Before I Knew the Word Shakti

Looking through old family photos, I can see her now.

The little girl running down a sandy hill with her arms wide and her mouth open in pure delight.

The one standing in the sprinkler, soaked and smiling, with no concern for how she looked.

The one riding horses, climbing ladders, playing ball, fishing with the boys, exploring wide open places, and doing her best to keep up with older siblings and cousins who were always a few steps ahead.

The one who was not easily contained.

Toddler Mindy Arbuckle sitting on a tricycle in a bonnet, showing early curiosity, innocence, and th

Before I knew the word Shakti, before I knew the word goddess, before I understood sacred feminine power, her life force was already moving through me.

In my spunk.

In my laughter.

In my body.

In my courage.

In my desire to belong, and my deeper need to be free.

At the time, I didn’t know any of that.

I was just being me.

And if you had told younger Mindy this would become my path — that one day I would teach yoga, lead women’s circles, sing Sanskrit mantra, write about the sacred feminine, and help women remember the Shakti within themselves — she probably would have laughed.

Or maybe she would have run off barefoot through the grass before you finished explaining it.

And yet, looking back, I can see that the course was already unfolding.

Something in me knew the path before my mind had language for it.

She Was Always There

Shakti is the living energy of creation.

She is the life force that animates us. The energy that moves through breath, body, emotion, instinct, creativity, courage, devotion, desire, and truth.

She is not something we have to become.

She is something we remember.

And when I look at those old photos of myself as a child, I don’t see a girl who was missing her power.

I see a girl who was full of it.

I see bright eyes, wild hair, scraped knees, big feelings, stubborn determination, and a spark that was already burning.

I see the sacred feminine before I knew to call her sacred.

I see Shakti before I knew her name.

That realization changes something.

Because so often, when we begin a spiritual path, we think we are trying to become someone new.

More healed.

More wise.

More peaceful.

More spiritual.

More aligned.

And growth does change us. Healing does refine us. Practice does shape us.

And underneath all of that, so much of the journey is not about becoming someone else.

It is about returning to the life force that was there all along.

Not Easily Contained

I was the youngest in my family, and that came with its own kind of training.

I had older siblings and lots of older cousins. I got teased. I got challenged. I was often trying to keep up, prove myself, or find my place in a family system that already had its rhythms, roles, and rules.

For a long time, I blamed my siblings for not accepting me the way I wanted to be accepted.

I carried the ache of feeling unseen.

I wanted people to see me for who I was, not just for what I was willing to do, the risks I was willing to take, or the ways I could get their attention without becoming what people might call dramatic or needy.

I wanted to be known.

Really known.

That longing shaped me.

And for a while, it made me feel like I had something to prove.

So I pushed myself.

I became daring.

I became adventurous.

I became willing to try things that scared me.

I learned to hold my own.

I played sports. I pushed my body. I played rugby in college. I learned how to be tough, strong, fast, brave, and resilient.

I fished when fishing seemed like something the guys did.

I water-skied when my mom would barely get in the water.

I climbed rocks and mountains in Alaska and Colorado.

I didn’t need a traditional setting to feel the sacred. I needed love, earth, sky, and a choice that felt true.

I left Nebraska and stayed away.

I sat in the front row of classes.

I chose to get married outside in nature in my own kind of church rather than in a more traditional setting.

I was often the one willing to do something different.

And yes, sometimes that came from wanting to be seen.

Sometimes it came from feeling like I had to prove I was worthy.

And beneath that, there was also something more sacred at work.

There was a soul that knew it had not come here to be easily contained.

The Box Was Never the Point

The roots were real. So was the call to grow beyond the soil I was planted in.

A lot of us look back at how we were raised and focus mostly on what was hard, painful, or wrong.

And yes, we all have things to overcome.

That is part of being human on this planet.

Most of us carry wounds from our families, our communities, our religions, our cultures, and the expectations we inherited.

We carry the pain of not being seen clearly.

We carry the sting of being teased, dismissed, judged, or misunderstood.

We carry the exhaustion of trying to fit into boxes that were never shaped for the truth of who we are.

And with a slightly different viewpoint, we can also begin to see how the path helped us remember who we came here to be.

Maybe my soul came here to see the box clearly, so I could remember I was never meant to live inside it.

Maybe the structure was part of the teaching.

Maybe the limitations helped me feel the edges of my own freedom.

Maybe the places where I felt unseen helped me become devoted to seeing others more clearly.

Maybe the teasing helped me sharpen my fire.

Maybe the expectations helped me learn to listen for the voice beneath expectation.

Maybe the very path I once blamed was also helping me reclaim my truth and sacred power.

This does not mean we pretend everything was easy.

It does not mean we excuse harm or deny pain.

It means we stop giving our power away to the story that our path was only something that happened to us.

At some point, we get to ask a deeper question:

How did this path prepare me?

What did it awaken?

What did it teach me to choose?

What part of me became stronger because of what I had to walk through?

The Soul Chooses, Then Forgets

I believe every soul comes here with a path.

A set of lessons. A collection of relationships. A web of soul contracts. A field of experiences that shape, stretch, challenge, and awaken us.

And then we arrive ... and we forget.

We forget why we chose this family.

We forget why we chose this body.

We forget why we chose these gifts, these wounds, these longings, these limitations, these desires, these people, these places.

We forget that there may be a deeper intelligence beneath the very circumstances we resist.

So we blame the path.

We blame the people on it.

We blame ourselves.

We think something went wrong.

And maybe, from the soul’s view, something was also going exactly right.

Not because the pain was the point.

Because the remembering was.

The pain was never meant to become our identity.

The box was never meant to become our home.

The misunderstanding was never meant to be the final truth.

The path was here to help us wake up.

My Grandmother Knew

My grandmother Othella passed when I was one, and yet I’ve felt her presence guiding me ever since.

My grandmother passed away when I was one.

For a long time, part of me carried that as abandonment.

A deep, quiet belief that she left me.

And yet, I have also felt her as a guardian angel throughout my life.

As I look back now, I wonder if she knew who I was and why I came.

Maybe she did not abandon me.

Maybe she chose to support me from beyond the body.

Maybe she could do more for me from the other side than she could have done while trying to survive inside her own box.

That thought brings tears to my heart.

What a sacrifice.

What a love.

What a mystery.

We do not always understand the soul agreements we make before we arrive here.

We do not always understand why certain people stay, why certain people leave, why certain doors close, or why certain longings remain.

And sometimes, years later, we begin to see that we were never as alone as we thought.

Something was guiding us.

Someone was watching over us.

The life force kept moving.

Shakti kept rising.

My Body Knew Before My Mind Did

Before I called it Shakti, I knew it as courage, movement, grit, and the willingness to keep climbing.

My body knew how to run, climb, play, push, fall, get back up, and try again.

My body knew the joy of movement before I knew the word embodiment.

My body knew courage before I knew the word dharma.

My body knew aliveness before I knew the word Shakti.

This is why I believe embodiment matters so much.

The body is not just something we drag around while the mind tries to become enlightened.

The body is a keeper of wisdom.

The body carries memory.

The body tells the truth.

The body knows when we are shrinking, performing, proving, pleasing, hiding, forcing, or abandoning ourselves.

And the body also knows when we are alive.

When we are aligned.

When we are free.

When I played sports, I was learning power.

When I played rugby, I was learning grit.

When I climbed, I was learning trust.

When I fished, I was learning that I did not have to stay inside someone else’s idea of what girls were supposed to do.

When I moved away from Nebraska, I was learning that love for my roots did not mean I had to stay planted in the same soil.

All of it was teaching me.

All of it was preparing me.

All of it was helping me claim the power I would one day help other women reclaim in themselves.

Reclaiming the Path

There is a point in the healing journey when blame no longer gives us what we need.

It may be necessary for a while.

Anger can help us tell the truth.

Grief can help us feel what was never fully felt.

Blame can help us recognize that something hurt.

And eventually, if we want to be free, we have to gather our energy back from the story that someone else holds the key to our becoming.

My siblings did their best.

My family did their best.

The world we grew up in had strong structures and narrow ideas about what was acceptable, lovable, successful, spiritual, feminine, masculine, and true.

We were all shaped by those structures.

And my soul came here to feel those structures, see those structures, and eventually climb out of them.

What began as movement, courage, and adventure slowly became practice, presence, and embodied wisdom.

I am still climbing.

I am still exploring what life feels like without so many inherited limitations.

I am still learning how to be seen without performing.

I am still learning how to be powerful without proving.

I am still learning how to be free without needing everyone to understand my freedom.

That, too, is part of the path.

Before I Knew Her Name

Before I knew the word Shakti, she was there.

Before I knew the word goddess, she was there.

Before I knew the language of sacred feminine energy, she was there.

She was in the little girl running down the hill.

She was in the athlete, the climber, the singer, the seeker, the student sitting in the front row.

She was in the young woman who chose to leave home.

She was in the bride who chose the earth as her church.

She was in the part of me that kept reaching for a wider sky.

She was in the ache to be seen.

She was in the refusal to be fully contained.

She was in the sacred rebel who was becoming long before she had a name for what she was becoming.

And maybe this is true for you too.

Maybe your sacred power is not something you lost.

Maybe it is something you learned to hide.

Maybe your Shakti has been moving through you all along — in your longing, your sensitivity, your anger, your creativity, your courage, your desire, your grief, your joy, and your refusal to live a life that does not fit your soul.

Maybe you are not starting from scratch.

Maybe you are remembering.

An Invitation to Remember

If these words stir something in you, I want you to listen.

Not to me first.

To yourself.

To your body.

To the quiet knowing underneath the noise.

To the younger version of you who may still be waiting to be seen, loved, honored, and invited back into your life.

To the life force that has been moving through you since the beginning.

This is the work of Shakti Rising Circle.

We gather to remember the sacred feminine wisdom already alive within us.

We gather to reclaim the body, intuition, voice, energy, softness, strength, delight, and power that were never truly gone.

We gather to live rooted and rise as we are.

Because your path was not random.

Your life force was not a mistake.

Your fire was not too much.

Your sensitivity was not weakness.

Your courage was not accidental.

Your soul has been speaking all along.

And maybe now, you are ready to answer.

Join Shakti Rising Circle

If you are ready to stop walking this path alone, I would love to invite you into Shakti Rising Circle.

Shakti Rising Circle is an ongoing weekly gathering for women who are ready to live rooted, rise as they are, and remember the sacred feminine wisdom already alive within them.

We begin officially on Thursday, June 4, and this is not a one-time program with a hard beginning and end. It is an ongoing journey. You can join when the timing is right and continue walking with us as your own remembering unfolds.

We meet live on Thursdays from 5–6pm MT.

Regular membership is $222/month.

Founding Offer: Join by May 31, 2026 and use code EARLYINSIDER to save $111/month for your first three months.

Join Shakti Rising Circle Here

Come as you are.

Bring the girl who was never easily contained.

Bring the woman who is ready to stop proving and start remembering.

Bring the sacred rebel, the tender heart, the old ache, the inner fire, and the life force that has been with you all along.

Live rooted. Rise as you.

All my love,

Mindy