Notes from the Swiss Alps: No. 8 – The Blur Before the Shed

Do you feel it too?
This rearranging before the “great shed”.
That strange pause before things really change. Although, things are always changing. That’s life.

Before the letting go.
Before the skin comes off.

We must stop and take note of our past.
Do you see how far you’ve come?
How far we have come? Regardless of what is happening in the world, we are still moving forward.

Was there a time — or maybe there still is — when you felt like you had to try so hard just to belong?

I don’t want to try anymore.
I’m so done with that.

Isn’t it exhausting?
If anything, it’s been aging me — pouring energy into people and places I no longer need to. Trying to be understood. Trying to be liked. Trying to be something.

There isn’t something profound to say here.
Life itself is profound.
All of it.

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I wonder how you are.
Yes — you, reading this.

I really wonder what’s on your heart.
Are you okay?
Are you moving through a quiet life review like I am?
Are you being kind to yourself?

This isn’t about making something happen.
It’s about sitting — quietly, patiently — with what is.

Listening.

I always find the answer when I stop.
Like really stop.

So many of the things I tell myself I must do are just distractions.
Noise pretending to be necessity.
Movement to avoid feeling.

Lately, I feel like I wrestle myself into a chokehold every single day — not quite strong enough to tap out and surrender to the silence.

But that’s all there is here.

Silence.

I’ve become quite the hermit.
By choice… and not.

Where do I go?
What do I do here when there are so few distractions?

Oh, I am so good at making them.
The difference now is that I have the space to catch myself — to pause and ask:
What is truly important to me right now?
And how can I be of service to the world?

I’m faced with this simple fact of simplicity.

So I stay home.
I savor this incredibly unique time — with myself, my friend Silence, and my cat Robbi (who is, without question, an angel).

I wait for the parts of me shaped by the outside world to quiet.

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Do you know what you sound like?

Not the voices of others.
Not societal expectations.
Not the shoulds and comparisons and internalized noise.

Your voice.

The one that’s been dampened over years — childhood, adolescence, twenties, thirties, and beyond.
Like snowfall after snowfall.
Layer upon layer.
Compacting something alive beneath it.

We’re rarely taught how to truly winter.
How to pause long enough for the thaw.
How to trust that we will still be there underneath.

But how would you even recognize yourself…if that voice has been quiet for a very long time?

That’s why the exact place to search for it is the silence.
The space between the noise.

You are there.
Beneath the compacted snow.

Are you willing to sit with the chaos of the mind long enough to let the layers thaw?

Some days my brain feels like a Harry-Potter-style postal mailroom — thoughts flying everywhere, some catching fire, others extinguished by half-formed stories drifting down a stream of watered-down memory. Then there’s movement in some far corner of my cortex and suddenly I’m back to wondering what I should wear today.

Ask me who I am and I go blank.

That one question quiets my mind faster than anything else.

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Lately, I’ve made a small but meaningful decision:
I’m not dyeing my hair anymore. It was only once to twice a year but…

It’s part of something bigger — letting all of me be.

Self-care will look like self-care.
Movement. Nourishing food.
Time with family, friends, my partner, nature, staring off into space.
And a deep focus on regulating my nervous system.

Not from a place of “something is wrong with me,”
but from a place of finally changing the narrative.

My hair is greying.
According to the hairdresser I’ve been seeing since I was twelve… it always has been.

So maybe this isn’t new at all.

We humans have become obsessed with changing our appearance to be lovable.
This insidious narrative nearly drove me insane. Ask my sister, or mom.

I’ve met only a handful of people who are truly comfortable in their skin.

And they glow with another kind of beauty.
Almost iridescent.

We’re shown — subtly and loudly — that we shouldn’t be.
The shame… my god.

But is it really our fault?

Years ago, I worked with an incredible coach, Jena La Flamme, who introduced me to a concept I had never heard before: erotic capital.

Erotic capital refers to the combination of personal qualities that make an individual attractive and engaging to others. It includes presence, confidence, vitality, emotional intelligence, relational warmth, and the ability to create connection — rather than relying solely on physical appearance. Erotic capital is expressed through how a person carries themselves, communicates, and relates, and it often deepens with self-acceptance and authenticity.

It’s not about perfection.
It’s the whole of who you are.
Your presence. Your aliveness.
The way you make people feel.

Attraction isn’t the clarity of your skin or the absence of wrinkles.
That might be a glimmer of shine — but it’s not what makes you lovable.

You are loved for who you are.
How you are.
And the depth of connection you offer.

That’s what makes people gravitate toward you.

If all the external masks disappeared tomorrow, would you feel safe?

Probably not.

Because somewhere along the way, many of us learned to believe we are loved because we are a certain way.

But that belief isn’t true.

So today, I sit with the questions:

Who am I when I stop trying to be lovable?
What remains when there’s nothing left to perform?

…And can I stay with myself long enough to find out?

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As this season shifts, I can’t help but notice the symbolism around shedding.

The Year of the Snake is coming to an end in the Chinese calendar on February 17. I won’t pretend this is my belief system — even though I was born in the Year of the Snake myself.

But I learned something that’s stayed with me: before a snake sheds, its vision clouds. For a period of time, it can’t see clearly. It becomes slower, more withdrawn, more cautious. The eyes — the head — are the last to release. Sight returns only after the shedding is nearly complete.

And strangely, my big left toe has been going numb on and off these past few days. In reflexology, the toe relates to the head.

I’ve felt sluggish.
A little blind.
Like I can’t hear spirit clearly right now.

Like I’m moving through a dim space — aware that something is changing, but not yet able to see what’s on the other side.

It’s uncomfortable.
Annoying, even.

And still… I’m allowing it.
As best I can.

Because maybe this is what it feels like right before the release.

Right before vision clears.
Right before the thaw.

Love you,

Bridgette Joy