Black Sheep Expanders

Becoming an Evolved Edgewalker

Are you an Edgewalker? A Black Sheep?

(Hello, to my people – 👋🏻)

I am betting that if you aren’t one, you know some. You might even have thoughts about them, real feels about how they disrupt, how they create dissonance or maybe it is respect for how they show up in the world, for their courage or creativity in generating new pathways.

Photo by Luke Stackpoole on Unsplash

Born to break the rules, creating my own moves, walking in alignment with my truth – I have walked my own path for as long as I can remember. And why? – I was cast out from an early age for my intense emotions and inability to cull them from existence and polite company. I was also the only red-head in my family of origin – which came with a lot of othering. My own grandmother erroneously and immaturely told me I was adopted when I was 6 because I wouldn’t profess my love for her over another relative. And these are but a few of the stories in an arsenal of those that we each have, that shape us. 

The black sheep is often carrying the story of the outcast. Something real happens to make it feel unsafe in the group, so the path they develop onto is one of becoming an edgewalker.¹ Liminal space, although unpredictable at times, becomes more of a comfort than the predictably unsafe. Walking the edges then defines them, and quickly acquaints them with perspectives that you can’t know unless you step out of the container for a bit – unless you step away from belonging and observe from the outskirts. Plus it doesn’t hurt that they can temporarily and boldly escape into one side of the liminal from the other if teeth are bared.

I think many of the outcomes of being a black sheep are real strengths – demonstrative of how life hones us into strong-willed path leaders. But I feel the true empowerment shines only when we, as black sheep, act from a personal truth calibration and not as rebels from anything that comes at us. 

The latter is known better as: biting off your nose to spite your face. My grandmother warned me so many times not to do that and I always thought: “nah, I’d rather not have a nose than submit.” It didn’t feel safe. Oof, it is a hard lesson to mature into – not being controlled by one’s own rebellious nature. I mean, when you are a rebel to avoid control but then create your own evil mistress in the form of compulsion to rebel, then you end up layers deep in suffering. Layers deep. 

Through my lens, there is one essential tool needed for a black sheep to shift the archetypal posture from reactive to empowered – the calibration to personal truth specifically as an imperative step before action. Within that step is where authenticity shines and where forging a new path and being an incidental limit-breaker for others has true integrity. It is also, notably where a person gets to attune to their own true self – becoming more embodied and more self committed. 

Photo by Jonathan Mabey on Unsplash

Black sheep very often do not want to be leaders. Initially, they aren’t doing-it-differently because they know a better way – it is simply because the ways that are most frequented have rejected them, potentially revealing themselves to be unsafe for travel. The mainstream has moved them out and they are forced to choose the fringes. There are choices at the edges around how to wield rebellion creatively. 

Maturing into this looks like growing a personal truth calibration system² so that “born to break the rules” matures into “born to explore if the rules make sense”. When you do that, you unwittingly learn to become a leader – the very leader you needed as an outcast. This is the magic sauce in transforming “rebellion for rebellion’s sake” into inspired growth – being an expander for others to follow suit all while you are just doing your own thing. 

What other benefits are there to growing a personal truth calibration system? As you learn to use your body as a divining rod, you begin to trust your own intuition even more and you recognize the truth you have access to. You begin to show up in the world aligned with your sense of self, more anchored. Self confidence and self acceptance are very grounding and magnetic and mark a turning point to self commitment. It becomes truly possible to live beyond the factors that formed a person into a black sheep — outside of the grip of the circumstances and the corresponding personal actions. Real freedom is attainable. This shift begins to address a difficulty rarely discussed as a black sheep – our real desire for liberating companionship. You wouldn’t know it when someone is so anti- or so challenging, when someone is so seemingly untrackable. The posture of “I won’t do what you say I am supposed to because I am different” might rob us of some things that we want from that promised land of belonging. 

I do think humans are hardwired for belonging. As a black sheep, this notion is a little insulting to my sensibilities, yet nonetheless, I am really feeling that belonging is one of our driving factors as humans. Show me a black sheep and I will show you someone who is lonely, and hurting because they are lonely. But we are wise to the fitting-in type of belonging, we crave something more depthful and soulful. We believe in something that is uplifting and feels like freedom.

I have come to recognize how I don’t create dissonance, but I see it as a necessary element of development, and a part of the process of collaboration. Allowing for all the numerous approaches to coalesce is bound to create some interesting energy, and the more we can allow and witness, the more we can welcome natural and powerful flow – the forging of truth into empowerment. 

What creates a black sheep might be the same conditions that create any other defensive archetype (of which there are many). Some of this might also be evolutionary shifts in humanity – souls being born with expanded awareness that are born to question the status quo, to be the fulcrums in a broken system. 

Photo by tabitha turner on Unsplash

It makes sense though – it is at the edges that the boundaries can be expanded. It is at the edge that we create windows so that light can pour in and doorways so that people and energy can come and go enriched and resourced. 

Let this maybe be a call to all of you black sheep, all of you edgewalkers interested in refining your personal truth calibration systems. Let this be a call to all that have not been black sheep but maybe see how there are shifts to be made – it is not too late. While it has been notoriously a lonely path, it doesn’t have to be. This doesn’t have to be the version of the story that any of us believe. 

For my part, I am choosing to believe that we can – no matter the cause and at any age, become an edgewalker and that we can – even if previously reactive or protective, incorporate wisdom and mature with this perspective lending gift. Then we can realize it as medicine that our world really really needs. When we do that, we create a world where we truly do belong in meaningful ways. 

Hi, I am Melissa — an Empowerment Coach, a Spirit Medicine Alchemist, Healing Practitioner & Guide.

This is work that I do with my spirit medicine and coaching practice – working with edgewalkers. I love being in-the-dreaming in this way together and healing old wounds in our thinking. We deserve to alchemize our experiences into gold, in all the ways that feel empowering.

Booking link for free Intro Exploration Calls is here. (You’ll want to start there no matter what you might be interested in.)

More about my work can be found at EmbodyingAlchemy.com

1. This is not the only choice when things become unsafe. There are many. It is simply the one that I am choosing to muse about.

2. “personal truth calibration system” is what I like to call learning to check in with your truth and really hearing it. I work with people to do this, from where they are presently at with it, which can be quite varied. Due to that — it feels whole for me to use the creative terminology to refer to the process one can learn.