Have you ever experienced life giving you a gentle tap on the shoulder to say, hey, my love you can put that heavy weight down now. At some point you needed to carry it but that time is over now, it’s safe to put it down. Are you ready to let me help you put it down?
A few weeks ago I received a little tap like that and I wanted to share the story with you. It’s a mixture of sad and sweet so I put a little trigger warning here that this is a magic of life story but also may touch some tender places as it’s a story of loss and love, trust and letting go.
When I ended my marriage back in 2010 I knew I wasn’t living life as myself and I just wanted to feel more & be available to hear life’s cues. I knew there were messages of wonder, synchronicity & joy for those open to hear, but I didn’t know how to hear. I’ve since spent 13 years unravelling and rebuilding myself from the inside out & outside in…to allow deep listening and a big part of that has been creating space for both Joy and Sorrow to appear.
There’s been lots of shoulder taps along the way (and pulling of the rug from my under feet when I failed to feel the taps!). And many of them have been connected to the death of my mum when I was a teen and learning to find my connection to the divine feminine within.
But a couple of weeks ago I put together a piece of my jigsaw puzzle that blew my mind & reminded me how incredibly purposeful & interconnected life is, even when plans seem to not go our way.
I was looking at old photos with a new lover and had this strange feeling that prompted me to look at more photos from my teen years. I went to bed one night already knowing it in my heart but waited until the next day to pull out old photo albums. And I discovered that the Bibra Lake property our heART of Rest cafe & loft ran from in 2021 already had a really meaningful connection in my family that I’d been oblivious to.
When I ran the cafe I had lots of people come in and tell me they’d been married there or attended something special there – it had such a colourful history and I loved hearing the stories. But I never imagined I also had my own story to share!
It turns out it was the exact same place my mum and dad had chosen to remarry in, 27 years earlier. Even though I was at that wedding I didn’t connect the dots. You see their 2nd wedding was just 10 days before my mum died of lung cancer. Photos tell me it was beautiful but also a heartbreaking day. I was 14 and I don’t remember much – other than there being lots of trees and a beautiful window.
Anyway fast forward 27 years and one day I was laying in a yoga class in front of that window, the exact spot mum & dad had recommitted to each other. And I felt something pull me in…I didn’t know what it was but it had a distinctly feminine presence and it told me that there was something beautiful happening here. A Yin Nest is what I called it 😆
Looking back I’m not sure how I hadn’t consciously recognised the magical window in the yoga studio next door but clearly in more subtle ways I knew the venue was meaningful for me.
And for the next year and a bit I was there almost every day following the cues even though it seemed so out of character for me & I had no idea where it was headed. But I poured my heart and soul into creating a space for the feminine qualities of nurture, nature and connection to be experienced by anyone who felt the pull. I felt the beauty of the land and the lake and the whispers to keep going even when it got hard. I experienced some of the most challenging exchanges in business and my intimate relationship that year and eventually made the decision to close our doors and stop fighting for something that I no longer felt supported in. I couldn’t quite grasp why it was so hard to let go but looking back that seems to make a little more sense now.
Discovering this thread of connection to mum has blown my mind and helped me to close more of the doors to the past I’d been carrying.
There are so many other little funny threads I now see and trauma bonds I’ve been able to release but for now I just wanted to share with you this little piece of the puzzle and the incredible ways life is weaving her magic – that we can’t always see with our eyes.
Thank you to everyone who was a part of our time at Bibra Lake – from the challenges to the beauty I have a whole new appreciation for the magic of life and the bonds of love that go well beyond these physical bodies.
The Yin Nest is now very much anchored in my heart and my connection to mum, mama nature, the divine feminine and my passion for all things Yin. And I have no doubt mum is walking this life with me in every step.
Have you been tapped on the shoulder recently? I’d love to hear your stories ♥️