The weighted blanket coming off

The day after our Wild Harmony retreat ended. That’s where I’m writing to you from. My moon started right as the retreat closed, so there was no lying down, no quiet, none of that. I went straight from holding space for three women into bleeding. I’m tender. Achy. A little raw. And also so full of gratitude and joy that it’s hard to hold in the same body as the tenderness. I’m not writing to you from some peaceful mountaintop today. I’m writing from right in the thick of it, and I think that’s actually the most honest place to write from.

I co-led this retreat with my dear friend Erin, and it was three days of diving into the unconscious, into the body, into the parts of ourselves we’ve been the hardest on. The parts we’ve hated. The parts we’ve felt so stuck around that we stopped believing they’d ever move. We worked with horses too. Erin’s husband, Joe, had already done the training work with them, sometimes for years, because he and Erin don’t believe in breaking horses. They rescue wild mustangs and will spend eight years with one before it’s ready to be worked with by a human. No rushing. No force. Because they don’t believe in breaking humans either. Same nervous system logic.

That’s what the horses gave these women. You can’t fake it with a horse. They don’t want your bravery or your composure; they just want you exactly as you are, raw and all. A horse’s whole body reads yours, so when a woman is holding it together on the outside while something old is loud on the inside, the horse knows before she says a word. And when she finally lets herself feel it rather than manage it, the horse settles, too. Two nervous systems, no performance possible, just true signal. It’s one of the most honest mirrors I’ve ever watched someone stand in front of.

By the end of three days, I watched what I can only describe as weighted blankets coming off shoulders. More levity. More play. Real smiles, the kind that surprise the person having them. And I kept thinking the same thought on a loop: what a privilege. Not in a small way.

In the way where I could suddenly see that everything I lived through- the pain, the years of being bedridden, the nervous breakdowns, the wanting to die, all of it was what taught me how to meet myself without contempt. And because I learned to meet myself that way, I got to mirror it back to these women exactly when they needed it. I could not have seen that while I was living it. I can see it now.

I’m sharing this with you because behind the scenes, I’ve been building something with my dear friend Allison Fallon, bestselling author and the woman who’s helped hundreds of people write the books they were scared to write. We’re calling it The River Within. And if I’m honest, I feel a little exposed even naming it today, tender and depleted and still finding my footing. But that’s sort of the whole point of what The River Within is. It’s not a program about having it together. It’s about what becomes possible when you stop fighting the parts of you that feel undone and start trusting the current that’s already moving through you, even on the days it doesn’t feel like it.

Consider this your first look. I’ll share more next week. If you want to be the first to know when the doors open, just reply to this email. I’ll make sure you’re on the list.

Something really special is on its way. And this time, we get to be together, in person, in the room.

With a full heart,

Ruthie

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