The Norseforged Gathering 6 Changed Me

I was not easily changed; I was forged.

“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.” -Marcus Aurelius

To begin, I was taken by the energy, the openness, the curiosity, and the love in the people, animals, nature, and the atmosphere. But there was contrast too, constant interruptions underneath the beauty. When I was falling in love, another intrusion came clamoring to my door with overwhelm, with micro and macro considerations. It does not matter the adjectives nor the circumstances; staying present was challenging and daunting. At times, I was paralyzed.

NorseForged Gathering 6 spawns such a diverse experience which is compounded by the people who gather to elevate this experience - bringing it to a new height, depth and range with their talent and joy, making this event epic. It is history now, but oh, what glorious moments I had.

It created this strange, emotional layering, awe and fear, joy and vigilance, expansion and contraction. I could feel both worlds inside of me. I realized something else was happening too. That I was giving birth. And I think everyone at the gathering felt some version of this, too, including my grandson and certainly my daughter and son-in-law. Because when people step into immersive experiences like this, when they leave behind the ordinary pace of life and enter a place built on imagination, meaning, and human connection, something opens.

And when something opens, everything underneath it opens too.

The beauty.
The longing.
The exhaustion.
The grief.
The hope.

All of it.

There were moments where the uncomfortable feeling was confusing and unbalanced.

And what struck me most was this:

I know the tools. I learn the tools. I teach the tools. I coach the tools and I certainly live the tools.

Breathing. Walking. Grounding. Yoga. Tapping. State shifts. Presence.

And still… sometimes it wasn’t enough. Sometimes I had to literally drag myself toward the walk. Toward the breath. Toward the reset.

That realization humbled me deeply.

Because tools are not magic tricks designed to make us feel nothing. They are bridges. Ways to stay connected to ourselves while feeling something intense.

And sometimes regulation doesn’t look graceful.

Sometimes regulation looks like:

crying quietly
walking anyway
breathing while your chest is tight
showing up while overwhelmed
sitting with discomfort without abandoning yourself

That counts too. Especially that. That is another definition of joywork.

And somewhere inside all of this, another truth appeared.

One I almost missed. The people who impacted me most at the gathering were not the most polished. They were the most present.

The ones willing to:

laugh openly
speak honestly
stay curious
let themselves be affected

And slowly I realized, that’s what people were responding to in me too.

Not perfection.

Presence.

Before the gathering, I kept asking myself:

How can I improve for this event? But that was never the real question.

The real question was:

Can I allow myself to be seen inside the experience instead of trying to control it?

That’s different.

And much harder.

There’s a version of transformation people like to sell.

The shiny version.

But I’m beginning to understand on a deeper level that real transformation feels more like standing in the middle of a storm with your heart open… while your old ways of protecting yourself quietly begin falling apart.

Not because you’re broken.

But because they’re no longer built for where you’re going.

And maybe that’s what expansion actually is.

Not becoming someone else.

But becoming more capable of holding:

joy and fear
hope and uncertainty
beauty and overwhelm

At the same time.

I came home understanding something new:

You can deeply believe in your work… and still be terrified by its possibility.

You can have tools… and still struggle to reach for them.

You can feel overwhelmed… and still be profoundly aligned.

Those things are not opposites.

They are part of being alive.

So if you’re standing at the edge of something meaningful right now, something you dreamed about, worked for, prayed for, and it suddenly feels heavier, more emotional, or more intense than you expected…

Maybe nothing is wrong.

Maybe your nervous system is simply trying to catch up with your soul.

And maybe the underbelly of expansion is not failure.

Maybe it’s proof that something real is happening.

Because the expansion is here now.

I understand now that expansion is not the absence of overwhelm. It is the willingness to remain connected to yourself while your life grows larger around you.

And from this experience, I leave with new energy, new clarity, and a deeper trust in what is unfolding next.

Not perfectly.

But alive.

This is my Joywork.