Right now, I am looking back on the years of writing that went into The Sovereignty Knot because I'm talking with the Sovereign Writers Circle about the long process of writing, editing, and rewriting that goes into a book.
I’m going through years of files, looking at all the free writes and false starts. (This process of reviewing and revisiting is the perfect Mercury Retrograde activity, by the way.)
There were so many words needed to be written but did not need to be in the book. These were the stories I needed to heal.
And since it's the new moon and my body bleeds when the sky is dark, I find myself in that place of tender rawness, that place of being so empty and so full all at once. In this state, it is possible to open up and hold space for these old stories, this old pain. I can root my feet into the earth and turn my face to the sun and let my womb drain and let these old wounds matter until they too can dry and heal.
Yes, it’s the perfect day to fall into this web of “old words and old wounds.” Not to get stuck, but because it's important to visit the spaces within that have been healed. It's an inner galaxy that feels intimately true, but, at the same time, it’s as if all these pages were written some ancient ancestor.
The five year process of writing The Sovereignty Knot (which actually began as an attempt to write a trilogy of fantasy novels) changed me.
It changed me so much that the passage I’m about to share no longer describes my reality. And yet, the pain I described is still an important element of the story I’ve lived. I share this bit from my archives here to honor my own healing process and because I know there’s a woman out there who needs to hear them.
Someone needs to watch a sister write her way through the old pain because there is hope on the other side.
It’s hard to put an exact date on this writing, but I am guessing it’s from at least two years ago. Like I said, it feels like they came through in another lifetime, written by a version of me who yearned for Sovereignty, but who couldn’t quite believe Sovereignty was meant for her...
A Story that Cried Out for Healing
I left my body.
Not on my deathbed, the operating table, or even in a moment of horrific trauma. No, I left my body in a thousand little moments…
The first kiss that felt so icky and just seemed to go on forever.
That time my dance teacher ordered me an extra large costume, and it hung off me so I felt like a baby elephant wearing her mother's skin while all the other tiny ballerinas looked like tropical birds.
The days I just had to ignore the searing pain in my cervical spine as I scooped up a toddler and just tried to keep moving despite the agony.
If I get back into my body, I might start screaming and never stop.
I might find a rage there that burns so bright I will burst into flames from the inside.
I might remember all the slobbering kisses, sour with beer and the lack of any actual human regard.
I might remember the scattering of times I put my finger down my own throat and how I almost envied the girls with the strength to do that again and again and again.
I might remember what it was to love so much and give so much and feel so depleted as I tried to fill little hands that always, always, always reached out for more.
Living in a body. Really living in a body. I don’t have any idea how.
But I used to be a dancer. And today, I danced around my office.
And I felt phenomenal. And nauseated. And like I was doing something I had denied myself for so, so long.
And I want to be dancing right now, but I am also so grateful that I am trapped in a car waiting for my girls (who, of course, are at their own dance class) so that I can only write about dancing. I can ignore that there’s no good way to wedge a laptop between myself and the steering wheel if I want any freedom to type. I can think about having a body and all of the ways I left if so that I do not have to do the dangerous, deadly work of getting back inside this skin of mine.
Looking Back from the Other Side of a Healed Story
It’s easy to forget the sad old stories once they’ve been healed.
Now, I can look up from these old pages, held frozen in time on my hard drive, and I can see how much has shifted for me.
I can be deeply grateful for how much more free and powerful I feel than I did just a few years ago. I can marvel that getting back into my own body was gradual and gentle, not dangerous or deadly. I can see that this change wasn’t the result of forcing myself into an exercise routine, but by being honest about the stories I was telling about my own experience of being embodied.
So much was healed in the writing of The Sovereignty Knot. This happens whenever you give yourself the time, space, and permission to write something true. Birthing this book allowed me to truly become Sovereign in my own body and in my own life.
It’s important to note that I barely talk about “body stuff” in the book. It’s there on the edges as I talk about my reproductive story, mention my home birth, and remark that the whole idea of Body Sovereignty that deserves a book of its own. Instead, I dive deep into spirituality and grief and marriage. These are the parts of my life I had healed enough to explore in depth. The issues with body image and shame and chronic depletion… Those wounds only began to heal through the writing process and I am only just now able to speak about them on the public page and in the public gaze.
And I have proof.
At the end of book launch week, I was still dancing. I danced around my living room. I danced like I remembered all the steps and like I was completely at home in my skin. I danced and I posted it online because I needed my readers to see that Sovereignty is about being brave and delighting in music and movement that frees the soul. I needed to show the world that I was bringing my whole body into this process, and that was possible because I had spent so much time in my own head writing The Sovereignty Knot.
I didn’t know that I needed to write a book so I could dance again, but here on the other side, it seems perfect and inevitable.
Finding your Sovereign Story has a way of healing the past and, yes freeing the princess, so that you can fully embody your magic.
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