A few months before creating my new website (which you’re reading now) I shared my experience of being in the “winter” season in my life.
As a private introverted person, sharing myself online feels very unnatural and particularly vulnerable.
And yet outwardly expressing and sharing what was going on for me was just the medicine I needed to shift things and move out of my personal winter and into spring.
How and why did things shift after I shared what I was feeling?
Partly because some of you have reached out to check in on how I was (thank you by the way!)
Partly because honestly sharing with you all, has allowed the shame and guilt around how I’ve been feeling to dissipate….
That feeling/thought being….
How can I be in a rough patch and feeling so disengaged from my work when I have so much to be grateful for?
Expression is a key piece to getting REAL and aligning back to who you really are. Something I cover in my methodology in my work with clients.
When I was able to be honest with how I was feeling and get to a place of not judging where I was — simply allowing it to “be”…..things slowly started to transition back to flow.
Flow meaning…
There’s less (or no charge) around how I was feeling anymore, my actions are clear and coming from a place that feels empowering not a “should” or “must.”
As women we can tend to keep moving, getting on with things. Choosing to ignore those heart-felt emotions and tender truths because they’re too painful or uncomfortable to sit with.
Typically this is done unconsciously because it’s become our default go-to mode plus we live in a fast paced society with many demands and expectations.
The truth is these darker, negative or not-so-high-vibe feelings that you’re feeling, don’t make you a bad person – they make you human.
Labelling them as bad or unwelcome is choosing to shut down a part of yourself….
As I mentioned in the blog post 2 Things To Remember When You’re Going Through A Rough Patch, there are 2 core truths to remember:
Truth #1: Feeling “bad” doesn’t make you broken, it makes you human.
Trying to avoid feeling bad and forcing yourself to reject the “negative” or “low vibes” is to shut down half of you. Your essence. And that ain’t cool.
Truth #2: We are cyclical, not linear.
It’s natural to cycle through the positive and negative. Mother Nature knows this truth…
…. Night and day.
…. Winter and summer.
…..Tides coming in, tides coming out.
…..Breathing in, breathing out.
Night, winter, the tide washing out, breathing out — these are not “bad.” They’re simply the other half of the expansion/contraction equation that we’re living in.
Sitting in winter has allowed me to come into contact with some deeper truths that I’m now able to see and appreciate after a 3.5 year period of navigating the relationship between my heart vs. heart.
If you’re curious to learn more about my personal experience of navigating the heart vs. head during times of transition then read on.
Warning: This blog post is on the long side so feel free to grab a cup of tea and take your time with it!
My hope is that, in sharing my lessons learned from my journey it’ll support you. In this blog post I share how I’ve transitioned from being a disembodied, over thinking, people pleaser to a more embodied, soul aligned woman. In sharing my journey we’ll dive into:
- Navigating heart vs. head when thinking about your life and work
- Exploring more of who you really are
- Finding the confidence to express who you really are outwardly into the world
Right, onwards….
With the benefit of hindsight, I now know why I was brought to a period of “winter” last autumn….
I now know why I couldn’t get past “go” and do another lap around the proverbial monopoly board in the way I’d been operating.
Why?
Let me back track to 4 years ago…
I was pregnant with my 3rd child and we were away for Christmas in Byron Bay.
A beautiful part of Australia – and a deeply healing/spiritual centre attracting all kinds of holistic practitioners, healers and psychics.
At the time, I was going through another spiritual awakening. I was questioning the way I was working with my clients and whether I really wanted my business anymore.
The truth?
I’d created another job for myself. Long hours. Late nights. I was continuing the old patterns from my corporate days. And I was starting to get resentful. Not a good place to be when you’re a coach!
So this Christmas holiday in 2015, I found myself away from wifi access, in the wild, smack bang in the middle of a spiritual centre.
In that quiet space in between the family gatherings, supermarket shops and coffee runs, I got the message:
“Open up! Get curious. There’s more to the work you’re here to do.”
Call it my heart, my intuition, divine guidance…some body truth landed when I received this message.
In the past I would have ignored these heart callings but this time I listened to them.
Maybe…
+ it was the fact that having a 3rd kid meant I had to find another way.
+ it was how I was feeling being away from the day to day routine of home life.
+ it was just my time to surrender and be guided.
Whatever the reason, I just allowed myself to let go and get curious.
I saw a psychic and healer in Byron Bay and continued the curious journey back in Hong Kong (at the Shakti Healing Circle). Who knew there were so many teachers to learn from here?
I dabbled with classes and workshops in Reiki, Shamanism, Crystals and honestly just let myself have fun without judging myself (though in all honesty — the heady part of me was a sceptic and questioning my choices). But I persisted…
In a marketing class I was taking, the teacher introduced me to Joseph Campbell and his work around The Hero’s Journey plus other spiritual concepts — namely Alchemy.
One guest lecturer came in to explain The Philosopher’s Stone and the principles of Alchemy.
This class sparked my interest and journey to learn more about my true soul’s work:
Helping a woman come back to who she really is and how she’s to express that in the world not just through her career but her relationships and life too.
My personal curriculum for deepening into my old modality/method, had unfolded and I dived into learning soul, mind and body modalities to give me the tools to not only do this for myself – but to support my clients too.
The past few years have been a journey to learning and testing out these very tools…
To understand the Soul…I learned about the Akashic Records to unlock an individual’s soul blueprint.
To understand the Mind….I learned Rapid Transformational Therapy (a type of hypnotherapy) to access the subconscious operating system that’s running the decision and behaviours we make as well as diving into neuroscience for coaches and quantum theory.
To understand the Body.. I enrolled in a Feminine Embodiment Coaching Certification understanding how to safely contact with the body, processing emotions and feeling embodied wisdom and confidence as opposed to just knowing the theory. *Side note: I loved this modality so much I’m a Teaching Assistant at the school for the second year running and absolutely loving it!*
The past 4 years I’ve been diving deep into the above, not just learning the theory, but using these tools on myself, working with practice buddies, using these tools with my clients.
With practice, testing, running experiments on whether this “woo woo” stuff works (i.e. challenging my heart callings) I’ve finally been able to get my sensible head on board.
And let me tell you it was a challenge:
My mind threw tantrums and said some pretty mean words, rocked some incredible procrastination tactics into the works and continued to sit there in every session with my clients — but I’m now on the other side…..and I’ve never been more jazzed about this work I’m doing and supporting the real juice behind my business:
supporting a woman come back to who she really is and how she is called to express that in the world not just through her career but her relationships and life too.
Just writing this gets me excited because I’m so passionate about what happens when a woman reclaims this for herself. The ripple effect is huge – not just in work but in relationships, parenting, leadership and society at large.
Through my work with clients (and in my own experience) I’ve found that the career, relationship and life clicks into place only after you’ve honoured the woman within and it’s that process that juices me up and gets me so excited.
And so circling back to this “winter” period I was experiencing in my life last autumn….
The reason why I was back in a rough patch is because I’ve been in the curious, testing phase for quite some time and I was about to embark on doing more of the same…and it became quite clearly time to really pivot into this work and share this with you — outwardly into the world.
Which by now you are reading on my new website. Which I’m super stoked and happy about because it took YEARS to get here!
And so, beautiful one, if you’ve read this far, I want to share with you the lessons I’ve learned on this journey. My goal is to support you in seeing if you can apply any of these lessons to your life and career in any way.
6 lessons learned navigating my heart vs. head in my life and business.
Here we go:
Lesson #1: You are the best person to know which way you’re going. Your heart and body WILL guide you back to your unique path and purpose.
Lesson #2: Heart first. Head a close second. Start with baby steps to build that relationship. Your heart wisdom is not to be ignored.
Lesson #3: Your body knows so much more than your mind does. Take the time to slow down and listen to it and honour it.
Lesson #4: The truth is in the feel of something — not solely in the logic of it.
Lesson #5: Honour the season you’re in and be in it for the long game. You will get there.
Lesson #6: There’s only one you who can do what you do, the way you do it. Claim your own lane (and yes you do have one!) and focus on it. Your path will look like no-one else’s.
So there you have it, 6 lessons learned navigating my heart callings vs. heady sensibility in my life and business.
I fully appreciate that the above story I shared sounds like it all ties together and fell into place easily and effortlessly…….but the truth is it didn’t.
I had to slow down. I had to listen. I had to face fears. Navigate self doubt and take super baby steps to find my path.
My hope in sharing this with you, is that your own path — in your unique way (which by the way will look totally different to mine).
I’ll be honest, it’s a little vulnerable sharing all that’s been going on behind the scenes but that’s part of my choice in no longer holding back.
So thank you for witnessing me in this! And thank you winter for pulling me back to stop and move forward in the right direction.
Going forward…
…I’ll be sharing more about the new and exciting ways I’m working with those of you who are ready to reclaim their *real* selves and realign those career ladders against the right wall.
If you have any questions or comments about anything that I’ve shared, please leave them below I’d love to hear from you.
In fact I’d be super curious to hear:
+ What’s your #1 challenge when it comes to navigating your heart vs. head?
Please leave a comment for me below.
That way I can create more blog posts to support you in this, so share away!
Sending so much love.
With love,
P.S. I’ve created a free Facebook Group called Soul Aligned Professional Women and I’d love to invite you to join. This is the space where we’ll go deeper into all of these topics so that you can come back to the real you. JUST CLICK HERE.
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