This year feels all about authenticity for me. All about moving to a place where I can speak my truth, embrace transparency, and express myself in ways I feel like I’ve been holding back on out of fear. This has been THE biggest challenge for me throughout my life. I grew up believing that to acknowledge one’s fears and doubts is to make them more real and give them more power over us. To me it was a sign of weakness, not strength.
It’s interesting how all the internal energy work I’ve been immersing myself in lately has unearthed this huge desire to self-express in deeper and scarier ways. To voice the things that have been on my mind but I haven’t shared. It’s such a freeing practice to do this and if you know me at all, you know I’m passionate about feeling, living and being FREE in this world.
I’m finding more and more that transparency is the way out. Being transparent gives others a way to genuinely connect with us on a deeper level. It reminds us that we’re all going through this wild and crazy life together and experiencing so many of the same fears and confusions and doubts and hesitations. We’re not alone in the things we feel. And what I once thought was a sign of weakness, I now realise is the ultimate test of strength – because opening up and sharing from a vulnerable place requires courage, acceptance of who you are, and a willingness to be seen.. imperfections and all.
When we stop conforming, hiding, denying, or disowning parts of ourselves that we deem “not good enough,” that’s when we truly step into our personal power.
And so, in the spirit of transparency and authenticity, I have a confession to make.
Lately I’ve been feeling a huge disconnect.
There are areas in my life, many areas, that I’ve been questioning and feel at a crossroads with lately… and I want to open up and share and just talk for a bit to let you in on some of these fears.
The first of these is travel.
A life of travel is something I’ve dreamed about for such a long time. Last year I think I spent more time traveling about than staying in any one spot and this year might very well be the same. It’s exciting to have this kind of stuff on the horizon. But lately… I’m not sure if it’s travel ungroundedness or me getting older but I’m really craving to be settled. Not stop traveling altogether but to have a home base. A place to come back to that’s clean, bright, rejuvenating. A place where I can cook meals the way I want and arrange things the way I want and that’s filled with sunlight, plants, animals, positive energy, beautiful things.
Currently when I’m not traveling, I do have a place to stay but it’s a temporary crash pad sort of situation… and also not even my own place for that matter. It’s also pretty cramped, messy, cluttered, and the small amount of belongings I have there live in a plastic crate because there’s literally NO space for them to go anywhere else.🙈
Don’t get me wrong… I’m very grateful to have a place to stay at all! Being in this transient situation allows me to do a lot of things that are really important right now (like travel more and work for myself) since I don’t have big financial expenses to cover. It’s not a permanent setup but it works for right now and for that I’m grateful. There’s just a big part of me that would feel more grounded having a space to call my own!
I’ve been afraid to say that as much of a free-spirited wanderluster as I am, deep down I’m also a huge homebody who thrives on routine and space to myself and having all my healthy creature comforts at my disposal.
The situation I’m in is exciting because it feels like anything can happen.. there are so many different possibilities – and at the same time, it also makes me feel unsettled. This causes me to have to spend a lot of time working on bringing myself back to equilibrium instead of focusing on all the other creative projects I want to be putting out into the world! So lately I’ve been asking myself, “How can I remedy all these conflicting feelings?” and “What is the right choice for me here?”
While I’m on the subject of a home base… I’ve been afraid and embarrassed to admit what I even want that to look like!
When I was younger, all I wanted to do was get out of small town USA and live in NYC. When I graduated college and started working in the city, I had all these fantasies of living in some luxury high-rise in midtown and what an amazing life that must be. I have to laugh now because that is SO far from what sounds good to me these days!! The urge to escape city life is one that I’ve been obsessed with for a long time.
The yearning for an abundance of grass, trees, fresh air, space, the sounds of nature, hiking trails, a backyard, my own washer and dryer (lol!!), a close-knit community feel… all of these things have become a lot more important to me over the years. And it makes me feel like a mega boring weirdo because I feel like most people my age are in love with the excitement and stimulation of city life and couldn’t imagine being fulfilled anywhere else. I feel like maybe I’m missing something if that many people are in love with the city.. maybe there’s just something I’m not seeing.
What I suspect deep down though, is what my mom has always told me to be true – that I’m just not a city girl at heart.
This brings up a ton of fear for me because I then start questioning where I belong if not in the city. I still have many ties to NYC. People I love and who are very close to me live there. My diet benefits quite a bit from being there. A lot has changed since becoming raw vegan almost 2 years ago and for better or worse, my diet dictates where I go and where I end up – it’s that important to me.
Though you might think that a tropical country like Belize or Bali has the highest abundance of fresh raw fruits and vegetables available, the irony is that cities provide WAY more variety and often better quality produce. How is this possible? Because of the sheer number of people being served.
In a metropolis like NYC, the demand for a large variety of food and high-quality foods is much higher. There are literally dozens of health food stores and organic markets and almost any kind of organic fruit and vegetable you can think of sold all over the city and available year-round. My travels have shown me this is not the case in most other places around the world. New Yorkers are very lucky when it comes to food.
I’m afraid to admit that I crave an existence that feels unaligned with the way I choose to eat and the people I want in my life.
NYC feels like home because it’s familiar and where I’ve lived for such a long time, but it doesn’t feel like where I belong. I think the city is amazing if you want to achieve something work-wise, make your mark in the world and climb up the ladder. Living in NYC has pushed me to grow a lot professionally.
At the same time, my heart hurts being in a concrete jungle. The pollution, the grime, the overcrowdedness, the smells, the lack of nature, the intense masculine energy that the city thrives upon… all of these things make it so hard to live in New York. And I’m afraid to say this stuff because the common reaction from others when you start to point out flaws of an area is, “Well if you don’t like it, then leave!” But it’s not that simple.
I’m afraid to say that I’m no longer sure where I want to be or where I feel like I belong in this world.
That there’s nowhere that feels like my ideal spot to reach for and that makes me feel off because I’m someone who thrives on working towards dreams. Maybe that ideal place to live doesn’t even exist in this world – but I keep holding onto the belief that it does, because I have to keep believing in this.
Phew. That’s a lot of big stuff to admit! But putting it out in the open does make it feel less consuming. And I imagine I’m not alone in feeling at least some of these disconnects. Is any of this striking a chord with your own life?
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There’s one other biggie I haven’t yet mentioned that’s been on my mind lately, which revolves around some things with this blog and business.
When I first started this site, I was very food and nutrition-focused. Diet for me has taken interesting turns over the years and even though I still create new recipes every once in a blue moon, 99% of the time I feel like I’m eating the same stuff everyday. This is far from a bad thing – I genuinely enjoy my simple raw vegan meals and potatoes!😍 It’s just that I’m not sure what to post about food-wise anymore.
Food is a huge part of my life but more and more, I feel like I’m being called down another path… one that I’ve dabbled in just a bit on the blog before but have never fully delved into. There’s a ton of food and nutrition-related articles that I’ve yet to post on the blog…. because what I’m really feeling called to write about these days is the energy work and personal development work I’ve been doing.
I want to write about all the energetic blocks I’ve been clearing. I want to write on chakras and mindset shifts and breaking out of limiting beliefs and the different ways that we can work with energy to manifest and heal things in our life.
I want to share stories from my life that inspire and give you ideas on how you can start working with energy, how you can make it work FOR you. I want to share the powerful meditations I do and create meditation videos and recordings so others can benefit from these amazing resources too. There’s just SO much more I want to dive into on this blog that I haven’t yet!
Why not? That’s where the fear comes in… I’ve held back and am afraid to start talking about this on the blog for a few reasons. For one thing, the scope is just so huge. There’s so much more I want to say and I’m not sure where to even begin or how to explain it all.
I’m also afraid of turning off readers who are here because of the food and nutrition stuff – because they might not want to hear about any of this. I’m afraid that maybe I’m going all over the place with my posts on food and health and travel and energy work and personal development… that maybe it’s too much and better to focus on just one or two of these areas. And yet, the whole reason this blog even exists is because of my crazy feet-healing story… which was a direct result of the energy work I practice!
Finally, I worry what my growing interest in energy work will mean for this blog, not to mention my coaching. What once used to consume a small portion of my life (perhaps 30 minutes to an hour each day) has now grown into a practice that I feel I’m almost living in. Sometimes I spend 4 or 5 hours a day meditating and doing little energetic practices. It just feels so good and all kinds of amazing things come about because of it. I just fear that I’m delving into new territory with all this and it might not resonate at all with others… and it might sound totally weird and freakish! I get that.
I also know that when we try to force ourselves to continue operating in the same realm we’ve always been, just because we’re too scared to break out, it’s never the way to go. We are all changing and evolving… and we have to trust that the people who resonate will continue on the path with us while others who are no longer aligned will part ways. This is all ok and natural. As with most things in life, it gets easier once we begin.
The things that we’re afraid to say… healing starts when we say them.
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I don’t really have any big lessons in this post, that’s not what it was about – but what I do know is that transparency can be incredibly healing and empowering. Being transparent is really just being more you and that’s never a bad thing.
What things in your life are you afraid to say?
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