What I do

Dear creative leader,

In 2021, I chose to leave my tech job to start a leadership and creative coaching business.

Although there were specific events leading up to this choice at the time, it was part of a larger exploration to come into connection with the cycles of time and change that would listen, to the heartbeat of the earth.

That would pay attention to when the pollinators came. When the water rises and recedes along with the moon and wanted to clue into a pace of existence---

That could hold my body and what my body needed — to be able to show up with whatever spoons I had, whatever capacity I had, and not worry so much – about the outcome, about productivity, about proving that I could succeed in the corporate environment that I had been working in, and starting to rise up the ranks.

When offered the chance to go even further I only found myself feeling that it was taking me further and further away from what I was here to do. I was brought into this path of slowness and pleasure through Jenny Odell's work, Audre Lorde's work, adrienne maree brown's work.

I started to go and be in nature, as much as I could when I was living in the city. It helped immensely in being able to manage the loud life that was overwhelming to my sensitivities.

Opting into the possibility of more poetry, more art, more creativity, more pleasure, more alignment with our desire, more right relationship with the land can often feel like we are standing at the very edge of the reality that we know.

There is this sense of scarcity that comes up. When we get closer to it, it starts to show itself as deeply layered and intertwined into our consciousness, likely trans-generationally.

I remember when I hadn't even started my business yet. One of the first things that I wanted to get coaching on, and I hadn't even left my job yet, was around needing to get to financial stability.

Building a business is slow work. Even slower depending on your needs and your resources and capacity to do it.

All I could imagine then was to have clear-cut plan, to replacing my income at the time.

But this kind of stance of opening up to the possibility of a more creative life demanded that I open up to the possibility of slow growth. It is slow growth that's going to help us sustain our business or creative practice in the long run.

As I've deepened into my relationship with the land, it has also necessitated deepening into the relationship of my body.

One of the public ways that I have changed, and it does have to do with my career in some ways, is my name, my identity, my gender, my body, my public presentation, my voice, everything about me, and has changed.

And this process of coming into deeper alignment with my body from slowing down and listening and being receptive to change, then allowed me to come into deeper relationship with the land.

Because the more I listen to my body, I heard how much I needed to make space for there to be quiet. For me to be able to look at the stars, for me to be surrounded by trees and mountains and waters.

Not construction.

It takes privilege and resources to be able to make this move. And it was also really daring for lots of reasons, like living in bear country. Living somewhere that requires a car and not yet knowing how to drive. I need support to go around and needing to form an ecosystem locally where I can be supported as I'm living on my own has all shown me what it means to have a relationship to— I want to say abundance, but that word always feels a little incorrect. It's.. resourcefulness. It has shown me how it's possible to drop into the feeling of belonging to life when I listen to the forest around me more deeply.

Recently, I released this post talking about trans re-memorying where I shared with you photographs of myself, in all my trans glory. Returning to childhood memories, to re-create an archive myself, my sense of play and joy and belonging to my environment really came through in this photo shoot that I did.

I'm realizing how these past few years, irrespective of what I have to show for it in my bank account, what I learned is this invaluable lesson of sufficiency, of resourcefulness. I'm realizing that it is a constructed lie that the earth is just going to shrink and collapse on itself and run out.

I learned to believe in the possibility that we can be resourced, and that we are living on a planet, in a larger cosmos, that is interacting with us and wants to partner with us if only we choose to shape change.

In order to move towards change, we need to feel some sense of security in something right? Some sense of grounding in, something that's coming, someone that is with you, that is supporting you. I'm gonna take this leap, but I have this financial net, etc.

And yet, the process of change itself can't guarantee security. It's all about shaking that up.

You may or may not be secure. You don't know.

You're changing.

What's on the other side is… still unfolding, it's a leap.

You can pin your hope to these threads of external security, but they will only go so far.

I believe there is a way to growing the capacity inside yourself to find your own roots. And these roots can be mobile, they can come with you. They're not in one place necessarily unless you want them to be.

These roots can be with you in this edge that you are on. No matter what changes, you are grounded in your own sense of inner resourcefulness as you move through transition, or change, or challenge.

So there's this kind of outer thread of going from scarcity and breaking those cycles of scarcity and opening up into resourcefulness and connection to Earth and body.

And then there is this perhaps more internal quest to recall and remember what it meant for me to follow my heart's calling. my soul's calling, however you want to look at it. This is where I'm bringing this language of Self*, thinking about it as our most loving self, our deepest self.

When I was existing in corporate environments that weren't right for me, and couldn't make space for my purpose, it was really hard to find a way to go forward with coherence. When I left and wanted to run my own business, it became next to impossible to exist in that kind of misalignment.

In order to show up and do this and say, hey, hire me, buy this, I need my words need to match who I am.

This kind of growth, towards studying my desire, studying my erotic current and studying my childhood callings and my creative voice and power. And really being willing to go into this process of healing, meeting myself through the support of people who are willing to guide people in this process of claiming their role and becoming worldbuilders – has me coming into this unshakable faith that I can create the containers inside which I can do the work that is my heart's calling, my deepest self's calling.

This is the transformation that lies in the deeper work that we do together. We come in with the surface level issue of, what's going on, maybe what you're trying to do, what you're trying to achieve. And from there we go into touching what is blocking you from being able to go forth and access that sense of resourcefulness or fulfillment or creative flow or whatever it is that you're looking for.

When we identify that and are able to start to bring new perspective to it, then where you're going forward can be guided by your most loving self.

It takes care and conscious partnership to be able to listen and converse with the deepest most loving part of you, and making space for that is a core part of what I do.

In order to do that, I needed to come into contact with that myself in the first place. And as I articulate this thread of what I do more clearly, and why I do it, and the journey that I've been on, I'm also feeling the readiness to go full steam ahead.

I am calling in all of you that are here. My listeners, my newsletter subscribers, the people that have been here for so long, you all have been here for almost five years with me!

So many of you have been here for this whole ride. I have a lot of gratitude for everyone that's here. And, I also want call you in. This is the time to come into my practice and partner with me in a deeper intentional way. If you've been looking for support on breaking your cycles of scarcity so that you can come into resourcefulness. We do this by cultivating your heart-led Self-leadership.

Stress to Clarity: Tarot reading for change, is open for booking now and I'd love to see you in this container. If you are needing balanced perspective and to root into your Self-leadership during challenging transitionary times, this is the reading for you.

I am also having conversations about Fire up your Self-leadership, coaching for tech rewilders, which is coming soon. If you are a tech rewilder or want to know more about this, do check out my last episode all about that. You can sign up to be invited here, your interest and our conversations shape this offering so please reach out if you want to chat about rewilding tech. I'm so excited to bring this alive along with you.

Notes:

* Self with the capitalized S, is a concept in Jungian psychology, and in the Love Letter to the Movement — Using a Coach Approach for Healing, Justice and Liberation by Sarah Jawaid and Damon Azali-Rojas. When I say Self in Self-leadership I'm drawing from Love Letter for the Movement — and referring to our most loving self/deepest self/soul led leadership.