Last week I spoke with a group of women on the topic of “inventing yourself or re-inventing yourself” after a significant life event. It could be at any level from changing careers to the loss of a loved one but the discussion really focused on:
When you feel like you have to make big changes, how far do you need to go to really feel that change?
Here’s an example – after leaving a job we’d outgrown or could no longer stand, we decide that since baking is our passion, we are going to go all the way and open up a bake shop so that we can do our passion all the time. We didn’t consider all of the other elements of owning a bake shop that are not our passion and we end up dissatisfied because we’re left with zero time to create a life.
Another example is we really love yoga so we think that ultimately, it’s about teaching yoga so we enroll in teacher training only to discover that actually, we just like going to yoga classes and don’t really care about advanced anatomy. I’ve shared these examples to highlight the pressure we put on ourselves to go all the way
When I returned from Portugal this summer, I was quite convinced that I needed to move to the countryside, build a sustainable home and grow most of my food in my garden. Hello hippy life!
After spending such an amazing time in nature, I was having difficulty adjusting to being back in the city and the hustle and bustle was really getting on my nerves. So I researched all the different options and became pre-occupied with how I was going to pick up and leave my life here. I had bookmarked tons of websites and envisioned my dream home but what this was doing was creating a lot of pressure, not the freedom I desired.
So I had a chat with my soul and pretty much said, “I know this is a huge desire and I am going to re-visit it over the years to see where I stand.” What I was doing was acknowledging that this desire is real and not some hippy dream and that one day, I may just do it. That’s all your soul wants is the acknowledgment that this is real and true for you.
In the meantime, to avoid unrest I decided what I could do is make my city life a little more country. I love Pinterest so I created some boards that get in touch with that feeling of one day. I pinned some of the Adobe homes I would love to learn how to build. For food, I shifted my shopping to include weekly visits to the Farmer’s Markets because there’s something about purchasing right from the hands that helped pick or deliver the produce that makes so much sense to me. And I started following whole food chefs on Instagram to learn more about how they work with all natural ingredients.
As I was describing to the women I spoke with, these are ways of putting your desires on simmer as opposed to turning the oven right off.
My philosophy is that “one day” will arrive and we want to be fully prepared.
Do you have a Pinterest board of dreams and desires? Share them below! :)
You can find me on Pinterest here: www.pinterest.com/myhartsings
To your authenticity,
Love, Christine