Goddesses Share Their Secrets

What is success to you?
For me, success involves pursuing my passions regularly. Success involves pursuing these passions as my full self, my wild self, without shame. In my own life, success has involved creating a life from scratch that makes me happy, that makes me glow. I lead a very simple, humble life full of good food, hard work, nature, and great relationships. For me, having a few simple threads that build and amplify my happiness is key.

What is magic for you?
Magic is when my intuition, my gut feelings, and my ancestral wisdom all lead me to discover new parts of myself and the world. I can’t explain how much important information has arrived in the form of dreams, hunches, daydreams, random thoughts, tarot readings, and other sources.

What is love for you?
Love is embracing the light and the dark and being willing to ride life out and trust that magic is still always under the surface.

What is your beauty/health practice?
I start my day with very little talking or interacting. I wake up early enough so that I can move slowly and intentionally. I oil pull, dry skin brush, shower, and give myself a daily massage with raw coconut oil. I use very few products on my skin. Coconut oil, bentonite clay, a few essential oils, and homemade deodorant are pretty much all that I use. I like to keep my personal care practice affordable and simple.

Movement is essential for me. Biking is my main mode of transportation and it really allows me to explore my city in a profound way. The DC area has tons of green space, so I hike in Rock Creek Park and surrounding natural spaces in Virginia as often as possible. I have a daily asana and pranayama practice. I also feel really great when I dance, so I spend a good deal of time dancing in my bedroom with the lights off like a mad person. It feels good to shake the day off and get my blood flowing.

Relationships play a big role in my daily health regime. I only maintain relationships that are healthy and I’m very serious about maintaining boundaries and safe space. I have a tight knit group of folks in my life and we have built amazing, healthy connections. When connections don’t serve me, I move on and make space for new connections.

In my work as a Food & Wellness Educator, I share with people the importance of cooking from scratch as a form of self-care. I’m very serious about walking the talk. Home-cooked meals using local ingredients are a must for me. I love dark leafy greens, a good amount of coconut oil and avocado, local meat, root vegetables, the works. I try to workshare on farms for food as much as I can, but I also frequent the local farmers markets.

What makes your spirit glow?
My spirit glows when it is allowed to be wild. I’ve always had trouble being regular. I’ve always marched to the beat of my own drum. I spent a good chunk of my younger years in trouble or misunderstood for not doing what everyone else was doing. I’ve learned to embrace it and make it work for me. When I’ve tried to suffocate my wildness and tuck it away, there have been serious repercussions. My spirit feels best during muddy romps through the woods, time spent laughing with my friends, when I’m eating good, health supporting food, when I feel valued or make someone else feel valued, or creating something out of nothing. Being myself, being a maker of things and experiences, and allowing room for wildness allows my spirit to grow.

How do you stay centered in the middle of chaos?
I actually really believe in first allowing myself to feel the chaos before I attempt to center myself. I’m a very big introvert, albeit a very social one, so I tend to get overstimulated very easily. I’m also a fairly emotional person by nature, so learning to center myself is a daily practice that I have been working on since I was little. I allow myself to feel what I feel and to take it seriously. I have no issue having a good crying session/freakout session in my bedroom! Then I allow myself to react to it in a safe manner. I’ll whip out some of my tools: journaling, calling a friend for support, breathwork, stepping into nature, using crystals, or tucking into some library books. For me, centering myself involves spending a good amount of time spent alone.

What causes/organizations are you passionate about?
I’m incredibly passionate about creating space for women, especially women of color, to use food as a catalyst for deepening their self-care practices. The narratives of women of color are often shoved aside, disregarded, misunderstood, and trampled on by the world. I’m really interested in using food as an entry point for women to be able to tel their stories in their words, for them to use food as a catalyst to remember that they are makers and creators.

If you could say one thing to the world, what would you say?
Spend time alone. Explore the things that scare you–your light and your dark. Dive deep. Live your own life…not the life that you *think *you’re supposed to be living! Stop worrying about what other people think. Do your thing.

If you are not a mother, how do you mother the world?
I don’t plan on being a mother, but I mother the world by communing with other women daily and creating sacred webs of sisterhood in my own life.

http://www.laurennixon.com/