“Why is it still so hard?”
Life’s rich tapestry is full of twists and turns, which is, in fact, a saccharine and facile summing-up of the painful truth that the Shit is Real. And Relentless. The thing you struggled to conquer, the decision you agonised to make may, well re-appear. Sometimes, it’ll appear again and again. Learning the lesson and doing the work, doesn’t mark it as ‘Done’ in your Great Cosmic Ledger, box ticked, never to be needed again.
This is not how it works.
Initiation, as a ceremony, often brings with it a feeling of completion. Of Graduation. You have moved from one state of being, and ascended to the next. It is easy to think that this Rite of Passage brings with it relief from the daemons that inhabited it.
But that’s not how it works either. Initiation is Initial. It comes FIRST. It marks the end of the beginning, not the beginning of the end.
Its power lays in its ceremony, the witnessing of you in your power, overcoming the task with your own resources. This cements the achievement in your psyche so that the NEXT time you experience it, you know you have what it takes to move through it, rather than around it, or letting it confound or consume you.
Again and Again.
You have what it takes. You have been Initiated.
The transition from Boyhood to Manhood takes place in every moment where you need to use the tools and skills you gained from that initiation. The transition from Manhood to Sovereignty, likewise, takes place in every moment where you need to use the tools and skills you gained from that initiation.
If you can’t remember your initiation, then you have not initiated.
I was 37 when I finally ‘initiated’ into Manhood, and I remember the process in my bones, my heart aches with the pain of it. The process lasted nearly 8 years and was only completed when I deliberately and actively cast off my boyhood that first, memorable time. I still have to do it. The boy still lives within me, and I honour him by caring for him, as a Man, and taking on the responsibilities that once fell to him. It is deliberate and active and constant.
As I test the limits of that Manhood, I can feel, in my heart, the first boundaries of becoming Sovereign. Probing and hesitant, I take my first tentative steps into this next role. Knowing that the true ascent to it does not, and will never, bring relief. Only competence. And the strength to hold myself up to it.
But we do not have to face these gateways alone.
The tribe is here for you. The fire is burning, and if you choose to step into it, the way has been lit for you.