Two weeks ago I went away on a business retreat called Alptitude. It was a wondrous week filled with hiking, white water rafting, cold water dipping, deep conversations about everything from life to love to business. It was filled to the brim with laughter. And as one fellow attendee put it, we cultivated a glorious sense of belonging, it felt like we made a family.
The facilitation and guidance was beautiful, the wisdom and time spent listening to each attendees’ thoughts and reflections and ideas felt supportive and empowering. I felt held and listened to and championed whilst also feeling like the adult I am, like there was an unspoken understanding that I ultimately know what’s right for me.
It has taken me a long time to get to a place where I am able to really lean into such an environment, to let myself let go and embrace the fullness of such an experience. Five years ago I left a long term relationship, for reasons I couldn’t quite see at the time. I had no plan or vision for the future I was walking into, but some small voice inside me told me it was the right thing to do. There was a need for something in life that I couldn’t quite grasp back then, but I think I may slowly be starting to realise what it is.
On the retreat we got a lovely goodie bag, and in mine was a t-shirt with the words ‘find your wild at Alptitude’. What I experienced on the retreat, and what I think I have been gearing up to for the past few years, is an understanding that I exist to be messy and wild. Wild for me means letting my heart crack open at the sight of multiple waterfalls, feeling deeply present whilst in a heart felt conversation with someone, saying outrageous things, telling embarrassing secrets, being unashamedly excited about things, it’s listening to how I really feel in each moment, it’s trying stuff out and getting stuff wrong, it’s loving with my whole heart, it’s being all in on a whole bunch of things in life. It’s living in technicolour.
In the past I shut most of that out, I held the narrative that that would be being too much. That if I stepped into all of that I would be unlovable. Nobody loves a wild messy woman right? She’s too much. So I tried hard to keep things small and neat.
These past five years have been a process of finding out who I am again, in all my messy glory. I showed up at the retreat as the messy human I am. I cried in front of the whole group, I was insanely undignified trying to get back into our raft during white water rafting, I opted out of some activities sometimes because I needed quiet time. That too felt wild.
And the difference was that I was accepted in all of that. Alptitude was a place where you could show up in the way you wanted to show up. I was accepted as the wild messy woman I am. And perhaps even more importantly, I was supported to accept myself as the wild messy woman I am as well.
I feel like I’ve got a blueprint now for moving forward. Be wild, be messy, accept yourself as such, and spend time with those that love, support and enable it in you too.
With love as always, Hannah and Team Bird