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Stepping Back With Love                                                                                                  
                    
May 26, 2007                                                                  

Hello, Sophia Sisters!
    We all come to moments in our life when we know we have learned something about ourselves and it is time to change.  I am lovingly pulling back from my management role in Sophia Center of Montana.
I have been a part of Sophia Center of Montana since the idea phase a decade ago, and through her birth and blossoming into the beautiful, organic, dynamic, and vibrant being she is becoming.  The challenge, and the energy it takes, to create -- to envision what is not, and then bring it to fruition --- is one of the things that I live for.  Somewhere in my essence is the desire, nay, the need, to create.  I tell myself sometimes that I am not really an artist, but then I realize that I am similarly motivated.  Perhaps I just work in different media than some!
    Working with Kathy and Gayle has been one of the best relationships I have ever had.  At one point we found ourselves asking if we had found our life’s work.  My reply was, “I don’t know if this is what I want to do the rest of my life, but I do know this is how I want to do it.”   Kathy calls it working by “the Goddess Model.”   We operate under the assumption that each of us is enough as we are, and there is enough for everyone.  We recognize our own strengths and weaknesses, and complement each other’s.  When one can do something well, she does it.  When one says this isn’t her best skill, another has it, and sweeps it away into “done.”  The flow and ebb of our work together literally washes me in a tide of excitement, satisfaction, and gratitude.
    What has become evident to me over the last year is that Sophia Center of Montana is maturing.  I am a change agent at my core.  My own best energy is found “starting” things.  The energy and skills to actually run things once they’re working are better found in others.  While much growth and change still lies ahead for Sophia, the majority of the work is stuff I never have been that good at or excited about, while Kathy and Gayle are really good at it!  I have been amazed standing back and watching them roll.  And they have plenty of creative energy of their own!
    So it is with happiness and a full heart that I gratefully take a step back.  I have learned so much.  I have learned that one can only create from what she knows, and it is futile to try to create what you think others would do.  One must offer the very best of what she has in herself.  If people want it, they will accept.  If they don’t, they won’t.  But at least it is authentic.  And that is everything.
    I have learned that I am loved for me, and not what image I can portray.  I have learned that I need women.  I have learned that women are more amazing than I ever dreamed.  I have learned that friendship goes deeper than having things in common or getting along, or even being together.  The friendship I now experience with all of you is simply a knowing.  I look into your eyes, or share a letter, or think of you, and we know each other to be real.  Thank you all for that.
    I continue to be a friend to Sophia, offering help and ideas where they are needed, and loving support.  Who knows, I may even help sponsor an event now and then.  Of course, I have all these ideas for new things to start…!  I am currently working to help my father, a geologist and physicist, realize a lifelong dream and launch a major scientific breakthrough while he is still alive.  And I am looking for other ways to grow, personally and professionally, as my kids are old enough to start allowing me a little personal time.

Keep in touch!  Let me know how your life is growing!

Much love,    Carolyn

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