I’ve been journeying through the five stages of The Thankless Task over the past decade (and in truth, before that for most of my life at stages 1 & 2), if you’re human, I suspect they’re stages that you’re journeying through too.

And you’ll notice that there’s no “How to” move through these stages, that’s because it’s the same work I speak about over and over. It is the work of individuating and actualising to live from soul - our deepest, fullest truth - which requires devotion to healing our wounds, integrating shadow and realising our union with all that is…. And it begins with choosing to begin.

1. That it’ll come easily.

Yes, a vital part of doing your soul work is about doing what you’re innately great at, but ‘innately’ doesn’t mean that there won’t be a tonne of conditioning and wounding in the way or that it won’t require years of guidance and practice to fully actualise it.

Last week’s #wildwednesday invitation over at Waking The Wild is one that couldn’t be closer to my heart… it’s all about finding your special tree (or honouring it in reflection if you already have one), if you want to join us in this practice, the link is in the comments. And also do share with like-minded friends who might want to join too!

This poem below is one I wrote some time ago that is my reflection of what my tree has provided to me (it’s truthfully beyond words but words will have to do). ♥️

I remember growing up, I used to be asked *that* question…

“What do you want to do when you grow up?”

It probably happened much less often to me than to most children because #hippylife but it would still occur when I ventured out into the world of mounting mortgages and shiny new cars, in which it seemed that children were meant to have their life plan all figured out from the age of six, maybe so they can be ready to do what’s needed to get the mortgage and car.

I happened to see that Sara in the WTW Team shared a short clip of John Patrick Morgan and I talking about the King archetype (link below) into a thread about women referring to men as “kings”.

I was on my daily wild wander this morning and appreciating one of the first bright sunny days in weeks… so far 2023, here in my corner of England, has been predominantly grey, rainy, cold and blustery.

Whatever the weather or time of day… I’ve gone out into the wild, day after day, season after season, year after year.

A sneak peek behind the scenes of Waking The Wild today! 👁️

It’s our first day back at work and we’re straight into ‘22 review and ‘23 planning. This year will be a mythical year for Waking The Wild in all the ways!

That means we need to create more intentional structure and support, including…

recently recorded my solo show All The Everything (a monthly variant of the Waking The Wild Show) and the topic was ‘How to be powerful and responsible about your neurodivergent needs and gifts’ - there’s a link to the show below.

The invitation within the episode was to be conscious and sovereign about your neurodivergence… honouring what comes with that, and the wounding that will make that challenging, without making yourself, others or the world wrong.

Here’s what showed up for me this year, and in true Lian-style, it turned out to be all about myth and archetypes…

THE CHILD

I devoted to knowing, loving and listening to my inner child more deeply than ever.

I haven’t chosen a ‘word for the year’ for many years since I realised that I’d reached a point on the path where letting go of that form of (perceived) control of my experience was necessary to go further, and yet, this week little Li asked for 2023 to be the year of the Child: the archetypes of the Child, my inner girl, my actual children, and the inner child of everyone who I’m in connection with.

I interviewed a chap (they might not be a chap and I may have changed some details to protect their identity) for The Waking The Wild Show recently… he is one of those people that folk in the coaching world get excited about… a multi-millionaire, a creator, a trailblazer. There’s much to appreciate and admire about him.

As I said in my last post, my father has been on my mind a lot in recent weeks as I’m descending into yet another Jungian-hewed abyss.

This morning I was pondering how in my spiritual, magical, rewilding circles (where neo-paganism so infuses the water we swim in, even if it’s not directly mentioned) the common refrain of “Solstice blessings!” that will ring out today, takes me back to childhood, a time when my father and his friends honoured the summer and winter solstices, sometimes with all night celebrations in the woods.

Barely a day goes by when I don’t recall or realise a lesson learned from…

my martial arts days

my digital days

my 13-year-old who was obsessed with myths and psychology

A dear friend sent this to me yesterday - it makes ALL the sense to me. 🥰

I’m told on a very regular basis that I’m in my own world or that I exist in my own bubble, and we don’t even need to get into my ‘creative’ relationship to time.

TLDR: we’re closed for business - ish.

As we approach a million downloads of the podcast, our offerings filling up before we’ve barely had the chance to open them for enrollment (sometimes before they’ve even been created) and having to turn people away on an increasingly regular basis… we’ve reached a point in our evolution that is a death and rebirth, beyond what we foresaw.

Like many of you, I’ve practised accepting myself, seeing through the illusion of myself, liking myself, losing myself, transcending myself and loving myself.

And what’s creating the most expansion for me is: being in full, deep approval of myself.

“The syntactical nature of reality, the real secret of magic, is that the world is made of words. And if you know the words that the world is made of, you can make of it whatever you wish.” Terence McKenna

An important aspect of the work that we do at Waking The Wild, both our own inner work and the work we do with others, is about the words used to create ourselves and the world.

At any one time, the good ship Waking The Wild carries between twenty and thirty souls, depending on the crucibles that are in play, with thirty being the absolute maximum.

The upper limit is fully intentional, based on how many people Waking The Wild can hold so that every person, passenger and crew, can be met in the most powerful, loving and aligned way during their time onboard with us.

It’s so interesting having memories like this come up - ie written before the autism diagnosis in May ‘21.

To a large extent, I’d already accepted my quirks, and the experiences, gifts and challenges they’d created over my life, even though I hadn’t yet fully understood the reason for them.

(I could have waited until it’s 10 years to write this but it felt right to do it now - see #8)

1. Creating a successful business takes time. I remember being about 2 years into running my own business and sharing the challenges with a close friend, she recalled that her father said it typically takes 3 years for a business to become successful, that was so helpful to hear back then. And…

I’ve just realised that I didn’t personally share this episode (link in comments) I recorded with my beloved Lucy Pearce at the time we released it a few weeks ago… it wasn’t a conscious decision not to, I share episodes to my timeline quite rarely, though this was obviously much closer to home than most so maybe there was a subconscious hiding at play.