Garden of Grace with Leslie
“Keep going. Do it scared and buy more Kleenex.”
Author, Sage Peaceweaver & Sacred Midwife of Tender Wisdom
It is okay to be Still for a while. I am both the unstoppable force and the immovable object…and when they collide, it's all three—the force, the object, and their confluence. I'm a lot of paradoxes. I am ‘Both And.’
I would recommend [this mentorship], absolutely. I mean, jokingly, I'd be like, Buy more Kleenex. But I think the part of all this that I struggled with the most, is actually why I would recommend it.
(Your Soul is taking me back. It's almost like she has your Book of Life flipped open and the pages are going almost forward for you and may feel backward. And so here what's coming up…—Diamond)
What was life before now? Where were you and what guided you here to say, ‘Okay, I want to begin this, or I need this in my life?’ Take us back to Leslie.
Well, I essentially put my parachute on and jumped off a cliff of my life. The image that's coming to mind is like a popcorn kernel, and as the water in the seed boils in order for it to burst, it was that burst moment of quitting my job and then telling my partner that I quit my job. Just wanting everything to be different, and also a Calling.
It was a leap of faith. I don't believe it was just happenstance. I believe that was divinely guided, and I wanted to continue to follow where that guidance was going to lead…and I didn't want to feel alone in the fall.
So yeah, it was a leap of faith, and then a little bit of a discovery of how small and infinite my faith could be at the same time, and wanting to understand it better.
How were you feeling in that moment, and what guided you towards this particular experience in the Garden of Grace and spiritual mentorship with your Soul and your Guides?
I was scared in that moment, and I was tired.
So what guided me to this—because I had been reading the grace notes (the Saturday notes) for a while—I just was drawn to the notion of Grace, of trying to see myself in a different light other than this strong, resilient, having to constantly…the worker bee in me. And I was like, “Well, I already quit my job. What other areas of softness can I explore and find?”
The grace notes really spoke to me, and I'm a sucker for structure. So I was like, “Oh, I can do this in a structured way with someone? Yeah.” I was okay with taking the leap because I had done it, but I just didn't want to be alone in the fall.
This felt right. It had enough structure, but enough mystery…because I also know that I'm a control freak, and needed to continue to experience not being in control.
So ultimately, I was looking for ways in which I can learn how to give myself Grace. It just doesn't come naturally.
You made a very courageous choice in choosing you.
Probably one of the very few times I felt like I got to choose me.
…that wasn't somehow directly connected to or attached to somebody else. Like, I chose that I wanted to become a mother and when. I told my husband, and that was a choice, but he was still connected to that. Or even when we came together getting married, I made that choice, but that was still…and so this felt like something that I could do for me without any sort of ties and direct connections to anybody else, which is also weird and new. An ongoing, deeply uncomfortable process.
What were those first moments like for you? What was your experience in the beginning?
I was surprised by how much crying that would be involved.
Just being able to be in touch with my emotions in this way, because it hasn't happened for so long. So for it to happen right at the beginning, I was like, “Okay, no, what have I done?” There's a lot of crying in my car.
And there was a lot of sitting with (and this has been an ongoing theme throughout)...of sitting with multiple truths at once [and] of being frustrated at times, like “I don't understand what any of this means,” and at the same time, feeling oddly comforted by it, and the third truth of wanting to make sense of those two very disparate ideas, and also knowing that I needed to resist that urge.
I think that came mostly to light as we explored the Seven Paths of the Mystic and how my three took a minute.
The one that I've done over and over, that came very quickly. But the other two took a minute of really having to sit in all of those, like “Well, I kind of see myself in all these, but also in none of them.” And instead of trying to figure it [out], I just had to sit and just keep reading and keep absorbing, until I recognized where I was.
I have multiple truths of, “Oh yeah, of course, this feels right,” and I'm in it and I'm feeling it and I'm doing it, and in the next fleeting moment, it can feel very distant and foreign. So just having to learn to sit and push through the doubt.
There was a recognition and a newness simultaneously happening, and really having to fight through the recognition part—that was hard [part]. The newness, I could chop that up to, “Oh, this is new. And new is scary and change is hard.” That's the easier route; it’s the wider path.
The narrower path was the recognition piece of, “Oh no. You've had these tears the whole time. You just locked them away. Or you've had these dreams and hopes and desire for rest the whole time, you just haven’t…It just wasn't a right time or the right...” And so having to go back and move forward at the same time, is a wild thing to conceptualize, but yeah.
Just feeling how active of a process this was, is, and is going to be very early was eye-opening—All the eyes, physically, the third eye, all of them. Yeah.
What has shifted for you?
I'm definitely more expressive with my emotions. They're always there. But I found that the expression of them is more present. It just happens, appears.
And how much my metacognition has ticked up, but in a less self-deprecating way. I find myself thinking about thinking or feeling about feeling. Seeing all of those different truths and trying to sort of hold them all in my bowl at the same time, and spending much more time sort of in the bowl with less shame. I didn't always (throughout this process) do that well, but it's definitely something I've noticed more of how I'll have a thought or a feeling or a notion or whatever, and I automatically want to unravel the thread.
I've always been in my head, and I've always been an overthinker, and I guess it's been interesting to shift into a level of acceptance. It's not fully, but more accepting of, “Oh that's just you, Leslie. So just be there.” I've scooched a little bit in that direction and continue to scoot, but it's a shift.
What else has changed?
I want to think I'm doing a little bit better about making sure that I'm intentional about carving out some space for myself.
And that the responsibility (one of my sacred words that came up pretty early) that: just as I hold responsibility up in such high regard externally, I have to hold it in high regard internally as well, just for me. I still have work to do in that regard, too.
Being able to name it and see what ways in which I am doing it, and the ways in which I still want to continue, but trying to give myself more recognition of, “See, you invested this time in yourself and you've created a physical space.” And this is my space and I've claimed it. I haven't really had my own space since I lived alone, just over a decade now. That's a shift. And I'm very protective of this space, too.
So yeah, that's definitely a shift of, “No, I'm going to claim what's mine and not feel guilty about that.” And this little 85 square feet is mine.
As we are in the celebration of who you are Now, what's been the most surprising moment of your journey thus far?
The surprising thing—because I often feel I struggle with loneliness and feelings of isolation, it was interesting how many different Guides (which I recognize are all parts of my Soul) came through, and how many from different traditions and philosophy.
I was very like, “Oh.” I've always been a nerd and just openly curious about a lot of different things. But going to the Greek pantheon, and the druids and Yeshua and Lilith and Hecate, ArchAngel Michael, I was like, “Oh, okay! Sure.”
So I'm not surprised about what we deem [as] the different cultural traditions…again, I've always just been open and curious about a lot of different faith traditions [and] mythology. That's always been me. But as somebody who feels alone often and struggles with loneliness, to know that “Oh, we're here and don't forget about me”...just the crowd that I roll with on a daily basis was very surprising. Often I didn't really know what to do with that, but always wanted to remain in a space of gratitude for that.
Now I've purchased a lot of books in the last nine months and have dug into all of them, which has been really, really cool, and I'm excited to continue. But yeah, just a deep crew.
What are your favorite moments, or what have been your favorite moments during this journey? Your Soul says she knows your least favorites. And that you can switch out the word ‘favorite’ with ‘most rewarding’ if that feels true for you.
I really enjoyed the synchronicities that have emerged through this time. Like, I'll have a session, and then I'll read something, and then I'll get an email or a text. Just those moments of synchronicity, particularly when I was in those, “What is happening? I don't get it” [moments], a podcast will come up, or a song will pop into my head, or I'll hear a new song. And I've discovered a couple of the new artists that I really love from last year. So that's been cool.
Leslie now is…(who's Leslie now from where you were to where you are now)?
Leslie now is…sensitive. Quieter. And she cries a lot.
It is okay to be Still for a while. I am both the unstoppable force and the immovable object…and when they collide, it's all three—the force, the object, and their confluence.
Yeah, I'm a lot of paradoxes. Both And. I’m trying to keep that in the front of consciousness. I am ‘Both And.’
What would you tell your younger you, your nine months ago you, your Leslie. What's your message for you?
Doing it scared.
Sure you're scared. Okay, that's fine. Not gonna not be, but keep going. Don't be paralyzed by the fear. Fear is showing you something. So, yeah, just do it scared and buy more Kleenex.
That would be the tweet, Do it scared. Buy more Kleenex.
This morning, actually, when I was on my walk…I'm trying to reclaim, rephrase (I think it's both) of like, “it's going to be okay” and trying to transition that to the present, like “it's okay.” I think I held so, so tightly to it's going to be okay, that I lost sight of that fact that it was okay. It's okay now.
And so, yeah. It is going to be okay, and it's okay now. Now is okay.
Joy comes in the morning. And I think again it's that, “Oh, I'm going to be,” like “my morning is coming, my morning is coming,” but it's night now and you're still here. And so it's that same idea of, yes, have your faith in the future. Yes, please do. Let's keep hope alive. And Hope springs eternal, and that also means right now.
Even though I still have a lot of questions, I still am scared, I still am frustrated, I still am like, all the things, I'm still here. What an honor and a privilege to even be able to be in a space where I can feel all of those things. That I'm not in survival mode. Sure, it's uncomfortable and it's overwhelming, but that's also an indication that I'm not in survival mode. I have some comfort and some space to be crying and frustrated and seeking and just there, because I remember when I didn't always have the time and space to do that. I just needed to survive through the day, and that's not true anymore. I have high and lows, but I'm not in survival mode.
So that's good. That's a good shift, even when it doesn't feel like sunshine, obviously, it's a good shift.
When it comes to the mentorship, would you recommend this experience for others? And if so, what would be your recommendation? And if not, what would be your shifts or changes?
Yes. I would recommend it, absolutely. I mean, jokingly, I'd be like, Buy more Kleenex.
But I think the part of all this that I struggled with the most, is actually why I would recommend it.
I was surprised by how fully Self directed this would be. I don’t think it’s a misnomer; I do feel this is a mentorship program. I think my conceptualization of mentorship has shifted through this, because it's like, “Okay, it's your time and space,” and as somebody who's still adjusting to taking up space, it's very self directed. And that's what makes this really special.
So buy more Kleenex. You're in the driver's seat, but really though, with everything.
Because I think for me, I now know that to be true, and it's been true the whole time. But I think I've wrapped my head around that more, because over the course of the last nine months, I've had to sit with what that means, and what it looks like, and what it can look like—of all of it—and it's really overwhelming, but yeah.
This is truly a Self directed thing, and that's how it's designed, and that's how it should be. That's been really frustrating and hard, but that's where I grow, and so I'm thankful for it.
To someone considering stepping into that courage and taking that proverbial leap and really investing in themselves in this way, what would you say to them?
What immediately popped into my head was that quote of, “What if I fall? But oh dear. But what if you fly?”
Because I went into this with the spirit of, “Well, why not?” Instead of trying to convince myself, why should I do this? It became, why not do this? Because for the person who's considering it, they've already made a choice. I think about myself. When I was considering, I had already made a choice. It was just a matter of catching up to the part of myself that had made the choice, and heeding the Whisper.
If you’re considering it, why not? You've already thought about it. The choice has already been made because you're looking into it. So just do it.
This is something that I wrote down a couple pages ago, “As hard as I talk myself out of something, use that same energy to talk yourself into it.” And if you could reach a balance, or if the scale can tip in one way or the other, that's a good litmus test for how to proceed.
For all the reasons that you shouldn't, it's possible that those are also all the reasons that you should.
Your Soul says, You have Leslie now. And she says, Diamond is…
Patience personified.
Just the real deal. Just authentic, gifted beyond measure, and patience personified.
—Leslie Bleichner, Author, Sage Peaceweaver & Sacred Midwife of Tender Wisdom (Texas)
P.S. Ready for your season in the Garden of Grace? Learn more or Apply today.
