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This guest post from Amie Ritchie is a wise message from the middle of change reflecting on how ‘the most loving of maps is one’s own soul’.

This is the tenth guest post in our Wholehearted Stories series on Quiet Writing! I invited readers to consider submitting a guest post on their wholehearted story. You can read more here – and I’m still keen for more contributors! 

Quiet Writing celebrates self-leadership in wholehearted living and writing, career and creativity. This community of voices, with each of us telling our own story of what wholehearted living means, is a valuable and central part of this space. In this way, we can all feel connected on our various journeys and not feel so alone. Whilst there will always be unique differences, there are commonalities that we can all learn from and share to support each other.

I am honoured to have my dear friend and fellow life coach Amie Ritchie as a ‘Wholehearted Stories’ contributor. My sincere thanks to Amie for sharing her story and images about her journey as she negotiates it. It is a message from the middle of change. Amie checks in with what she knows as her personal truths and values as guides for her wholehearted journey. She says: “I believe the surest, wisest, most resilient and most loving of maps is one’s own soul.” With a focus on the meaning making from the middle of deep change, read Amie’s wise reflections to find out more and guide your own story!

We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty. 

Maya Angelou

Where I begin

My dear friend Terri asked me to write this story many moons ago. The realities of my life were incredibly different at that time. Now as I sit excited and eager to share my wholehearted story of truth, growth, intuitive knowing and co-creation, the certainty of what that story tells floats in the ether. The final pieces have not quite emerged in the space of living, embodied experience. Neither are they yet visible in the rear view mirror of hindsight and integration.

My awakening journey is still being walked, and I am here, right in the middle of it. It is from this place that I write, a message from the middle, and I do so with the knowing that there is no other way. Amidst the many middles of life’s journeys, I believe the surest, wisest, most resilient and most loving of maps is one’s own soul. As I share pieces of mine, may you receive what you need, and gently release what you don’t.

Who I am

Mine is a story of a woman who feels the world around her deeply, who is deeply intuitive and who has grown accustomed to giving more than she has. A woman who stretched outside of boundaries she never learned to create, and so could not honour. She is a woman who is healing, learning, growing. A woman wayfinding her way to living the whole truth of her soul. She is redefining herself and the world around her as she wakes up. She is me and I believe she may too be some of you.

It must be noted also that many of the most powerful medicines, that is stories, come about as a result of one person’s or group’s terrible and compelling suffering. For the truth is that much of story comes from travail; theirs, ours, mine, yours, someone’s we know, someone’s we do not know far away in time and place. And yet, paradoxically, these very stories that rise from deep suffering can provide the most potent remedies for past, present and even future ills.

Clarissa Pinkola Estés – The Gift of Story: A Wise Tale About What is Enough

I find myself in one of the messy middles in life and so far it’s been the greatest of dips I’ve faced. The path has been filled with darkness, confusion, sadness, grief, anger, fear, and shame. The friendly shadows of my lighter, happier self have been by my side. The details of my why and how, the travail and suffering Estés writes, I will hold for another day. The elements of strength, grounding, and support I have befriended, however, are here for the exploration and sharing. They are pieces and elements of my path that I share in earnest they will be useful or awaken a truth in you. At the very least, you will know that someone else out there is in a murky middle of their own, and they are finding their way through. Just as you will.

What I know to be true: Mother Nature and her cycles are liberating

For as far back as I can remember, I grew up outside. From days spent in snow forts of Montreal, to the beaches and rivers of Florida, and sport fields in between, I spent as much time as possible outside. During high school, I remember nights spent with friends under the stars, camping on islands, trekking through forests and fields, and waking up surrounded by green. As happens to many people, life took me indoors and I quickly started spending more and more time inside.

I drifted out of my daily relationship with Mother Nature and recently began to find my way back. Slowly through more outdoor walks, to stopping to photograph flowers, to watching the moon at night, I began to return to the outside world. What has resulted from that return is a deeper appreciation, a more conscious relationship with nature and an intentional drive to be present with her. Unsurprisingly, this has also coincided with the deepening of my relationship with me.

What I’ve learned through the cycles of the moon, the seasons of change, and the diversity of nature is that there is a time and place for everything. It is natural to rest, to be in stillness, to release. There is a cycle of being that does not always produce or show itself in constant motion. What I’ve received through my stillness, my internal winter, is actually the freedom to be and surrender to what I do not know. I’m learning patience and allowing, which is no small thing for an over-achiever and planner who loves to know where she’s going.

Living in relationship with nature offers me an expanding, evolving and natural way of being that doesn’t ask for perfection. It asks only for what already is, as it is. To me, this is a beautiful expression of wholeness and it’s available just outside my window, and inside me if I can see it.

What I know to be true: The body often knows before the mind

Wholehearted living means following the truth of my inner guidance, in its innate wisdom and infinite capacity for compassion. As a long-time athlete, trained yoga teacher, and runner, I have always paid attention to my body and breath, but there has been a significant shift in this middle ground. While I used to pay attention to my body, it didn’t necessarily ‘win’ over my mind. What once mainly meant listening to my inner voice, and following my gut instinct, is now a more subtle sense of wisdom that I’m actively trying to develop. My understanding of my intuitive guidance system has deepened to include my somatic body, my emotional and cellular body.

Ironically, learning more about the brain has been a large part of this road. How it can work to rationalize negative experiences, protect us from perceived or real danger, and blur felt-reality, led me to a deeper understanding of what it creates, and also what it misses. I now really feel into my emotions, breathe into the spaces of tension, feel it all while slowly quieting my mind’s desire to categorize, rationalize and interpret.

What has helped this learning greatly is a book called The Awakening Body and various somatic grounding practices, including ancient Hindu Pranayama techniques like Nadi Shodhana. This deepened somatic attention has also helped as an Introverted Intuitive who often has a hard time explaining quite why I know something to be true. Knowing that intuitive hit I receive has a layer more subtle and less obvious than I once knew is really grounding. I’m learning I don’t always need a reason or explanation, a feeling will do.

What I know to be true: Being in present, compassionate relationship with others begins with oneself  

As a giving and nurturing woman, I have often acted for the benefit of others ahead of myself. I put myself last, gave more than I had, and tried to create harmony amongst the whole, without always counting myself as part of it. Having generally focused my life, learning, career on serving others and creating change in the world, the idea of self-love and first filling my own cup hadn’t really crossed my mind until it rolled through like a steam engine.

Intellectually, I knew that women are traditionally socialized to act as caregivers who give and please and bend to keep the peace, sometimes at the expense of their own wellbeing. My healing journey of late has guided me to the deep, felt knowing of those consequences. I intimately know that if we don’t love ourselves, give to ourselves, practice self-acceptance and self-compassion, we cannot truly show that to others.

Thus the practice of radical self-love and conscious inner work is what colours my middle. The integration that all of this begins within, first and foremost in my relationship with me. I’ve loved building awareness of my natural cycles, the personality preferences I have, the stories I tell myself, and the sound of my own breath. Journaling and being outside have proven wonderful spaces from which to navigate my middle and build trust within myself. I have also received professional support in the way of therapy and am incredibly grateful for the gift of a good book.

As I lay the roots for a strong, solid, loving relationship with myself, the interdependence of us all and the blessing of community is never out of sight. In my view, being in conscious and compassionate relationship with ourselves and each other is a truly wholehearted way to live as it requires the acceptance, honouring, and celebration of all parts of ourselves as humans. While there is much that separates us, much more is shared. As I practice lifting up my voice, in story and in truth, I know that it will serve the lifting of someone else’s. When I hear the stories and truths of others, I am uplifted and brought closer to my own centre.

In our present time, there is a goodness to, and a necessity for, rugged independence among individuals. But this is often best served and supported in good measure by deliberate interdependence with a community of other souls. Some say that community is based on blood ties, sometimes dictated by choice, sometimes by necessity. And while this is quite true, the immeasurably stronger gravitational field that holds a group together are their stories…the common and simple ones they share with one another.

Clarissa Pinkola Estés – The Gift of Story: A Wise Tale About What is Enough

What lies ahead and the courage to meet it…the message from the middle

I’m on a path of living my joy, my questions, my journey with devotion and surrender to every piece of me. What lies ahead is the creation of a new life, the redefinition of myself on my own terms. While I possess a lot of intellectual knowledge about what this means and have learned to facilitate this road for others, I am also deeply learning to embody it. The honest truth is while the path of self-definition, of taking full and complete responsibility for my whole, imperfect self, and the uncertain journey ahead is empowering, it can also be quite frightening.

The path of being your whole self, of leading a wholehearted life requires courage. And to demonstrate courage, one has to feel some degree of fear. As I move forward, I have learned to welcome it, befriend it, receive its message, and act from my inner compass of truth. Of course, it is far easier to say that ‘one day, then…’, ‘when I am/have/done, then…’, ‘when all is well, then…” Then the magic will occur and I will feel whole. This is a feeling many people have, and I surely have also felt this. It’s as if we forget the caterpillar and the time spent in cocoon, only to see the butterfly appear and believe it all happened spontaneously.

The truth is these shifts and changes toward wholehearted self-leadership are happening all the time. Just as in nature, change is constant, even if we can’t see or name it. Even in times of deep winter, whether of nature or the soul, shifts are afoot. While deep and imperceptible in the middle, they are ongoing. Each day, through the quiet and unannounced choices to honour our boundaries, they grow in strength and clarity. These self-definitions emerge in the roar of our voice, the tender ear and the space we hold for another whose story needs to be heard. It is a daily practice of connecting with and honouring what is true. And this is the path I follow. This is my truth of courageous, joyful, wholehearted life and the ongoing, creative journey of living it.

Guides and resources for my journey

These books and writings have been guides and resources for my journey:

• The poems of Rupi Kaur
• The Dance of the Dissident Daughter by Sue Monk Kidd
• This is Woman’s Work by Dominique Christina
• The Awakening Body by Reginald A. Ray
• The writing and works of Clarissa Pinkola Estés

About Amie Ritchie

Amie has spent much of her life focused on making a positive difference in the world. She is now passionate about helping people who also feel this same call to venture inward and get grounded in their truth, values and purpose. As an internationally certified life coach, yoga teacher and writer, she supports people toward trusting and loving themselves first, so they can consciously share their brightest blend of love with the world and lead a life of joy, meaning, and connection. Visit her at www.amieritchie.com , on Instagram or via email amie@amieritchie.com

Photographs of and by Amie Ritchie used with permission and thanks.

Read more Wholehearted Stories

If you enjoyed this wholehearted story, please share it with others to inspire their journey. You might enjoy these stories too:

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The journey of a lifetime – a wholehearted story

Gathering my lessons – a wholehearted story

Grief and pain can be our most important teachers – a wholehearted story

Breakdown to breakthrough – my wholehearted life

Embracing a creative life – a wholehearted story

Becoming who I really am – a wholehearted story

Finding my home – a wholehearted story

My wild soul is calling – a wholehearted story

Our heart always knows the way – a wholehearted story

How knowing your authentic heart can make you shine

Keep in touch + free ebook ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

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