Rooted in Light
tl;dr: The big news is: Tuesday has launched! Here I offer some reflections on what it means for us (including YOU) to come out of the spiritual closet. Oh! And our Imperfection Retreat starts on Sunday. You can still sign up here!
I am absolutely delighted that you can finally get a taste of one of the most beautiful miracles that is unfolding before my eyes.
If you and I have been in community for a while you already know that I live in constant adoration of Tuesday, my wife and love of many lifetimes.
Just this week she took the wild and courageous step to “come out of the spiritual closet.” Launching tuesdayrivera.com and her new podcast “Rooted in Light.”
I was beside myself when Tuesday asked me to interview her for the launch episode of her podcast. You should definitely check it out. It is a fun and meaningful conversation about what this work is. Its promise. Its demand. And the miraculous beauty of its unfolding.
I don’t think it makes sense for me to repeat here what you should really find out about by jumping over to Tuesday’s website. So I want to focus on something else instead. I want to bring our shared attention to what it means to “come out of the spiritual closet.” (She had a cute post about it here.)
I know that I myself have struggled with how to present the wholeness of what it is I offer. I am a facilitator, I have many years of experience weaving leadership networks. I help movements and organizations learn to adapt and work with complexity. I do intense work with leadership teams. I have long been doing the work of helping us reimagine the whole paradigm of how we think about strategy.
This is work that institutions pay me for. And it is an important part of how I make a living. I love what I do.
And I have this other side of me. This essential and life giving part of my work. The part where I serve as a guide, and support transformational healing, and pursue my commitment to practice. And always aim to help us remember our ancestral wisdom. The work of coming into our essential wholeness.
This is not a part that I ever turn off. The fact is that this work is never separate. One side might be in the foreground in some spaces, and another side foregrounded in other spaces. But I am always the same person. And it is by being rooted in spirit that I get to do what I do.
So I am continually asking myself the question. And I know this is a question many of you ask yourselves too.
How do I present myself? How do I represent the nature of my work?
Embedded in this question is fear. Fear that by being too out front about this “spiritual” nature of my work, I will somehow alienate potential clients that want to make sure all the “worky” stuff stays in its appropriate box. But spirituality really is the work of becoming deeply, truly and authentically human. It is about being the fullness of ourselves. And it is our shared longing. It is how we want to be in each and every space that we inhabit.
It is the boxing ourselves up that is causing so much suffering, an so much dissatisfaction, and so much burn out. The problem is in this having to “work” while collectively forcing ourselves to put essential aspects of our humanity aside.
And to be clear. I am not in any way suggesting that boundaries are not good, and that our work spaces should somehow turn into therapy spaces, or that anyone gets to impose a spiritual cosmology on anyone else.
What I’m saying is that there is a growing number of us out there that are tuning into this layer of depth. And that we are struggling with figuring out how not to silo it. Wondering how to bring it forth. And that while we might not yet know how all of this is going to play out, we can at least take a breath in knowing that if these words resonate with you, you are not alone.
Tuesday is a masterful strategist. She has done complex systems work with organizations of all scales. Her work ranges from international humanitarian agencies to a diversity of government systems. My wife has all the chops.
And yet, here she is, taking what feels like a gigantic risk and a leap of radical faith. Coming out as a vessel of the sacred, placing herself in full service of the Divine Feminine Energy that flows so powerfully through her.
We are blessed to bear witness to this courage and this Grace. And to have a front row seat in seeing how it all unfolds.
May we all bring our attention to the song of our own hearts. The song that wants to be sung. And must.