Nancy Hill - Unfolding: Slow Down, Drop In, Dare More

Table of Contents

Praise for Unfolding

Nancy Hills writing is intriguing and obviously needed as much for men as the women of our worldif not more.

Joseph Chilton Pearce, bestselling author of The Crack in the Cosmic Egg and The Biology of Transcendence

Nancy Hills Unfolding is a life-changing book that readers will return to again and again. I cant wait to get it in their hands.

Kathleen March, Andersons Bookshop, Downers Grove, Illinois

Reading Unfolding is like enjoying a fine piece of chocolatetotally satisfying. Beautifully written, intimate, and engaging, Nancys book speaks directly to us as women. It draws us in, stimulates our senses, and challenges our thinking. Its all a good book should be, including a catalyst to change our lives. Give it to every woman you know and love.

Robin A. Sheerer, author of No More Blue Mondays: Four Keys to Finding Fulfillment at Work

Rainer Maria Rilke, from The Book of Hours

Reading Unfolding left me a little in awe of Nancy Hill. Really! I read a lot, and its not often that an author writes somethingparticularly something truethat takes my breath away. I expected Unfolding to be insightful; I expected it to be full of useful wisdom; I expected it to be well-written and honest. It was all of these. But what I didnt expect was to be truly surprised and deeply inspired, not only by Nancys wisdom, but by her life, by the way she has embodied the wisdom she has acquired by truly daring to live more than she was taught to expect and far more than what was supported and espoused by the culture around her.

Im not a big fan of what I call cheerleading spirituality, the loud and enthusiastic, ever-marketable, slogan-ridden self-improvement programs and promises that urge a weary population to do more, be more, have more, try harder, work faster, and generally be better than they are currently. So when I first saw Nancys website titled Dare More, I was cautious.

But then I met Nancy. Having been introduced by our now mutual literary agent, Joe, Nancy and I had lunch together on one of my trips to Chicago. And all my misgivings were swept away in the tide of her straightforward, grounded, compassionate sharing. It was like meeting an old girlfriend and a wise elder all rolled into one. We talked about everything from the spiritual meaning of living a human life to the question of whether or not to color our hair. Yes, finding and living from our spiritual center is important, and we both know it is not unrelated to how we live the details of our lives. Leaning toward each other over a caf table we considered: Just where is the line between aging gracefully and giving up, between going into denial about and fighting the natural process of aging and simply taking care of ourselves? In that first meeting we shared our questions, our struggles, our momentary successes, and our less-than-fleeting failures to live up to our own ideals when we encountered the reality of an ordinary womans life.

Lengthy periodic telephone conversations followed over the next few years, and as our conversations deepened I looked forward to reading the book you are now holding in your hands. By then I knew that when Nancy used the term dare more, she wasnt just talking about living a life of more external adventures and material rewards (although these may come); she was challenging and supporting herself and the rest of us to dig a little deeper, to live closer to the bone of our own truth, guided by values of heart and soul.

As luck (or whatever other unseen forces may benevolently watch over us) would have it, I read Unfolding at a crossroads in my own life, in a momentary pause at the end of one year and the beginning of the next. My marriage of the previous decade had disintegrated, my parents were both struggling with Alzheimers, and my own chronic health challenges seemed to be getting worse. I needed to figure out (once again) what I wanted to do with the next part of my life. The desire to continue writing was there but so too was anxiety about finding a more secure way to pay my rent. It was a perfect time to read Nancys reminder in Unfolding that The first half of life is about putting ourselves together. The second half is about coming undone. Unwound. Unravelled. This deepened my acceptance of the unravelling that had occurred in my life. I knew that continuing to write was important, but my desire to take new risks in my creative work was reinforced by Nancys contention that creativity is far more than making things. It is a stancea lifestyle with restlessness as a vital part of its cycle. Relieved to be so eloquently reminded that I did not have to get rid of my own restlessness or see it as a failure to find some idealized state of continuous equanimity, I read on, encouraged to consider the choices that would, as Nancy writes, help me slow down, drop in, and dare more.

But none of this would have had the impact it didfeeding the fire of wanting to dare more in this next chapter of my lifewithout Nancys story of how she had done just that repeatedly in her own life. She tells these stories without pretension, without claiming to have a formula for success by any criteria beyond opening to and following our deepest inner knowing. Im not going to give away the details here, but I can say I am in awe of how this woman has consistently found her way back to the willingness and courage to act on her own inner knowing, even when those actions were disapproved of by many and changed the shape of the life she shared with her husband and children. Her willingness and ability to ask for and co-create mutual support so that all family members are able to live true to themselves is perhaps the most inspiring part of her work.Working with hundreds of women over the years, I have seen how our ideas about what it means to be Wife and Mother often leave us unable to open to new ways of seeing and living our deepest souls desires without leaving any aspect of ourselves or those we love behind. Nancys willingness to wrestle with both the idealized notions and practical details of what it means to be a woman in the world renews my faith in the human spirit.

And at the end of the dayparticularly when the day has been one of unravellingfaith is what carries us. We are, each of us, an expression of the sacred life force, whatever we choose to call that mysterious Wholeness that defies definition. Nancy Hills stories and insights reminded me that I can trust the wisdom that comes from the center of my being because I amwe aremade of and an aspect of that sacred Wholeness. And for that, I am deeply grateful.

Doorways: Entering the Mystery

Knob in hand.
It turns.
I push.
The door opens.
I enter
My studio
Womb
Cave
Hidden realm.