In February, I went to Sedona to hike and recharge. I needed some grounding time, and I ended up having a pretty powerful experience. There’s something unique about traveling alone, because after years of being a working mother, I don’t experience alone very well. I deeply crave alone time, but then when I get it, I tend to fill it with my to-do list and put a lot of pressure on myself. The ironic thing is that often these to-do’s are self-care related, but they still seem like a to-do list! I MUST be sure to read some pages in a book, do yoga at least once per day, make myself a healthy meal, get in 10,000 steps and write 1,000 words. So, traveling alone and knowing that I had days and days to be alone allowed me to settle into myself in a way that I haven’t maybe…ever?
Back in February, I knew that I wasn’t in the right job. I could explain all of the reasons I felt that way, but ultimately, it doesn’t matter. It wasn’t the right job. I knew it in my gut, I could feel it every morning when I woke up. I felt like I was wearing my shirt inside out and backwards. But while I was in Sedona, I didn’t know what the path forward looked like, and I was seriously trying to manage the process and the outcome. Part of my trip to Sedona was with the intention of finally “figuring it out”. I had taken my oversized brainstorm notepad and was committed to working out this problem each evening. But when I sat down with my oversized notepad on the first evening after a long hike, I got nothing. Second night, nothing. Not even a spark. So each of those evenings, I had to abort my “figuring it out” and settle into myself. I put my notepad aside and chose other activities that just allowed me to be with myself, unplanned activities that gave my mind a much-needed break.
On my last day in Sedona, I had signed up for an amazing sound bath. It was an hour of laying still and listening – just being surrounded by beautiful sound. There are people who practice sound healing, and this healing is one of the most life-changing experiences. At the end of this sound bath, we each selected a card from the healer’s tarot deck, and I pulled “Inner Trust”. As tears gathered in my eyes, she looked at me and said, “Be still and allow yourself to become”.
Something shifted that day inside of me. The gnawing angst of not being where I’m supposed to be faded into an inner knowing. Every activity I pursue is part of the process. Not every action and decision and day is going to feel monumental, but when gathered into a story, they all result in change. My perspective shifted to this bigger picture view of my place in the world. And I found calm.
I realized that I had been putting little pieces of the puzzle in place for the last several months (years in fact), and all I needed to do was to continue to trust myself about the next right thing. And as I kept doing the next thing, the next thing would lead me naturally to the next thing. And now it’s May and I’ve quit my job to pursue my own business. I am not going to say that this is some sort of magical process. I’ve certainly put a lot of work into it. But once you have a vision of where you are going, it really is possible to breathe into a space of knowing and true “Inner Trust”. You know what you are capable of, you know what your value is, and you KNOW you can untie your lines.