Fox Woman at the Door

Why workplaces need space for the wild heart, too

Photo by Nathan Anderson on Unsplash

There’s an old tale I’m carrying… or perhaps it carries me… of a woman who is also a fox.

You’ll find her at the edge of things, not quite tame, not quite safe. Her eyes glint with a kind of wild knowing that some find intriguing… and others unsettling. Or strange.

In Siberian and northern European folklore, the Fox Woman often appears at dusk, at the threshold between light and dark, between this world and the otherworld. She might show up at a man’s cabin, barefoot in the snow. Or be glimpsed just beyond the edge of the firelight, watching… perhaps longing to enter the circle, but unsure how.

In some of these stories, she shapeshifts into a woman and does her very best to live among humans: to love, to contribute, to belong. But things rarely end well. Sooner or later, someone notices her fur. Her eyes. Her way of feeling too deeply or saying too much. And a door closes.

I’ve known that door. And so have many friends and colleagues over the years.

It doesn’t always slam. More often, it clicks quietly shut.

You know the moment: someone tears up in a meeting, and the room shifts. The awkward silence. The glance away.

Or the time a brave truth is spoken… not to stir up conflict, but to name something real, something everyone feels but no one has yet said. And it gets redirected. Reframed. Labelled as emotional. Or met with a well-meaning referral to take it somewhere else. Somewhere safer. Somewhere more appropriate.

We’ve been taught that it’s not professional, maybe not even safe, to show certain emotions in the workplace. We’ve learned how to stay in the lane of what’s acceptable, what’s comfortable, what’s containable.

What we haven’t always been taught is how to listen without fixing. How to hold space for tears without treating them as a problem.

As someone who took decades to learn how to cry more easily, I can tell you: I’m not asking for advice. I’m not falling apart. Mostly, I just want to be heard. Maybe you do too.

Maybe our tears aren’t only our own. Maybe they belong to all of us.

“There is sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power…
messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love.”

— Washington Irving

I remember Bruce Anderson of the Core Gift Institute sharing that tears are a generational responsibility. He was taught by Malidoma Somé that within every family line, someone carries the tears. Not as a burden, but as a calling. To weep what others couldn’t. To release what was never spoken.

Perhaps this is true in our workplaces too.

The first time I truly felt I belonged in community was in my early forties. I was in a women’s circle, held in a space where I could cry my deepest grief… without fear, without anyone trying to fix me. Just presence. Just witnessing.

Since then, I’ve tried to welcome tears in workshops, in family, in friendships. And yet, I still don’t always feel my own tears are welcome. There’s a subtle difference between being kind and being comfortable with emotion. And it matters.

There’s much to weep for in our modern world. And tears can be a healthy form of recognition, of the pain of separation from nature, from each other, from ourselves.

During a workshop with Bruce Anderson, I once wrote:

I am your tears.
It’s time to welcome me, invite me,
Let me fall.
Tears are sacred. They are real and necessary.
Don’t be afraid you’ll fall apart.
I only wash away what is no longer needed.
I never erase what is essential.
I am your river home.

Sometimes, tears are not a crisis. They are a doorway. A sign that something matters deeply.

We speak often of belonging these days — in our teams, our organisations, our communities. But I wonder: what parts of ourselves are we being asked to leave at the door in order to belong?

The Fox Woman reminds me that there’s a kind of wisdom that doesn’t come through books or learning. It comes through the body. Through the heart. Through staying close to what hurts and what matters.

And maybe… just maybe… we need to make space for that kind of wisdom.

Not just in therapy rooms, but in places where decisions are made. In meetings. In circles of care. In everyday workplaces that genuinely want to honour the whole person.

Because there are people sitting quietly right now, in your team, your office, your community, who carry gifts they don’t yet know how to bring. Not because they’re unwilling, but because they’re waiting to see if it’s safe.

I don’t have answers. But I have questions I’m learning to live with.

What if tears don’t mean crisis?
What if not knowing is welcomed?
What if people don’t have to shapeshift to belong?

I want to live and work in a world where the Fox Woman doesn’t have to hide.

Where she can stretch her limbs beside the fire, speak in her own voice, and be met with something other than fear.

Where we all can.

Photo by Dušan veverkolog on Unsplash