New Beginnings

It’s been a while since I last posted in this blog. To be precise, it was around the time that Covid struck and the world began to go mad. In that time so much has happened, leading up to my recent decision to ditch social media and focus on sharing my journey in other ways. Social media has been at times an excruciating experience; I have this insatiable impulse to share myself with the world, yet often suppress it due to the amount of attention I receive ~ whether a lot or little. It has been like this dark entity attached to me, that has left me feeling depleted, lost and physically, emotionally and mentally unwell.

It hasn’t been easy working with this in myself in order to have a healthy, enjoyable relationship with social media, because I am not meant to be there. No matter how much I have tried to fit in it has never felt right. I know now that it has never been me. It has never been about what or when I should share; it’s about the environment I have been sharing in. Someone very dear to me described it as being similar to a monkey in the arctic. Sure, they can survive for a while, but they can never thrive. They don’t belong there no matter how much they try to fit in with the other animals. The monkey must keep going until it finds its true home. While social media feels like home for some, it is far from home for me.

Sure, I like to share myself. It feels so natural to me. What doesn’t feel natural is the container of a group that is my friends list, where comparisons and expectations are made, and sharing becomes about the number of reactions I get or don’t get on a post. Being told that it doesn’t matter what others think, or seeing how this doesn’t impact others’ ability to share does not help me. Because it’s not me, and I have realised now! It’s never been me or something I’ve had to work on in myself. I am not meant to accept it, I am meant to say goodbye to it. And what relief that decision has already brought! How freeing to be completely honest with myself and admit that I don’t want to share in a container; I want to share in an open space where people can come to me if they are called to.

This is a new beginning for me. I have struggled with this lesson for many years now, and finally feel I can let it go and move forward. I feel a sense of actually wanting to live my life without the constant thought in the background about who might recognise or understand me. I imagine it might take some time to get used to, since I have been so deeply tied to social media. I imagine it will be like a detox, where things will rise to the surface during the cleansing. I also imagine I will start to feel a lot better about myself.

I am happy to be back here, in my own little blog world, where I can just share and be myself in a safe space. Social media has never felt safe for me, and it is time to listen deeply to my inner truth and move away from the things that don’t feel good. I plan to continue using this blog to share my experiences of parenting, and share I will! I have faced so many new challenges with my children these past couple of years…chaotic sleep cycles, transgender identity, and a visit from child services. Some of which I will share more about in the coming weeks.

But for now I wanted to announce that I have started on a second edition of my book: Free Flowing Family ~ A Journey of Unschooling through Awakening and Healing. I am so excited that I wanted to share a new paragraph from my Introduction and give a taste of what’s yet to come. I plan to add new content to the book that shares how my journey has continued to unfold over the last four years since publishing it.

I look forward to sharing more, and am so happy you are here with me through this ever-changing journey.

Love Leisa ❤

“When I first published this book in 2018 I had no idea of the challenges I was yet to face years later that would force me to question everything all over again. And what a journey it has been since! So much of what I wrote in this book has been revisited in my life as a parent, which has included new levels of chaos, challenges and pain that I believed I would never have to face again. I have learned so much more and realised even more deeply that the journey is never really complete; there are only new ways of seeing, being and realising who we are. Awakening comes in stages, and by surprise too! We just never know what we are going to be called to transform in ourselves and when. All we can do is remain open to these invitations and meet them with as much courage as we can. 
For me, the journey has invited a deeper acceptance of the things I’ve shared throughout this book, which has required me to face them again in new and different ways. I wanted to bring this newfound awareness into this book and add it as part of the continuing path towards freedom and love, and integrate it into the material I have already shared. I hope it can inspire you to keep going no matter how difficult life gets; to know that even when you reach a point where everything you thought you succeeded at turns to dust and you are left with no choice but to surrender into the reality that you have failed as a parent, it is never the end. In order to come into greater awareness and love we sometimes need to give up and stop trying. In the giving up we touch our own vulnerability and authenticity in a way that allows us to start again. And again, and again and again. There really is no failure; only the natural process of dying and becoming something new.”