Welcome to the Delicious Dignity Podcast. Let's settle in securely and ever so nicely into the brilliance of our own dignity. Hello my friends, it's a beautiful morning in Sedona and I'm listening to the sound of the birds outside my window. And I'm also listening to the sound of my dog sniffing eagerly under my door, trying to figure out why I closed the door on him. I never close doors in my house, so he's very confused as to why the door is closed. But I think that's perfect for the subject that I wanted to talk to you about today. And this is a little bit of a different episode because it is about a prayer, a poem that A declaration, an activation, a blessing, an affirmation, an intention, a celebration, a vow, a promise. It is all of those things. And, you know, when a cat purrs or a lion does this low growl thing, this growl of contentment, you know, it hits you right in the chest. Or when you see a wolf walk or when you see a cheetah or a mountain lion walk. There's this sort of natural kind of dignity that these animals have. Even if you watch hummingbirds and the way they, you know, sip on nectar or... It's just a natural kind of dignity. And that's the kind of dignity I am talking about and I hope to activate in you through this poem. It activates and celebrates that natural dignity within you. I wrote this poem about a decade or so ago. It's one of my favorites I've ever written because it's more of that, it's got that oomph to it. It's more of a declaration than a poem. I wrote it during a time when I was changing and growing pretty rapidly. And looking back now, 10 years later, the wisdom in this poem, what was coming through me and out of me was this declaration that I am, and we all are, naturally good and perfect. And I did not want to fit a mold I was being asked to fit into. I didn't want to fit the mold of friend and all the different expectations that come with the mold of friend. I didn't want to fit the mold of corporate workplace and all of the expectations of how to behave, how to dress, how to talk, how to walk, how to act in the corporate workplace. I didn't want to fit the mold of daughter. I did not want to fit the mold of girlfriend. There were so many molds I was breaking out of at the time. And it felt like I almost wanted to just burst out the seams of my own skin. It's as if the skin on my body was becoming too tight, like a too tight piece of clothing. And I just wanted to bust out. I'm reminded of this feeling of taking your bra off when you come home and that feeling of relief and satisfaction when you just let them Be free. That's kind of the feeling of this. So this poem is a declaration of bursting out. It's a wish to celebrate great mother nature. It's an affirmation acknowledging my inner divinity and yours. It was acknowledging that I'm more creature than human, more wild than tame, and going past the mask of perfect and just being perfectly. You know? And if this poem was a goddess, it would be something akin to Kali or Persephone or Lilith or Freya or Inanna. And I just like to mention the goddess archetypes because I think they're very instructional for our psyche as it comes to the feminine essence of being. So when can you use this poem? You can use this poem when you want to pick me up. You know, you just need that boost. Maybe you're in a low point or maybe you're just wanting a boost just in general. Use this poem then, listen to it, speak it out loud if you will, say it with me, whatever you like. You can use this poem when you are caught in a loop or you're debilitated by your own notions of perfectionism or procrastination, which is just basically a mask for fear. You can use this poem as just a general activation at the beginning of your meditation session or at the end of your meditation session. You can use it for being your battle cry. Let's say that you're doing something that requires a bit of a fight. Maybe you're getting sued and you need to go to court. Maybe you have to have a really difficult conversation with boundary setting with a friend. This can be your battle cry. Maybe you need to address somebody's disrespect and you say this poem to yourself before you talk to them. You can also use this poem whenever you, just before you do anything that makes you nervous or anything that's unknown to you or new to you. Or you can just use this poem as part of your morning meditation. You know, you wake up in the morning, you say this poem, and then you go about your day. You say it before you go to bed at night. So just to give you a few ideas as to how to actually use this practically. Okay, so I'm going to begin. I didn't mean to keep you in suspense all this time for the last five minutes, but I just wanted to give you a solid introduction to why this even exists. Because I never want to waste your time. I never want to give you something that's not actually useful. So yeah, I just wanted to set the stage. So I'm going to begin speaking this prayer out to you now. It's really best if you're someplace where you can close your eyes and listen, where you can just sort of take it all in. that, you know, taken like the energy of what I'm saying more than even the words of what I'm saying. And so, yeah. So let me just say this poem to you. Okay. So if you can, please close your eyes, lean back. You know, when we lean back, it's an indication to our body that we are relaxed. We're teaching our body to relax and we're teaching our body that we are receiving now. We're not thinking, we're not doing, we're receiving, we're just being. So lean back, close your eyes and listen. The poem is called Wilding. Wilding, my vision raises now. My coat shrugs off the race, the maze, and my neck is stretched to praise a chest unguarded. Paws pressed on the edge of this cliff inspiration. Gaps between my burrowed claws weave a wilder tale of creation. There it is, that steady hum of unquiet. The grief, the pain, the shit, the stain. The ecstasy, the beauty, the glory, the juicy. I howl. And if you want to howl, Right now, go ahead. There's something very healing about it. I would howl for you right now, but I don't think you want to hear that. Or maybe you do. You know what? Let me howl for you right now. So let me say that again. The grief, the pain, the shit, the stain, the ecstasy, the beauty, the glory, the juicy. I howl. Now, if you want to actually Save the poem on your phone or be able to listen to just the prayer itself and nothing more. I have two little delicious treats of dignity for you. If you go to the show notes in the episode description, I'm giving you an image file that you can store on your phone or your laptop anywhere. And I'm giving it to you so you can read it, but also just the way I've arranged the words on the page and designed them on the page, it gives you an extra boost. Sometimes we need a little bit of help to sink into the energy of something. And so you'll see what I mean when you actually see the image file and you can save it on your phone. And then the second thing I'm giving you in the episode description is just a plain audio with no music. It's just this. prayer spoken three times. You can play your own music on another device when you listen to this poem, so that way you can customize it to your liking. I just wanted to give you just the plain prayer by itself three times. So yeah, these are my little gifts, my little treats of delicious dignity for you. If there's something you appreciated or liked about this episode or other episodes, please, please, please consider leaving a review. In your review, tell me and tell others what you liked or what helped. It helps to make more content just like this, but also it helps other people to see exactly what others found useful. And maybe just maybe what you say you found useful, someone else also can say, oh, that's exactly what I need. And they can listen to an episode. And so until we meet again, my friend, may a natural type of dignity... seep into your blood and your bones.