Cristen Rodgers's Blog, page 3

Trending

things that won’t make the news today:

the low-growing thrush covered in clusters of flowers,

the lavender-spiked grasses, overlooking like towers

things that had nothing at all to say:

the wind that teased at the water’s surface for hours

and the soft, cool clattering of this afternoon’s showers

things that didn’t alert or trend:

zebra-striped fish jumping, startling dragonflies above

brush wrapped around the shore like a mother’s love

stories that too few recommend:

the journey of the sun from one end of the sky to the other

how the pines look to palmettos and call them brother

©️ Cristen Writes

Times Have Changed

For years, they’ve held us back. Pushed us down. Stolen our voices. Our power.

They. The false dilemmas. The dualities. The accepted belief that we must be one or the other. The narrative that screams ‘you cannot be both’.

For generations we’ve accepted the idea that we must choose one or the other.

We must be kind or be honest.

Be peaceful or be bold.

Speak up or settle down.

Be strong or be soft.

Be a uniter or be a protector.

But none of it is true. Not a single bit of it could possibly be true, because you cannot have one without the other. You cannot be one without the other.

We were crippled by the choices. Each manufactured dilemma was like a link in the chain that kept us from knowing our strength.

But times have changed.

And we are remembering.

We’re remembering that sometimes love is the bared teeth of a mother protecting her cub.

We’re remembering that we can practice compassion while still calling out the bullshit.

We can feel the connectedness of all things but with an eagle’s vision pinpoint where the work is needed.

We can love and forgive others but still feel and express our anger at injustice.

We can be peace AND take solid form to fight for it.

We can be gentle yet carry a fierceness that makes giants shake.

All of the philosophies and categories. Boxed in by adjectives that we believed were mutually exclusive – they kept us in place. In line. In silence. Because when forced to choose of course we chose peace. And love. And connection. And the still quiet of an open heart.

But there was never a choice required.

We can dance with peace and activism in the same night. We can play musical chairs with hope and anger and forgiveness and still be having fun.

We can be whole and still make use of each of our parts.

We can be humble while having a thunderous voice.

We are hurricanes and also gentle, flowing rivers.

We can move a chess piece without forgetting that it’s only a game. Not held down by identifiers or pre-packaged sides.

We can walk and talk and be in peace even as we swing the sledgehammer that tears a castle down.

For years they held us down.

But times have changed. The chains are not holding. We remember.

©️ Cristen Writes

No more

No more working harder. No more carrying heavier. No more chasing the carrot on a stick.

No more accepting every armload of expectations and rules and responsibilities that they hand me in the subconscious hope for some meager scraps of validation.

No more living like my purpose is to become resilient and my happiness must be earned like some commodity that can be bought and sold.

Now I am working softer. And I’m carrying less. I’m learning to say no.

I will not accept their rules of engagement because I’ve broken them all already. The moment that I realized that I am worth more than what I was agreeing to. That I can do and be and have more than I was allowing.

I broke the entire energetic economy the moment I realized that it starts on the inside. With how I treat myself. With how much space and time I devote to finding my center. My peace. My natural expression and flow. Free of the pressures of conformity, of need for validation, approval, or acceptance of an outdated and expired system of thought.

I won’t work myself into the ground to earn my joy. Because it can’t be earned. It can only be nurtured. So I’m tilling the soil and planting the seeds, whispering love notes and lighting candles and listening to the rain.

No more lowering myself to meet their demands. Instead I am rising to meet my purpose.

Where I was rushed, now I am slowing down. Where I was asking, now I am giving. Where I was wanting, now I am accepting.

No more working harder. Those days are fading. Now I am working softer. And better days are blooming.

©️Cristen Writes

Rebuilding

I’m rebuilding. But this time it’s different. This time I’m building a home within me first.

I’ve already tore down the framework, pulled up the floorboards, and thrown out the trash.

But this time I’m not looking outside myself for anything to start again. I’m not asking anything of anyone but myself.

This time I’m starting on the inside.

This time I’m creating a place where I am safe, valued, and loved. A place of peace and nurturing care.

This time I’m creating an environment where my most beautiful expressions naturally grow and flow.

This time I’m rebuilding my center first.

And from there the rest aligns with ease.

©️ 2025 Cristen Writes

Lost

Sometimes, after some inner growth, I feel as if I’ve found my way back.  I’m struck by the sense that I was lost, and I’m only realizing it now that I’ve returned. 

I suppose it feels as if I was lost because each new level feels so familiar.  And by contrast, the places I started feel so distant from it. 

I couldn’t possibly have been lost, though, because that would mean that I knew where I was supposed to be. 

And yet…

So much of this journey feels like a return to a home that I knew once and yet also have never been.  Somewhere that I knew so well, before this life, before this story, before this time – but also that I have never seen or touched in this one. 

And each new lesson, new awareness, new understanding – each shift is just bringing me closer to that place where I once lived.  That place where I long to be again.

There’s a word for that pull towards a home that you know and yet also doesn’t exist.  Hiraeth.  Such a lovely word that means a nostalgic longing for home, even if you’ve never been there. 

But even this beautiful word doesn’t quite capture it.  Because this is less like longing, with its implied loss or distance, and more like welcoming or calling.  A subtle memory of a home that can be again.  It’s a comfort, a safety, a sense of knowing that home is still here.  All the time. 

And all I’m doing now is uncovering it, lesson by lesson and layer by layer. 

It’s like I’ve never been there but also never left.  And if that’s what it means to be lost, then I’ll never want for a map again. 

What’s even crazier is the feeling that it’s not just home that I’m returning to, if you could call it that.  It’s also family.  Family who are also traveling without a map, following a memory, brushing off the layers, and shifting with each new discovery. 

We call one another sometimes.  Seeking each other out like rare flowers planted in all the corners of the earth.  Rejoicing in each others’ blooms, sometimes offering one another a bit of sun or sending blessings of rain. 

And so I sit here and smile, just a crazy lady with no map, as I think “wow, I got lost there for a minute”. 

Because I know deep inside that none of us are lost.  We’re all just re-discovering home, and remembering each other sometimes along the way. 

©️ Cristen Writes

Special love and gratitude to PJR and MAP

A Message

A message for my neurodivergent friends out there:

Just paying attention is a practice in resiliency right now.

If you are busy processing the onslaught of information, checking facts, finding your center, making plans – if you’re so busy that you don’t yet have the words, or haven’t yet found your method, you are not alone.

Do not add the weight of guilt to the burden of what you’re already dealing with. Do not let your energy faulter because you feel rushed.

The fact that you’re aware and doing the work means that, when you are ready, your words and actions will come.

And they will have the force of an earthquake.

Believe it or not, there are many, many others doing the same thing you are right now. And they will rise, you can bet your ass.

Keep doing your work.

Whether that’s simply processing, or talking with friends and family, or focusing on maintaining your center amidst the craziness – keep doing it.

And when you’re ready to step up, you do it.

But in the meantime, stay on task.

Because losing yourself in the chaos is what they want.

Staying grounded and holding your power? Being ready to unleash a hurricane force no one expected?

That’s exactly what they’re afraid of.

Dont delay. But also don’t lose your process. And if that process takes time, trust it.

And when you’re ready, light that fire

~ Cristen Writes

From the mud

It gets easier.

What was once a battle will someday be a simple decision.

Straightforward, firm, sure.

No tumultuous struggle between what if and what was and what is.

No questioning and second guessing.

Because each of yesterday’s battles leaves a mark. And while some might call them scars, really they are wisdom marks. Beautiful in their representation of courage and hope and fierce determination.

And from their harsh origin softer things really do grow.

So no, you do not have to fight forever and you won’t always feel conscientiousness as a weight.

It will evolve from something that you bear into a grace that you wear. Light and flowing and luminous.

It will get easier, simpler, clearer.

It will, as you do.

©️ Cristen Writes

Human

It’s strange being a human. Caught in this place between instinct and deliberation. Between the construct of society and the truth of the wild. Between the physical and the spiritual. I imagine being a bird or an elephant would be so easy, but maybe because I’m nether bird nor elephant – rather I’m something with feathers and weight but neither take such solid form as theirs. Again caught somewhere in the middle. An existential battle, or fine tuned balance, depending on the day. Only as real as deliberation allows, unlike the elephant that exists no matter its thoughts or absence of them. Only as free as instinct can bow, unlike the bird for whom instinct is its method of flight. A strange and beautiful experience for sure, being a human.

©️ 2025 Cristen Writes

Just Turn

It’s easy to go either way. You turn left or you turn right. You start to lose touch with yourself, listen to the noise, let the rules and the dramas become so real that they gain weight, and it pulls you down. Or you say no to the call of foreign voices that have nothing to with your story, you remember who you are, and you rise above the chatter. You blink and it’s done, you’ve made your move. It isn’t hard. What’s hard is pulling the wheel back straight when the momentum has you moving in a direction you never intended. But even that can happen in a heartbeat. In a single breath. In the tick of the clock that you suddenly remember isn’t real. In the rush of the wind that brings you back into your body. Maybe the hardest part is believing that it must be hard. Maybe all you have to do is remember. So you leave clues just in case. A feather in the visor. A gemstone on the table. A book left open to that one page. Just in case, because the world is full of strangers calling us down roads that are not our own. But it’s also full of friends. Angels in ripped jeans, and squirrels and birds and painters. Children at play. Feathers in visors and gemstones on tables and songs you saved forever ago. Calling you back to yourself again. It isn’t hard, not really. Just turn around and go the other way.

~ Cristen Writes

Home is where the heart is

I sat beneath an oak tree once. It was a beautiful, strong tree with roots so large that they ruptured the surface and provided the perfect little nook where I could sit with my book.

I didn’t read that day, though. Instead I spent that time marveling at that tree and letting my mind wander where it pleased.

I thought about what things it had seen and how many people had sat beneath its canopy. I wondered how long it had been growing and how many birds and squirrels had called it home.

I imagined the moment its little seed landed in just the right spot and how many things must have perfectly aligned to have it nestled under a sprinkling of soil, and watered by a gentle rain, and protected from animals that would uproot it when it was still a sprout. What a beautiful journey – and not an easy one.

What I didn’t do was ask where that seed came from and challenge whether it belonged. It never crossed my mind to worry over the ways it might be different from neighboring trees. It was obvious that this beauty was right where it was meant to be and who am I to challenge that?

If that’s true for an oak tree, then who the fuck are you to question whether a human belongs wherever they chose to take root?

How shallow must you be to totally discard all of the perfectly synchronized events that led to a human settling where they do?

How much must you close off your heart to believe that you know better than nature, that you know better than God, that you know better than another human where they belong? That your opinion is more important than the children and adults and associates and animals that have built a community around them?

And to be so sure of yourself that you’re willing to undo the seed landing, and the earth welcoming, and the rain feeding, and the sun nurturing, and God protecting that person so that they can thrive here?

Who the fuck are you to tell another human where they belong?

©️2025 Cristen Writes