2. Shedding skins and being a lighthouse

In this episode we explore shedding skins and being a lighthouse

In this conversation, we explore shedding what no longer serves us and seeing how we might become a light for others. The power of letting go of old stories and why the feminine elder may be exactly the lighthouses the world needs right now.

We believe the voice of the feminine elder is medicine for the world. We are Elizabeth Lovius and Liz Scott  -  two women with over a combined century of living, loving and learning.  

In The Wild, Wise Feminine, we share our unfiltered conversations about what it really means to come into your own, be seen and hold the line for love.  

We'd love you to pull up a chair. 

If you want to get in touch - contact us at:  lizscottcoaching@me.com

For more about and how to work with Elizabeth Lovius www.elizabethlovius.com 

For more about and how to work with Liz Scott www.lizscott.co.uk

Transcript

Liz Scott 0:01

Hello and welcome to the Wild Wise Feminine.

Elizabeth Lovius 0:09

We believe the voice of the feminine elder is medicine for the world. We are Elizabeth Lovius and Liz Scott. Two women with a combined century of living, loving, and learning.

Liz Scott 0:26

In the Wild Wise Feminine, we share our unfiltered conversations about what it really means to come into your own, be seen, and hold the line for love.

Elizabeth Lovius 0:39

We'd love you to pull up a chair.

Liz Scott 0:57

In this episode we explore shedding skins and being a lighthouse. This is about shedding what no longer serves us, and seeing how we might become a light for others.

Elizabeth Lovius 1:08

We explore the power of letting go of old stories and why the feminine elder may be exactly the lighthouses the world needs right now

Liz Scott 1:29

Hello, Elizabeth. Well, it's so good to see you again. We are starting a new year, and we were just having a chat before we were going to start recording, and I just said, stop! We need to record this conversation because it is so rich with where you're at and so much resonance with where I'm at. So let's just recap a little bit. Um, we're kind of touching on the Chinese New Year, last year, the year of the snake. And I've got some reflections on that myself, but just what you were saying about you going through sort of shedding your skin and all of that. Take me back to some of what you were saying, and I'm going to chip in as well. Absolutely.

Elizabeth Lovius 2:10

Let's talk about our sheddings and let's talk about where the energy is going for this year of 2026, what we're noticing. And I'll just start with you know what I'm seeing. I mean, you know, whether you need you don't need to believe in Chinese astrology, it's just a context and a way of looking at it. And it really felt to me, especially autumn of last year, a time of shedding. And I want to say, I really shed the illusions around where I get my sense of worth, trust, and safety from. And those were things that I'd innocently attributed to outside of myself. And, you know, there's another story in lots of articles I've written about what those things were. But bottom line, it doesn't matter what they were, I was sort of putting my worth in things that uh idealistic expectations of something happening that didn't happen, and then I didn't feel like, you know, worthy, or I felt worth my worth was compromised. I'd put my trust in certain things and they were betrayed. And then I realized I it was me who'd had an idealistic expectation that I could trust that. And deepest of all, and probably the theme of all of it, is where I'd located my safety. My sense of safety was definitely in an external, you know, sense of security. And when those three things were all like the rug was pulled out on those things, I got to see the illusion that it was, and where safety really lies, and where trust needs to come from, and where worth, what worth is really. And that was hard because I guess when you shed a skin, you really attach to the old one, you know, and and it's there's a vulnerability in in letting go of what is familiar and and comfortable, and there's this vulnerable space where you possibly haven't grown your new skin yet. And that's really the theme of autumn, and then it all kind of landed in Christmas and New Year with some very physical shedding. I actually had food poisoning, but it felt like it was medicinal, like the the snake symbol is very medicinal. It felt like I've been on this medicinal journey with my body to kind of get rid of whatever was contained on the physical level. And I feel ready now for this fire horse year. So um there's some thoughts, but I am if I can just jump to one last thing I was sharing with you, which made you say, Stop.

unknown 4:41

Yes.

Elizabeth Lovius 4:42

And it was um it was to one of my clients who's um a 50-something woman, a CEO. Um, we have a very honest and nourishing mutual relationship. You know, she's in the space of um really interested in what I'm calling female elderhood, you know, taking your seat at the table at this stage of life, something we're passionately talking about between us. And what does it look like at this stage? And I often find myself texting inspiration from my bath. That's my that's my oh, it's a that's a weird image. Sorry, take it out your mind. But what I mean is I'm surrounded by nourishing water, I've got space and time, and I'm that's when I kind of receive intuitive wisdom often. And I'll text a friend or I'll say this, it will come, and this is what came. Um, change is coming for us all in 2026. This firehorse year is going to be a wild ride, and firehorse is all about instinct, momentum, move forward, just do it. And it's got a lot of forward movement energy while the snake is more introspective and you know shedding. And then I said, and this was the part that had me weep when I wrote it, you know, when you know you felt something really true, and it's so in alignment, Liz, with what we're up to. Sisters need to stick together and support each other and hold the line for love. You remember Greenham Common?

Liz Scott 6:26

That is energetically that's oh gosh, there's so much, there's just so much here, um, which is sparking things in me and and just sort of reflections as well. But I I want to come back to to what you've written, and and I think it'd be great to repeat that in a in a moment because it's it's percolating in a way. But I think this one of the things I like about say the Chinese New Year or astrology, and and I I probably enjoy it as a bystander as opposed to really sort of believing or or getting involved in it. But the year of the snake, it coincided for me with the pilgrimage that I've I walked. And I was really curious because the year of the snake um also represented the snaking of the energy currents that I was following. And the book that I was using as my guidebook was called The Sun and the Serpent. So it just felt like this year of the snake, and as you say, this sense of introspection was immense. And also for me, and this is what I love about our characters, we're we're so different in in our energy levels in in some ways, and yet uh the resonance is still there for me in what you were talking about, because it absolutely felt for me on this journey that I was in a transition. It felt like my old skin was splitting. Like if you look at the skin of a snake, it felt like it was splitting. It felt like uh I had known for some time it was it was no longer going to be taking me on the next part of my journey, metaphorically. And certainly what felt um happened as I I came out of the pilgrimage was a sense of unknowing, knowing that it wasn't the same as when I was went into the pilgrimage, knowing it wasn't going to be the same as my work life previously, knowing that something significantly was shifting within me and not understanding what. So I really, really get that sense of shedding, of of losing a skin, of something new growing from within. And that's what happens with a skin, isn't it? Um, and so uh the and the other thing I just want to say is when you were talking about your your sense of putting uh your worth on things externally, and and we I know we'll come back to this time and time again. And what I love is that we're human and we kind of trip up and we we think the world needs to go a certain way before we feel a certain way, and of course, that isn't the way it works, and that's a theme we'll always keep returning to in our conversations. But I think what's really useful is that you don't realize that's happening until, like you say, the rug is pulled out from beneath you. It often takes something pretty ground shaking because usually you can just kind of go along in good enough, and this is fine and I'm comfortable enough. And I find that the universe gives me little nudges, and then it becomes an elbow, and then it becomes a shake on the shoulder, and then it's like you're not listening to me. I'm gonna have to do something pretty big for you to hear what I need you to hear. And that's what I heard in what you say is that there was something for you that was a real sense of recognizing who your where your sense of worth came from. You got tripped up again, me too, we all do. We think something needs to happen in order for me to feel okay, and it doesn't work like that. And you've seen that loads of times before, many, many times before. And each time it just seems like you go down a level of deepening your understanding, and that's what I'm hearing and what you're saying. You suddenly go, huh, I'm seeing this differently. I'm seeing this from a different perspective. This feels even truer than I previously thought. So that's what I heard and what you're saying. And I feel really inspired by what you say about holding this line of love. And I want to talk a bit more about that in a second. Again, maybe my reflections that have come from a different direction, but I think are saying the same thing. Um, but I I really want to hear more about your well, reflections on what I've said, but also your reflections further on us elders, elder women in particular, holding this line of love. Like it feels really strong for me. That might not be in the language I would have used, but it it resonates deeply. It's like, yes, I uh but that wakes something in me that feels true. So tell tell me a bit more about your reflections.

Elizabeth Lovius 11:09

I've just had a game-changing insight about me listening to you, about this power of this snake and this impersonal nature of it from last year, and it looks different for for many of us. And I've just joined a dot with where I'm going uh for my with my own work and my own vision and how it all fits together. And that was just from deeply listening to you right there, really following where you what it was like for you and your journey. And then suddenly, in listening to you deeply, I saw something deeply. And I want to say this is the nature of the feminine that we're talking about, women talking and listening, is not just women talking and listening, it's we feel met, seen, and something gets born in the in-between that's beyond anyone's knowledge, and that's happening live right now between us. And I've just seen a profound thing because I have a very good mechanism in my body which tells me when I've just heard something profound, my whole body tingles. Many of us have that, we often dismiss it, but there's some um data somewhere about what that phenomenon is, and it's basically you're tapping into some greater knowing. This is a requirement of us all if we if we're interested in being our full selves. That's if that's the the precursor. If you want to be your full self, this is the requirement. We are required, I was required to shed whatever I will call it my insecurities. We have I have to get over that to be fit for what is my job now. That is not required. It's not like I won't have ever insecurities again, but they running the show, no, it's like the universe gave me all the signals, places where I was still insecure and took the rug away and said, not anymore, because it's insufficient to the task. We I cannot operate from insecurity to to bring what is mine to bring in the world I operate in, which is sisterhood and love in business, and more than that, a kind of new way of being in the world in community, whatever your community is, local, business. I I really feel like business is a community, so it doesn't look that different to any other community, it might just have a different structure or focus, but any community, we have to learn how to live differently without polarization, where we come from a different place in ourselves when we enter community, and it is the feminine elder or whatever we're gonna call it, the wise woman, the sacred sage, who will light the path for that. And the only way she can do that is if she sheds her own insecurity and shines her light in her way, and that's what I've been on, that's what I'm going through right now, just seeing where I am still a hostage to my own old story of not enoughness or whatever it is, you know. And then what's giving getting born in that in that new skin is some kind of clarity of what's mine to do. And my job is to wake up wisdom and leaders and to call out the good man to protect and provide for the vision of love for the tribe. And that's kind of metaphorical, but I feel like that's the role I'm in as a female elder now, to speak to the good men to protect and provide for something greater that serves the whole in whatever context they're operating it. And I literally said that to the head of sales in a business yesterday, and he he grew taller and stronger with that mission. It was incredible. So we can do it wherever we are, in whatever way we do it, quietly in the background or vocally like me, but there's a holding of what is sacred, and I can't do that from insecurity. Little me protecting me. I have to do it from my true self-expression. Well, that I don't know where that got where that came from, Liz, but that that was that was heartled.

Liz Scott 15:57

Well, you know, I I was up on um on Dartmoor uh yesterday, or was it the day? No, it must have been the day before because it was a bit bit wild weather yesterday, wasn't it? And um it was cold. It was the end of this very cold period that we we've had. And Dartmoor is a beautiful moorland. I can just walk up, it's sort of five minutes up our road, and then I'm up on this open moorland. You've got semi-wild ponies and sheep and cattle grazing and just miles and miles of open openness that you can walk across. And I I walked up there, it was bitterly cold, and um, it's a hill, so that's quite nice when you're cold, walking up a hill, getting to a particular point that was sheltered, and then I just paused that with little pockets of snow that was still on the ground, and I and I really reflected, and one of the things that uh came to me that feels resonant in what you're saying, and again, this is probably my way of saying it, and I'm reflecting on the space for for women, older women in the world. What what is what is my my role, what is my uh purpose. And I realized how when I bring my awareness, bring that's that sort of sense of who I truly am, get bring that to the foreground. Um find myself, I I kind of think about my awareness as almost like a spotlight. Like, what am I putting it on? And when I bring it back to that sense of who I truly am, I feel that sense of groundedness. And for me, it feels like I've got like I'm an oak tree with like these huge deep roots that just stretch into the ground. I feel absolutely rock solid. And I also realized from that space that this is about women and and it's about everybody, but we're talking specifically to women here, it's about older women feeling that sense of presence, that energy, that creative potential in life and allowing it, giving it freedom to come through them in their unique way, so that it is expressed in whatever way, shape, form feels appropriate for that person. There's a sense of freedom and joy in just seeing it spill through. It reminds me of when I was on my pilgrimage, I went to lots and lots of churches. Um, and when you look at the stained glass window, and and when the sun comes through the stained glass window, and you you can see the play of the colours of light on the ground inside the church, it's a magical thing. And each stained glass window and each little fragment of pain that goes into making the stained glass window is unique and is part of the whole. So for me, that feels like a similar way of looking at what you're talking about.

Elizabeth Lovius 19:31

I I absolutely love that, and it just is such a great metaphor because we can't do that if it's covered over with the narratives of not enough or whatever it is the narrative is, or I should be please everyone, or you know, all the things we inherit as an idea of ourselves that isn't really who we are, can cover over that beautiful stained glass, and and the light doesn't shine through. And so for me, this this year of the snake has been that cleaning of the glass to the and and what's becomes immediately available is the shine of the spotlight of what's for me and the colours of that are that are mine, and it's such exactly what I'm seeing in my own self. It's I love that analogy, I'm nicking it. It's so beautiful and it's so vivid, and we can all relate. Yeah, so um I feel incredibly right now, even even though the world feels insecure and unstable, like the swirling seas and the terrible storms we could put our attention on, I feel I'm becoming more lighthouse made of those glass around it, a coloured lighthouse. And that, you know, I'm feeling like that's like you, what did you say? Where do we put our attention on the storm and the sea and what is unstable, or what is what is the lighthouse and what is our light to shine? And I really think that's the opportunity of the older woman.

Liz Scott 21:13

Yeah, and and just moving on with your uh metaphor of the lighthouse, and I love that. And I live um in Devon, and if you look at a map of the UK, it's like the little foot, the southwest foot of Devon. So we've got coastline on the north and the south coast, and then you go down to the point into Cornwall, um, and it, you know, it's it's a peninsula that sticks out into the sea. So for me, the thing about a lighthouse, which is really useful as well, is that there isn't just one, and you don't need many, but you need them positioned along the coastline. And that in a way has me have a sense of what we're talking about here is that as women, we we need to be rock solid, and that doesn't it is not that. Everybody in the world needs to be like this, but there need to be some rock solid lighthouses guiding people and showing them where the rocks are and and helping people make good decisions about how to navigate.

Elizabeth Lovius 22:13

Oh, that is so beautiful, and it speaks to my sisters holding the line for love. Yes, isn't it? Yeah. And against assailants, whatever they may be. And I sense that that is where hope lies in profound feminine wisdom. And in women, but also that being awakened in men and whatever, however, you know, people associate themselves, that quality of no, this is precious, and we will light the path for that. And I and we will hold the line for that. And we will we will see each other in that. Oh, this is gonna really make me cry. Sorry. If you were lost on a stormy sea and you can't see for the fog, it is the lighthouse that will show you home. And that's what I think is what we're talking to in this podcast, it it feels right.

Liz Scott 23:34

Yeah, it really does, and thank you for that. I've I feel your your sort of being touched in that real beautiful energy. Um, yeah, this it feels like a really beautiful image for us to conclude with. But I'd I'd love you just to repeat once more, if you could, the quote, because I I feel that was really important for what we uh we were talking about today.

Elizabeth Lovius 24:00

You know, and it was it was a quote that I it came from the moment, it came from my relationship with this sister who shares what we speak about, she shares this. She she is the lighthouse in her organization, she's actually a CEO, and she's always doing that in whatever way makes sense, and it was just came from a natural connection between two women, which is where I believe it comes often comes from. A seeing together. Sisters need to stick together and support each other and hold the line for love.

Liz Scott 24:52

You've been listening to the Wild Wise Feminine Podcast with Elizabeth Lovius and Liz Scott. If you want to get in touch, take a look at the show notes. We'd love to hear from you.