Hello, fellow Seekers!
Where is your happy place? Where is the place that brings you peace?
My places are in the woods and by the ocean. I was sitting by the ocean when I did the video for this blog. Check it out here.
This piece is about my next step of the hero’s journey, bringing the change home. After you’ve gone through something big in your life, there’s a point when things calm down again. It’s easy to slip back into your old patterns. However, if you can integrate your experience, you’ll grow into an expanded version of yourself.
I shared about getting my trailer, three months traveling, and the uncertainties of that experience. Today, I want to share what happened when I got home. I felt changed but I didn’t know what was next.
I knew I wanted to keep traveling. I knew I could work and travel, and that was fantastic. I saw that it brought me closer to living my life in a way that would support my alignment, my purpose, and my connection with the universe.
Later in April 2023, I got together with two of my spiritual and business buddies. These women were also business owners, entrepreneurs, creatives, and deep. We had been doing a morning 10-minute phone chat for a few years. We got on the phone for a few minutes Monday through Friday to share a win and our one thing for that day. We helped each other focus on our visions both personally and professionally. It was so much more than accountability and only took a few minutes a day. It was amazing to watch each other and our businesses grow through this process. I highly recommend it!
We also got together for a weekend retreat 2-3 times a year. We spent the time doing deeper dives for each of us. Each would get a couple of focused hours with the other women asking the good and challenging questions. We worked on visioning, worked through fears and blocks so that person tapped into her “why” and passion.
We had one of those at the end of April 2023. It turned out to be life-changing for all three of us. We each felt frustrated, stuck, and uncertain. We knew we wanted more but needed breakthroughs. We had this restlessness and knew we needed meaningful change because we were struggling. Things were good but, we each said, “I don’t feel fully in alignment with my calling or my life.”
We used those giant sticky notes up on the wall. My friend was the scribe and artist on the pages, so I didn’t have to take notes. I could just focus on my process. I talked about how important it was to line up my daily life with my values and higher self. It’s hard with the pull of everyday life, distractions, and cultural pressures. It’s easy to get lazy about my spiritual life. I was clear I wanted to remake my daily life to support my spiritual path.
If you haven’t read the book, The Big Leap, I highly recommend it. That’ll probably be on our book club list sometime this year. We used it as a guide for our retreat process. We talked about our values and passions. We explored our zones of genius, the things where everything would come together and we felt in flow, the stuff we most loved doing, and how we wanted to live our lives. On one of my sheets, we listed all the possible next steps, including the ridiculous and crazy-sounding things. We listed all the ideas from quitting my business and getting a job to selling everything and living in the trailer for a while. There were probably six or eight ideas on there.
I wish I still had that sheet. We didn’t cross off anything because it was ridiculous or seemed crazy. We took each one and started doing pros and cons. We dug into the meaning of each and how it might help or hinder living according to my values. We explored what it would require personally, spiritually, and in terms of action. We looked at possible consequences of each choice. We explored safety versus uncertainty.
We dug into all the things. The one that came out at the end as the clear winner was to sell my house, sell all my stuff, live in the trailer for at least for a year, quit my job, and finish the book. That was it. I sat there stunned.
That was it. The most shocking answer felt like a booming call from the Universe. But there was so much peace and calmness all around it. I was in awe. So were my friends. They shared that they intuitively felt the truth of it.
Well, it’s not exactly what happened. That was a plan I had.
So, I got my house ready. I sold my house quickly and easily. I sold all my stuff. That was quite a bit more challenging. Perhaps more on that another time. Letting go is one of the most important and hardest spiritual practices in my opinion.
In the meantime, my plan was to travel a little over the summer, finish with clients in mid-August, and then spend the last four months of 2023 finishing my book.
My plan was to rent my friend’s driveway for 4 months while my full-time focus would be finishing the book that had been in me for a long time. The material had been wanting to come out for a long, long time. In the process of selling my house, the owner of the driveway decided to sell their house! My plan suddenly had to change but there was just a giant question mark. OMG! Where am I going to live?
I got my house ready to list and headed down to the Oregon coast to visit some friends. I love this place. I’d been visiting with my friend for a few years. It had the perfect mix of ocean, forest, and mountains. I came over the 4th of July planning for a week but stayed for two.
I didn’t have any place I had to go. There wasn’t any place to go back to in Washington. My friend kept asking, “Why do you have to go back? Why do you have to go back there?” I would look at her, kind of like your dog does, that head-tilt look of confusion and curiosity.
It threw my brain into turmoil because I had a plan. But, my friend had been including me in her friend group in this small town. I met these amazing people. They were smart, funny, kind, creative, thoughtful, deep, spiritual, and from many backgrounds.
By the end of those two weeks, all the breadcrumbs fell into place including an ideal place to park my trailer. A couple who was friends of my friend had just closed on a piece of property slightly down the hill from their house. It was going to be vacant until they decided what they wanted to do with it. It had a big driveway, was cradled in the forested hill, and had a spectacular panoramic view of the ocean. It was a perfect situation for me, and they appreciated having someone on the property. It was definitely a win-win.
I came to this town with a sense of community that I had not felt close to 30 years. It felt like the easy, natural next step. I landed here with a feeling of home and community. Frankly, that was amazing for me.
It also completely upended my plan. I had to discover a new plan. I was happy to be here and there was some stress figuring out the rest of the plan. There were more adventures later in the year, which I will talk about in the next video.
It’s about following the breadcrumbs from the Universe.
Even if they seem kind of crazy. Don’t resist the messages from the universe. Let yourself be open to being moved and called for your higher purpose. And yes, it’s often scary in my experience!
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Leave me comments and questions. I’d love to address those in future videos and blogs. I’d love to hear your thoughts about following your own breadcrumbs.
Most importantly, remember to…
Love yourself,
Act like it,
Share it,
And that will Change the World!
Inis LaMothe, PsyD 
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