Essentially Soulitude - the birth of a project

It has taken us a year to create and launch this project. In fact, the idea came into being in 2020, so this has been percolating for a long time! Now, our little baby is ready to meet the world, ready to take you on a journey that we could not have even imagined when we had our first meetings. Why? Because we are not the same people we were when we started this project a year ago. We are now ready to hold the space for you to remember the ESSENTIAL you, to meet the soul in the SOULitude, because over this year, we have done the same for ourselves and each other.

This is Sharyn co-founder of Essentially Soulitude, let me share my journey with you.

The idea originally came into being with just one element of Essentially Soulitude – the Moon Candles. My journey with this began when I was confronted with my work addiction, I’ve even changed the language during the time we’ve been working on this project - from workaholic to work addiction, because in our society we celebrate workaholism. It started with one of those moments when the world stops as I realised the axiom As Above so Below was playing out each month before my very eyes as the Moon moved around the Earth creating an ebb and flow of energy that all nature responds to, and yet we as humans, and me in particular, perpetually override it.

Our natural state of being is to move from stillness to curiosity, to full activity, to completion, and back to stillness again. EVERYTHING in nature does this, sometimes that cycle takes a day, sometimes a month, sometimes a year and sometimes beyond. For me the area I was neglecting was stillness, and my invitation was to spend a little more time in no-thing, as I began to let go of the label – work addict.

Moon Candles are the physical representation of this. If I made a commitment to 25 minutes of personal time each day to do whatever made my soul sing, then I was beginning to pay back my personal debt of rest to myself. It has been a long road! And one I am still travelling.

Initially the candles were all I was thinking of offering. A time of quiet to connect with your soul. Soulitude. Of course, spending time with my soul began to open new avenues and as I began to expand my study of Natural Astrology, I saw more and more cycles and patterns emerge, and with each new moment of learning came more surety within myself as mother nature revealed herself to me during the waxing and waning of the seasons, reflecting to me a greater understanding of myself as she did. And so, astrology became part of the offering, the wheel of the zodiac providing the framework for me. The themes being apparent from the signs, and our expression of the themes being apparent in mYq* the proprietary bespoke coaching I was beginning to develop. The second element was in place.

This is where I begin my confession. I love nature - the natural cycles and rhythms, the chaotic order, the nurturing learning she offers – but I am not such a fan of cold and wet and discomfort, although I love a storm from the comfort of my sitting room! I’m definitely a philosopher before I’m a hiker and the seasons unfolded for me out of my office window where a beautiful horse chestnut tree took me through her cycles. Whatever the inspiration, I realised I needed to stimulate the senses with the candles, and so I reached out to Viv of Essentially Evolving, to see if she could recommend some scents for each season so I could provide scented candles that fit with the themes. It quickly became clear that Viv and I had such a similar approach to partnership and co-creation and so Essential Oils became natures physical expression of the seasons, and Viv became a co-founder.

As I’m writing this it feels like this should be the ‘finally’ paragraph, but there are a few twists and turns yet to come!

During the creation of all of this, Breathwork has been a constant companion for me. The first (and last) cycle and rhythm we will encounter, and the most self-empowering practice I have ever encountered, the wisdom of the breath has supported this journey throughout and as Viv and I began to consider adding a Zoom gathering into the offer, we both brought the elements we are most passionate about. Starting with our clients, holding an open space for discussion, and sharing of the season so far, that allows each member the opportunity to be seen and supported. Followed by Viv going into a shamanic journey to meet the Essential Oil of the month and receive new insights, before taking both experiences into a short breathwork for personal integration.

The final physical part to the offer was the desire I had to create a journal/diary/planner. I have a love hate relationship with these, the very reason I have to write three words and no one is testament to the fact that I’m yet to find ‘the one’ that does ‘all the things’ I want it to, I’m a sucker for them, and buy them all the time! I knew this wasn’t the project to launch an actual diary, but loved bringing everything we’ve created together in a seasonal booklet with all of the information we’ve provided, and lots of prompts and blank spaces for you to doodle, or journal, or ....

Almost everything was in place, except the next evolution of Viv and Sharyn. For Viv it was the realisation that her work was becoming more directed towards the healing of our ancestral lines, that when we have done work on ourselves repeatedly and keep coming unstuck or blocked at a similar place then this is most likely an ancestral pattern that needs to be cleared before we can fully move through with power, and for me, the realisation that the Why in Sharyn-with-a-Why is becoming clearer and clearer. In the time it has taken to gestate and birth this project, many things have come and gone, many opportunities, many failures, many invitations to step into the full potential of this moment, and each time I’ve become clearer about my Why. I hesitate to call it my purpose because that has lots of connotations around getting it right, and maybe of predestination and that’s partly what I’m here to do, my why, to break down the teachings we’ve all come to accept that our beingness can be right or wrong. That we can make the wrong choices. That there is a grand plan or destiny that’s governed outside of us. The most sacred thing we can do, is to remember who we are, and to be true to who we are as often as we are able.

For me that means I celebrate the uniqueness of each individual being and sometimes that means standing apart from the status quo, sometimes it means standing together, but it always means following my innate intelligence in every moment.

So mYq became even more focussed towards recognising and celebrating the perfection of your beingness in each moment as you stand proudly and uniquely you, a tapestry of your joys and heartaches, with each step being an offer to walk into the next evolution of yourself, leading from the Soul. Perhaps this is Soul Leadership, but that’s a project for another day.

*You can read more about mYq here
**You can read more about Viv’s offers here