I almost quit my 'trip of a lifetime' after just 3 months...

Let me be clear with you here: it had very little to do with the external circumstances like money, van issues, fatigue, loneliness, or lack of support...

And everything to do with my energy balance: I was way too deep in my masculine because I thought the feminine energy was weak and dependent.

And those two traits were just about the worst things you could be in my eyes.

There's a lot of movement on social media about what it means to be feminine these days, and most of those people are wrong.

Being in your feminine is not some superficial lady with long hair, a long dress, soft voice and a penchant for pleasing her husband, who she must rely upon because she isn't strong enough to do anything herself.

Think of the truly feminine nature of a mother wolf in the wild... just because she can do it all, does not mean that she does do it all.

She allows the other wolves in the pack to protect and provide for her so she can focus on nurturing herself and her young ones. But when the occasion rises and she has to fight/ protect/ provide for herself or her offspring? You bet her ferocity will scare even the bears away.

I know this to be true for our human species as well, because I've seen it come into play time and time again. Some of the softest, most nurturing and loving mothers have turned into absolute beasts to protect their children from harm and it's such a beautiful sight to see this other side of them emerge.

But those mothers are often so soft and nurturing for everyone around them, that they forgot to nurture, love and protect themselves too.

They end up burnt out, stressed, living in survival mode, with a host of hormonal problems that the doctor just sells them a pill for.... but it doesn't fix the yearning in their heart because they know that there must be more to this life than the constant feeling of pressure from everyone around them.

Feeling balanced and grounded in your feminine energy is a hard one to define because it's not about doing anything, but about who you're being.

So let me break it down for you in a quick story about the biggest struggle I had on the road last year, and how it taught me one of my life's most important lessons... which was how to actually balance my own (very masculine) energy with the feminine without feeling like it was a weakness or loss of a part of me.

Picture this: I was 3 months into my 'trip of a lifetime' and I'd cruised the Whitsundays on a yacht, swam under waterfalls with friends, and skydived above the city of Cairns. I was in the Northern Territory, making my way towards Darwin.

But I was running out of my travel budget and my coaching business hadn't kicked off yet. I couldn't casual teach because it was a 6 week wait for the registration.

I didn't know where I was going to sleep that night and everything I'd read about Darwin told me it was super unsafe and I still wasn't very confident with sleeping in the van in the wild (e.g: away from a caravan park, also known as 'stealth camping, or according to the rangers 'illegal camping' 🙈).

The caravan parks were upwards of $80 a night, I was entering a city which honestly makes me stressy anyway because cities are chaotic, and I was feeling deeply unsettled in myself and my plans. I felt untethered, as if I might float away at any moment, and not in a feel-good-light-and-love-fairy way... 🧚🏼

I knew that the constant moving around and the lack of safety and stability meant I was on the edge of an epic burn-out crises. I was 3,700kms away from home and I felt like I didn't have anyone I could call for support because in my eyes, that would be a weakness... an admittance that I couldn't do it, that I'd made the wrong decision, that I was a failure.

I seriously considered turning around and driving home: I had just enough money for fuel to get back to my hometown and hopefully I'd be able to go back to teaching again to raise some more funds.

I spent the last 3 decades of my life believing that I had to do everything on my own and I had to be strong and be independent, and never rely on anyone for anything. If I projected this image of stability and competence then people would trust me, and that made me feel good about myself.

Until I realised that this very belief was going to be my undoing.

I made a decision in that moment that would prove absolutely pivotal for the rest of my life...

I decided to be vulnerable and post an ad on a Facebook group for Darwin Housesitter's. It was the only way I knew that I could create some (free!) safety for myself and allow myself to come home to myself again...

I stayed in that house for two weeks for free and really focussed on cutting out everything that created stress in my life. I invested in a business mentor and a therapist. I walked everyday and listened to music instead of educational content. I did a lot of journaling and soul seeking. I cried nearly every day. I remembered why I was on the trip in the first place.

I let myself relax more deeply than I had, maybe ever, in my lifetime.

I knew that I couldn't continue the way I had been... I was seeing beautiful things, but not feeling the beauty of them in my heart. I was too busy trying to control everything and make sure that it went my way, when in fact, my tightly held grip meant the opposite was happening! I didn't have any space for anything else to enter into my life, including better, more aligned opportunities.

That two weeks taught me that my masculine ego, the logical, controlling, action-taking, protect and provide at all costs, was completely dominating my life and my energetic signature was deeply out of balance. I had been too afraid to open up, accept, surrender, or release that grip, but now it was time to try something radically different.

I had to lean into relaxing and providing my body with the physical and emotional safety that it needed so I could regulate my nervous system. My body was stuck in a fight, flight, freeze stress response and as a result, my nervous system had taken over and was relying on adrenaline and cortisol to get me through each day... my 'non-essential' hormones, body systems, and organs had stopped working because my body literally thought I was fighting for my life every day. 

Which makes total sense, because many years ago, biologically, that's what men used to do. They would live in these cycles of protect and provide which included extreme danger, and then they would have periods of relative safety, calm, and nurturing from the women of the tribe so they could down-regulate their nervous systems. They developed the ability to 'reset' their hormones every night while they slept, but women did not... our hormones take 28 days to reset 🤯

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While you are stuck in your masculine energy all the time, your reproductive hormones cannot function because your nervous system has sent all of the available resources to your hearts and lungs to help you survive the 'danger'.

👋🏼 Hello hormonal issues, that lead into gut issues and IBS, that lead into asthma, hay fever, migraines, and all of those really popular but totally not normal health issues women complain about these days.

I had to get some coaching and therapy to highlight the beliefs I had that were causing me to stay in that masculine cycle of overwhelm, control, action, and hyper-independence.

I learnt about the masculine and feminine energy and realised that all of my coping mechanisms were actually causing me harm in the long-term.

I learnt better beliefs and figured out how to be and exist in each present moment, instead of constantly worrying about what the next action step was, what I had to achieve, or how I had to portray myself to maintain this image of competence...

And let me tell ya, by the time I'd gotten to Broome I felt like I was MORE MYSELF than I could ever remember being.

I no longer worried so much about the consequences or what people might say, I was no longer trapped in a cycle of overthinking, I started to heal my nervous system and create safety internally so that I can always feel calm even when my external environment is chaos.

I just spent the better part of a week sleeping in my van on the main esplanade of Adelaide with absolutely no worries or dramas at all...

And you know what's wild? The more calm and internal safety I've been able to bring to my life, the more I've surrendered, the more beauty I've noticed, the more pleasure I've found in the present moment, the more clarity I've had about my decisions, the more abundance has come into my life!

My calmest, happiest, living freely and completely unrestrained weeks have always rewarded me with new clients, new followers online, messages from my higher self/intuition/ spirit guides, and random acts of kindness from strangers.

I've learnt all of this over a process of years and $$$ of self-ddevelopment, but it doesn't have to take you that long and cost you that much! In fact, I helped someone with a massive relationship issue in a ONE HOUR session last night- even though that lesson took me 3 years to learn for myself 🤯

This is why you invest in the coach: because I have the life lessons, the training, and energetic capacity to hold you through all of your emotions, your old beliefs, and energy shifts so that you never feel unsupported or alone again.... because you'll learn how to create such a safe, loving and nurturing space for yourself which will lead to health, happiness, and a true inner peace and joy that you probably haven't felt since you were an innocent little child.

Thank God I never turned that van around, hey  ? 😉

Haley 🤍