Rest and Restoration is essential, and a goal of Futuring is that we normalize that for ourselves. If we are not believing this is nature's gift to us, we owe it to ourselves to ask, "Why? Why have I ignored the needs of my body, my nervous system, my level of fatigue, my own good sense, my peace-of-mind?”

A condition of Futuring is to re-member that self-care is our nature and gifted to us for our survival. Futuring means when we accept and live in this way, we are supporting the survival of our planet. Let's ask ourselves, why do we need a special acronym as a reward for what is our gift available to us all day long? Now that we realize that we have misused this expression as something we must earn rather than that which we can access all day long, how about we assign its meaning to something far more sustainably healing for ourselves and the world.

Introducing the more accurate definition of R&R; "Role and Responsibility" (nouns) Re-considering the definition as coined by a system that has never properly lived up to serving the people, Role and Responsibility (R&R) is the sacred gift bestowed upon women as givers of life, water carriers of our womb, sustainers of family and/or communal well-being, and intuitive wisdom keepers. The hormone oxytocin that we carry in our bodies; a gift of nature, is activated during childbirth, super-charges us in crisis or need when we run to our sisters or convene circles, allows us to feed the next generation at our breast, and find new solutions that serve the greater good.

Like boiling a frog, we have been swimming in slowly increasing warm waters for centuries, and the system’s gig is up. The water’s coming to a rapid boil and it’s time for us to get really clear on that which we are treading in, and our roles in keeping conditions comfortable without making waves. We have no choice but to come up for air, see what’s going on, and own the life preserver skills we are wired with.

To Future means to kick up our heals and float above the chaos. Then, take a deep cleansing breath, recognize that victimization and blaming and shaming are tools of the evil pervasive system, and proclaim, “I am a woman who Futures a new paradigm.”

We are all gifted with at least one, if not boatloads of talents, skills, perspectives, relations, insights, and lived experiences that are ours and ours alone. To Future means it is our R&R to bring these things to the world and not waste another moment wondering if they matter. If they did not matter, you would not be gifted with them. The world is aching for each of us to live into our R&R right now.

I concluded that collectively, we were a unicorm, rare, and beautiful, and strong. Our natural highlights of the rainbow were dazzling. Nothing like us existed. The fairytale of a unicorn has all the magica powers of the imagination and heart-centered Intention. When She appears, we know that peace is within reach.

Sande Hart

The Liminal Odyssey, The Alchemical Power of the Spaces In-Between

It is in the liminality that we notice the moments we are not fully living into our R&R. In writing my book, The Liminal Odyssey, The Alchemical Power of the Spaces In-Between, I discovered the hot-second between the moments I was not living into my sacred task of R&R, and the how mindlessly I skipped over them, even when my body tried to warn me. Those moments became a voluminous amount of time to start questioning assumptions. Why am I ignoring that knot in my throat, the pain in my gut, that kink in my lower back? Taking a breath, I realized I had been ignoring these pings and pangs my entire life because I was brought up in a system to give no attention (or reverence) to why I was not speaking up or showing up fully with my gifts. “We are simply not that power-full to be in relationship with our body and self-worth,” was a belief system that has made it very convenient for big pharma to get bigger, for corporations to sell us more stuff to fill those gaps, and a litany of other ways someone else has benefitted from this obedient nature we have bought into. We woke up in the late 1800;s and again in the 1960’s, but even since then we, especially women born before and around this time, continue to believe and behave in old systems of domination. If we were as woke and liberated as we want to believe, there would be no place for the sister-wound or the stark realization of the fragility of women’s rights that have recently been rolled back 50 years in the United States.

That deep dive pulled up roots that had been tangled in generational trauma, family behavior patterns, self-doubt, and more shame that I believed was possible for one pre-teen to carry into her adult life. That unshackling of the binds that hold us are literally in our hands as women, and when we can retreat and restore (a proper application for R&R as it too is our role and responsibility) in those liminal spaces we become alchemical indeed.

Breathe into who you are. Own your wisdom. Thank victimization, blaming and shaming for trying, but show them the door right now. Pull your shoulders back, raise your eyebrows, and smile. It’s time for some R&R. Our world needs you.

Sande Hart is the Author of The Liminal Odyssey, The Alchemical Power of The Spaces In-Between and Your Liminal Odyssey, a Practical Guide into Alchemizing the Spaces In-Between. Use promo code GWV to receive 33% discount on one or both books until Sept 30th. www.Sandehart.com

Sande is also the founding President of The Global Woman’s Village, home of Women Who Future a New Paradigm www.GlobalWomansVillage.org