How She-Wolf helped me open to my gifts as a healer through the fear of rejection and losing approval… 🐺
‘Archetypal Lupa - or She-Wolf - offers an energetic ‘permission slip’ to be our true, authentic selves. To begin to reclaim the parts of our soul that have been lost to this wounding of ‘not enoughness’ - the fear of judgement and rejection, the fear of being ‘outcast’ as a lone wolf, especially for being our true selves. ’
- Nicole Barton
Oh, how I know you may resist that label of ‘wild’ (maybe it’s terrifying) - and maybe it also somewhat excites you too, deep down…
I so feel your heart, because that was once me. I was contemplating the other day, how I used to feel totally the opposite of ‘wild’ - I felt caged, trapped and contained, not ‘free’ and ‘fully expressed’. I felt stuck in a dull, grey mundane life - a life I just didn’t feel fulfilled in. I see now, I was the Archetypal “Good Girl”; I lived my life in fear of judgement and rejection, seeking approval, sticking close to the conditioning that ‘success’ looked a certain way, and that I had to ‘fit into’ that. And, in contorting myself this way, I dishonoured my ‘No’ and shoved down and shamed my true authentic self-expression, keeping myself small.
Of course, I knew somewhere, deep down, that I had ‘wild’ emotions - sometimes rage or deep emotional outbursts - but I shamed these ‘wild emotions’ as ‘too much’ (whilst feeling ‘not enough’) - feeling like the ‘weird’ one, who couldn’t just be ‘normal’ like everyone else and contain my raw feelings.
I was deeply unhappy in this life. I was in a career that burned me out, a marriage that wasn’t aligned, and I felt a secret, hidden calling to a life of more meaning as a healer, teacher or guide - but I shoved that down, closing to my true possibility.
I couldn’t have been further from the *wild*, fully expressed healer I am now, who visits my tree (sometimes naked!) for sacred rituals - howling at the moon in my she-wolf-like way, and expresses my heart for the world to feel my medicine. The healer who honours my rage as *sacred* and a sign of my inner ‘No’ being crossed.
And at the time, I had no idea how this shaming of my true expression was impacting me in the journey of becoming the healer, guide and teacher I longed to be. I had no idea that my ‘self-expression’ wounds were affecting my capacity to even *open* my heart to my deeper purpose as a healer - let alone actualise the full expression of that in the world.
You see, at the time, I didn’t know that ‘becoming a healer’ was an initiation itself. I felt a deep longing, but I had no idea that there was this messy “in between” period of ‘becoming’ a healer, that requires us to heal our inner ‘wounded healer’. And that part of that ‘becoming’ involves healing and reclaiming our wild true, authentic full expression (so that our unique remedy can be shared into the world and seen by others). I had no idea that there was such a thing as a ‘witch wound’, which would have us healers shaming our wild truth and finding it challenging to express our gifts.
In honesty, I didn’t know that I had wounding around my ‘wildness’ and true expression.
I certainly didn’t see its importance - and it would likely have terrified me to think of reclaiming it.
What I discovered was that - in my days ‘pre-wildness’ - I was living life (innocently) from my inner little girl’s deep fear of being ‘abandoned’, ‘judged’, or ‘rejected’ - which had me shame and shut down my true authenticity and who I really was. Having experienced a family split, age 4 - in which I lost my Dad and my adopted sister - I learned to carry the stories in my bones that I was ‘rejectable’, ‘unworthy of love’, and ‘unlovable’ - and that I couldn’t be who I truly was. Even more recently, I’ve come to see that I continuously lived life feeling like an ‘orphan’, fearing being outcast. It’s heart-breaking to see that, and yet, I know now that this fear of ‘abandonment’ for being our true selves is a common fear of sensitive women who were born here to be healers - which can have us either deny our deeper purpose, or later struggle to express our activating truth and ripple our unique Archetypal Remedy into the world.
And so, I found myself, later, in my 20’s, having caged myself in this ‘mundane’ box, being who I thought I ‘should’ be, trapped in a life that didn’t feel like ‘mine’ (career, marriage, home) - shaming my deep, raw and wild emotions and sensitivity, fearing being rejected, ignoring my boundaries, and people-pleasing in order to stay loved and avoid abandonment.
Aka, I was rejecting my ‘inner wild’ - for fear that my true expression of the healer I was born to be would obliterate my life and leave me alone and unloved.
I couldn’t have been less of an expression of ‘wild’ if I’d tried - other than the ‘inner wild’ that wanted to keep bursting out, that I shamed (my sacred rage, my wild emotions, my depth).
It wasn’t until one day, when I was invited on Badass Women’s Hour radio to share my healing wisdom - and I remember thinking “why are they asking me? I’m not a wild Badass?” - that I began to consider that maybe I actually was a ‘wild one’ of some kind (given they’d invited me to share!). I realised, I’d either always played the role of the ‘Good Girl’ - or swung into ‘Rebel’ when I’d had enough of that (later shaming myself for it).
That began some deeper contemplation for me. When I later went on to experience the powerful portal of childbirth (in a very wild, messy, raw way!), I realised that despite it not being a label I’d have ever given myself I was, actually, ‘wild’. I went on a more conscious journey to reclaim the ‘inner wildness’ I’d lost (which I now realise was the beginnings of my journey with She-Wolf).
You see, there had always been this deep part of me that had hugely heightened emotional sensitivity. When pushed beyond my boundaries, I had a wild ‘howl’ that would erupt out, that I could no longer contain. There had always been a rawness, a truthfulness to me, that I’d shamed as ‘unwelcome’ - that I’d shamed as ‘too much when others ran from it - yet it had always ‘sneaked out’ when I was angry. There had always been a brilliant instinctual depth to me - one that knew or felt or saw more than others did, that I’d also shoved down, thinking it wasn’t welcome.
And all of a sudden, when I was in the initiation of ‘birth’, something changed in me - I began to sense the shift of the energetic ‘mama She-Wolf’, coming in - the protective, nurturing, instinctive mama to her cubs. I was not only birthing my daughter, but I was being rebirthed, myself - as my full and true expression. I was being called deeper into the full expression of the healer I really was.
It was then that I consciously began to work with Archetypal Lupa, or ‘Lac lupinum’ (She Wolf Mothers’ Milk) as an energetic remedy to rebirth myself and reclaim my authentic self-expression.
You see, Archetypal Lupa - or She-Wolf - offers an energetic ‘permission slip’ to be our true, authentic selves. To begin to reclaim the parts of our soul that have been lost to this wounding of ‘not enoughness’ - the fear of judgement and rejection, the fear of being ‘outcast’ as a lone wolf, especially for being our true selves.
She-Wolf holds up a mirror to help us begin to see the underlying patterns that have kept us ‘captive’ and gives us permission to open our hearts to who our souls were born here to be - as healers, teachers or guides. To allow ourselves to open to our gifts, and also to become the fuller expression of our true selves.
She invites us to learn how to open to expressing the fullness of our unique Archetypal Remedy (gifts) - no matter what others think of us and our ‘woo’. She invites us to howl our truth to the shimmer of the moon and be in our fullness.
And not from a place of ‘rebellion’, or ‘obliteration’ of our lives as we know them, either.
I know that it’s a common fear of women who feel a call to She-Wolf’s energy that they will have to run away to the woods, snapping and snarling at everyone, and becoming a ‘lone wolf’ to embrace their gifts. And I soon learned that ‘rebellion’ (as the medicine of the ‘wolf’ is usually taught in other paths) and ‘running away’ is likely still coming from our wounding - the ‘Rebel’ is just a swing to the other end of the pole when we’ve had enough of being the ‘Good Girl’). Instead, She-Wolf offers us the permission to hear our own instinctive wildness, and begin to learn to honour it fully, in a way that is nurturing and unconditionally loving and honouring of our soul - and a loving role model to others (including our families, friends and communities).
🐺 She gives us permission to radically honour our bodies, without feeling ‘selfish’
🐺 She gives us permission to open our hearts to hear and honour our wild instincts
🐺 She gives us permission to hear our heart’s true calls and choose to nurture our soul
🐺 She gives us permission to express our truth and authentic expression
Ultimately, she’s wildness from love.
Working with She-Wolf doesn’t require us to enter ‘childbirth’ to be in that portal (as I did), either; she usually calls us when we are being called to ‘rebirth’ ourselves (which is what happened via my portal of childbirth, though we can receive that call in many different ways).
She-Wolf will call us when we are being called to answer the call of ‘rebirthing’ as a healer, teacher or guide, owning our call to express our more meaningful purpose (even and especially if that feels terrifying).
She reveals that there’s a way to heal our wounds around rejection and judgement, and begin to ‘uncage’ and ‘rebirth’ ourselves - to open to our healing gifts, to reclaim our raw truth, to learn to honour our soul and our authentic, unique expression - to release our ‘inner wild’ - whilst also being unconditionally loving.
She helps us ‘decondition’ ourselves of all that has had us caged - and she does that via sisterhood and community, providing a safe space for you to play in welcoming your full, true expression and be loved.
Is that something you feel a desire for?
All my love,
if you've any questions, send me an email.
Nicole x
Image By Carmen Sanchez
