Throw some rocks, change your life
Forming a conscious intention, then directing your mind, spirit, and actions toward it, is a little bit magic.
My birthday was at the end of May, and I celebrated with my birthday ritual of throwing things while yelling.
The ritual began six birthdays ago. It was a milestone year. A year that might make you feel you should’ve made a success of yourself by now—or at least have achieved some major goals, or at least have turned yourself into a reasonable facsimile of a grown-up. I spent the day hiding in a back room at the job I’d come to hate, weeping.
Let’s not be coy here: it was my 40th. Six years ago, the milestone birthday was 40, and I’d been working doggedly at becoming a novelist since I was eight, and I had nothing concrete in the visible world to show for it, not even a wealth-building career I’d prioritized over creativity. (Not even a stability-building one!)
I was barely making survival money at said job, freelance writing other people’s work in the evenings and weekends, writing fiction but facing rejection after rejection.
“But you have a beautiful family,” my mother tried to console me. “That is true success!” Which made it even worse, because in the patriarchal ideology that ran deep through my youth, raising a family is what I had been raised for. But here I was at 40, and yes, I had a family, and yes, I loved them, but I did not want them to be the one and only thing I could point to as an achievement.
A couple days after the actual birthday, I gathered with my yoga-teaching, ceremony-leading sister and a small group of close friends for my very first birthday ritual of throwing things while yelling.
Prior to the actual day, before I knew I’d spend it crying at work and feeling every stereotype of over-the-hill doom, I’d planned to usher myself into this new decade with joyful, purposeful consciousness. I’d thought deeply about what I wanted to shift and create in this next season of my life, and together my sister and I had developed a series of releasing and intention statements to help me do this.
On the day of the ritual, I stood at the top of a ravine surrounded by this intimate circle of support. I picked up a rock to represent each fear, doubt, or belief I wanted to release, shouted my releasing statement, and hurled the rock into the ravine. Then I stepped, literally and metaphorically, into the new intention I wanted to bring into being.
It changed my life.
Not immediately. And not only because I threw stuff. But what’s become evident to me as I look back on that day a mere six years later—living a completely different life, having uncovered self-sabotaging patterns I didn’t even know back then I was perpetuating, having stepped into a level of flourishing, fulfillment, and impact that felt completely aspirational then—is that intention is powerful.
Forming a conscious intention, then directing your mind, spirit, and actions toward it, is a little bit magic.
The action piece is crucial, though, which makes it not really magic at all. I checked in with these intentions regularly, I took scary new steps, I started therapy, I invested in my own growth, I adopted a word of the year (CHANGE) and made choices to align with it. But it started with the releasing and intention-setting.
There was very little in those statements that was tangible. This wasn’t a goal list. It was things like “I release fear of the judgment of others. I call in boldness to do, say, and be exactly who I am.” Things like “I release self-doubt and lack of faith in my abilities. I call in confidence and true belief in the value of what I have to offer.”
When I said those things at 40, I did fear the judgment of others and I did not feel confident in what I had to offer. Much that was on the list related to what I’ve since realized was myself faithfully obeying the covert command of my youth: Play small. Small is virtuous, humble, safe. Small is the right size for a woman to be.
Last year, I turned 45. That also felt milestone-ish, equidistant between 40 and 50, not a crone yet but nowhere near my maiden self either. I read through my 40th birthday statements, and every single one was now simply the reality of how I felt within myself, the way I was showing up, the work I was doing.
I decided it was time to throw some more objects of nature into another natural resource.
This time I was solo, and I biked to a secluded spot on the St. Lawrence River near where I now live (with my beautiful family). As I called out each of my new releasing statements, I threw a rock into the river. On the final one, I said out loud, “I release playing small.” I threw the rock. I said, “I step into the enormity that I am here for.”
As the words left my mouth, the rock plunged into the water and the ripples expanded, concentric circles growing bigger and bigger. Not small anymore. Huge. I was so delighted. I hadn’t even planned the symbolism. I laughed and laughed.
A few days ago, it was my 46th birthday, blessedly free of milestones. I biked back to that same spot on the river and reviewed last year’s statements. Some of them are a work in progress, but for most there’s been giant movement in just a year. I’m giving myself till my 50th to finish bringing them into being, and then I expect I will create some more.
But just for fun, I said the “playing small” statement again and threw a rock and watched the ripples expand, and I laughed about it all over again.
Because the symbolism is awesome. Because some objectively big things are now happening in my external world. And because I really do feel that I’m releasing playing small.
This doesn’t mean there aren’t still growth edges I’m bumping up against—discomfort zones to do with permission and audacity, to do with safety and exposure. I do have days I want to retreat under the covers and not come out. But on the whole, I feel confident that I have the tools and the support to keep growing into that bigness.
If there’s a body of water near you, I recommend throwing some things into it. (Not litter. I mean, like, rocks.) With intention. With purpose. Then, watch the ripples flow.
Warmly,
Heidi
P.S. Happy full moon! With apologies if you find this kind of thing super corny or overly woo-woo, the full moon is said to be the time for releasing if you want to give it a try!