. But it still feels like a big deal to me.
And maybe it’s not such a big deal, but I’ll tell you, the shift inside feels massive. It was enough to get me out of writer’s block (Hello again!) and reclaim some of my energy. This little-big shift is one I’m in the process of making.
This all came about because of a recent shift of Saturn (the planet of rules and regulations) into Aries (the signs that gives no fucks about anyone else). It was beautifully coined by Kate Forster as a time to “embrace your cuntyness.” (Video is at the bottom). At the time, of watching this, the message didn’t really land all that deeply — I’ve been treading water with the multiple projects I have going on (hello, what else is new), and realizing with some dismay that I was no longer treading so successfully, however, but actually sinking.
Fast.
Like, my primary diet has looked liked eating cookies and peanut butter toasts while slowly but surely losing my existence to numbing out on instagram each day. I’m am not an instagram person. I have an account, I post for work, but I just…. don’t use it all that much. I don’t have an attachment to it. I go on, post my sh*t, occasionally get sucked into the stories, of people I know personally and the people who I feel like I know personally, and then I snap out of it and get off. It does help that I follow 190 people total, which 39% are folks I know or love personally.
(Yes, 39%. Yes, I did do the math).
So this proclamation of a transit where you “no longer care about your fucking approval rating,” didn’t really seem that earth-shattering to me.
…Until it did.
A day after I saw the video by Kate Forster (which would have been five days into this new, three year transit), Something shifted within me.
I started to feel…. pissed.
Not really at anyone, or anything, in particular. I didn’t feel deeply angry — like that blood-boiling, I’m-gonna-break-something-or-become-the-hulk angry. It was more like a psychotic level of frustration-fuelled motivation. After weeks of feeling like I was being dragged underwater by the tide of my own life, I suddenly felt the need to make a big fucking announcement that the world was no longer going to get as big of a piece of me. I was no longer going to spend all my time answering work questions in my facebook and instagram dms (book a session, please). I was no longer going to volunteer my time to connect with every single person who asked me to, whether it’s a compliment or not. My social capacity is extraordinarily low on a good day, and when I have the space for it, I’d rather spend that capacity connecting with trees.
Sorry.
This mental shift also applied to friends. Haven’t seen me in a while and want to hang out? Too bad. I’m not going to go to the event you invited me to, even though it sounds cool and the idea of it is nice. Do I really want to go to the event? Or do I want to say yes so I can feel like I’ve checked a social box so I won’t spend a million hours feeling guilty about saying no? Coming to visit the area and I haven’t seen you in three years, but you want to meet to ‘catch up?’ Sorry, I’m not available. I love you, I still think you’re cool, but if you want me to create an extra two hour window to hang out and talk about our past or the things we’re doing currently, you’re going to have to hire a clone to do my work so that I can dedicate specific time to social engagements.
Want me to drive 3hrs to my dentist (long story) and make it work to show up two hours early for an appointment I booked 6 months ago, because you suddenly have a gap inn the schedule? Nope, not doing it. AND, not going to feel bad about it.
Does all this feel absolutely radical to me?
You bet your ass it does.
After years of questioning my limited social capacity (“why can’t I just be normal?”) and feeling like unless I had a real, legitimate excuse to say no (as in, my grandmother was dying or my house was on fire), I have basically felt like the world’s greatest errand boy.
Taking off that hat, in my thirties, so I can wear whatever I damn well please, does feel like a radical act.
It also makes me feel a bit like a bitch.
And you know what ?
Good.
Let that Aries transit make me feel like I’m finally stepping into my bitch phase. Let people dislike me. Let all the years of people-pleasing, bending over, and blind servitude with no expectation of anything in return start to fall away.
Why?
Because we will move forward as the healers, teachers and middle-path walkers we are if we continue to scrape the bottom of our cups for more to give when we haven’t had a sip for ourselves in weeks.
Look for the signs.
It shows up in our bodies: Stiff, achey, tense. Poor skin. Cravings. Low motivation. It shows up in our minds, all of a sudden filled with the stories of the mean girls who were ‘friends’ as grade-schoolers who really only kept you close because you did all of their bidding and hung on their every word. (ouch, but true).
It shows up in our relationships, when suddenly we’re pushing away the people who love us the most and just want to support us because we just. can’t. handle. another. commitment.
And, as someone who is AuDHD, it also shows up in … my own ‘ways’. My hair? Unwashed, tightly pulled back. Too tightly. Clothing? The same ones on repeat for over a week, regardless of cleanliness — because they’re familiar, accessible, and right in front of me. If I’ve bbeen wearing them for five days, I know they’re comfortable. I can’t risk switching it up. I’ve eaten the same rotation of food for over a week — which definitely doesn’t help with recovery. Sure food is medicine and nourishment is a beautiful thing. But when my capacity is low and the autistic burnout is high? It’s old-fashioned, north-american food that feels comforting to me. Cereal. Toast. The occasional apple. I’m sleeping well enough. But the overall exhaustion means I’m not physically getting up in the morning when I wake — which leads me to awake in a gasp of cortisol as my body revs me into action after over ten hours in bed.
I wring my hands more often. I compulsively tuck my hair behind my ears, until I look like the long-estranged cousin of Wednesday Addams who opted for a Sporty Spice look instead of the plaited schoolgirl.
It sucks.
And as an entrepreneur creating her own life, by her own rules, with her own dreams, there’s no one I can call on to fix it.
No paid leave, no health benefits for massage, no budget for grocery service.
Because I wouldn’t trade this path for anything (because the alternative, to me, feels harder), I have a body to reclaim, souls to serve, and a sense of self to re-experience.
And so, as a tri-decade people-pleaser who has never wanted to be disliked (or even frowned upon) a day in her life:
I’m no longer replying to texts (promptly).
I’m no longer replying to emails (in a timely manner).
I’m no longer attaching one single, tiny, shred of guilt or expectation to the belief I’m supposed to be anywhere, with anyone, at any given time.
I’m hurtling my fucks off a beautiful, terrifying cliff into a long-awaiting river hundreds of metres below.
Do I feel a little bit selfish?
Absolutely.
But I also feel fucking fantastic.
And, as all things like this go, once decision was made, and fucks were indeed hurtled off said cliff (they landed with a marvellous splash), I felt the trickle of inspiration return. I received an insight about a course topic for the live program (Basic Mastery) I’ll be running later on this year. I posted an instagram story that was raw, vulnerable, and honest — about race — whereas before I would never have dared post it for fear of disappointing my black friends by my lack of perfect language on a topic that really fucking matters.
I think, with this Climate, as we’re calling it, there is becoming less space for flimsy, frilly, people-pleasing bullshit.
I know my mission on Earth.
My mission is to help you understand your mission.
So, I had to do a little Marie Kondo-ing of my internal world and get rid of the clutter and crap.
I feel like a fucking revolutionary.
In reality? I think I just started employing boundaries.
Go Figure.
Thanks for being here, (always, always, always),
- K8
A post shared by @kateforsterwrites
P.S. :
** I need your help! **
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Much love to all you earthlings out there!!
XO K8
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
👽 I am BOOKING REGULAR SESSIONS AGAIN! Here we are, at the end of May, all in once piece. I’m back in the land of stable internet and am booking online, 1:1 coaching and starseed sessions. If you’ve wanted to book for a while and haven’t felt like it was the right time, THIS IS YOUR SIGN. Book.
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👽 We had a super successful retreat in Tofino with me and two other facilitators mid-May. It may not be *completely* relevant to my beautiful and faithful blog readers out here on the wild wonders of the internet, but I learned recently I suck at celebrating my wins, so I’m practicing doing that. Yay, good retreat. Yay us.
👽 “Starseed Survival Guide” is AVAILABLE for purchase. This is your guidebook, your manual, your energy 101 for being a highly-sensitive human in this world. If you’re new to the blog, WELCOME. I’m recording this audiobook in Nova Scotia and will be re-releasing it under the title of Energy 101 in the fall.
It helps, I promise.
👽 I’m STILL working on Inner Sanctuary. It’s taken a bit of a back seat as I get the merch up and FLYing, but it’s still trucking along in the background. I’d hoped it would be done in JUNE. For now, we’re looking at JULY.
