On the threshold of all we're meant to be
The Irish poet John O’Donohue speaks of thresholds in this way…
“If you go back to the etymology of the word “threshold”, it comes from “threshing”, to separate the grain from the husk. So the threshold, in a way, is a place where you move into more critical and challenging and worthy fullness.”
O’Donohue’s definition of threshold, this “challenging and worthy fullness”, speaks to the heart of what I want to live into each and every day.
I want to be engaged and spurred on by what inspires, challenges and frightens me rather than hiding out in the covert ways that I do. I want to be present and awake for the reality that currently is — and for the one I’m courageously crafting.
The last few years has brought events that many of us never thought were possible. Yet here we are, at the threshold, at a Great Turning as Joanna Macy calls it, and I find myself naming what I must separate out to live into this challenging and worthy fullness.
May I separate out hate from my heart, resistance from my awareness and fear from my big dreams. May I separate out criticism from my creativity, skepticism from my hope, and lethargy from my purpose.
May I separate out judgment from my compassion, guilt from my kindness and doubt from my innate wisdom.
And may this threshing leave me clear, clean and ready to inhabit the love, commitment, strength and resolve that this worthy fullness requires.
Now I ask you, while standing together on this mighty threshold of life, what do you want to separate out to live into your most challenging and worthy fullness?
What must be threshed to clear the way for presence and connection?
And know that when the road to our most challenging and worthy fullness gets hard, I’m right there with you on the same path.
“If you go back to the etymology of the word “threshold”, it comes from “threshing”, to separate the grain from the husk. So the threshold, in a way, is a place where you move into more critical and challenging and worthy fullness.”
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This conversation is between myself and an incredible woman named Ani, who shares how she learned how to be authentic, practice self-compassion, and take up space without guilt or shame through my 6-month group coaching program, Homecoming. Ani is a model for how to excavate internalized misogyny and live authentically without fear of others’ opinions. The conversation originally took place on my podcast, The Path Home.