What if just being ourselves is all we need to be successful?

What if we don’t need to be successful but rather we just need to be ourselves?

Truly and fully.

And when we put us first instead of the forward drive for success, success in fact naturally arises because we are doing what we were born to do.

Being who you are can never be a failure.

But often if takes some time to get out of our own way, to stop dimming and doubting our own light,

To see how brightly and perfectly we all already truly shine.

Recently we met online with a group of students as they are about to embark on the next stage of their Insight Herbalism training. Each person briefly shared where they were in themselves, in relationship to the plants and this work.

None of this was about how much study had been done, or how many case study hours had been achieved or a clear plan of where they are heading.

Each shared truly and vulnerably where they were; being with the doubts that were arising, seeing and naming all the barriers that are telling them they ‘can’t’, learning to be still enough to really hear where they being called, willingly watching and showing up to the doorways as they are being revealed and choosing to step through them.

Towards the end of the session. We brought in primrose. Just into mind and awareness and sat with this in meditation for a couple of minutes.

So simple. And so much shifted.

A bright gentle ease filled the collective field (the felt sense of a group that can be experienced through Zoom never ceases to amaze me).

And the tender sense of the willingness to simply keep showing up just as we all are.

There has been a theme of this throughout my one-to-one client work recently too. What I am seeing more and more on this path of Insight Herbalism is that the work, the transformation, is quite simply in showing up.

All of us, as the plants are, are a unique frequency designed perfectly.

 If you look up the definition of the word succeed it means ‘to turn out well’ or to ‘inherit sovereignty’. Although this may be referring to the notion of a successor inheriting rank or title, this word of sovereignty is one I often return to both personally and in my work.

I truly believe that we are coming into a time where individual sovereignty, that is inherently interrelated and harmonious with those around us, is what is being called for.

So much of the work we do at the School of Intuitive Herbalism and I do in my private practice, is simply guiding people back to themselves.

In a world that is constantly selling you more, telling you more, getting you to improve yourself more, quite simply allowing yourself to be who you are and shine is life-changing.

The primrose have been very present with me as we traverse from winter into spring.

Primrose… this was the first plant I met deeply, the first year of my herbalism training. I simply sat by a patch in the bare damp soil, an icy March day. Not only did I sit by primrose, but she sat by me. It was my first consciously visceral experience of this reciprocal relationship with a plant, with nature.

that they too sit by us.

They live by us, walk by our sides, hold us through this life. After all where would any of us be without plants? Our first ancestor that transformed sunlight into something else…

But primroses bring more than sunlight, she shines with starlight,  reminding us that far off galaxies also play their role.

that we are vast, and vaster still

and Prim Rose, ‘first rose’  - with her ancient reptilian leaves speaks to the core of my bones. Her cosmic-ness reveals to me my earthily-ness.

and at winters end, that we can indeed live again.

There is great value in simply sitting with ourselves, quietly in relationship with with others; whether they be human companions, plant, animal, elemental. That all of us can simple just be ourselves alone and together