Sacredly Stubborn

Do not budge from that spot where you are standing!

The earth element quality of stubbornness does not always hold the negative connotation it is given. It’s time to unpack this label that is often deemed bad and used as a form of shame or peer pressure… I bet you’ve heard it before when you did something another didn’t like or didn’t act in a way that they wanted you to, saying things like: “You’re stubborn as a mule,” “why do you have to be so stubborn,” why can’t you just bend this time” or “why do you make everything so difficult?”

How does it make you feel when someone calls you stubborn?

For me, it feels like a form of gaslighting or peer pressure as often someone will call you stubborn when you are unwilling to make them comfortable by bending to their desired outcome they hoped to witness by you.

What someone is usually saying by labeling you stubborn is that you aren’t willing to compromise yourself to maintain the status quo, that your values and authenticity to hold yourself in highest integrity is greater than being flexible, giving in, or going along to get along.

When you stop and look at it this way, stubbornness is a gift as steadfast as the roots beneath our feet, unwavering and grounded.

Despite the negative connotation of stubbornness from society, it can also mean:

 Living in Integrity: Knowing who you are and what your values are and not compromising on them. Maybe you’ve done exploration to "inner-stand" who you are, not that you won’t ever change, but that when you do find a point of knowing thyself, you stay true to that inner wisdom above all else, because this is where the purest integrity lives. Standing in highest integrity can be perceived as stubborn by those who ebb and flow or tow the line to please others, by those who wish you weren’t so damn strong in character because they may not have yet developed the same steadiness. Hold true to your highest integrity even if it makes others uncomfortable, you give them permission to practice on themselves by witnessing the stance of a spine standing tall in courage and not bending to external forces or the illusion of authority.

Listening to Intuition: When you are tapped into your intuition there is this inner knowing, something guiding you, an unshakable, undeniable message speaking to you through your body, mind, and soul. Sometimes listening to this means going against the grain of what others may expect from you, but when you hold steadfast in trusting your intuition and this divine inner guidance, it helps you stay on your individual path. Sometimes doing this may be perceived as being stubborn, but remember all the times you didn’t follow your intuition and wish you had? Hold fast to that gut feeling, because when you know, you know.

Clear Vision: When you are rooted in knowing yourself and have clarity about your life, then making choices that are more focused and intentional may be perceived as stubborn. By not wavering through distraction, acceptance of others, validation seeking, or hivemind tactics that usually will take you out of alignment, you have to be a bit stubborn, right? Someone with vision is focused on what they are creating or bringing to life, not what others think. The clearer you are about your vision, the less flexible you are towards group- think, peer pressure or people pleasing because you are on a mission, a purpose, and filled with passion (and stubbornness) to fulfill it.

As the infamous quote says:

“Decide what kind of life you really want then say no to everything that isn’t that.”

I’m not saying be inflexible but learn to know when standing your ground feels right and when it doesn’t. Trees sway sometimes but most of all, they stand still and are gloriously stubborn.

In a world where most people go with the flow out of fear of rocking the boat, maybe, just maybe, the stubbornness in you is akin to the flow of rowing the boat in the direction of your inner-knowing, divinely guided and steady on your feet as you walk the path laid just for you.

No matter how many arrows people try to throw at you, know you can withstand and repel them, they need not penetrate the inner peace sought for, nor the Divine torch that keeps the flame burning within. Society doesn’t like stubborn, they like complacent, compliant, consensual.

What if your flow state just looks vastly different from those around you? What if swimming against the tide of the masses is swimming in the direction you are meant to go? What if the challenges from going in the opposite direction that most would go brings you to a place others never have an opportunity to see and experience? What if you learn to flow the more you swim through the opposition, what, to others, looks like the wrong way…kind of like finding peace amidst the chaos?

This magnificent tree in my yard is most definitely stubborn and, as such, is still standing despite being struck by lightning of what looks like many years ago. The trees get it. ;-)

If I’ve learned one thing since 2020 it’s that my stubbornness is a gift and I’m embracing it. I’ve done things people said were nuts, impossible even, but I have no regrets. Most people play life “safe” and it makes them uncomfortable to see you taking risks, questioning what we’re told, or simply exploring the world with a curious heart and a mind that likely became clear because it leapt into the unknown, because it could not stay buried in the mud of the fashionable, popular, authoritarain rules and decided to chart a course where the brush would need to be cleared, where the sacrifice alone would be worth the risk of reward…not a reward that fits in with the Joneses, but the kind that only taking steps every day to live more consciously and push through the discomfort could give….a push through all those barriers, old beliefs and societal conditioning built up over time. Maybe your stubborness is the hammer that tears down those walls of shoulds and shouldn’ts once and for all.

The angel on your shoulder won’t ask you to do what’s comfortable, but what is right.  The devil on the other shoulder will tempt you to just do something this one time because everyone else is doing it, that’s just the way it is,  it’s always been that way, or because a self-proclaimed “expert” issued a directive…to which I say, no thank you, call me what you will, I’m not doing it.

If you want to be the author of your own life, to follow the Divine nudges inside your heart, to do what you know is right, you are going to have to be stubborn as a mule. Be not swayed from the path God has for you, but stand firm and let the whole world call you unruly, stubborn, difficult. When you know yourself you are not so easily moved from the path. When you listen to that inner call, you know it will be met with disapproval, lack of support, unsolicited advice and even anger by the world that wants you to go along to get along…and they will try to plant doubt…and you might want to give up sometimes, I sure do, but each time that feeling of frustration rises up, when you stick through it, the roots grow deeper.

With sacred sovereign stubbornness,
The Irrational Sage, Angela