How long does it take to know someone? Do you think you know someone really well?

Have you stopped seeing all of who they are and are just relating with the one aspect that you think they embody?

Over the course of my life I have had very different experiences and yet I have always been me. When I was younger I was quite in my Leo Lioness Yang Energy, I worked full-time, did self defence classes, was a feminist activist, attended rallies, organised women’s policies, bought my own home and was incredibly independent and self-sufficient.

When I fell pregnant my external world started to change as my internal world shifted. The physical constraints of a pregnant body, from the aches and pains, to the full body fatigue, forced me to explore another way of being, a more internalised and quiet way and while I didn’t embrace the change fully, it was certainly the path to something new. I had also begun to delve more into earth based traditions & teachings and these 2 things combined, were the beginning of something different.

Then, after 6 years of single parenting, being in survival mode, doing and achieving and striving to build a business, provide for my family, be a great mum and still have some kind of life outside of all of this, I realised that I had had enough of being the man, I’d had enough of being in the masculine energies of constantly doing and achieving, it was exhausting me and I was reaching burnout from being on the constant go for so long. So I decided, during one auspicious astrological event, to hand over the ‘masculine’, providing role to the universe and to start focusing more on being in my feminine.

My whole life changed within 1 month of this new declaration and as can often happen when exploring a new dynamic of self, the pendulum swung quite strongly the other way as I dove headfirst into my Libran Moon Yin Inner Self. In my desire to embody these new energies I did go very deeply into many aspects of the feminine that weren’t actually in balance and would never have served me in the long run. However, it was necessary for me, in my exploration, to experience this extreme so that I could come back to my own centre and find my place of harmony, within my own personal balance of the masculine and feminine within me.

“And all of this is still only a minute glance into what I have been and experienced through my 40 years on this planet, it’s only a small insight into the depths that I have explored as a human being on this planet, at this time…”

Now anyone that I was in relationship with over any of this time, could have very different stories of me. Especially if they only knew me for months, or years. Some may see me as this hard ball-breaking go-getter that didn’t let anything get in her way. Others saw me as a super achiever who bought a house and raised a child on her own, while running a business. Others may see me as someone who had difficultly in making decisions and who was reluctant to work or achieve anything. Others would see me as a victim, who was overwhelmed by life and circumstance and was bordering on a mental breakdown, others may only see laziness as I learned how to slow down and BE more and then there are others who see all of this, the whole person who has been learning, exploring, growing, achieving, being, evolving, breaking, re-forming, imploding and re-emerging as I have mindfully explored every stage of this human be-ingness.

I’ve been in relationships where my partners have decided that they know who I am based on the short (or even long) period of time that we have spent together. I have noticed that instead of relating to me in the moment, or as a whole being who is capable of many things, they began to relate to a story they had of who they thought I was based on a finite period of time they had witnessed. Even when I tried to discuss the situation and explain that while who I am right now is me and authentic, that I am also a human being choosing to experience something new and learn something new and therefor how I may seem, as I am learning a new phase of existence, isn’t all of who I am.

Some people get it and some don’t, however I would encourage you to create an opportunity to look at the people in your life with different eyes, try to see more than you have before, take a moment to acknowledge the years that have been experienced and know that you can never fully know another person, whether they are your child, partner, parent, friend or family…

In Beauty

☾Shekinah Leigh ~ Honouring the Feminine
“Sacred Feminine Practitioner”