self-leadership Archives

Lusciously Nurtured – a wholehearted interview with Dawne Gowrie Zetterstrom

August 20, 2019

In this interview Dawne Gowrie Zetterstrom, author of Lusciously Nurtured, shares her personal story of living with, writing with and learning from Fibromyalgia as well as her thoughts on wholehearted soulfulness.

This is the 21st guest post in our Wholehearted Stories series on Quiet Writing! I invited readers to consider submitting a guest post on their wholehearted story. You can read more here – and I’m still keen for more contributors!

Quiet Writing celebrates self-leadership in wholehearted living and writing, career and creativity. This community of voices, each of us telling our own story of what wholehearted living means, is a valuable part of this space. In this way, we can all feel connected on our various journeys and not feel so alone. Whilst there will always be unique differences, there are commonalities that we can all learn from and share to support each other.

I’m delighted to have Dawne Gowrie Zetterstrom as a ‘Wholehearted Stories’ contributor. Dawne and I connected via Instagram and we decided to shape this post as an interview. It has been thrilling to see Dawne write and publish her book ‘Lusciously Nurtured: A Personal Journey of Soulful Self-Care and Intuitive Healing Living with Fibromyalgia’. In this interview, Dawne shares her personal story of living with, writing with and learning from Fibromyalgia as well as her thoughts on wholehearted soulfulness. Read on!

Hi Dawne, thanks for joining Quiet Writing and sharing your wholehearted story via this interview.

To begin, would you like to tell readers a little about yourself:

Based on the Jung/Myers-Briggs personality indicator, I am an INFJ which means I am a bit of a complex character, deeply introverted with extroverted behaviours. I am an idealist and dreamer at heart but can be extremely organized and focused. My super-powers are empathy and intuition which makes me a highly perceptive person. However, these two qualities also work to my detriment at times, as does idealism, as you can well imagine. As a result, I like a lot of space and quiet time, and I value my freedom immensely.

I also have profound concerns for humanity and world affairs and the protection of those basic freedoms in our societies, that appear threatened today. In this body/ avatar, I am 85% South Asian in origins, having over 14 genetic strains in me from most continents, except Australia (Sorry). I was born in Trinidad & Tobago, a tropical island in the Caribbean, subsequently living in the UK for over 25 years and now in Sweden with my Swedish husband, Dan and basset hound Klara. I am essentially a creative and although I am very capable of understanding abstract theories, I enjoy representing them creatively. I am told the INFJ’s ideal city is Paris, for its culture, history, style and beauty. I certainly do love beauty and adore creating beauty on many levels in my life, but maybe I love London a little more, might have to visit Paris a couple more times.

It’s been exciting to read your beautiful new book, ‘Lusciously Nurtured: A Personal Journey of Soulful Self-Care and Intuitive Healing Living with Fibromyalgia’. You talk in your book about ‘wholehearted soulfulness’. I know wholehearted is a word that has evolved to have special meaning for you too. Can you tell us what ‘wholehearted’ and ‘wholehearted soulfulness’ mean to you and why they have been important in your healing journey?

Wholehearted for me means living from the heart/ core/ centre and vibrating my life through the heart. The Biblical representation of the word Heart is not just about feeling but the “ruling centre of the whole” or “the place from which desire springs.” (Google) When I was in my early 20s, a seminarian shared this concept with me that the heart is the seat of decision and it stuck with me. So, yes feeling but also decision and commitment to the core, which was for me, at that time living a meaningful life driven by integrity.

Wholehearted also encompasses integrity and truth which is a willingness to learn about myself and who I am in this time, space and reality. For many years my mantra was “Go in the direction of your dreams and live the life you imagine…” (Whitman) This wasn’t just about my physical life. It also encompassed the way I wished to feel and my long-held desires, of sustaining my life through life-giving work and expressing myself in a holistic way in the world. This could be summed up in the poem I wrote to myself which I explain in the book, Lusciously Nurtured:

To rear bees/ To plant trees/ To write poetry/ To be

When we talk about desires, we are referring to our ideal way of living and being. Two primary aspects of my wholehearted life were to heal myself from Fibromyalgia, by resting more and growing and eating our own food; and to write with the hope that it would become a foundation for my sustenance.

Wholehearted Soulfulness is the commitment I made with myself to follow my dream and make this life. My poem was a summation of that dream: a reality formed through co-creative action with Universal law and Spirit guidance. It has taken turns and twists, but that’s okay, we are on course.

Is wholehearted living hard? Sometimes it is because I am stubborn and may need to be reminded of a thing several times, but at other times incredibly easy, once I am not pushing and being willful. I believe there is a difference between working hard and putting in 100% effort and being willful and domineering. Striking that right balance is important to wholehearted living.

Your journey has been around recovery from burnout and living with the effects of Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Your book provides valuable information for people working through the impact of these conditions. Is it also relevant to people with other chronic illnesses or autoimmune conditions? Or even people who don’t have any illnesses of this type?

Thank you, Terri – I really do hope it provides valuable information for sufferers of Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or CFS. However, this book can be read by any sufferer of chronic illness and autoimmune conditions because it is dealing with the relationship that you are having with your body and developing that close physical relationship into a deeper psychological and spiritual relationship with Self.

Self is Soul – now there’s a bumper sticker moment. (Ha-ha)

But self is also determined by the make-up of the brain and the environment, so we must scratch a bit deeper down to find the Self with the capital S. Yet, once you begin listening to what might be called Deep Intuition, Spirit Guidance, the Inner Word, we begin to tap into the font of knowledge. And the font can provide answers to many other forms of illness. Now, I am not saying you are going to hear voices telling you to take X medicine, but you may be led to someone who speaks a language you understand or you may be drawn to find out more about a medicine that actually works for you. So, we return to the idea of co-creation and sometimes, you may take a wrong turn and must start again, but that’s okay. Nothing is wasted. We are here to learn stuff.

For the ordinary person, I hope this book could provide a comprehensive guide to self-care, so developing an awareness of oneself and one’s needs. In addition, this book encourages such a person to compose their own self-care practice, so that, they can begin to avoid some of the pitfalls that bring many to burn-out. It can also provide an understanding, to those involved in a high-paced lifestyle. These folks may be on the brink of becoming chronically ill and this book might alert them to take stock and redirect their course. For carers, family and close friends of patients with chronic illness, I would advise this book as an aid to understanding their predicament and possibly, getting knowledgeable of many issues the sufferer cannot voice themselves.

Congratulations on writing and self-publishing your book and sharing your story. It’s not an easy task and takes commitment and showing up. What was it like writing and self-publishing ‘Lusciously Nurtured’ especially with the effects of Fibromyalgia impacting your life?

It took me four years to write and publish this book. In the last two years, I have been intensively editing and I am still editing so the paperback will be better. In addition, I have been learning about indie publishing, thus finding the best fit for me. It’s a long time, so it required patience and being patient with my body, with life and with my inner demons.

As you’ve mentioned it required commitment, so I worked on the book every day, but I had to adjust my expectations. So, every day I tried to write or do something towards the work but not every day looked the same as I battled with fatigue, pain and foggy brain. For example: writing 500 words a day was not a realistic expectation but rather, write a couple of sentences today, edit tomorrow, rest the next, read, write a page etc. So once again, co-creation with the body. Yet, you do have to be incredibly disciplined and thoughtful.

As I got better physically, of course the writing got easier, both in the physical sense of sitting for a certain number of hours, say at a computer. Also, the head got clearer, but the demons didn’t always quieten. One of the demons I discuss in the book Lusciously Nurtured, is perfectionism. Quality versus perfection is very important to the writing process. As an INFJ character with idealism and a profound sense of justice, self-judgement is not far behind and I had to remind myself, time and again, that perfection was not the intention for this book. Quality and producing my best work were top priority for me but this book was about the message. The message was aimed at helping people to have a resource for self-care and self-healing. It was meant to raise the awareness of intuition and the power of intuitive healing.

The thing that most writers easily forget is that mainstream published writing is not about perfection, it’s about marketability. Literature is about perfection and they hold this over our heads like a sword, so when authors are declined, they immediately think “I am a crap writer.” However, in today’s world, mainstream publishing is having to adapt itself to the changing demands of literature and reading in a computerized society. This is causing a rise in indie publishing and the traditional market is already changing to these demands. So, write because you have something to say, it may be important to someone. And in the act of writing, I am improving myself always and one day, one day ……. who knows (smile)? That’s how I get the beast of perfection to take a back seat.

How have you worked your strengths and weaknesses to blend and find wholeness?

A lovely question. My answer is simply, I can live with broken.

I guess, my lesson has been that wholeness is a mythology, it’s a great aspiration but a myth, nonetheless. I am partly thinking of the Japanese art of Kintsugi or Kintsukuroi (Golden Repair). In 2015 I injured my back so badly, I was in constant pain, day and night. I could not sit, walk or perform simple tasks for myself for a long time. The only thing that felt comfortable for the body was lying flat on the floor, on my back.

I had seen many health officials for treatment, but none of their advice or interventions had worked. Some even made me feel worse. Did I feel broken? Yes, I did: far from being whole or healthy. Yet, lying on that floor, I began listening to my body and allowed my body to tell me what was needed to heal. Thus, intuitive healing began. One day whilst lying there, I heard the blackbird singing so clearly it was as if her song was just for me. And in that moment, happiness pierced my heart so suddenly, I wept, because I had realised that all that was broken, or perceived as broken in my life, could not stop the joy and fulfilment that was there for me.

And nine months later, after my accident, I was pain-free.

How do I blend my strengths and weaknesses to find wholeness? I don’t believe that I have to “fix” or “create” anything in myself to be whole. It’s taken me over 50 years to reach that place. I am enough and I am “perfect” even in my brokenness: it’s part of the story.

What cultural, societal, health and ancestral issues have impacted on you feeling whole and how have you dealt with them?

You may have noticed in my description of myself I call myself an avatar. My soul has no cultural, societal, health and ancestral issues. My body does. My body has many health issues still, even though my fatigue and pain are much improved, and my viral symptoms quietened. I am now in a loving relationship with my body and I hope to continue healing as much as this life allows me and I will continue to write about it to help others. I tend to deal with things one at a time, so I look for what is calling to me the most. Right now, it’s my weight, because I am at first stage diabetes, so I am dealing with food choices and exercise programs that aid my goal, without damage to my body or dis-ease.

My cultural and societal issues affect my life from the outside in and these are issues to do with unconscious and possibly conscious prejudice in society and organisations. I am not just talking about for example racism in the publishing industry, but also sexism, ageism, gender inequality, and nationalism in our societies today. I am at odds with all of it because I see myself as a global person. I am certainly not nationalistic, but I am patriotic. I am a socialist and abhor any form of fascism. I have faced sexism and ageism in my work of education (of all places!), and I have called it out- Foul! I say in the game of life.

How do I deal with it? I accept the fact that I am at odds and I am at odds for a reason because the Universe wants to shake things up and I am a mover and a shaker. Let’s get the game on. However, I am a quiet mover and shaker, maybe I am giving too much away (laughter) but I think subversive is what I am. To be truthful and serious, the future is about change and we, (women, creatives, intuitives) must be active in that change. The way I want to be active and revolutionary is through the art of creativity and writing.

I am not saying that I don’t have my own issues with regards to racism and sexism within me. For example, as a woman of colour in the self-care business, there aren’t many of us. There is patronism and it’s very difficult to break into cliques and circles and be taken seriously. We also don’t have credibility as unconscious archetypal roles for women have become stereotyped, so I have a lot of questions. I also think the societal pressures of the 80s and 90s to spin in politics has entered the fabric of our lives and speaking out for truth becomes a rant. So, you are constantly fighting against these stereotypes and attempting to bring your authenticity into the arena. I believe it’s a process and must be lived a step at a time. Wholeness, therefore, becomes teaching, learning and negotiation.

My ancestral issues and healing are in a very personal space, now. It’s not a shadow or a secret but rather it needs to be in darkness and quiet for a while to take shape and begin to shoot. It’s something in gestation and I am excited about this.

Artwork by Trinidad & Tobago artist Brianna Mc Carthy @macabrii

You share lots of tools, tips and practices in your book. What 2 or 3 wholehearted practices would you highlight for others?

Meditation, getting quiet and silent – there is a difference there – you can quieten the body and mind. but you must also listen. Listening is very hard, so it takes practice. Every day if necessary and many times a day. This is the only way you will begin to hear your inner voice.

Physical Exercise – This can be combined with getting out in nature. Walk, run if you can, but walk in Nature. Swim, do yoga, play a sport, whatever you do try to spend some time in nature and notice things.

Keeping a Journal – Start with a gratitude journal if you haven’t kept a journal before. You are not writing War and Peace. Just empty your mind in your journal and go with the flow. If you end up becoming addicted, just keep learning and expanding your knowledge. It will begin revealing things to you.

And if you are doing all these things and you are loving yourself without apology, then you know, you know anything is possible in the game so go out and share it, be kind and help/ support someone else.

The only way to wholehearted is to know yourself and be yourself.

What’s the one message you’d like to leave with our readers to finish?

I want them to know that they are loved.

This love is closer than breath so spend quality time with yourself.

The Great Mother cares, even if everything around you feels like chaos. Out of chaos, the Universe was created with mathematical precision beyond our understanding.

Karma is one lifetime. Live your life well and be content. You are always choosing, so choose what you love the most, don’t give yourself second best.

Where can people find your book, Lusciously Nurtured and how can they connect with you?

People can connect with me via Goodreads, Instagram, Facebook or via my website.

About Dawne Gowrie Zetterstrom

Dawne Gowrie Zetterstrom is a writer, teacher, and blogger with an excellent academic background. Born in Trinidad and Tobago, she has lived in London in the UK and now in a small village in Sweden. She enjoys walking, meditation, travel and unexpected, magical moments. She loves animals and is an avid foodie. Her favourite place is sitting in her garden.

4 Things to Know about me

Earth or Water: Water

Desert island book: Too many/ The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wrobrewski

Want to see 2020: The tulip fields of Holland

Favourite alcoholic drink: Vodka Martini/ Olive twist

Photographs all by/provided by Dawne Gowrie Zetterstrom, and used with permission and thanks.

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transition work life

“But I’m not retired!” – thoughts on the word ‘retired’ as I create a new life

July 31, 2019

It happened again the other day. I bumped into someone I know in the street and he asked, “How’s retirement going?”

I could feel my blood begin to rise and boil. Not his fault, he doesn’t know the full story of what I am doing. I respond as I usually do with an impassioned, “But I’m not retired! I’m working from home on my new business.”

Or sometimes I say, “I’ve started a new business as a life coach and writer.” The conversation then goes further into what life coaching is and how I work globally with women on finding deeper purpose and creative self-leadership. It’s not always the easiest work to describe in these contexts.

My response to the word ‘retired‘ always surprises me though. It’s a visceral reaction to the word. I am trying to understand why I have such a strong response. Perhaps you understand and feel the same or maybe you embrace the idea of being retired. Here are my thoughts n the word ‘retired’. Love to hear yours.

The word ‘retired’

For me, the word ‘retired’ itself is not inspiring. Tired. Tired over and over again. Reinventing tired. I feel tired just hearing it.

It does not inspire me at all. It’s not a state I’ve ever aspired to.

And in some ways, I am just beginning to stretch my wings. I’m 57 and I don’t feel all that tired. Of course I get tired at times, but I feel alive and energised by this new phase of my life. It means getting back to what I have always wanted to be doing. That is writing, creating, working from home, coaching, connecting with others deeply, researching, working with ideas, having time for community and family.

Working with technology is something I love too. I love creating websites, blogging, ecourses and working with tools that help me be organised and streamlined. I write and coach via technology and it supports me to connect with others and organise my life how I want it, showing up, being productive and learning.

Lifelong learning and reading

I’m a lifelong learner from way back. I have multiple ecourses on the go at any one time. Currently I’m part of: the Teachable Creator Challenge working on creating quality online courses; the Gentle Business Mastermind; Ellie Swift’s Soulful Sequences about funnels and business flows and Susannah Conway’s The Inside Story Summer School. If I’m not learning and connecting with others through this, I feel like I’m not living.

I’ve invested in my skills over time. All these skills go into the rich melting pot of my body of work, the skills I already have to help me create new offerings and ways of working.

I love to read and usually have a fiction and a non-fiction book on the go. Reading in different ways via my Kindle, audiobooks and hard copy, I am completely lost without a book. I hardly ever leave the house without one. When I go swimming is one of the few times, because you can’t read underwater (as far as I know).

I’ve just finished Liane Moriarty’s Nine Perfect Strangers which I loved and Dawne Gowrie Zetterstrom’s Lusciously Nurtured which I’ll share more about here soon in a conversation with Dawne. I’m currently reading The Heroine’s Journey by Maureen Murdock because I know the hero’s journey does not exactly fit for women. I’m thinking and writing about this right now.

I used to be a teacher of reading to adults. Sharing my love of reading, I now help others via my blog to read for more creativity, productivity and pleasure. My two free ebooks in the Wholehearted Library here are all about reading: how books have shaped my story and a reading wisdom guide. I hope they help and inspire others.

My days are busy

So my days are busy and full in line with my passions. The word ‘retired‘ conjures up a different paradigm and one that doesn’t align. Like ‘redundancy‘ and my job being ‘deleted‘ as happened to me last year, the language feels negative implying no longer feeling of value, or having a place.

I know it can just mean no longer working outside the home, no longer being in that job of 30 plus years that I was in. When people use the word ‘retired’ in conversation, I know that’s often what they mean. But I am far from retired or retiring in the work that I do.

My days are busy with writing. Right now, I am 40% through the second self-edit of my book ‘Wholehearted: Self-leadership for Women in Transition’. I write blog posts here at Quiet Writing, guest posts for other websites and feature articles for other publications like the Beautiful You Inspired Coach Magazine and a piece in the anthology I Wrote It Anyway.

I wrote 50,000 words in one month for NaNoWriMo in 2017. I’m loving finally getting writing into the heart of my days. My heart feels full as I sit here with my Tide Pomodoro App and the sound of rain and thunder in my ears as my fingers play the keyboard like a piano. How long have I longed for this?

I’ve learnt new skills as a life coach and personality type practitioner. Training with the Beautiful You Coaching Academy and becoming a certified coach was a big step in my life transition journey. Becoming a Personality Type Practitioner was also one of my three key pillars for my transition. I have loved deepening this knowledge and sharing it with others to support transition and self-understanding.

Never too old

In my response to the word ‘retired’, there is definitely something in there about age and being old. That paradigm or life story of going to work for one employer for a long time, investing so much time in exchange for money. Then ceasing that in a delayed gratification of life and being able to do all the things you couldn’t do before. I lived in that paradigm for a long time, always waiting for the weekend or the holiday. I’m so glad to be out of it.

But I never saw the end of the journey of paid work via a job as a full stop.

I see it as a new beginning. A time to get back to the creativity I long desired, expressing myself through my writing and my work. But meaningfully, in line with my sense of purpose and desires. I want to write the novel that is in my heart, that I have cultivated in my mind, thought so much about.

I struggle with my age sometimes in creating this new life it’s true. It comes as a fleeting sense of “I wish I’d started earlier” or “How am I going to be able to get all this creative work done?” But you really are never too old to find courage and skill to empower your dreams and start working on the deeper intentions and creative work of the heart. Starting and moving step by step on whatever you desire to do or create is the best antidote for tackling these kind of thoughts.

Being less tied down

Being location independent, being able to work and write from anywhere is helpful. Not having to commute three plus hours a day as I used to, I am less tied and tired. Working from home is the greatest joy and I can be flexible about how I work each day.

I have the time to enjoy where I live instead of leaving early and coming home late as I used to. I can choose to swim three mornings a week and afterwards, connect with others over coffee. Then start working on my business, writing and coaching later in the day when I feel refreshed and grounded.

Working from home and via technology means being free in many ways. I love working from home but I aspire to be a digital nomad more. Being able to work from anywhere, combining travel, writing and self-employment is a huge plus in the new life I have created.

Aspiring and time to evolve

Part of my reaction to the word ‘retired’ is about aspirations. There’s so much I want to do in my life. I aspire to so much. It feels like the beginning of a new time when I can bring all my skills and experience to bear to write, coach, make a difference, communicate and share my learning to help others.

Retiring to me feels like a shutting down of aspiration. ‘Shy and retiring‘ is another phrase that often goes together, so a sense of blurring into the background, having less to say and do. Perhaps it involves enjoying life by relaxing, travelling and having more free time. But can we not have these generous aspects of life alongside working productively with deeper meaning and purpose, getting to the work of the heart we’ve always aspired to?

Sometimes too, especially for introverts, it takes a long time to find our voice and not be shy and retiring. The word ‘retire’ clashes for me with this time of life when I have something to say and contribute. When all my learning can be brought together into ways of providing insights for others. When I have found my voice and feel more creatively confident. Crone Confidence as my friend Diana Frajman calls it in her wisdom work in the world.

Later bloomers

I love stories of people who finally get to what they always wanted to do or who learn new skills later in life. Debra Eve has a fabulous website, Later Bloomer which reminds us that age and timelines are not definitive measures of what is possible. Sometimes it takes time, like a vintage wine or the lessons of a love that deepens over the years, to really weave together the stories and skills we have developed in our lives. It takes time to work out our purpose and meaning, what we are here for.

Being a later bloomer reflects the time it takes to mature those deep skills and passions that only we can bring together. It recognises too that we can reinvent ourselves in new ways over time.

What if a mindset of being retired means you don’t get to do that work that is so important to you? Or that someone else needs to hear?

Many ways to create

There are so many ways to work and create these days. It does not have to be a magnum opus, though it could be. Turning up on social media and sharing thoughts can be powerful work. Just the right quote or perspective honed from deep experience can turn someone else’s thinking around.

Voluntary work, pro bono work, can be a way of giving and receiving, realising in a new way what we have learned and how to apply it. Blogging can reach so many people in a powerful way as we craft our own digital space and voice in the world.

Writing that book you’ve always wanted to write and share is now easier to do with independent and self-publishing options. It’s not a vanity story any more. You can work with others in a hybrid or partnership model to get your work out into the world too. There are so many options and ways to create.

Exploring ‘retired’ and life options

So whilst for some retirement might be a worthy goal to aim for, I don’t think I’ll ever be truly retired and nor do I want to be. I want to be busy reading, writing, learning, sharing my learning, coaching, creating online courses, publishing, understanding personality type deeply, swimming, walking, connecting, travelling, enjoying life.

The life options are endless and people choose to focus in different ways. It might be spending time with the grandchildren and taking a more active role there. Sometimes there are situations that arise such as supporting aging parents which can be important work but incredibly challenging.

Through it all we search for deeper meaning and purpose and learn lessons about life as we go.

I know that creating and sustaining a new way of living has been hard work. To get to this stage in my life has taken hard inner and outer work over many years. This is another reason why I am not so keen to label my new self-created life as ‘retired’. It is all very active and intentional and about choice and self-leadership more than luck. My friend Kerstin Pilz writes of this eloquently in one of my all-time favourite blog posts: Why luck has nothing to do with a self-directed life.

**What are your thoughts on the word ‘retired’?**

I know not everyone will feel the same way I do about the word ‘retired’. Perhaps the concept of ‘retired’ carries a different meaning for you. Are you happily retired? Or is it a word you run a mile from? Is there another word you use for this time post paid employment elsewhere? I’d be interested in what that means for you. We are all different.

It might be something you long for but find it hard to reach for different reasons. Life circumstances can make it tough for us to reach our desires whatever we call them.

But let’s explore this. What does ‘retired‘ mean to you? I would so love to hear!

Are you retired and happily so?
What does the word conjure up for you?
Is it something you aspire to?
Are you someone who does not feel the word ‘retired’ fits with your view of life?
Do we need another word?
What are you aspiring to do at this time of your life?
Are you a later bloomer in some areas of your life and what does that feel like?
Do you ever feel ‘too old’ and how do you counter that thinking?

If you are interested in exploring deeper meaning and purpose in creative ways with self-leadership and a community of other women, the Sacred Creative Collective might be for you! The next round starts soon but places are limited and it’s filling up fast, so don’t delay and book a free Discovery Call here to discuss.

Learning to live on the slow path and love the little things that light me up

June 10, 2019

This guest post from Kamsin Kaneko looks at learning to live on the slow path and shifting focus to creativity and the little things in shaping a wholehearted life.

This is the 19th guest post in our Wholehearted Stories series on Quiet Writing! I invited readers to consider submitting a guest post on their wholehearted story. You can read more here – and I’m still keen for more contributors!

Quiet Writing celebrates self-leadership in wholehearted living and writing, career and creativity. This community of voices, each of us telling our own story of what wholehearted living means, is a valuable and central part of this space. In this way, we can all feel connected on our various journeys and not feel so alone. Whilst there will always be unique differences, there are commonalities that we can all learn from and share to support each other.

I’m delighted to have Kamsin Kaneko as a ‘Wholehearted Stories’ contributor. Kamsin and I met via Instagram and shared interests in creativity, writing and gentle business. In this story, Kamsin shares how her focus has shifted to living in a slower, more focused, creative and wholehearted way in a different cultural environment. Read on!

Living life in the ordinary everyday moments

“Let’s eat out on the balcony,” my husband suggests. We are in the wine section of our local supermarket. It is a warm Sunday afternoon, and we’ve come to buy ingredients to cook dinner as a family.

“Sure. Sounds like a good idea,” I reply. One reason we bought our apartment was the spacious balcony. But we rarely sit out there to eat or use it for anything other than hanging washing out to dry.

This small act of cooking together and eating at home is one of the many small lifestyle changes we’ve been making. We’ve always wanted to do things like this, especially since we have a little boy who just turned five. But we haven’t always made the space in our lives.

We had got into the habit of going to the local sushi place on Sunday evening, which isn’t nearly as glamorous as it sounds in the context of urban Japan. You can wait 45+ minutes to be seated, it’s a popular family choice at the weekend. It’s cheap and easy, even if the quality of the food isn’t the best.

Nothing is better than a home cooked meal

We are home from the supermarket. There’s homemade pizza cooking in the oven, and the wine has been poured. We decide to move the dining table outside. As we’re doing so, our neighbour is taking in her washing. She laughs when she sees us.

The sun is starting to set over the trees and mountains behind our balcony and beyond; the light is perfect, and it is pleasantly warm. The inflatable paddling pool my boy was playing in earlier is still full of water. Alfresco dining by the pool, I quip.

A short while later and the food is on the table. My little boy closes his eyes, puts his hands together, and declares “Itadakimasu” (I gratefully receive this food), with energy and enthusiasm. My husband lifts his wine glass and smiles.

“I’m so happy,” he says.

Shifting focus

If I focus my attention on the thick, ugly pillars that support the balconies, I remember this is still in urban Japan. Power cables criss-cross the sky everywhere you look, and people crowd around us on every side. I grew up in the countryside, at times I miss the wide-open spaces which are so hard to come by in Japan.

So, I focus instead on the food, the table, my family. With my attention focused on the things I love, we are nowhere but right here and right now. Exactly where we want to be. We have created space in our day, and in our lives, to enjoy the little things which had felt so distant in our busy urban lives just a year or so earlier.

Until recently, I felt like I was always making compromises. I didn’t want sushi or a “family restaurant” every week. It meant being stuck in traffic, having to wait to be seated, and a noisy eating environment and unexciting food choices. It wasn’t lighting me up inside.

Our eating choices weren’t the only area we were making compromises. But food is so fundamental to a well-lived life as a family. So why had we been living like that? And how did we get from there to here?

Looking for the answers right here not over there

I grew up attending church and evangelical Christian groups. I no longer believe the fundamental doctrines that they taught me. But I experienced something of the divine, and I wanted more.

I can remember singing songs about loving God with all my heart, all my soul and all my mind. But I felt that there were parts of my heart that were locked away and I didn’t have the key. How could I love God with my whole heart if I didn’t know how to access what was inside?

Over the years, my understanding of faith crumbled and evolved. I am less concerned with trying to name or understand what those early spiritual experiences were. At the current stage of my life, I am more interested in learning to trust and believe in the divine within myself.

Gratitude and moving on

I remain grateful for the community and the guidance and the love of people in those groups. But I no longer believe that God can only be encountered through a specific understanding of Christianity.

Perhaps I thought that I would find God somewhere “over there” in the setting of religious groups and Sunday services. But God was never there. S/he was always here in the space between our intertwined lives. We had to learn to slow down before I could even see that.

I stayed a part of the church even though it had long since stopped meeting my spiritual or emotional needs. We stopped going about a year ago because my heart was longing for more space and more slow simple Sundays. And my husband wasn’t feeling the same connection to the church anymore.

Learning to listen to the longings of my own heart

In the last four years, I have been learning to listen more carefully to the whispers of my heart and act on what I hear. I’d got out of practice in doing that somehow. Through writing, journaling and mindfulness meditation, I started to find an answer to the question of how to access the locked places in my heart.

I was no longer going to give my time to anything which didn’t help my heart to keep expanding. I had wanted to spend more time with my husband and young son. I wanted the rhythm of Sunday as a day of rest.

The irony that by attending church, I wasn’t getting this wasn’t lost on me. But I thought because we lived in Japan, I would never have the slow Sundays I remembered from my childhood in England. Besides, times have changed, maybe no one lives like that anymore.

But we were living on autopilot rather than making conscious choices about how to spend our time. Now we often spend Sundays in our neighbourhood playing outside without any particular plans. We cook a homemade meal together and our little family has never been closer or happier.

Our slow and simple Sundays are one example of the ways that listening to what I want and need has led me into a more wholehearted life. Slowing down and believing that the longings of my heart can be achieved if I approach them with an open mind wasn’t as easy as it sounds.

Learning to believe in the possibility of a wholehearted life

The first step was learning to notice the places in my life where my behaviour did not align with the things I said I wanted. I had to learn to do that with self-compassion and let go of any judgment.

I was tied up in a long list of “shoulds” and “ought to’s” all of which caused my heart to be locked up tighter than ever before. But I started to believe that I had choices about how I spent my time. I could say no to what I didn’t want and yes to what I did.

I had to find processes to gently allow me to listen and believe I could act on what I heard. Journaling and meditation and carefully chosen books, podcasts, and safe spaces online are showing me how to do that.

I had spent too long allowing other voices to drown out the voice of my own heart. It takes time to learn to tune in and act on what you hear.

How writing and early motherhood changed everything

When I was in my early twenties, there were three things I wanted to achieve in my life. One was to travel and live abroad. I’ve lived in China, Japan, Bosnia, and then Japan again. When I married a Japanese man, Japan became my home.

The second was to become a mother. I’d given up on this idea for a long time, but it happened five years ago when I was thirty-eight. It wasn’t an easy process through miscarriage, medical error, and 2.5 years of trying to get pregnant. But my son is the most delightful little person on the planet.

The third was to be a writer. And it was that final goal which has proved to be the hardest. I took my first writing class as an undergraduate back in the mid-’90s and others on and off over the following twenty years. But it was only after my son was born that I began to unpick the places in my heart which had been standing in my way.

Motherhood in Japan was the key to unlocking my heart

As a new mother in Japan, I was stressed out and struggling so far from home. I felt like I was drowning in cultural norms and expectations, which I was never going to live up to. But I wasn’t about to settle for a slow descent into bitterness and resentment, which seemed to be where I was heading. I wanted to enjoy my little boy and life as a mother. But I needed help.

I began to meditate through the Headspace App. And when someone gave away their copy of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way I began to keep a journal. Something I hadn’t done consistently for years.

Through these two activities, I found the key to access the locked up places in my heart. I’d felt that wholehearted wasn’t something I would ever achieve all those years ago singing about loving God with all my heart. But over time, all the things which had been leaving me feeling overwhelmed, including unhealed trauma from childhood started to feel more manageable.

Writing is leading to radical transformation: that’s why it’s so hard

The more I wrote, the more I understood that I’d neglected the craft of being a writer and I had a lot to learn. Through online writing classes and working with tutors and writing coaches, I started to understand how to create a scene and a character.

I had a background in academic writing. But to tap into my neglected creativity, I had to bring my writing into the world of sensory detail. I had to connect the emotions and the details that ground a story and bring it alive to a reader.

And that is that process of getting out of my head and into the sensory details of everyday life that is allowing me to unlock my heart. In powerful writing, it is often the little details which bring the most magic to the page. The same is true in our everyday lives.

Writing through the dark to find the light

But I didn’t want to feel the painful things. I tried to go straight to being grateful and finding positive affirmations to help me overcome writers’ block and self-sabotaging habits. I didn’t want to feel the painful things that had been locked up inside of me. But the only way out was to go through.

Thank God the Universe provided me with gifted teachers in the process. This time last year I took an online writing course by Martha Beck; there were guest lectures from Elizabeth Gilbert, one of my favourite writers, and it was completely transformative. Hard work and painful but amazing.

The course comprised the most incredible set of lectures which blew everything I thought I knew out of the water. The writing exercises were designed to take you into the hell of your worst moments and keep writing until you brought everything out into the light.

As I wrote, I kept finding feelings of being unworthy, and crippling fears of never being good enough. A numbing fear that if I spoke my truth, I would be judged, criticised, and rejected. I was so good at avoiding those feelings I’d been unaware of how much they were driving self-sabotaging behaviours like procrastination and perfectionism.

I could only learn to be wholehearted by looking at those feelings of shaky self-worth in the eye. And writing through them to find the validation I need within myself. Perhaps I will never believe that I am good enough to be a “real writer.”

But I have learnt to trust the voice inside of me that says I need to write. And if all I ever achieve is to heal the fractured places in my own heart, it will be enough. I pray also that I can gift my readers a tiny bit of courage to continue on their own wholehearted journey.

Key book companions along the way

The Artist’s Way – Julia Cameron

Big Magic – Elizabeth Gilbert

Martha Beck – Finding Your Way in a Wild New World

Loving What Is – Byron Katie

And the poetry of Mary Oliver

About Kamsin Kaneko

Kamsin Kaneko is a writer, mum, teacher, and traveller, not necessarily in that order. She writes about living a wholehearted life of depth and meaning. You can find her on Instagram most days capturing small moments of beauty in the urban sprawl of her home in Japan. Get your free gift: I Believe in the Magic of Everyday Moments. Kamsin Kaneko’s website The Slow Path can be found here.

Photographs #1, #2, #3 + bio image by Kamsin Kaneko, used with permission and thanks.

Photograph #4 of pen on page by Debby Hudson on Unsplash used with permission and thanks.

Keep in touch + free Reading Wisdom Guide

You might also enjoy my free ‘Reading Wisdom Guide for Creatives, Coaches and Writers‘ with a summary of 45 wholehearted books to inspire your own journey. Just pop your email address in the box below.

You will receive access to the Wholehearted Library which includes the Reading Wisdom Guide and so much more! Plus you’ll receive monthly Beach Notes with updates and inspiring resources from Quiet Writing. This includes writing, personality type, coaching, creativity, tarot, productivity and ways to express your unique voice in the world.

love, loss & longing wholehearted stories

Year of Magic, Year of Sadness – A Wholehearted Story

May 6, 2019

This guest post from Lisa Dunford looks at how her year of magic and change was also one of sadness, the two coming together to weave a wholehearted story.

Quiet Writing celebrates self-leadership in wholehearted living and writing, career and creativity. This community of voices, each of us telling our own story of what wholehearted living means, is a valuable and central part of this space. In this way, we can all feel connected on our various journeys and not feel so alone. Whilst there will always be unique differences, there are commonalities that we can all learn from and share to support each other.

I’m thrilled to have Lisa Dunford as a ‘Wholehearted Stories’ contributor. Lisa and I met via Instagram and share interests in creativity, coaching and travel. In this story, Lisa shares how her year of magic also incorporated times of immense sadness. How often do these two elements come together in life especially when we make major changes? So often. Lisa shares how magic and sadness have become key compasses on her journey. Read on!

Year of magic and sadness

The year 2016 was a magical one. I’d stepped back from writing travel guidebooks for Lonely Planet full-time to pursue a more personal growth-oriented path – both in my writing and in my life. It took a few years of stops and starts, but by 2016, I finally felt like things were beginning to flow. Along much of this incredible journey, the inspirational talks and writings of Martha Beck kept me company. I found the book Finding Your Way in A Wild New World particularly influential. I’d always been good at following my gut for big decisions. But Wild New World opened me to the idea of everyday connection and magic.

The more I read Martha’s books and essays, the more I wanted to learn. I took online workshops and listened to her lectures. I branched out to workshops and lessons taught by Martha Beck Institute (MBI)-trained life coaches. I hired a coach myself, and before I knew it, I’d become fast friends with a number of other MBI coaches.

Walking the walk

In spring, with just one month’s notice, I committed to walking the last 100km of the Camino de Santiago in Spain organized by three MBI coaches. Saying yes was a big deal. I’d fallen completely out of shape while living in two car-oriented, pancake-flat places. And I didn’t usually take on anything I might fail at. But a series of serendipities urged me on – Paulo Coelho’s book The Pilgrimage falling off the shelf as I considered, a friend asking me to edit an essay, that turned out to be… about her Camino trip. I embraced my willingness to fail, my willingness to be wrong about failing. Taking even the first step was a win. When I managed to walk every one of the 100 kilometres without getting in the support van, I knew I hadn’t done it alone.

It’s not like the trek was easy. Every morning I had my blister-covered toes sewn up, and I popped pain relievers like candy. But the Divine was there every step of the way: in the unusually unwavering support from my spouse, the unexpected inspiration from nature and faith, and the very practical advice and assistance that arrived from friends and co-walkers exactly when needed. I had accomplished what in my mind was impossible. It began to be hard to say what I couldn’t do.

Being led

“Ok, so if you could do anything, what would it be?” asked a life coach friend. That was easy – go to Africa, I answered. It had always seemed like too big of a dream: too much money, too much distance. I continued writing, I went to retreats, I followed my path. Four months later, out of the blue, another coach asked if I wanted to take her discounted place on a South African safari she’d already paid for, she couldn’t go. Um, let me think about that… YES.

I realized I wanted to learn more of the tools taught in the MBI training, go deeper into self-discovery, into self-belief. In September 2016 I began my own life coaching nine-month training. I’d gone in thinking I was doing it for myself. I planned to use the techniques to inform my life, to help with my writing. Much to my surprise, I really loved coaching. It felt as if I was following magic breadcrumbs to a life I loved.

Things happen

And then halfway through the training, my mom died – suddenly, at the very young, very healthy-seeming age of 71. She collapsed in my father’s arms and was dead three hours later. They’d just gotten back from mom’s first – her last – post-retirement, cross-country driving trip. I was home for an extended visit from where I lived abroad. She and I talked for a long time the night before she died. She went into the tiniest detail about her trip. We made lunch plans for the following week. The next day I left for California and my MBI life coach training meet and greet.

I walked onto the LA car rental lot and discovered they’d assigned me a white Ford Crown Victoria. I was not really feeling the old school, cop car vibe. When I asked to change, the rental guy was more chipper than most. “No problem, I get it,” he said. How would I like a cherry red Mustang convertible for the same price instead? Um, sure. At the time I didn’t think about how much the car looked like the little red Mazda convertible Mom used to drive.

Feeling connected

Some nice lot attendant came out of nowhere to help me as I struggled with the seats and the top. “No, no, no,” he said. I couldn’t possibly take the freeway at this time of day. He was insistent, I had to take the Pacific Coast Highway. “Ok, ok,” I said. I agreed and he sent me on my way with a “Have a Blessed Day.”

As I inched up the coast in traffic, the late afternoon sun sparkled off the ocean waves. I alternated between watching the dancing light show on the water to my right and the orange and blue and yellow wildflowers dotting the hillside to my left. Mom would have loved it. She was the big driver, not me. I was almost to San Luis Obispo when I got the call.

I couldn’t quite process the information. After the heart attack, Mom had been life-flighted to a nearby hospital. We’d figure it out, I told my dad. In the background, I heard the alarms and shouting that meant Mom was coding – again and again. I didn’t understand. I said I would come back right away, we’d take care of her. We patched my sister into the call. We were all together, in a way, when the doctor told dad the news. She’d never regained consciousness. I did the math. She’d been with me on the drive after all.

Going deeper

I’d meant to go deeper with life coach training, but I hadn’t really known what that meant. In the aftermath of Mom’s death, things I thought I’d understood suddenly became clear. I felt everything more deeply. I cried not only for the amazing and infuriating and incredible mother I’d lost but for everything, everyone’s pain. Though I’d never had children, I could better imagine the depth of my friend’s loss as she sent her son off to college (and for mom’s when I first went away). I could imagine the incalculable pain of someone’s miscarriage (of which mom had had three). But I also saw beauty and felt gratitude more deeply. When I returned to Africa the next year, I was more – and less – of myself.

Mom had been fierce and fun-loving, but she had also been an anxious person. After her death, I had the strong sense that she was immediately free of all that. And that if she could be free in one minute, I could be. She would want me to be. So I doubled down on the life coach training. We all have thoughts, habits and patterns that are no longer serving us. I became very aware of how important this work was – freeing myself, so I could help free others. Even if I only helped my sister or my nieces break the chain, it would all be worth it.

The next steps

I would love to say that within six months after mom died, I finished my life coach training and established a thriving writing-coaching-creating business. But that’s not always how things work. And that’s ok. I took time to grieve. I was committed to feeling my feelings, to allowing intense gratitude and sadness to sit side by side. We had other setbacks in my husband’s family, a hurricane that targeted our town in Texas. We had more loss in my mom’s family.

But there’s a big difference now. I have tools to use and a community to turn to. I’m much less hard on myself. I’m not panicked that I haven’t accomplished as much as I think I “should”. I had other things to do, other things to learn. I’m still writing, still using my coaching. I’ve continued to study tools and techniques to help others as a coach. I’ve begun to build my business and a website to reflect that. And I’m still doing my own inner work because it’s a process.

I’m immensely grateful for so much from the past few years – the lessons I’ve learned, the friends I’ve made, the experiences I’ve had. But mostly I’m grateful for an amazing mom, a woman who inspires me every day to dig deeper and do more, be more, help more.

Key book companions along the way

The Pilgrimage – Paulo Coelho

Walk in a Relaxed Manner: Life Lessons from the Camino – Joyce Rupp

Finding Your Way in a Wild New World: Reclaim Your True Nature to Create the Life You Want – Martha Beck

The Joy Diet – Martha Beck

Finding Your Own North Star: Claiming the Life You Were Meant to Live – Martha Beck

Born to Freak: A Salty Primer for Irrepressible Humans – Sarah Seidelmann

About Lisa Dunford

Lisa is a traveler, a writer, a creator and a life coach. Her house lives on a river east of Houston, Texas, her husband works in a desert west of Abu Dhabi, UAE. She alternates between the two. Before becoming a life coach, Lisa roamed the globe for 12 years as a travel writer. She’s lived in six countries and seven states. More than anything Lisa believes that so much more is possible in this life than we tend to think. Follow her travels @lisadtraveler and her attempts at learning to draw, learning to paint and learning to live @lisadlifeartist on Instagram.

Photographs and artwork by Lisa Dunford, used with permission and thanks.

Keep in touch + free Reading Wisdom Guide

coaching personality and story

Learned Wisdom: Journeys in Type and Transition

April 19, 2019

I’ve been so thrilled to attend and present at the British Association for Psychological Type (BAPT) Conference in Milton Keynes in the UK last week.⁣⠀

⁣The theme of the conference was ‘Pearls of Wisdom’, celebrating BAPT’s 30th anniversary. A perfect theme for me to engage with.

When I knew I would be heading over to attend, I was very drawn to submit to present. I developed up a submission to present a session on ‘Learned Wisdom: Journeys in Type and Transition‘. And I was so excited when my submission was accepted.⁣⠀

Learned Wisdom + stepping up in my professional practice

Here’s what I spoke about and shared:⁣⠀

how having a framework including psychological type can help us positively manage times of transition and major change.⁣⠀
my learned wisdom, using myself as a case study, reflecting on the last few years of transitioning to self-employment as a life coach and psychological type practitioner⁣⠀
a model I created for managing transition with psychological type, body of work and self-leadership as key aspects.⁣⠀
a practical way to apply this model to personally and professionally negotiate major transitions.

The experience of sharing learned wisdom

I spent many hours drawing together my personal and professional experiences and learning, and crafting and trialling the presentation in Sydney. Following my presentation, I was honoured to receive very positive feedback about the insights gained from my presentation. This was from attendees with many years of psychological type experience. ⁣⠀

Sometimes we wonder about all the hours we put into something like this. But for me, this was such valuable work in so many ways.

Firstly, I stopped to pull together the story of my transition over the past 2 plus years in a very deep way. Then I put it into a ‘learned wisdom’ framework, a model, that incorporated a number of aspects:

definitions of learned wisdom
looking at transition and change and the differences between them
reviewing my personal journey as a case study
creating a model for others to use personally and professionally with three key elements: body of work, personality type and self-leadership
situating this within a personal transition framework.

And in all of this, I stepped up into my work in new ways as a speaker and a personality type practitioner. This was in the context of presenting to a highly skilled and experienced group of type professionals. It was the kind of pressure that makes us grow and stretch in new ways and realise what we have learned. It’s the kind of pressure too we often wonder about putting ourselves under! But I am so pleased I did. I focused on being a contributor, not a guru – as Denise Duffield Thomas encourages us. With this mindset shift, I’ve gained confidence and learned tips to help with similar experiences in the future. I look forward to sharing this learning with you too.

Reflections on sharing learned wisdom further

I’m reflecting further on the process and experience in line with my INTJ type preference! I know that I have a body of work to share in many ways, via coaching, writing and social media. I am:

➡️ creating a Learned Wisdom mini-course where I take you through how type can be a support during times of transition and look at your type transition compass.

➡️ sharing the information via Sacred Creative Collective group coaching and Personality Type coaching, where I support people to identify their best-fit type and learn about personality preferences.⁣⠀

➡️ sharing about the experience of stepping up in new ways in our work in the world including pushing through the upper limit problem we often impose on ourselves.

➡️ sharing the learning in different ways via blog posts and social media

Next steps in learned wisdom

So look forward to more instalments about Learned Wisdom. And check out Personality Stories Coaching via the link in my profile for more information. I welcome any questions or suggestions you might have!

You might also enjoy:

Personality Stories

How I fulfilled my vision to become a Personality Type Coach

Never too old – finding courage and skill to empower your dreams

Life Coaching – making meaning in times of transition

Shining a quiet light – working the gifts of introversion

Personality skills including how to be the best you can be as an introvert in recruitment

Being a vessel – or working with introverted intuition

wholehearted stories work life

From Halfhearted to Wholehearted Living – My Journey

March 29, 2019

This guest post from Emily Lewis looks at the journey of moving from half-hearted to wholehearted living.

This is the 17th guest post in our Wholehearted Stories series on Quiet Writing! I invited readers to consider submitting a guest post on their wholehearted story. You can read more here – and I’m still keen for more contributors!

Quiet Writing celebrates self-leadership in wholehearted living and writing, career and creativity. This community of voices, each of us telling our own story of what wholehearted living means, is a valuable and central part of this space. In this way, we can all feel connected on our various journeys and not feel so alone. Whilst there will always be unique differences, there are commonalities that we can all learn from and share to support each other.

I’m thrilled to have Emily Lewis as a ‘Wholehearted Stories’ contributor. Emily and I met via Instagram and other creative connections. In this story, Emily shares how she is embracing uncertainty and imperfection and questioning the “shoulds” in her life. In doing this, she is moving from half-hearted to wholehearted living. Emily also shares her brilliant photographs. Read on!

I’ll admit that when I first agreed to write a post here I didn’t have any idea what I would say. What is wholehearted living anyway? In the Gifts of Imperfection, Brené Brown says:

It means cultivating the courage, compassion, and connection to wake up in the morning and think, no matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough. It’s going to bed at night thinking, Yes I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid, but that doesn’t change the truth that I am also brave and worthy of love and belonging.

I’ve read Gifts, and other definitions, but somehow the guideposts never really stuck with me. I’m not terribly compassionate or patient, I have no idea what it means to play instead of work, and I’m terrible at cultivating consistent gratitude. I’m not sure if I have any faith in a higher power. I tend more to be grumpy, bitchy or bitter, frequently irritated or anxious and feeling guilty on top of it since overall my life is not at all bad. I am certain all of those things are what wholehearted is not.

I think, perhaps, I’ve been living half-heartedly, living according to a series of “shoulds” and being more concerned with what the world thinks of me when I actually do follow what is in my heart and gut. Many of the people who voiced their generally well-intentioned opinions throughout my life were not wrong in their assertions, but that did not mean they were right for me.

Impacts of living halfheartedly

I never wanted to move to Maryland. I never really wanted to be a landscape architect either. But during his time in academia, my father had seen too many students struggle to make ends meet after graduation and thought it would be a good direction to pursue. It was clear during design school many of my professors didn’t think I had what it took to make it in the profession. And in a way, they may have been right. The skills that most of the top students had – graphics, site design – were not where I excelled. I preferred a combination of natural resources and liberal arts but was determined that since I started the program, I should finish it. Then I’d figure out what to do.

Before I moved to Annapolis, I had been to the state all of twice. I thought I’d stay a couple of years then join the Peace Corps or go to grad school somewhere far away. I tried to leave after a few months, but the recession hit and nothing materialized. When I transferred offices to work on a major project, I vowed I’d finish out my role, no matter what. Much like I vowed to stick with my major in the first place. Because good students and good employees finish what they start.

That project finished and I should have felt free. But by then I was marrying my husband, who was new to the area and didn’t want to move again. So instead of applying to the University of Oregon or Pennsylvania for a Master’s degree, I looked into local programs where I could continue to work full time. We bought a house and the day the bank approved our offer I cried because now I was stuck. Once we realized we really did want to move, we decided to be responsible and try to pay off all our student loans before doing so. Twelve years later, I’m still half-heartedly living in a place I wanted to leave after six months, struggling which what I “should” do instead of following my heart.

Being done with “shoulds”

Somewhere along the way, I paused and realized how deeply unhappy I was. In December 2014 I was at a bookstore looking for a Christmas present for my dad when I saw a book called Paris Letters. The author, Janice MacLeod, asks the question “How much money does it take to quit your job?” and then moves to Paris.

It started a process of slow consideration over the next few months of asking myself a series of questions. What am I doing here? Why am I staying in this job that hasn’t helped me grow in four years, just left me with empty promises and fits of crying every morning before I get out of the car? Because I “should” take advantage of the money they are giving me for grad school, at a program I enrolled in because I “should” work full time while I go to school, because I always felt obligated to follow a particular career direction? What if I changed? Who might I become?

I remember the exact moment when I first decided I was done with the shoulds. I was in the bathroom of an airplane somewhere over the Rocky Mountains looking not just at myself in the mirror, but down at my whole life, laid out 10,000 feet below me, and I asked myself “What the hell are you waiting for?” I was reading Wild by Cheryl Strayed on that plane ride, a story about picking yourself the fuck up and DOING something with your life, and something started to crack slowly inside of me.

Small cracks to big cracks

Have you ever noticed that a small crack inevitably leads to bigger cracks? It’s why we design sidewalks and buildings with control joints, to tell the crack where it will and will not go, but we can’t design our own life that way.

I didn’t know on that plane ride, or in that book store, that this tiny crack would split wide open in ways I could never imagine over the next four years. That it would include two job changes, three transAtlantic trips, depression, infidelity, a friend’s suicide, and that I would eventually stop trying to patch myself up, like a slipshod repair job, but rather go all the way to the deepest part of the wound and learn to heal from the inside out. I didn’t know that this was the process of becoming whole, that it’s an ongoing process and I would keep finding new places that needed to be healed. Sometimes these things fester until something happens to bring them to the surface.

I had a moment in the early fall of 2015, while out in the woods measuring trees for a stream restoration project when suddenly I knew I wanted no part of the path I had been following. Not the job, not grad school, not Maryland. I had been trying so hard to plan every bit of my life and you can’t live wholeheartedly if you are willing your life to stick to a plan. In that moment I broke down and spiralled into a depression that lasted for months, where not a day went by that I didn’t weep out of hopelessness and despair and consider ending it all. There was no more plan.

Forgoing the shoulds

Slowly and tentatively I began to talk to select people about how I was struggling. A friend sent me the book Let Your Life Speak by Parker J Palmer who eloquently described what I could barely grasp at:

Sometimes the “shoulds” do not work because the life one is living runs crosswise to the grain of one’s soul. At that time in my life, I had no feeling for the grain in my soul and no sense of which way was crosswise….Had I not followed my despair…I might have continued to pursue a work that was not mine to do, causing further harm to myself, to the people and projects with which I worked, and to a profession that is well-worth doing – by those who are called to do it.

I decided to forego the “shoulds”. Maybe I should have stayed in that job longer, but I knew I was done and I didn’t want to look to the past or the future but rather stay in the present and what I needed in my soul at the time. Maybe I should have quit the volunteer Board of Directors position, but those people have become the closest friends and family I’ve known and can rely on. Maybe I should quit traveling so much and stay put a little more often; I’ve gotten used to people questioning how much I travel, but it what makes me feel alive.

When others question me, it is their own fears they vocalize and too often I let that hold me back or put up my defences, determined to show them that I am right. Everything from what I majored in to where I lived to what I did in my spare time was a “should do” for far too long.

What do I know

With so many unknowns, what do I know? I know that while there have been parts of my life that have been wonderful, there are also parts of it that have been toxic to me. I often wonder, if I stayed at home more, physically more, would it be better? Would I be happier? But WOULD I ever actually stay here more, even if I were less busy, less committed to friends and family and adventures around the country?

Perhaps part of me will always feel the need to be on the go and doing something. Do I leave because I don’t want to be here or do I not want to be here because I always leave? Am I still trying to be someone I am not, that I feel I should be? I posed this question to my husband, Todd. He responded, kindly, “I think you will always want to be on the move. If you tried to stay in one place you wouldn’t be you. You were born to wander.”

So where am I now, emotionally and physically? That’s a complicated question, but I think I am getting closer to the answer, part of which is “I don’t know.” But I do. And I don’t. This chapter of my life is closing, and like all good chapters, it’s emotional, like the end of Deathly Hallows before the Epilogue when you know there’s more to the story but you’re not ready for this part of it to end.

What I want

I want to fully love and live and mourn this chapter so I can wholly move into the next one. I don’t want to allude to things anymore. I want to be real. I have been halfheartedly living in the Chesapeake, trying to be something I have never felt connected to on a soul level. I’ve tried for 17 years to convince myself I could do this particular work and live in this particular place and I can’t. I want to feel alive and I feel alive when I am around art, around animals, in nature, in the mountains. Less people, less frenetic pace of life.

I’m not a “hustle” mentality. I want to equally work hard and play hard and rest hard and love hard and I don’t have room for that when I’m full of irritation and stress and anxiety in this place. I’ve never really felt healthy or whole here and it’s devastating to say that out loud, especially when I don’t yet have the answers to what’s next. I’ve always wanted to completely plan out my life and I don’t think that’s in the cards. I’m scared as hell and want to weep and leap for joy at the same time.

What is next

I’ve always wanted to pack up and just go and see what adventure is waiting around the next turn. I’ve secretly always wanted to stop being so damn responsible and just take a risk. Fear and obligation and what I “should” do stopped me every time.

The Green Mountains have been calling my name since I crossed the state line into Vermont in late May nine years ago. I remember a coworker saying they weren’t sure I was going to come back from that trip and part of me never did. There are pieces of my soul scattered around this world and it’s time I went and reconnected with one of them. I’ll be okay, I’ll be fine, not knowing what the future holds. No matter what happens, I tried. I got up in the morning and went to bed at night knowing that I was still brave and worthy of love and belonging. I will be enough because instead of listening to the “shoulds” I did what I wanted to do. Should I move? Should I find a new career? I don’t know. But do I want to? Yes. And that is enough.

Key book + podcast companions along the way

Radical Acceptance – Tara Brach

The Gifts of Imperfection – Brené Brown

Let Your Life Speak – Parker J Palmer

Big Magic – Elizabeth Gilbert

Paris Letters – Janice MacLeod

Harry Potter – J.K. Rowling

Wild – Cheryl Strayed

This I Know: Notes on Unraveling the Heart – Susannah Conway

Finding Ultra – Rich Roll

The Runner’s Guide to the Meaning of Life – Amby Burfoot

The Artist’s Way – Julia Cameron

Tranquility du Jour Podcast – Kimberly Wilson

Another White Dash (song) – Butterfly Boucher

About Emily Lewis

Emily Lewis is a lover of travel, books, and trees who feels equally at home deep in the city or out in the country. She is passionate about environmental issues, art, and writing. Her photography explores both people and landscape, capturing the juxtaposition of nature and man-made, wild and urban, light and color, to show the often-overlooked details of life. She is a professional landscape architect with a Masters in environmental science and moonlights as a financial director and photographer. You can see her work and connect with her on her website www.emilylewiscreative.com or via Instagram.

Feature image by Diana White Photography

Other photographs taken and provided by Emily Lewis, used with permission and thanks.

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