wholehearted stories Archives

The journey of a lifetime – a wholehearted story

April 26, 2018

This guest post from Chantal Simon shows how the wholehearted path invites you to weave the threads of your lifetime journey into a cohesive whole.

This is the ninth 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, with 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 am honoured to have Chantal Simon as a ‘Wholehearted Stories’ contributor. My sincere thanks to Chantal for sharing her story and stunning photographs. Chantal’s story shows how following our heart, connecting the pieces of our skills and passions weaves a cohesive lifetime journey. A story with language adventures, healing arts, beautiful photography and a backdrop of changing landscapes, read on to find out more!

Answering the call to adventure

It was January 1991 and time moved unbearably slowly in my native corner of France. Going through the motions at university, dutifully attending classes that failed to hold my interest, and feeling increasingly restricted in other areas of my life, I was restless and needed a change. Fast.

As if on cue, one of my English professors called me at home to offer me one of two places on a European exchange program and a four-month grant to study in Galway, Ireland. Dumbstruck by this unexpected turn of events, I quickly regained my composure on the phone, gratefully accepted and took down the details. Time was of the essence, so there was no second-guessing myself. I made all the necessary arrangements and, less than two weeks later, boarded the ferry and embarked on a journey that would change my life.

To say that I fell under the spell of Ireland is no exaggeration. The rugged beauty of its west coast landscapes moved me almost to the point of aching, everything was exciting and I could see possibilities I had never considered. The canvas of my life had suddenly expanded and I loved how it made me feel. Free to be all that I was. I knew I had found my soul home and decided to do all that I could to stay and create as spacious and fulfilling a life as possible.

Finding joy in the outdoors and writing

Born in a port city on the western coast of France, I had always felt at home in nature and, as a child, spent countless hours playing with friends, my siblings or by myself in the wood at the end of our street. We climbed trees, found secret hideaways and ate all the berries. That sense of ease in the outdoors and need to explore my surroundings never left me.

A month after arriving in Ireland, I immersed myself in Connemara’s wild beauty and climbed my first mountain. I’ve never been the sporty type, but that way of being in the world, feeling my aliveness expand with every step or breath of fresh air, invigorated by the elements and at one with my immediate environment is as natural to me as it is necessary.

My first line of work in Ireland was as a teacher of French and, as such, I enjoyed three full summers off in a row. At the time, I was living in the Irish capital and was more than ready for an outdoor adventure when the much-awaited month of June would come. Two months spent cycling down the western coast of France and around Brittany, a summer of boating on the Irish inland waterways and hiking the West Highland Way during a rare Scottish heatwave presented an abundance of experiences, encounters and impressions which I casually captured with my camera as well as in a notebook. The storyteller and writer in me had been reawakened and, as synchronicity would have it, books on writing and creativity soon crossed my path, encouraging me to nurture that side of me – an invitation I happily accepted.

Broadening horizons and taking risks

After three years of teaching beginner, academic and professional levels of my native language to a variety of students from 3 to 80 years of age, I wanted to broaden my horizons and started seeking work as a translator. Within a month, an IT translation company booked me for a 3-day freelance assignment onsite.

I had no computer experience whatsoever, but that didn’t faze me. How difficult could that be? My willingness to find out still amuses me, as does my faith in my language, typing and on-the-spot learning skills. It seems they worked a charm since I was asked in for a second assignment. IT translation was a relatively new industry then, Dublin-based agencies providing a bridge between American software companies and translation providers in Europe. Before too long, I was doing regular freelance work for two of the largest agencies while maintaining various freelance teaching gigs.

Committing to self-employment

When one of the agencies offered me a full-time position with a 1-year contract, I accepted it as a great opportunity to learn everything I could about that industry. I did that, but also learned something equally, if not more, important: I wasn’t employee material. Being surrounded by people, stuck all day in a neon-lit office full of computers was so draining to me, it was physically painful.

The less positive aspects of city life were also starting to weigh on me and I was missing the wild Atlantic. With the terms of my contract met and realizing I merely needed a computer, phone line and modem to set myself up as a freelance IT translator, I resigned and moved back to the west coast. It was June 1996 and I felt professionally freer than ever before, having just committed to self-employment and made my work location independent.

Healing modalities and deep spiritual unfolding

Building a business on my own terms was exciting, as was the freedom to take time off whenever I wanted, either to pursue my creative activities or to travel abroad. One dull spring, seeking a respite from the ever-pouring Irish rain, my then partner and I booked a flight to Crete. This marked the start of a love affair with Greece.

We returned the following year and eventually bought an old house on the Cycladic island of Paros. Being able to take time off to stay there all summer was priceless. My notebook and camera always in my backpack, I learned some Greek, spent my days exploring the island and neighbouring ones, visited whitewashed churches and temples, watched the sun set into the Aegean Sea every evening, and ate an abundance of sun-drenched fruit and freshly caught fish. It was bliss, pure and simple.

Back in Ireland, I continued to balance work, creative pursuits and the needs of my unfolding spiritual self. My spirituality had always been part and parcel of my creativity and time spent in nature, but another realm of experience opened itself up to me when I started training in Reiki in 1995. After years of practising, integrating, training in other energy healing modalities and treating friends and loved ones, I opened my practice to the public.

Working on people I knew nothing or little about showed me how intuitive and clairsentient I had become. This subtle awareness continued to expand and led me down a beckoning path of investigation. Specific books came my way, certain themes started to appear in my writing and art. Synchronicities abounded and I started to feel an undeniable pull towards a certain part of the British Isles. True to my nature, I heeded the call.

Art and the call of the feminine

The city of Bath, my home for the following two years, was not only stunning and a delight to live in, but also perfectly located to allow regular day trips to the ancient power sites of Stonehenge, Avebury, Stanton Drew and Glastonbury as well as farther north to the fascinating Forest of Dean. I constantly felt like I was bathing in a pool of potent yet nurturing energy. This had a huge impact on my personal unfolding and it is there that I experienced one of my biggest shifts in consciousness to date.

My creativity also flourished, at that point mainly flowing through the channels of collage and mixed media art, techniques I had come across three years previously. Having enjoyed publication success with the articles, poems and collages I occasionally submitted to magazines and journals, I took the jump and started a blog, hoping to connect with like-minded people. The sense of community that characterized what was commonly called the blogosphere back then was truly amazing. I forged lasting friendships with people who, like me, were creating more and more room in their lives for their creativity and art.

My awareness of the divine feminine became increasingly acute and embodied while living in Bath, so it was little surprise that related themes, archetypes and symbolism became prominent in the images I created. I enjoyed the conversations they prompted online tremendously.

It was a very expansive and busy period in my life: I was a high-tech translator by day, a creative by night and spent countless weekends exploring the area. However, some good things come to an end and my personal journey called me back to Ireland.

Forever seeking more congruence

Perhaps it had something to do with the incredible times we live in or simply was a side effect of turning 50. The fact remains that, last summer, I put an end to my 23-year career as an IT translator to focus solely on what truly holds meaning for me and, hopefully, be of service in a different way. My values and slow living aspirations were increasingly at odds with the consumerism-pushing content of my assignments and the near-daily deadlines becoming the norm in that line of work. There was no other true way forward than to pause and course-correct.

To me, living wholeheartedly means following the flow of your life, taking chances but saying “no” when needed. It requires recognizing and using your skills and the resources available to you, as well as being fully present to all that is within and in front of you, the opportunities just like the challenges and difficulties. Sometimes convoluted, the wholehearted path invites you to weave all the threads of your life, your passions, needs and values into an increasingly cohesive whole, and fosters self-responsibility, self-leadership and sovereignty.

Key book companions along the way of my lifetime journey

Anaïs Nin’s diary
D.H. Lawrence’s novels
Jean Houston’s books on human potential
David Whyte’s poetry
The Artist’s Way – Julia Cameron
Writing Down the Bones – Natalie Goldberg
Writing for Your Life – Deena Metzger
Synchronicity – Deike Begg
Unmasking the Rose: A Record of a Kundalini Initiation – Dorothy Walters
Wild Creative – Tami Lynn Kent
Writing Wild – Tina Welling

Photographs by Chantal Simon used with permission and thanks.

About Chantal Simon

A native of France, Chantal Simon is a writer, translator and photographer living on the North West coast of Ireland. As well as working on a memoir about her spiritual and energetic unfolding, she is currently creating a photographic series inspired by her natural surroundings and her love of the liminal. Connect with her on Facebook or Instagram, where she shares both her photography and snippets from her creative life, or visit chantalsimon.com (website upcoming soon in 2019).

Keep in touch + free ebook ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

You might also enjoy my free 94-page ebook ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’ – all about wholehearted self-leadership, reading as creative influence and books to inspire your own journey. Just pop your email address in the box below.

You will receive the ebook straight away as well as updates and inspiring resources from Quiet Writing. This includes personality type, coaching, creativity, writing, tarot, productivity and ways to express your unique voice in the world.

Quiet Writing is on Facebook and Instagram – keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community. Look forward to connecting with you and inspiring your wholehearted story!

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Gathering my lessons – a wholehearted story

March 29, 2018

This guest post from Shalagh Hogan shows how gathering lessons of self-knowledge over time can lead to wholehearted Creative Soul Living.

This is the eighth 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!

I am honoured to have Shalagh Hogan as a ‘Wholehearted Stories’ contributor. My sincere thanks to Shalagh for sharing her story and photographs. Shalagh and I connected on Instagram via our love of creativity. Her story shows how growth and self-knowledge accumulate over time. Embracing creativity wholeheartedly via parenting, blogging, community, writing and social media, Shalagh’s gathering lessons evolve into Creative Soul Living. Read on to find out more!

Gathering lessons of self-knowledge

Despite my low self-esteem and anxieties, I have enthusiastically gathered my self-knowledge with hope for a better life. I accept as a given, my need to seek and grow a more whole version of my formerly fragmented self. Yet up to even a few years ago, the concept of Wholehearted Living, or what I call Creative Soul Living, was still just a conceptual inkling. Having never felt whole, the definition and the feeling of wholeness eluded me.

One lesson at a time is how my self-guided journey has unfolded. I am busy gathering my lessons which rise like cream to the top. From the more important lessons about creativity, community, connection, self-care, and self-trust, I have learned who I truly am, what makes me happiest, and who I want to proudly see myself being. Growth takes its time, yet I always feel like my biggest and best lessons are the ones that have just happened.

Valuing intuition and introversion

As a child, I was fragmented. I held too many pains involving too many people. My self-mirrors were broken, and the chaos was draining. I was a creative with no permission to be me. As a teen, much-needed hope collided with my insatiable appetite for knowledge when my mother’s pursuit of a master’s degree in Applied Behavioral Sciences showed me that knowledge was power, and we can use this power to choose our life’s outcome.

It was then, I also began my life-long journal writing practice, developing my inner voice (which I now know to be my intuition) and the voice of my blog. It was then too that my Myers-Briggs test results pegged me as an ENFP. Although this felt mostly right, last year I was relieved to discover and own that I am equal parts Introvert and Extrovert. Although, for many years I neglected my creative callings, the introverted time I now take to think, write, and create are my self-care practices.

Gathering lessons on self-care and self-esteem

My self-care became essential when I was 38 and pregnant with my son. My anxieties and the last of my self-destructive behaviours shook and woke me. It became clear, how I treated myself would be how my kids would treat themselves. Doing as I did and not as I said, my children would inherit my anxieties, my self-doubt, and my repressed creativity. I truly committed then to taking better care of and healing myself mentally and physically that my children might hopefully do the same. Eventually, I quit smoking, I began eating better, and I continued to seek therapy.

My biggest authentic self “aha”, on which the rest of my work truly depended, was given to me in a therapy session. The therapist offered that I had low self-esteem. At first, I raged against this mis-definition of me. If I wasn’t who I thought I was, who was I then? Yet, this information freed me like a bird from my heart cage. I wasn’t broken and didn’t need fixing, nor did I need to help fix anyone I knew. Instead, I needed to have compassion and love for my humanity. And again, I began gathering my lessons.

Writing and connecting to heal

Bad things can happen for good reason, it may just take a while to see why. When my son was one, an American economic slump forced me to close my lovely little gift and antiques store named Bally Eden and I returned home to mourn the loss of my dream shop. I was anxious and desperate not to be stuck at home with my fast-growing-soon-to-be-a-toddler boy without something “just for me”. Encouraged by an old whisper in my ear, I began to write personal essays and publish them online. It then took five more years to start my blog at Shalavee.com which has just turned six.

I purposed the blog to make me a better writer, create a living resume, and voice my lessons regularly. While I achieved these goals, it was the community and relationships I’ve developed here online during my writing journey which have been my truest gift. My new unseen friends and our connections and courtships via comments and kind letters elevated my ego and gave me an immensely better self-image; a self-reflection where there once was none. I began to see my beauty and not my broken. And, as my voice of pain and healing came through on my blog, my readers said, “Keep writing what you are writing. We feel this way too.” Authenticity and vulnerability were my win/win.

Healing through community creativity

These voices from my community have helped to shift my purpose to offering others my voice to speak through. Our self-reflections echo each other through our communications and we begin to see ourselves as both individuals and as a collective of women with one voice of self-love and acceptance. We are gathering our lessons together. Strangers have become mirrors I will treasure forever, and the internet helped make me visible and whole again.

Although I was terrified, in May of 2016, my community encouraged me to host my first Instagram Challenge called the Soul Selfie challenge. For one week, we explored our souls, our fears, and our truths together in a deeper way via the hashtag #Soul_Selfie. My esteem and courage to lead increased incredibly as I hosted another that Fall and two more in 2017.

Then a small gathering on the evening of the first women’s march in January of 2017, inspired me to start a mindful meet-up group of my own in real life. We meet monthly to discuss a soul topic, eat well, and drink prosecco. We witness, acknowledge, and validate one another and that is so very necessary to my process of seeing my wholehearted self. I have created what I needed which benefits me and others and heals us all.

Vanquishing my anxieties with knowledge

Two years ago, even with all the progress in my writing and my self-healing, I knew my anxieties were still running the show. I found a new kick-butt therapist, a new resolve, and heading into my 50’s saw me amp up my efforts of self-discovery and visibility. Reading was one huge resource I used to finally reach the summit of the value hill I’d struggled to climb my entire life. I discovered I could say and mean, “I can”.

I read four books last year with willful intention to change my life’s outlook and my understanding of myself. First, Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert gifted me with such validity and permission for my creative process. I came to understand that I was an Uber-Creative and my inner child needed to be creatively indulged until she trusted me again. From this, I was inspired to create online projects and a creative community to support myself and others in being our creative selves.

I had barely put Big Magic down when I read Daring Greatly by Brené Brown. From her brilliant work, I came to understand the necessity of community, vulnerability, and authenticity. Disconnection is our worst fear and we need to be authentic to belong to, trust, and reconnect with ourselves. And I now understand there’s a connection between creativity and vulnerability.

Then, on my therapist’s recommendation, I read Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy by David R Burns which was the very first book that permitted me to understand and name my anxieties. I learned how to refute the lies called Cognitive Distortions that cause them. Eventually, this book helped me win the battle against my anxieties.

And lastly, on Terri’s suggestion, I read Cal Newport’s Deep Work. This book showed me that I may be even more capable of making a difference in the world if I allow myself the time and visibility to work on and publish my theories. My deeper thinking and writing will help me and the world, and this feels like a noble purpose.

Creativity conquers all

While reading and gathering my lessons, I became aware of an internal dissonance which my therapist suggested was my inner child throwing tantrums. It seems denying my creativity had my creative inner child furious at me for not allowing her to play. So I decided to just give her what she wanted.

First, I indulged in thirty days of creating paper collage through an online creative community challenge. Having really enjoyed that, I created my own Instagram challenge called Our Creative May and this gave me another month straight to play. From this, our IG creative community established the hashtag #ourcreativeselves to continue posting our creations. I immediately did another challenge in June and July creating daily postcard art for the #ICAD project.

Four months straight of daily creating and continuous authenticity had proven that I did have enough time to create and I was trustworthy. My creative indulgence grounded me and greatly dissipated more of my anxieties. As I continue to replace the slave-driving parent who preaches art as impractical with the compassionate empowering present parent, I recreate a trust in myself proving my word is good. Self-trust is the truest most important result of our authentic creativity.

As my anxiety diminished, I began to understand this powerful lesson of how creativity and anxiety cannot coexist, and how indulging one represses the other. Love and presence conquer fear.

Creative Soul Living

This profound understanding of the inverse relationship between creativity and anxiety, and knowing many others need permission to create too, led me to develop and lead a Creativity Workshop this past November of 2017. I believe that our permission to live more creatively is necessary and integral to us being wholehearted individuals. I believe less consumerism and more Creativism will heal the world as we find creative solutions to its problems.

Creative Soul Living is the term I use to describe my process of Wholehearted Living. I intentionally seek and share my life lessons, prioritize my creativity in all areas of my life, develop my self-trust, value authenticity, commit to self-care, am mindful and present, stay connected with my people, and intuit my grandest Why for being here. And while my Why continues to firm up and my path widens, I know I have fought to reach my here and now, gathering my lessons one lesson at a time.

My future “I can” will include more creativity workshops, e-books, and eventually a book about crafting our own life plans based on our life lessons. My inward soul work has brought me the gift of knowing me and that feels like permission to hope. Hope is what I want to share with the world through my writing.

Photos and artwork by Shalagh Hogan used with permission and thanks.

Key book companions along the way

Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert

Daring Greatly by Brené Brown

Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy by David R Burns

Deep Work by Cal Newport

About Shalagh Hogan

Shalagh Hogan, said Shay-la, is a personal essayist, a blogger, a designer, an uber-creative, and mother to a five-year-old ginger girl and just turned teen boy. She resides in an ancient house on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, USA, and is always amazed and amused by life’s abundance of lessons. Thrice-weekly she shares the lessons she gathers on her blog at Shalavee.com (Chez La Vie was taken) and currently, Creativity is her Why. Follow her as @shalaghhogan on Facebook and Instagram.

Keep in touch + free ebook ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

You might also enjoy my free 95-page ebook ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’ – all about wholehearted self-leadership, reading as creative influence and books to inspire your own journey.

Just pop your email address in the box to the right or below. You will receive the ebook straight away as well as updates and inspiring resources from Quiet Writing. This includes personality type, coaching, creativity, writing, tarot, productivity and ways to express your unique voice in the world.

Quiet Writing is on Facebook and Instagram – keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community. Look forward to connecting with you and inspiring your wholehearted story!

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Grief and pain can be our most important teachers – a wholehearted story

March 1, 2018

This guest post from Kerstin Pilz is about how grief and pain can be our most important teachers on our journey to wholehearted living.

This is the seventh 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!

I am honoured to have Kerstin Pilz as a ‘Wholehearted Stories’ contributor. My sincere thanks to Kerstin for sharing her story and photographs. Kerstin’s wholehearted story tells of how she moved from passion through to grief and loss and then to deep healing. It’s a story of learning ways to heal through silence, meditation, yoga, writing and living freely. Kerstin now employs her learning from her journey to help others through her work as a writer, yogini, meditation practitioner and online teacher. Read on to find out more!

Beginning the journey

My journey to a wholehearted life began exactly a decade ago with a tragic false start.

I’d sailed around the world aboard a converted cruise ship for four months, teaching intercultural communication to university students from all over the world.

Copies of Eat, Pray, Love circulated onboard. It was hot off the press and everybody but me seemed to be reading it. I’d recently found love and I was busy writing the next chapter of my own life.

Between port calls in Capetown and Barcelona, my Italian sweetheart and I got married off the coast of West Africa, 1 degree south of the equator.

I was living a fairytale. Even before our final disembarkation, I knew that I couldn’t go back to my old life.

I had a tenured, senior position as Head of Italian Studies at one of Sydney’s Universities. It came with good pay and annual trips abroad. Options to climb the career ladder beckoned.

But there was a side of me that was unexpressed. Ever since I was a little girl I’d wanted to be a writer. Leaving Germany at age 22 to explore the world, had muted my writing voice. But the passion had remained.

At 45 I had enough academic publications to prove to myself that I could really write in a foreign language. It was time to explore another, more creative part of myself.

Taking an adult gap year to follow my passion

Long service leave allowed me to take an ‘adult gap year’ to chase a new, wholehearted life. I had a year to work out if I could transition into blogging and freelance writing.

Months of careful planning went into preparing my sabbatical. I booked a Spanish course in Buenos Aires and stopovers in exotic locations. I did evening courses in freelance writing and photography. I fired off pitches for travel writing assignments and started my first blog.

When I handed the keys to the tenants who’d be living in our home for the next 12 months, I felt a pinch of foreboding. We’d planned the perfect year. What could possibly go wrong?

You can’t prepare for life’s worst-case scenario

On the day of our long-awaited departure, my husband felt a pea-sized lump behind his ear. We’d forgotten to plan for life’s worst-case scenario.

He knew straight away that we’d be going on a very different journey – one from which he was unlikely to return.

And just like that, my world imploded. One day I was about to step into the year of my creative transformation. The next day I walked into the nightmare of a progressive terminal illness – metastatic melanoma – and all that it entailed.

Photo credit: Susan Kelly, Natural Images

Without a home to return to, we were forced to live with his adult daughter. Instead of speaking Spanish in Buenos Aires, I became trapped in an Italian melodrama. It unfolded across two continents as an antagonistic family came together in pain and anger.

I’d wanted to write a new chapter for myself and here it was. Except I hadn’t written it. Trying to fit into this alien scenario and its shifting emotional alliances slowly eroded my own identity.

I was unable to read and I was unable to write the travel and lifestyle pieces I’d researched. My own story consumed all of me. I became paralysed by the fear of death and the prison of toxic family dynamics.

Being a full-time carer to my gradually diminishing husband, gave me a sense of purpose and joy, despite the exhaustion.

Eventually, we relocated to a beach-side home in Far North Queensland, but the Italian melodrama never went away.

It was as if a second cancer had spread. Emotions and estates were negotiated amid the tragic suicide of my husband’s son and the discovery of my husband’s infidelities.

Photo credit: Susan Kelly, Natural Images

The healing power of writing

I discovered the healing power of writing by accident. Living remotely, I didn’t have easy access to counselling. My journal became my on-call therapist.

Watching my life implode felt like watching a movie in slow motion. It had more plot twists than I could’ve ever come up with.

I wrote my story in mad, obsessive bursts. Naming my pain and anger felt liberating. Without noticing, I started to treat journaling like a creative writing assignment. The many hospital visits – flogging the old car for long distances across the wild remoteness of Far North Queensland during an epic wet season – became little vignettes. Creating word pictures was intuitive. Trying to capture the irony of my situation, finding beauty in pain, was a form of therapy.

Writing allowed me to become a detached witness as my story unfolded amid the ruins of Rome and the Sardinian coastline of my husband’s homeland.

In my journal the dramatic settings and the ongoing family feud wove into an epic tale. For several years I thought of it as a blueprint for a novel.

Following my intuition to find the trail to a wholehearted life

My second attempt at creating a self-directed life started somewhere in the pages of my journal.

When I accepted that death was inevitable, my writing showed me that this was a chance for deep transformation. If I was open to it.

I knew that to find myself again, I could not slip back into my old life. For two decades I’d taught Italian Studies at universities. Italian was the language I spoke at home after I’d left Germany. But the Italian part of my identity died with him.

I needed a new identity and a new professional direction, but I had no clue where to find it. My sabbatical year had been spent being a full-time carer. Resigning from a tenured position in mid-life was considered foolish. Everybody cautioned against it, but I followed my heart.

I was scared and at my emotional rock-bottom, when I stepped into the unknown.

Learning about the impermanence of everything

I’d planned to give myself a few months to grief quietly surrounded by my beautiful community in remote Far North Queensland. The remoteness made me feel safe. I would have time to consider the next steps. But life had another dramatic instalment in store for me.

Less than three weeks after the funeral I was asked by State Emergency to evacuate my beachfront home. The biggest cyclone in living memory hauled all night, blowing my beach-side haven to pieces. The next day an entire community was grieving. Overnight, my own grief became eclipsed by tales of lost homes and devastated gardens.

When the airport re-opened, I caught the first flight out. The devastated landscape was a mirror of my inner devastation. I needed to look at things that were whole, not broken. I needed to speak to people who weren’t grieving.

Meditation and yoga became fundamental tools of my healing

For many months I didn’t speak at all. I locked myself away in austere meditation retreats all over Asia. Meditation, like writing, became fundamental to my healing.

Sitting in stillness, listening deep inside, trained me to recognise the voice of my inner knowing. It took months for the noise in my head to subside. Vipassana meditation taught me to become a detached observer. Watching pain and physical discomfort rise and fall for 10 hours a day for many weeks, was healing.

Everything in life is impermanent. Nature’s fury had already hammered home this fundamental Buddhist lesson. But I needed to hear it again and again from my teachers.

Sitting in the presence of His Holiness for two weeks in Bodhgaya, I learned about the true nature of suffering. Pain is inevitable. My story wasn’t unique.

Yoga was another important anchor in my healing journey. My body became grounded through asanas. Living with death had made me tired and skinny. I didn’t sleep enough and I drank too much red wine. Yoga made my body stronger. Conscious breathing felt like reviving a dead tree. I was finally breathing oxygen back into myself.

Finding my writing voice through journaling

The landscape of my beach-side home has healed itself, as have I. After sadness has followed joy. I now know that deep pain can fade if we allow ourselves to heal.

A sealed plastic box with two dozen moleskines is still the first thing I’ll throw into the back of my car the moment a cyclone warning goes out. I am no longer defined by my pain, but I keep my journals safe because they are an important record of my transformation as a writer.

For the two years of my husband’s slow decline and during the years of my healing journey, I wrote compulsively. I told the same story over and over until I was finally free of it. It trained my writing muscle like nothing else could have.

I haven’t opened my diaries for some time, but I know they contain some of my best writing. It’s raw and straight from the core.

Finding joy after grief and pain

Ten years after my first attempt at a life-changing sabbatical, I feel happier than I ever have. Going through the fires of grief has transformed me at my very core.

The journey was long and lonely. Crashing head-first into my own vulnerability has taught me that we can rise strong after falling hard.

It took many years to find a new professional direction. I revived my old travel blog. I worked as a Volunteer for International Development in the Maldives. I reviewed luxury resorts as a travel writer. All of it was fun, but none of it satisfied my core.

For several years I exhausted myself, trying to prove that resigning from a flourishing career in mid-life hadn’t been foolish. I was surprised by how naked I felt without a career.

Giving myself permission to heal, was met with envy. It was considered a self-indulgent luxury. And yet, the inner work I did in the aftermath of those events, laid the foundations for what I do today.

When I finally allowed myself to be guided by the voice of my heart, not the expectations of an achievement-driven society, things started to fall into place.

A new partner walked into my life. A new domain name appeared in the pages of my journal. I finally saw a new way to combine my passions of writing, travelling and yoga with my professional skills. I identified an income stream that allows me to be location independent.

I taught myself basic graphic design, photography and how to build a website. I did a yoga teacher training course. I radically decluttered my house and listed it on Airbnb. Then I packed a small suitcase and headed to Vietnam to make my dwindling funds last a little longer.

Today I live for most of the year in a rented home in the beautiful World Heritage town of Hoi An in central Vietnam.

I’ve always loved teaching and I am finally teaching again. Sharing the tools that have helped me in my healing journey is deeply rewarding.

In Hoi An I lead a weekly writing group. With my partner, who is a professional musician, I teach yin yoga and sound bowl meditations. Once a month we combine it with journaling in our signature “Journey to Self” workshop. Through my website, Write Your Journey, I run online courses. My first writing retreat will be held in Hoi An, this September.

After years of stagnating, I gained momentum when I allowed the voice of my heart to write the next chapter of my life.

Living a wholehearted, self-directed life is the only way to live the nanosecond we have on this earth. But make no mistake, it’s not the easy option.

People tell me all the time how lucky I am. But luck had nothing to do with it. Hard work, the courage to follow my passion and being open to uncertainty is what allows me to live the way I do.

PS: I wrote this post lying on my daybed on a tropical summer’s day with this view in front of me.

Photos by Kerstin Pilz, except where noted and used with permission and thanks.

Key book companions along the way

While my own story unfolded into a story of grief, I found it very hard to read fiction. Instead I found solace in memoirs about grief, in the words of Buddhist masters and in Natalie Goldberg’s zen-inspired writing practice.

Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness

Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, On Death and Dying

C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking

Helen Garner, The Spare Room

Claire Bidwell-Smith, The Rules of Inheritance

Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones, Freeing the Writer Within

About Kerstin Pilz

Kerstin Pilz Phd is a former academic, writer, photographer, yogini and meditation practitioner based in Hoi An, Vietnam, where she teaches a weekly writers group and holds workshops and multi-day retreats combining yoga, writing and mindfulness meditation. Through her website Write Your Journey she offers e-courses and downloadable guided soundbowl meditations. Follow her on Facebook and Instagram.

Keep in touch + free ebook ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

You might also enjoy my free 95-page ebook ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’ – all about wholehearted self-leadership, reading as creative influence and books to inspire your own journey.

Just pop your email address in the box to the right or below. You will receive the ebook straight away as well as updates and inspiring resources from Quiet Writing on personality type, coaching, creativity, writing, tarot, productivity and ways to express your unique voice in the world.

Quiet Writing is on Facebook and Instagram – keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community. Look forward to connecting with you and inspiring your wholehearted story!

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Breakdown to breakthrough – my wholehearted life

January 31, 2018

This guest post from Lynn Hanford-Day takes us on her journey from breakdown to breakthrough and finding new ways to connect and create a wholehearted life.

This is the sixth 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!

I am honoured to have Lynn Hanford-Day as a ‘Wholehearted Stories’ contributor. My sincere thanks to Lynn for sharing her story and photographs and stunning artwork. Lynn’s wholehearted story tells of how she moved from burnout and a corporate HR career to working with sacred geometry and the divine feminine and crafting a multi-faceted career as artist, coach, facilitator and therapist working with women in transition and organisations going through change. Read on to find out more!

A heart attack of the soul

“You’re lucky. Some people have an actual heart attack, and some of them die” said a friend. His words really struck a chord in me. I may not have had a cardiac arrest yet I felt dead, lifeless, unable to function physically, psychologically, emotionally. My heart was still beating and that meant I was alive, apparently. I had flirted with burnout many times over previous years and had already read ‘The Joy of Burnout’ by Dina Glouberman three times. I had even done a retreat with her on the Greek island of Skyros for God’s sake!

But this was the big one. It is five years ago this January I woke up unable to move. I’d spent the previous three or four months feeling tired and by the time Christmas arrived, I felt utterly exhausted. I remember telling work colleagues I felt like I had run into a brick wall. I thought I needed a holiday and all would be well again. I never returned to my job as an HR Director, in fact, I didn’t work for another 18 months. During that time I gave up my job and I then had to sell my house because I ran out of money and following that I moved house four times in two years, thanks to the vaguery of the rental market here in the UK.

In January 2013 I was told I had severe clinical depression and chronic stress. I certainly had burnout of epic proportions. I spent three months in denial about this, and, paradoxically I began to recover when I accepted I was ill. Just doing the washing up was a major event. Even now I find it incredible that I didn’t realise I was ill and that I’d been suffering from insomnia for months. That swallowing Nytol tablets by the fistful and glugging chamomile tea at 4am to help me sleep wasn’t normal and didn’t work. I didn’t feel depressed, I felt exhausted and spent. It was my body that made the decision for me to stop working and force me to lay down. Most of the time I didn’t know if I was sinking or floating. Much of the time I felt I was in freefall, falling backwards down a deep, deep well, never knowing when I would land at the bottom. I was being given a lesson in the art of S-L-O-W. And even though I wasn’t busy on the outside I was very busy on the inside.

For me, burnout is about loss of heart. There was no heart attack, but I was turned to ash and I wasn’t even sure whether there were some embers glowing. My internal landscape was like those images after the forest fires in California, an apocalyptic scorched landscape. Both my Doctor and my Counsellor said that this had been coming for many years, and looking back on my life I can see the truth of that. They told me that recovery was possible, yet I wasn’t sure what would rise from those ashes.

Place, space and belonging

Sanctuary arrived in the form of a dear friend who had retired to Dingle on the west coast of Ireland. ’Come and stay’, she said, and so I did, for a week at a time every few weeks. And so began my love affair with Ireland. I discovered the magnificence of the mountains, the sea and the sky and how I loved the sound of the wind from the Atlantic gales. I stood on the clifftops and felt I could breathe. All that spaciousness in the landscape and the seascape gave me peace. And what a joy that no-one knew who I was. To the local folk, I was simply Lynn, and this was such a relief and a liberation as I no longer knew who the hell I was. In my dead and drowning energy I began to feel glimmers of life in Ireland, and I felt a belonging to a place that was missing in my other life. At some level the wildness of the land connected with the wildness in me.

An unlived life

In the slow months of recovery, as I made my way back from the descent into the underworld, I realised that I needed to change my life. I recognised my workaholism for what it was, the numbing of pain and unhappiness, and that for me to continue as before would be a massive act of self-harm, a suicide. I developed a curiosity about the divine feminine and the archetypes that lived in me, about mid-life transition, and what Jung calls the shadow life or the unlived life. I spent a lot of time exploring the transpersonal realm as I connected with my soul. At some point, the following poem arrived in my life and its message became my guiding star.

An unlived life

By Dawna Markova

I will not die an unlived life.

I will not live in fear

Of falling or catching fire.

I choose to inhabit my days,

To allow my living to open me,

To make me less afraid,

More accessible;

To loosen my heart

Until it becomes a wing,

A torch, a promise,

I choose to risk my significance,

To live so that which came to me as seed

Goes to the next as blossom,

And that which came to me as blossom,

Goes on as fruit.

The slowing down of life gave space to the whispers of my heart and soul and I began to seek synchronicities and to just say ‘Yes’ to new people and new experiences as they presented themselves to me.

On becoming an Artist

Very early in my illness, I found a class in meditative art, which I had never heard of, but it contained the word meditation so that meant it was good for me! In class, I kept drawing circles. Another source of peace that quietened the incessant chatter in my head were colouring books, long before they became so popular. I would colour mandalas and kaleidoscopic patterns for hours and my monkey mind would sleep, much like it did when standing on the cliffs at the edge of the world at Dunquin in Ireland. As I made peace with my body I became curious about sacred geometry and mandalas and looked for a class. I couldn’t find any so in 2014 I bought a book on sacred geometry and a pair of compasses and began to teach myself. This interest became a passion and drawing mandalas became my meditation.

Later in 2013, my creativity called for more nourishment so I looked for an art holiday in Ireland and what I found was an art therapy summer school at the Cork Institute which included a module on Carl Jung and mandalas. This really appealed as I had qualified as a psychotherapist in 2008 (I did my 4-year training whilst being a single mum and in a full-time job as an HR Director). Then, on a visit to my local art shop, I saw a poster for the Central St Martins Summer School in London. I found a one week course in Expressive Art, which sounded like you didn’t need to have any experience as I was seeking art for non-artists.

When I got there I wondered what on earth I had done! I was the second eldest in the room, the one person older than me was the teacher who was 72. The young woman next to me was 18 and waiting to get her exam results. I had never used an easel and had no idea how to set it up, much like doing battle with a deck chair. And then in September 2013, I heard of an online course by Flora Bowley in a ‘thing’ called intuitive art. A whole new world opened up as I was astonished to discover the quality of art courses that are available online.

Art was my salvation and brought me connection with my creativity and my intuition. Little did I know that these were my first steps towards becoming an artist. If someone had told me in 2013 that in 2015 I would be exhibiting and selling art, would have a website and take commissions I would have laughed. I hadn’t held a paintbrush since school and that was nearly 40 years ago. As for geometry, I hated that at school! Now my protractor is my friend. And during 2016 I took a 10-month teacher training with Chris Zydel in California in expressive and intuitive art, which I completed in February 2017.

Stepping into a new way of being

Art has sustained me through a transition into a very different life. As much as I tried to return to a full-time job in the corporate world, the universe was having none of it! Reluctantly, I formed my company and became self-employed and then, out of the blue, two weeks later, an old work colleague contacted me to ask what I was doing workwise. Within two weeks I was facilitating a team development programme which turned into an 18-month coaching assignment with eight people. I began taking personal clients for coaching and mentoring and using my training and experience as a psychotherapist and as a coach. I trained others in facilitation skills and group processes. And I took on consultancy contracts in Human Resources and change management.

This sounds easier than it was. As my health recovered I also suffered a significant deterioration in another direction. The sibling to depression is anxiety and during 2014 my declining bank account and constant uncertainty of the house rental market threw me into panic attacks. In an attempt to escape the anxiety I became desperate to get a permanent job in order to give myself a sense of security and safety. The constant stream of rejections made me feel even worse.

From breakdown to breakthrough

My body closed down, my heart turned to ash and catapulted me into a new life and a new way of being. I don’t recommend a catastrophic breakdown. Yet it is also true that for me breakdown was ultimately a breakthrough and I discovered I had an unknown talent and that turned out to be something I love. Claiming the title *artist* was a tricky one! As was wrestling with notions of identity and who I am in the world, letting go of an old self and an old identity. You know, it was a couple of years ago I stopped myself from buying yet another self-help book about how to change your life when I realized I have done that.

My life is radically different to how it was in 2012. I earn my living doing the type of work I want to do. I make a difference in the world by helping people change their lives. I have a hobby that keeps me sane and brings me enormous pleasure, and much to my delight people want to buy my art.

My wholehearted life

For me, the wholehearted life is the opposite of an unlived life. A wholehearted life brings fulfilment and contentment, an inner peace and when anxiety arises I know I am being given a message that I am out of alignment. I now pay attention to my physical, mental and emotional energy and I follow my heart in saying Yes and saying No. I have learned that saying Yes to the unexpected that shows up in life can bring the most amazing experiences, such as offering to write this guest blog post, which is another first for me. A wholehearted life isn’t necessarily easy and I have to beware old habits. In many ways it is about living a simple life, pleasure comes from being with friends and family, love is what really matters, and learning the art and act of self-compassion is a work in progress for me.

What next? As we enter 2018 I have chosen my word of the year to be Nourish. My mum died of pancreatic cancer on 2 November and death brings a renewed focus on life in the way that it always does. Grief and loss bring me to another transition and another opportunity to care for and nourish myself whilst I continue to shape my wholehearted life. I want to develop my mindfulness practice and train as a teacher of self-compassion. I want to be more consistent with my creative pursuits, to write and to paint, to hold more classes and workshops. I want to host my Renaissance Woman retreat which I couldn’t do as mum was dying. I want to develop my coaching practice and run more women’s groups. I want to feel the sun on my face and the warm water and soft sand on my toes.

Key book companions along the way

I Will Not Die an Unlived Life: Reclaiming passion and purpose by Dawna Markova

The Joy of Burnout: How the end of the world can be a new beginning by Dina Glouberman

About Lynn Hanford-Day

Lynn Hanford-Day is an artist, coach, facilitator and therapist working with women in transition and organisations going through change. She is especially interested in creativity and intuition, positive psychology and strengths, helping people to access and express their inner wisdom. She helps women discover clarity and confidence, path and purpose. Her art and more about her as a coach can be found at www.sacredintuitiveart.com. You can also connect with Lynn via Instagram and email lynn.hanford-day@sophrentos.com

Keep in touch + free ebook ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

You might also enjoy my free 95-page ebook ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’ – all about wholehearted self-leadership, reading as creative influence and books to inspire your own journey.

Quiet Writing is on Facebook and Instagram – keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community. Look forward to connecting with you and inspiring your wholehearted story!

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Embracing a creative life – a wholehearted story

December 30, 2017

This guest post from Jade Herriman is all about embracing a multipassionate, creative life as the key to more wholehearted living.

This is the fifth 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!

I am honoured to have Jade Herriman as a ‘Wholehearted Stories’ contributor. My sincere thanks to Jade for the contribution of her story and the photographs she shares from her work. Jade combines the creativity of art therapy with coaching to help people see themselves and their situation in new ways. Her wholehearted story tells of how she came to embrace the multiple dimensions of a creative life. It is a really valuable reflection piece as we end a busy year and many consider changes in their life for 2018. Read on to find out more!

Building and leaving a career

This is a story of building and leaving a career. It is the story of tasting burnout, choosing healing and moving toward a softer more creative life. Most importantly this story is not finished, it’s still being written.

These days I love the mystery and watching it unfold, without a firm and clear plan but rather trusting intuition and the accumulation of small choices to lead me somewhere new.

Over 15 years I worked hard in various jobs related to environmental management and sustainability. I had been keen on science and environmental issues since I was a kid and wanted to get in there and make a difference. From starting out after uni with no clue about how to apply for work and very little useful work experience to ending up in a senior role in a research organization managing large projects, I had a steady job with long-term career prospects. On the face of it, I was achieving what I had set out to do – so why was it feeling so hollow?

After a while, I began to feel sick of the professional mask required to work in these roles, the way that people came together to speak about work issues but often not what was in their hearts. I felt like the workshops I was running with professionals from different industries were sitting at a very surface level, all about the mind, but rarely about what mattered most to people. I longed to help facilitate more meaningful connection. I wanted to create spaces where people could be honest and share their hopes and fears as well as their competency and their ideas for work.

Over time I started to have a yearning to do something more creative. Our work was deeply creative in a sense – we were always designing and innovating, but I yearned to do something that involved the visual arts and making things. I started studying art therapy, part-time, on my weekends and days off, just in case one day I might find a way to use it.

Burnout helped me take the leap

I had always been quite competent but not very confident, terrified on the inside of all that was required of me, but reliable and seemingly calm. I liked doing well and getting lots done but at times the burden of what I was carrying felt too much, and I would eventually buckle under the weight of the stress.

Burnout was a hard teacher. Finally, I learnt that my body had limits and that I could not be in stress mode indefinitely without it affecting my ability to continue. Burnout taught me that downtime is important to balance the busy periods. It taught me that constant worry about the future is not helpful. It also taught me that I still exist without work, without a title, without ‘outputs’.

In art therapy, we often talk about the hero’s journey and the descent into the ‘nadir’. This is the challenging place at our lowest where we feel that part of us is dying a symbolic death – before our ascent back into the ordinary world refreshed, wiser and more enriched by the journey. Burnout was this for me – the worst fear realized and endured – the catalyst that helped me leave my job and past career and take baby steps in a new field.

Feeling my way as an art therapist and coach

When I decided to start my own business, I gave myself permission to try things to see what I liked. In some ways work for me had always been doing ‘what was needed’ or ‘what I had been asked to do’. This was a chance to ‘feel’ my way through life – what actually felt satisfying, enjoyable and absorbing. Without stress fuelling my actions, with time and space to do and not do, I was able to observe what tasks I was able to do joyfully without much effort.

I had to adjust my pace through the first year especially, as my body was still quite exhausted and recovering its energy. I dialled back my expectations and allowed myself to have days that weren’t very productive. More and more I listened to the quiet voice of my body and less to the fear-driven voice of my ego. It felt like Persephone, a popular archetype for the wounded healer, spending time periodically in the underworld before returning to the productive harvest of summer aboveground. I embraced yin and yang, light and dark, productivity and rest.

Starting again wasn’t always comfortable. It was a brand new area of work and rather than being an experienced practitioner, I was a beginner all over again. I had to adjust to no longer having big and fancy projects to talk about or other trappings that made my ego feel secure. I had to sit with grief, loss, self-doubt and feelings of failure that came up sometimes. A book that resonated with me especially at this time was Wild Creative by Tami Lynn Kent, a love song to a life lived intuitively and in tune with our physical selves.

Bringing together my passions and loves

What my new work brings me is a chance to sit with people in honesty and create a space where all feelings are welcome. In art therapy groups, we speak about all aspects of life – and there is often a bittersweet tone to the conversations, about loneliness, about challenges, about grief, loss, trauma and mental illness. But there is also joy, sweet playfulness, and heartfelt connection between participants. There are shifts and development for individuals on the most humble of levels that are also quite profound – as they stretch their windows of tolerance, as they develop confidence in themselves as a creative person, as they practice speaking and being listened to with respect. In coaching, clients navigate self-doubt as a step forward towards long-held dreams.

I love that my work involves art now – helping other people make friends with art, playing with art materials, attending client exhibitions, making art myself, facilitating spaces where people make art together and reflect on the insights it has for their lives.

It also involves design and creativity in terms of thinking of new workshops, new programs, new writing that might be helpful for my clients. I love problem-solving and brainstorming with my coaching clients. I love the way that each session draws on all that I have to offer and there is a requirement to be in the moment, fully absorbed and focused with that person, responding to the mood, situation, communication styles, needs and more of each client.

Embracing my scanner self and a meandering path

Another big part of the journey towards a more wholehearted life has been embracing the part of my personality that is enchanted with learning and novelty. After discovering Barbara Sher’s work on scanners (multipotentialites, multipassionates, renaissance folk), and especially her book Refuse to Choose, I have found it easier to be kind to myself about my moving passions. Beyond just kind, I also approach my multiple interests with more respect and curiosity. I look for underlying patterns between the things I am interested in and know that to be happy I must do what I love.

How wonderful when we can give ourselves permission to do what we love, and not be wracked with guilt about being ‘selfish’ because we realize that people doing what they love benefits us all.

I went on to train to become a coach with Barbara Sher. This was face-to-face training over five modules all held in Germany! Geez, that was a lesson in following my instincts to do what I love even if it ‘makes no sense’. Since then I have been honoured to work with amazing multipassionate people around the world as they take steps to bring their dream projects into being.

What this insight into my personality has mostly given me is lightness in holding onto whatever it is I’m working on now. So for example, while my creative life at the moment looks like being an art therapist and coach, I no longer define myself entirely by my roles. Instead, I give myself permission to always be learning about how I can contribute my skills in the world, and what configuration of work feels good to me. I know that this will change over time, and I am less attached to having a CV that ‘makes sense’ to others than I am committed to listening to my inner voice, my curiosity and my fascination to see what might be the next thing for me.

What is wholehearted to me?

Becoming more wholehearted has been about embracing my softer side, my fearful side, the side that needs rest and can’t always ‘produce’, my intuitive and heart connected side.

It has been about living through and beyond perfectionism, overwork and burnout. It has been about creating a more gentle and caring way of working that plays to my gifts not just my skills.

In some ways, it has been about letting go of control and being okay with not knowing how the river of my work and life will meander. As a keen gardener, I like to imagine my life as a creative garden, which might be replanted frequently and feature a different mix in the years to come. In part, being more wholehearted has also been about stepping back from work, and having it take up a smaller part of my life, and unhooking myself from the wheel of achievement as a primary driver.

Key book companions along the way

Wild Creative by Tami Lynn Kent

Refuse to Choose by Barbara Sher

Live the Life you Love and Stop Just Getting By by Barbara Sher

The Soul’s Palette: Drawing on art’s transformative powers for health and well-being by Cathy Malchiodi

Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life by Parker J. Palmer

Change Anything: The New Science of Personal Success by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, David Maxfield, Ron McMillan and Al Switzler

About Jade Herriman

Jade Herriman (Dip TAT, BSc and MSocSci) is a creative business owner, art therapist, artist and certified Barbara Sher life coach based in the Inner West of Sydney. She loves using art therapy and coaching to help people see themselves and their situations in new ways, and helping others create, connect and work towards their dreams. For more information, go to www.jadeherriman.com or connect via Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.

Keep in touch + free ebook ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

You might also enjoy my free 95-page ebook ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’ – all about wholehearted self-leadership, reading as creative influence and books to inspire your own journey.

Quiet Writing is on Facebook and Instagram – keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community. Look forward to connecting with you and inspiring your wholehearted story!

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Becoming who I really am – a wholehearted story

November 27, 2017

The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you really are.

Carl Jung

This guest post from Colleen Reagon shows that becoming who we are is about connecting the narrative and listening to our heart.

This is the fourth 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!

I am honoured to have my dear friend, Colleen Reagon, as a ‘Wholehearted Stories’ contributor. Colleen is a long-term reader and supporter of Quiet Writing. We’ve enjoyed regular connection over time via the creative community of Instagram and recently into the coaching realm, where Colleen was one of my first coaching clients. Colleen and I are kindred souls in many ways and I am so appreciative of her camaraderie on our creative journeys.

My sincere thanks to Colleen for the contribution of her story. I am grateful for the original images Colleen shares in this piece – her photography is such a delight. Colleen’s story is a journey around becoming and connecting knowing and doing. It highlights that whilst there are risks in making change and following through on our desires, it can result in us feeling much more aligned – read on to find out more!

Beginning the conversation

Although the desire to live a wholehearted life has been with me for a long time, I’ve only recently stepped onto the path to becoming who I really am.

My husband and I have spent a lifetime in Adelaide — bringing up children, renovating our bungalow, running a business and pursuing a professional writing life.

About five years ago, the children grown and flown the nest, I found myself out of step with life. I’d drifted out of working in our business and given up my corporate freelance writing work, with plans to change direction. Creative non-fiction was luring me. I read books, completed courses and wrote lists. But I was treading water in a stagnant pond with no way out. Although I was unhappy with my lot, inertia and halfheartedness kept me company.

My husband and I talked many times about changing our lives. We made decisions, initiated plans, then allowed our comfortable life to float along. We didn’t have the courage of our convictions. The smallest obstacle was enough to thwart our plans. Life was too easy. We lived comfortably, our business moved along without much effort and we stayed in a rut with our dreams blowing in the wind.

Until two years ago.

Life was brown — that stagnant pond colour. I felt isolated although I told myself that I preferred solitude, that I worked well on my own. The trouble was that I wasn’t really working. I was fiddling around the edges with no real plan and it turned out that my husband was bored with the business. It was a habit which was weighing him down. We began a new conversation about changing our life and realised that it was then or never. The change required stamina and energy and if we left it much longer we might not have the energy.

First steps

That summer we made a real plan. Sell our business and our house, find a parcel of land in the country near the sea, build the dream house and live a more creative life. We pored over real estate advertising, planned the dream house, and imagined how our lives were going to look. The perfect life — just the right balance of leisure, engagement and creative endeavour. But reality has a way of sneaking in. It wasn’t so easy to sell our business, the house needed work before we could put it up for sale, the perfect parcel of land in the country was illusive,
and I still had no plan for my work life.

I was a writer but I felt a fraud. There were no clients. I finished my courses but hadn’t submitted one article for publication. Heck, I wasn’t even showing up to the page regularly! The more I thought about being a writer the more despondent I became.

Discovering what matters

2016 rolled around and summer turned to autumn. We were no closer to our dream of a sea-change. The business wasn’t sold, the house was still awaiting its repairs and my life continued to blow in the wind. The dream was starting to evaporate like all our previous plans.

Searching for direction, motivation, a guide to change, a spark, I was reading three books at once. Mark Nepo’s book, ‘The one life we’re given’, was a catalyst. He says that we are all born with a gift, we just need to find and nurture it. As I read, I felt wretched and guilty. There was no need to search for my gift, it was there. Had been there all along. A passion for words and writing — and I wasn’t nurturing it. He says,” The ultimate purpose of the gift is to exercise the heart into inhabiting its aliveness.” Not much exercising going on either!

Mark Nepo says, “Our dreams, goals and ambitions are all kindling, fuel for the heart to exercise its aliveness, to bring our gift into the world, to discover what matters.” Well, the kindling was piled up—enough to light a bonfire of epic proportions—but the spark was missing. I read on, looking for a simple solution, something to quick-start my heart into aliveness.

And there it was. The words scintillated from the page:

Aliveness shows itself in response to wholeheartedness, when we can say yes to life, work with what we’re given, and stay in relationship — to everything.

These words brought an awareness of what really matters.

Gathering momentum

The changing season from summer to autumn marked the transition from inertia to action. It was a busy season. On our annual Italian journey, I gathered material for travel pieces I planned to write. We cast our net wider and explored the south coast of New South Wales for a piece of land, and resumed discussions about our dream plan. We began the work to prepare our house for market, we put our business up for sale. And I said yes to showing up at my desk.

We dared to make some decisions and our plan was finally gathering momentum.

Becoming a wild writer

Nurturing my gift of writing became my foremost intention. Paying attention to it consistently however, was difficult. I turned to books again. This time, Stephanie Dowrick’s ‘Creative journal writing: the art and heart of reflection’ came to my aid. The title of the first chapter, “Writing a journal may change your life”, was written for me.

Yes!

Journal writing wasn’t new to me, I’d tried many times but didn’t keep it up. This time however, I felt a new purpose. It was a way to exercise my heart into aliveness.

I bought a beautiful journal, created a morning ritual and sat at my desk every day and wrote. The exercises in Stephanie’s book were liberating. I felt a new freedom to explore what mattered to me, to be creative not only with my writing, but in my thinking about the future. I managed to vanquish my obsession with perfectionism, a hangover from corporate writing and editing days. I became a wild writer. My daily wild writing led me through autumn, in step with our decluttering, repairing and real estate activities. I started a blog and recorded my thoughts as a way to be accountable. I became more present. And I found pleasure in my writing for the first time in years.

A shift in imagination

Autumn moved slowly into winter. I observed my nectarine tree from my desk each morning, the leaves changing colour and slowly dropping to the ground and still some clinging stubbornly to the branches. Then one day, the breeze brought the last of the leaves down, a golden-hued carpet covering the ground. And like my tree suddenly surrendering to what is, I too felt a shift. A shift in imagination. Thoughts which had been cluttering my mind suddenly drifted away and I found myself writing a few simple questions in my journal — the most salient of all: “What if?”.

Asking “What if?” opened the door to new possibilities, and the space created in my mind allowed me to begin to write a new vision for my life.

Writing a journal is an adventure in self-discovery and more: clarity, insight, truth, developing my authentic voice and most importantly, focus, are gifts I have acquired along the way.

And the richest benefit, beautifully expressed by Stephanie:

Writing a journal is a way of honoring your own life, taking it seriously even as you open to the energy and spaciousness that creativity brings.

Mark Nepo was the catalyst for exercising my heart into aliveness. He shone a light on what it meant to be wholehearted. Stephanie Dowrick gave me permission to explore who I wanted to become.

Following my heart

It was another year before our house was sold, the business as well, and a further three months before we made the trek to the south coast of New South Wales. It was twelve months of stressful activity, uncertainty and at times, doubt about our decision to pack up and close down our life. Adelaide was our home for 25 years and to take a leap into the unknown with just a dream and some fragile plans in our pockets was a scary thought if we allowed ourselves to think too deeply on it.

During that time I continued my journal writing — gaining new insights and developing my intuition. I felt a new freedom to extend my creativity. I took more photographs. I started to draw, a desire since childhood which I thought I didn’t have the talent for. It turns out that anyone can draw if taught some basic techniques. It’s like anything you want to master, all you need is the desire and the commitment to practice regularly.

I followed my heart through my journal writing, coming to the conclusion that this new chapter of my life required me to create a new story. One which honours all aspects of my life — freelance writing, travelling and communication professional. It was time to weave all these strands together into an authentic foundation for the person I was becoming.

Creating the new story

I needed help to create my new story and serendipitously another alliance was formed. This time not through books, but in person. Terri Connellan had been busy working on her own major life transition from government employee to coach and writer. As part of her learning, she offered the opportunity of six sessions of career coaching. I believe it was a gift as the result of, as Stephanie Dowrick says, “being open to the energy and spaciousness that creativity brings” — a benefit from writing a journal.

It’s been an invaluable experience having someone to collaborate with, talk over ideas and support me in my quest to find the essence of my new story. I’m weaving the strands of my work life, my travels and my professional writing into this story. It is a strong foundation. When I took the first steps along this path, I was all too ready to discard what came before. Through my journal writing, my reading and my work throughout the coaching sessions, I’ve come to value these rich layers in my life’s story. The process of writing my journal especially, has been fundamental in revealing what matters most to me and has helped me to find a fresh approach to bring these aspects into my new narrative.

On the path to becoming who I really am

Winter has turned to spring, a time of renewal and growth. A perfect season for new beginnings. Our life in Adelaide is a finished chapter. We have moved to our temporary home in New South Wales with its green rolling hills, pristine beaches and clear running rivers. Our transition has been fraught with challenges, anxiety and apprehension. However, our dreams are in place and our plans are spread out before us.

I hold dear many memories of my life in Adelaide — our home with its beautiful garden, children growing up, significant occasions celebrated, the orchard whose abundant harvest I will miss this summer and the rich cultural activities which I probably took for granted. But our new life here has begun. There are summer vegetables planted, we are exploring the treasures this region has to offer and the path ahead is illuminated by our purpose.

My wholehearted story is being created every day as I put one step in front of the other, one word and then another on the page. I’m holding onto quiet hopes of celebrations of dreams big and small. I’m walking the path, becoming who I really am.

Key book companions along the way

The One Life We’re Given – Mark Nepo

Creative Journal Writing: The Art and Heart of Reflection – Stephanie Dowrick

Walking on Alligators – Susan Shaughnessy

Fierce on the Page – Sage Cohen

Writing Away – Lavinia Spalding

Anam Cara – John O’Donohue

A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life – Brian Grazer & Charles Fishman

On Writing: a Memoir of the Craft – Stephen King

The Writing Life – Annie Dillard

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain – Betty Edwards

Writing Down the Bones – Natalie Goldberg

How to be a Writer – Barbara Baig

About Colleen Reagon

Colleen is a freelance writer and editor who loves words and how we use them. A communication professional for 25 years, she helps clients—especially small business—communicate effectively. She recently moved to the south coast of New South Wales to further her quest to live a passionate life. She has bibliophilic leanings, believes she was Italian in a past life and is often found with a camera in hand. Read Colleen’s writing at A passionate life and find out more about her here.

Keep in touch + free ebook ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

You might enjoy my free 95-page ebook 36 Books that Shaped my Story – all about wholehearted self-leadership, reading as creative influence and books to inspire your own journey.

Quiet Writing is on Facebook and Instagram – keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community. Look forward to connecting with you and inspiring your wholehearted story!

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wholehearted stories

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Art and the call of the feminine

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About Shalagh Hogan

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Beginning the journey

Taking an adult gap year to follow my passion

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Following my intuition to find the trail to a wholehearted life

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A heart attack of the soul

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Building and leaving a career

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About Jade Herriman

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Beginning the conversation

First steps

Discovering what matters

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Becoming a wild writer

A shift in imagination

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Creating the new story

On the path to becoming who I really am

Key book companions along the way

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Keep in touch + free ebook ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’