No One Is Coming To Save You - The Words That Changed My Life
The biggest lesson I learned from this was NO ONE was coming to save me - and that I was going to have to choose to heal myself. And I'm still spiralling into deeper and deeper lessons of this, because it's my lifetimes's work as a Medicine Woman (whose very shadow and gold is trusting herself).
~ Nicole Barton
NO ONE IS COMING TO SAVE YOU...
Medicine Woman first knocked on my door when I was the tender young age of 10. I had suffered grief and trauma on the run up for about 5 years, and it was catching up with me - I was so burned out that one day I just woke up, unable to walk, barely able to move and just numb. I remember being wheeled around on an office chair as a kind of makeshift wheelchair.
I didn't know it then, but that whole period of having what the mainstream doctors then termed 'yuppy flu' was one of my first magical initiations.
And, because our collective culture knows only to "fix what's broken", my family, very innocently, spent their lives dedicated to doctors appointments and all manner of "woo" - from herbs to reflexology to homeopathy.
We tried everything to 'fix' me - and to an extent it helped because it had my nervous system more rested, and I was receiving magical healing, but it didn't stop the pattern repeating itself. And so, age 23, Medicine Woman initiated me again, calling me with more Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
Only this time, I began to enter the magical lens for myself. I remember a therapist at the time asked me "you're not a victim, are you Nicole?" - and it triggered the HELL out of me (something I now refer to as the "Victim Slap" - and, FYI, we will *all* go there - there's no escaping it, though we can also unconsciously avoid taking its medicine of truth). It triggered me because I'd spent my life avoiding being a victim by trying to fix myself - and hustling hard at that. This Victim Slap was some of the toughest medicine I've ever taken.
But that Victim Slap woke me up to the truth that I actually WAS being a victim: I was *waiting* to be *rescued* by someone else.
I remember sobbing my heart out at this medicine being spoken - it felt agonising to face the truth. I remember feeling so alone, too.
Naturally, I then swung to the opposite end of the shadow pole (rebelling against being a victim) and took my Medicine Woman off to Bali by myself to do a yoga teacher training for a month - I was terrified as I'd not travelled alone before (and I'm grateful that my natural gifts are devotion because that initiation was hardcore) but the immersion into magic (ritual, daily practice, altar kneeling, being in the wild, devotion to my calling, connection to spirit and soul, being loved and welcomed into community) it taught me that I didn't actually need to be rescued after all.
That trip initiated me into my own Medicine Woman - and by the end of that month I'd gone from utter exhaustion to having entirely healed my Chronic Fatigue (and doing long days of yoga practice, headstands and climbing a mountain - with a huge fear of heights, as well as shy, wallflower Secret Witch Nicole teaching yoga!).
She taught me my power, back then, through that initiation.
And even still, I didn't reclaim Medicine Woman *consciously* until she later paralysed my face - because I'd fallen back into not listening to her.
This time I knew this was a somewhat choiceless choice my soul was calling me to make. This time she wasn't pleading or begging me to listen; she was forcing me to look at what was required for me to be who I said I wanted to be (and FYI, I say this with some jest as we *always* have a choice, just largely we are choosing unconsciously).
And so, rather than look to the mainstream - or even to unconscious "woo lite" as I call it now (which isn't intrinsically 'lite', it's just how it's interacted with) - I began to connect with Medicine Woman more consciously, calling in her spirit, embodying her ways, honouring her with ritual and practices, and harnessing her as an Archetypal mirror for self discovery. And this time, I began to consciously use the energetic remedies she taught me to connect with the spirit of for self healing, and discovery (through what I now call my Medicine Woman's Archetypal Apothecary, the method I dose to help others invoke their healing gifts).
The results?
I learned to love myself
I learned that I could heal myself
I learned to look honestly at the kinky pleasures my victim got from being ill and burned out (love, attention, etc)
I discovered and reclaimed my own Feminine healing power
I rediscovered that magic was real
I magically healed my "unhealable" paralysed face
I discovered my creative power (and let go of my victim)
I discovered my soul's gifts (for the world) were to heal our suppressed power and magic
I embodied my purpose
I created my soul led business
I became the leader I was born to be.
The difference between this initiation and others was, I realised *fully* - through *consciously* and *intentionally* working with Medicine Woman - that I was no longer available for being 'fixed' or healed, or being a victim.
Instead, I allowed her loving mirror to reflect to me what I'd previously not seen, and began the deep work to love and welcome all parts of myself - including the shadows that didn't want to be seen.
The biggest lesson I learned from this was NO ONE was coming to save me - and that I was going to have to choose to heal myself. And I'm still spiralling into deeper and deeper lessons of this, because it's my lifetimes's work as a Medicine Woman (whose very shadow and gold is trusting herself).
Of course, everything is optional - we don't have to choose to heal ourselves, but just knowing the truth that this is what's required can be helpful (whilst also painful).
The good news is, that whilst I've walked the difficult path, I also have the map to help your initiation to Medicine Woman be fully supported (and not in your typical woo lite way of support - I'm here only as your guide to help you invoke your own Medicine Woman). That doesn't mean it will be any less dark or challenging, but you'll have someone to hold you in that initiation.
And the biggest bonus: you won't have to venture a million miles away all by yourself to do it (you may have a version of this initiation, though, I can't take that one for you!). Of course going to Bali is always an optional luxurious choice (ooh, in fact, maybe I'll run this initiation as a retreat there one day - there's an idea! )
I'll be guiding women into the tender first steps of remembering their capacity to heal themselves in a 4 week crucible in February. I'll help you meet your own inner Medicine Woman, connect to her, ground into her, breathe like her, sink into the wild to get to know her. I'll help you call her spirit back into your cells.
Right now, you might be used to mundane fixes (medications, therapy, numbing yourself with distractions with TV, food alcohol, work) or woo lite (outsourcing your healing to other healers, reiki masters, homeopaths, manifestation and loa coaches, etc).
But if you're here, and your heart is resonating, it's likely you're being called to the "woo deep" of learning to harness magic yourself, and reclaim your powerful healing capacity.
And likely that's so that you can become a unique remedy, a Medicine Woman, for the world - once you've learned to heal your wounds and alchemise them into gifts for the collective.
The real question is:
Are you willing to lean into the fire and choose to heal yourself?
What's the alternative?
Join me today for our free taster experience to see if this is for you.
if you've any questions, send me an email.
Nicole x
