September '24 in the SMP

the state of the Project

What a difference a year makes (pretty sure I’ve titled an article this before…must be some truth in it, eh?) 

Last year, around this time, I was experiencing a bit of confusion and uncertainty about how best to support mamas in this situation in a way that was sustainable for me. I decided to seek stillness and invite answers. I write about the experience in this piece: 

Good Medicine

It actually got weirder for me that fall and into the winter. A string of odd, seemingly unrelated and sometimes even frightening synchronicities (that literally brought me to my knees yet again) led me to enroll in a Jungian depth coaching certification program. 

And, let me tell you, that it has since been a wild, confusing, exhilarating, frustrating, joyous roller coaster of a capacity-building experience like only depth work can provide! Transformation is–well–messy, to say the least. This program has put me through it, as it promised it would. 

I’ve learned a ton about Jung and psychology and ancient philosophy and archetypes and dreams and shadow work and inner peace…but I also have learned a ton about the human experience and myself and what being oriented toward the divine (in you, in me, in those I disagree with, in those in excruciating pain, in those who bring alive contempt in me, in Life and the full human experience) really looks like. The good, the bad, and the ugly. We are all all of it. And most of us are so desperate to hide our “ugly” from the world, that our egos bury it deep, hiding it especially from ourselves.

We fail to see that there’s actually exquisite beauty to be found in it. And exploring these “ugly” parts of ourselves may be the only real path to claim agency over our Lives and to create the sense of meaning and purpose so many are craving. 

I’ve had to process some painful things. I had admit to myself that I was doing too much teaching and not enough real work with my clients. I had to recognize my own discomfort with messy emotions and that I have a tendency to use intellection as a defense mechanism. (I’ve taken to calling this the intellectual bypass; I’ll bet some of you resonate with that? It sounds something like, “If I understand it, then I’ve done my work.” Oh, if only this were true!)

I had to recognize my own shadow around authority and sense of responsibility for anyone other than myself–and find a way to inhabit the paradox of maintaining my orientation toward individual values while becoming “the mother” my community needed me to be. This community attracted amazing moms eager to both receive and provide guidance, and the container needed to be clear so I could hold the line when needed and keep the SMP Center from becoming yet another breeding ground for despair and division. 

It continues to be a work in progress, but I honestly couldn’t be more thrilled with the growth I see in the moms who regularly engage the content and keep showing up for the challenging work we do together. I also have an incredible leadership team who stepped up last fall when I made an appeal to each of them for support. Now they sprinkle magic throughout the network and make the growth-oriented culture seem effortless. I want to publicly thank them for their immense dedication to the success of the Stoicmom Project and its Center. 

My faith that we can spread this SMP way (that has lots of flexibility for you to make it yours) and help families who’ve made it this far to stay together–or make the conditions for reuniting possible where kids have estranged themselves–is now unshakeable. I think it’s been tried and tested by enough Stoic mamas that we can advocate with full confidence for a third path that frees families from the false dichotomy of affirming vs non-affirming. 

The SMP has become resilient and taken on a Life of its own. It’s definitely so much bigger than me now. I’m sure there are Stoic mamas out there who’ve still never heard of the SMP–but they too recognized The Call, and they chose a path of surrender (not to their child’s demands or the ideology, but to Life’s unfairness,) of allowing this circumstance to change them, evolve them, grow them into more compassionate, connected, discerning humans who impact the world around them through the sheer equanimity of their presence. 

If you are still in the throes of despair, destabilization, and grief–please know that a dark night of the soul is embedded in this process. True transformation doesn’t happen without pain. We all spent time in that ugly and the intensity and length of time spent there will vary based on many things that are beyond your control. This is a necessary phase. There are no ashes for the Phoenix to rise from without the raging fire that happens first. There is no butterfly without the messy time spent in the chrysalis, where the cells completely reorganize themselves. It hurts. 

I hope when you reach the point that the anger no longer feels sustainable, that you figure out how to let that grief work its way through your body, changing you into someone you’ve yet to meet, a more evolved you who is seasoned through the pain and broken open to Life’s exquisiteness. Because it hurts either way. As Anais Nin says in this classic quote I’ve used before: 

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

If at any point, you think I might be able to be a guide on your journey to your own butterfly path, I hope you take the next step to exploring that. Maybe I’m not your person. That’s okay. Please find the resources you need to get you through the painful transformation. On the other side is Life as you’ve never known it could be. 

Photo by Vinayak Gurav on Unsplash

I know this has been a little different than the typical monthly newsletter, but it felt right to offer a sort of “State of the SMP”. This Project has been through important growing pains this past year, and now it’s here to stay. The SMP will continue to support moms who are experiencing the most destabilizing of parenting circumstances to emerge from them transformed into a more aligned and whole version of the mamas’ selves, maybe fully comfortable in their own skin for the first time. Hmm. Sounds to me like just what our kids need from us…