February the 1st/2nd, also called Imbolc in certain traditions, and the time of the first snowdrops, a bit of sun even if it is chilly (well in the Northern hemispheres). Here in the UK, there is brighter sun, but it is still freezing in the morning. Anyway, I have started very British haven’t I with talking about the weather?!
However, these weather and seasonal changes do have great significance in the natural cycles of the year. From the beginning of February until the end of April is sometimes called The Cleansing Tide. This can be a useful time to look at what we need to cleanse from our own lives and environment, what needs decluttering, what no longer serves us.
Last year I wrote and curated a coaching programme based on the four tides of the year: Cleansing, Growing, Reaping, Resting, and it can be adapted by the person facilitating it or using it. These four ‘tides’ are inherent in Nature and well known in agriculture (I am no farmer or agriculture gifted person, but I find the cycles followed fascinated and useful). Other traditions like Wicca and Paganism have adopted these natural tides, and we find them in many paths and traditions in their own way.
We naturally have these tides occurring in us as natural beings, but we don’t always listen to them. I have found greater productivity and peace by paying attention to them, and tailoring projects and goals to these cycles. I am also very aware of when I have gone against them, which can result in burn out, ill health, frustration.
So, here we are in the Cleansing Tide right now. It is an interesting one for me as some of the ‘cleansing’ has come from a setback in the breast cancer and health journey over the Christmas period and into January. I was unable to return to work early in January due to this and a rash/skin condition that was sunlike anything I had seen before but was signalling my cells and blood were out of order. I won’t go into medical detail right now.
What it opened the way for me to do was reassess and to look more deeply into whether or not I am living intentionally and whether I am in line with my own heart and intentionality for death. Have I got any of my ladders up the wrong wall? Perhaps the right ladders, but some wrong walls, or perhaps some of the walls are just not my walls, but there I plonked my ladder anyway!
I don’t usually like to talk about which is my core Enneagram type I identify with – mostly because I am done with people’s opinions and taking time to argue what type people are or are not. The type I identify with most and where I get my biggest bang for my buck is Enneagram 3 SX then Soc (or potentially Soc SX – but both close anyway). 3w2 but moving much into my 4 wing in midlife (and there have been other times in my life where I would say 3w4 was fitting for whatever reason, but anyway, both wings influence my 3ness). Many say I seem like 2w3 because they see the helper and all the therapy I do and how I navigate people. However, that is without asking my deeper narratives and struggles below much of the helping I do.
Of course, any type can be caring and helpful or slip into some martyrdom. The question is ’Why?’ So, the past 4 or 5 years I have engaged with deep work at point 3 and I feel this work and struggle way more than a couple of other Enneagram fixations I worked on over the past 15 years, despite 3 keeping cropping up as a ‘strong wing’ or a line or so I thought. Nothing has been lost with the previous work though. It is less about getting ‘the exact right type’ and more about being present and open to what is needed.
My lifelong battle has been about placing my ladders. With a penchant (ok, obsession) for goal setting and checking of goal and task lists, a few of my ladders got up the wrong walls. And once I started climbing, I was afraid it was failure to climb back down. The I became exhausted, unwell, battling breast cancer, and actually feeling boxed in and stuck. I thought the initial breast cancer diagnosis was enough for me to ‘sort all this out’, but here I am again in a round of ‘ladder assessment’. This time with a deeper insight and a new sight. Don’t get me wrong I have been doing the work, but it is in layers right?
Right now, I am ‘cleansing’ the business I founded and co-won, cleansing the direction of (yet another) university degree, cleansing where I put my energy and time, cleansing those damn lists, and really addressing intentional and essential living for myself. In this I am addressing the pain of where I believe I have failed (these beliefs may well be not true – feel real but not true). I am allowing myself to feel the awful pain and shame of sitting with this instead of jumping to the thing I can ‘shine’ at (ok I am still jumping a bit but catching myself mid jump 😉).
I don’t want to sound dramatic, but right now I am unsure of life and death for me, but then again none of us know when do we really. So no worrying, I am still hear and engaging with what is needed and am looking to do really well. It is OK on the one hand to pick out the (gorgeous) dress you want to be buried in (heaven forbid I leave it to someone else to choose unless they can really work with style and colour analysis 😉) and on the other hand looking at the next true heart project I want to create for my future and legacy and building upon the things that made the list. Both/and.
I believe this very shift in me is helping to heal some of those cells. Though of course, I take the medicine too 😊
I often start Life Coaching (or what I now call Intentional Living Coaching) with an gravestone PDF and ask the person to write their epitaph. The first and main line of mine is this:
She made a difference – and looked good doing it!
But then it is followed by not a list of BAs and PhDs now, but a list of beautiful qualities I have (and open myself to) that people will truly remember me for.
Leighah Roni Beadle-Darcy is the Founder (founded 2013) & Co-owner of Physis CEPD Services (formally Physis Arts, Sciences, and Therapies). BA(hons), MA, PG cert, Dip CPC/coun, Dip dance therapy, Cert nutrition, PHCP (MBTI), Certified Enneagram teacher and trainer through the School of Conscious Living. MBACP.