Taking a leap of faith and getting my heart caught in my throat!

Tonight I went to my very first Women's Circle.

If you asked me what it was before tonight, I couldn't exactly answer you, but when I saw the invite pop up on facebook I just knew it was something I needed in my life!  So nervously but bravely, I took a leap of faith and rsvp'd yes!

All of today I had been thinking of excuses to get out of going.....

-It's too far.....over an hours drive north

-I'm tired....Jack didn't have a nap today and Muma was desperately wanting a nap too before we drove there

-I've changed my mind....this had the opposite effect, but the effect I needed....I had not changed my mind....I was infact eager to go, just a little nervous.  No one would be there that I had met in the "real world" yet, and it was only the host I knew in "facebook land", and some of these ladies are mutual friends with people that are no longer my friend.....no security person to hide behind, and potential awkward situation with the mutual friends.

Pushing all this out of my mind, I took the plunge and set off for the venue.

JackJack and I had spent the afternoon making some hotdog pastries to eat for our dinner in the car along the way.  These along with "watee" a nap and then waking up to see the "toot tooooot" trams in the city, made for a fun trip up for Jack ;)

We left 2.5hrs before we needed to be there, which was lucky coz we arrived only with 10mins to spare.  Peak hour traffic and roads blocked to cars in the city made for a slow and confusing journey.

When we walked in we were greeted by lovely chilled out looking ladies, sipping on herbal tea in the backyard.  I sat down and JackJack nervously clung to me and gestured for boobie, so I happily obliged.  The house we were at must be under a flight path because we heard many planes and helicopters flying over head, which excited buba and he pointed to the sky, but still nervously clung to me when I offered for him to go out from under the shelter and look up at the sky.

  Once everyone had arrived we went into a cozy room where some comfy cushions had been set up in a circle on the floor for us all to sit on. 

I armed myself with water and bikkies in my pocket and hoped for a calm toddler for the session.

Once a little chit chat was underway, one of the hosts handed around A3 paper, giving each woman 3 sheets each, and JackJack got one too, which he was very happy about.  Pastels were set out in the centre of our circle, and she began to explain what we were to do.  Te 3 pages were for 3 different drawings....drawing 1 was "how you see yourself now in life", drawing 2 was "where you would like to be at in your life", and drawing 3 was "what stands in the way of making that happen".  She said we didn't need to be artistic, draw what ever comes to mind, anything.

Without looking at anyone else's pages, I set about drawing my own. 

Once done, I looked up to see how others had interpreted that, and felt a bit silly!

While I had drawn myself and anything else and anyone else of importance in my life around me....every other woman had done abstract drawings....swirls....squiggles....circles....shades...

Then we had to take in turn of holding drawing 1 up for the other women in the circle to interpret what they saw, and turn it on every angle to see if anything else came out at us.

As each of us drew our pictures, so to did JackJack...selecting colour after colour and making a gorgeous little squiggly pic of his own!

Luckily, they went around the circle in the direction that my turn would be last.  As everyone looked at each others drawings they were seeing hope, growth, peace, mountains to climb, expansion, direction, control....and so on and so on and here was my stick figure family portrait and I was feeling rather twittish when it came to my turn!  Then something amazing happened.....they saw all those sorts of things in my drawing, by looking at the colours and angles and positioning of the silly stick figures.....it felt wonderful ;)

By this stage, JackJack was back on the boob for the billionth time since we got there...partly comfort suckling for nerves, mostly just coz this is the stage he's going through of boobing anytime he can.....but this is another point I felt my heart warm.....nobody had a negative look or word in our direction about my toddler yoyo'ing on the boob....this space was awesome!!!!!!!!

There was so gorgeous little children's books the organiser offered for Jack to look through...one about a toddler breastfeeding, one about a homebirth and another about a mermaid which Jack spotted a man illustrated in there that looked like his Daddy, so he loved it.

For the 2nd drawing, we paired up and each woman had to perform an interpretive dance of what she could see in her partners drawing...the drawing of what she wanted her life to be like.  My partner did her dance first....while I was quietly crapping myself about having to reciprocate, her dance relaxed me....watching her move made me want my dreamt life even more, through her dancing I could almost feel it and it was beautiful, peaceful, calming.

My turn to dance out her drawing and she had drawn a sun, full of swirls.  Golly, where to start?  How to keep it going for as long as she danced mine?  How to not let her down and repay her the beauty she gave me?

My dance left a lot to be desired! lol But she quietly guided me through how I should feel her drawing(my partner was the speaker), so I did a lot of slow moving arm embraces like yoga breathing, opening my arms up to the sky and widening down.  It felt a lovely movement to get into, but my silly self consciousness got the better of me and I stopped, telling her I didn't know what else to offer. 

When we came to sit back in the circle, my sweet little boy got up from his drawings and started swaying his body and moving his arms in the air to the music.  I think he thought no one was watching, but we had all noticed him and took a moment to watch this enchanting sight!  It was beautiful, he was actually doing similar movements to one of the women who danced near him, so he was watching her and taking it all in! (I've asked for a copy of the music cd for next week, beautiful tranquil music....can't believe how much he loved dancing to it!)

The 3rd drawing was the hardest.  For this we had to pair up again, with different partners, and take in turn with one woman interpreting her own drawing through movement, while the other shadowed.  My partner was the organiser of the circle and I went first.  The 3rd drawing was about barriers/obstacles that are in your way from having what you want that you drew in drawing 2.  This was challenging on many levels.  Not only coz I couldn't shake my inhibitions and felt silly with my movements, but seeing your movements mimicked by the other woman is hard, confronting.  We were told that the shadower could either offer comfort if she felt it needed or push the drawings interpreter further into her "stuck place" to try and make her confront it.  I actually ended up with both the organisers shadowing me....maybe sensing my awkwardness.....it then turned into them sandwiching me from either side, leaning on me heavily, representing my "grief" and "demons" that were my barriers to my better life.....inside I was confused on how to move with this....I stepped forward out of the sandwich, but they said that was me running from my fears and problems, so I pushed them....leaned back at them, and they pushed harder...one pushed into me sideways as the other went around behind me and just held a gentle open palm on my back....this felt comforting, at the same time the pusher felt like she was going to knock me over, and she was talking under her breath to me, saying things like "you've got more then that, try harder" and "you give everyday, look at your beautiful son, you give to him, now give more to this"....and I felt an anger inside, my core tightened up and I let myself forget that this was a heavily pregnant woman pushing into me, that it was all my "stuck" and it needed to go, it wasn't going to win, and with that I bared down and heaved into her....pushing her aside....her feet had to move now as I was managing to push her away....and the she stepped aside and it was over.  Wow....intense stuff that was.  I felt empowered, but also like I could cry relief.  It was truly confronting.

Then, to finish off the night, we ended with pairing up to exchange massage or reiki.

Once again I got one of the organisers and I told her I didn't know reiki, so she lay on her side and I massaged her back.  I was looking around at the other pairs for guidance and noticed that they moved down the body as well so I put my "preggy head" on and thought about the areas that ached the most in pregnancy...I moved to her calves and ankles(coz many of us get "cankles" with fluid retention!) and then onto her feet(coz how much do many people want a foot massage but no one will give it!).

When it was my turn to receive, I looked up to see that JackJack had kept himself busy with chewing on a red pastel!!! Not a good look....his drule looked like blood! Eek!  But....if this is the worst he did all night, I'm a pretty lucky Muma ;)

JackJack decided he needed booby again, so as I sat upright I recieved a lovely back/shoulder and neck massage.  It was divine!  Every now and then her hands just came to a complete stop on my back and all the nerves were heightened, as if they were all screaming"Come back! Over here, touch me here!"  It was so peaceful and blissful.

The circle ended there.  It wasn't exactly what I thought it would be, but it was so worth the travel, it was soul nourishing goodness ;)

After a toilet stop I bundle JackJack into the car for the long trip home.  Feeling confident I remembered the streets I needed to turn at, I set off on my way.

On a major road I realised all too late that I had passed the street I needed to turn at.....I had to keep going ahead but was keeping an eye out for another side street to turn in.  After a while of not coming across one, I took opportunity of break in traffic and did a u-turn...not wanting to travel ages out of our way.  As I turned into the original intended street, I was followed around the corner by a cop car with it's lights on!!!!

Holy moly I was crapping myself!

I was thinking about how excited I was when I got pulled into a breathalyzer station for the first time....I even asked if I could keep the blower straw as a souvenir! lol  But this didn't feel exciting, it felt scary.  I wondered what I had done wrong, was panicking I was gonna get a fine and Tyler would be angry with me....then I remembered the driver door window.....crap crap crap, road worthy issue :(  Our electric window is stuffed and doesn't go down, panic time...luckily I thought quickly and did two things....cut the engine(window wont go down with engine cut!) and took my seat belt off and opened the door(as if thinking I needed to get out of the car)....then in that moment I had panic on panic....I blame this on Tyler watching all those American cop shows...I pictured them drawing their guns on me and yelling "get back in the vehicle!"

Luckily, nothing like that happened, they didn't ask me to shut the door, but I was still sitting in the car.  They checked my drivers license(advised me to get my new address label asap, tut tut, else would be committing an offence), did a breathalyzer, then asked me why I did the u-turn.  I told them I was lost.  Then they said they thought I was trying to avoid the booze bus up further.  Woops, what booze bus?  Didn't even notice it(thank god they didn't perform an eye test or something when I said I didn't see it!).  With that, they let me go.  Aghhhh, sigh of relief!!

As I continued along the journey home....trying to swallow my heart that was now plum stuck in my throat.....I came into further trouble with the city traffic.  A turn was flashing that it was not allowed so I had to continue on out of my way to find a u-turn spot to get back to the road I needed.  Low and behold, the first side street I came across was a trap into tolls!  Before I knew it I'd gone under a toll way, woops!!  How does a person accidentally stumble into a tollway?  I realised I would have to tell Tyler about this for him to pay for a day pass anyway, so I surrendered to the road and followed it the rest of the *cough* pricey *cough* way home ;)

Can't wait for next friday night now.....but this time I will plan my travelling journey out better ;-D