Wow, Catriona, thank you so much for sharing this! I feel deeply seen and understood. I similarly have been feeling very stuck in an in-between time, and also really resonate with the idea of having too many parts of myself to easily sum up.
"I constantly feel like I am failing." – While perhaps this feels like a small comfort since it's not about the corporate world, I want to emphasize that the writing you are doing on here is evidence that you are certainly NOT failing; in fact, you are making a meaningful difference in the lives of others. I have been touched by your words, and I know that other readers have undoubtedly been encouraged by your vulnerability and candor. ❤️ Wishing you well during this time!
Thank you so much for your kind words. I am so glad to know they meant something to you too. And thank you for encouraging me with the stories I am telling here - its not always easy to know whether I am going in the best direction with my writing - I so appreciate your encouragement and positive feedback and to know that this helped you feel seen.
There is so much here, Catriona, that I relate to in so many ways. Since last June, when I got paid for my last big consultancy contract, I have been working very little, and earning a tiny amount of money. This is the first time in my life that I don't have a steady income or a scholarship to sustain me. I do have savings, but they will run out eventually, though I am good for a while.
I spend my days reading, visiting museums, going to the cinema, reading again, and writing a little bit here on Substack. Some days I feel like I deserve this time off, it is the first time ever that I am what you could call unemployed (technically I am self employed, but only work a couple hours per week and earn a fraction of what I need to cover my expenses.).
It is both liberating and I also somehow feel embarrassed about it. I have had a good career so far, have lived in many exciting places and I know I could probably get a job if I really set my mind to it and was willing to relocate. But I like my new life in Lisbon, and am not ready to give up. Should I worry or not, I don't know. I visited my mum recently who grew up in socialism and had a job from which she couldn't be sacked and now has a rather nice pension as she retired at the right time- she is a bit worried about me and even if I am not worried about myself, her worry did rub off on me a bit.
I think I am giving myself until the end of the summer and if things don't improve in my self employment plan (I don't really have a plan, maybe that is where my troubles begin), I'll probably start looking for a job.
Sorry to use this space as my personal rant place. I do love how you write, I love your honesty, I love the curiosity you have for the world around you. I hope things work out for you the way you wish them to.
Hey Liza - thanks for honestly sharing your story here too. I really enjoyed reading where you are at - and relate to so much of this. I think what I struggle with is - how to enjoy these in-between times - because there is something good in them - as you point out - you enjoy your new life. I don't enjoy mine so much - it feels like limbo - but there are moments I feel I have more peace, more times to work things out and do things I enjoy than I would working 9 - 5 and that feels healthy and needed. I think, we do need time to orientate, work out what we enjoy away from other pressures, but then once we are away from the systems of the world, it takes energy and focus to re-join those systems. Look forward to hearing what comes next for you.
Catriona, it was a delight to meet you today in Clare Egan's the Artist's Way zoom session and I love the theme of your Substack and your journey through life so far sounds full of incredible and I'd imagine sometimes challenging and certainly life-changing experiences through your chosen work. In-between times are hard to navigate, I've had those in my life, and now with a sudden low-back injury isolating me in an apartment in Barcelona just two weeks after arriving, I feel that, too.--so ready to leap into my new life here, start a new chapter even at 64, post divorce and post caregiving for my mom and believing it is never too late to begin again. So that is what I will leave you with--you are not failing, I am not failing, we are living, changing humans and as long as we pay deep attention to what is happening inside of us, honor it and bring to the world our gifts (for you and I, in our writing), we cannot possibly be failing.
Hi Amy - thank you for connecting and for this comment - I loved hearing about journey during the call with Clare and amazing to find more of it on Substack. I can relate to what you share about being ready to dive into what is next - but still stuck in limbo to properly do that. I aso agree with you on failing. Choosing new paths for ourselves as women is still not easy - we often have to fight through much judgment and conformist expectations to make our own way. For me, when I think about failing, I think it is more about the story I was told about a linear path in life and the standard expectations of what life should look like. How I feel I need to present myself on a CV to be taken seriously. I am very inspired by your new journey at 64 which gives me the feeling of having new chapters to look forward to.
Oof! Catriona, that sounds like a lot and also lovely in its moments of simplicity and slowness.
It was lovely to connect with you on Clare’s call last week btw. I’m glad you found me here!
I felt drawn to read this post, and I resonate a lot with what you share. Your writing offers distinct details that are definitely yours, yet I relate to the suddenness, the unexpected crumbling away of the ground I thought was there, the unknown, and the weird liminal of what is (that I honestly question if it’s an inbetween at all, or perhaps a deeper calling to realize I’ve been living at a speed and in a way and in structures that no longer fit who I am inside and who I am becoming.)
This has been me for the last almost 2 years, maybe three I’m honest.
I feel like I’m only now beginning to emerge. And that doesn’t look like what I imagined. Indeed, the surface life has crumbled, I remain holding to certain things I’ve felt the call this last week to let go of and surrender to, the new that is wanting to come through. The unimagined life.
Perhaps you are not meant to return to those old ways, to those old structures?
I think I’ve found in life that when I’m not listening to something deeper within me, life shows up and pulls the rug out from under me. I lose a job, or more recently, I burn out and have mental health/physical health crisis, and a slow realization none of what I’m living truly aligns with my deeper values or who I want to be and the way of life I want to live in the world.
It’s just that I couldn’t see this, or didn’t want to, because from living in that place, everyday, I had no idea how to do it any differently. And no space to feel any of this in my body.
I think we’re called sometimes to slow down because it’s in those slow spaces, we might finally listen to ourselves and what we’ve been denying ourselves all along.
And it’s in this slowness that space emerges for us to more deeply connect with our bodies, and really feel. Who we are, what we want, the way of being we want to inhabit. And we get given an opportunity to have a felt, lived, embodied experience of what’s possible. That more is possible for us.
I don’t think that would have been possible for me to really access in that way if I’d kept plowing along the way I was.
I wonder if it resonates for you.
I’ve realized life needs space to emerge sometimes, that we need space to emerge, to be born. And when we don’t give it to ourselves, life will invariably find a way to give it to us. To shake us up and summon us to listen more deeply.
These places become doorways, or invitations, to a life much deeper within us that may be calling us home.
And steeped as we were in the busyness of our previous life, we might not otherwise have been able to see this.
I think also something that’s emerged for me is my reluctance to lean into this, to take the lead in my own life in the ways that are being asked of me.
I have my ways I want to do things. My ego thinks it knows. (Hah. I’m realizing what do I really know?) I think that a deeper knowing can start to emerge in these spaces. Or a deeper intuition.
Just starting to feel the immensity of this this weekend. I feel like Rumi’s words, “don’t go back to sleep.” It’s so easy to turn away. Because my sense is I might get to let go of a lot of what I’m holding onto that I thought was me, (is me). And that’s probably pretty accurate!
I’m curious if there’s something else wanting to be born through you. If you feel a deeper call too. And what that might be.
I’ve been finding a lot of solace and wisdom in many of James Hollis’ YT interviews and lectures, especially “the summons of the soul” btw. I love listening to other writers and speakers who can help me put language to my experience. Also David Whyte’s work. I imagine you might be familiar with one or both of them, but if not, I can highly recommend them.
I’m listening to a very recent interview DW did with Tim Ferriss, and I think on the theme of how we navigate uncertainty, you might find some solace within it too.
I have no clue how we navigate uncertainty. I think I do it by tapping into a deeper felt sense, by listening to more now to my soul, to my body, trying to allow myself to be guided. Trusting my experience. Trusting the process. Allowing the old to fall away. And giving ourselves as much grace as we can in the process.
I just read your post about leaving Scotland for Dubai last year, and felt drawn to share part of what’s emergent for me right now is returning to Scotland.
And I haven’t been back since I left in 2002! (I’m in Brighton in the UK atm.)
In some ways, in the past, stopping here has almost felt like delaying the inevitable. Now, these last few days, I feel something shifting. Timelines coming together. The past me meeting the present me. Healing across timelines. A realization that the girl who left isn’t the woman who’d be returning.
And that that counts for something.
I can’t find words for it beyond this, but in some sense it feels like having more ownership over myself and my own storyline.
I’m about to post on a few pet sitting and travel groups etc to see if I can find a pet sit or someone willing to host me in Edinburgh for a few days this month or next. (I can’t afford Airbnb prices sadly atm). It feels time to go back/go ‘home’, whilst recognizing my understanding of home is truly shifting and changing at a soul level. And that I think this is all a deeper journey that includes belonging. I have questions rather than answers, and a sense of bigger things underneath it all.
I’ve been terrified to lean into this. I think I’ve been scared I might wind up wanting to move back, or feeling I have to. Which would mean leaving here, which is the most rooted I’ve been since I left my life behind in the US five years ago.
I’m still terrified. But a sense of “I think this is where I have to go toward.” Just letting myself do this in my imagination and energetically these last few days has opened up a lot for me, where I previously felt stuck, and powerless.
I definitely don’t know the next thing, or overall direction, the ground feels like it’s shifting but also meeting my feet as I walk, and I can almost trust this. But it requires me to keep walking. To keep taking those steps. I’m probably the most scared (and possibly excited) I’ve felt in ages.
Sending much love to you, Catriona, as you walk your own way through too 💕
Hey Sandi - thank you for sharing your own journey and own working out of these complicated things. So much I could reply here.
This is unfortunately about the 10th time I am navigating a period like this, I think its the career choice which meant a lot of short term contracts, so here I am again, trying to work out what is next. That makes me feel slightly jaded about feeling there is a meaning in this process. Yes - I think it will unltimately lead to something better and more aligned, but I have tried so hard in times of transition to make them have meaning and I am a bit over it now.
I wrote a novel in a similar period a few years ago - which never found a publisher. I used another similar period to pivot in my main career which I thought would make finding permanent work easier - but here I am again.... I feel I have tried so many alternative solutions to shape alternative options which haven't panned out.Instead, each of these periods always seems to lead to another chapter rather than a more settled desitination. I guess I always knew that Dubai was temporary in some way - it is that sort of place -so at least I knew that upfront.
I think the main value of going through so many transitions is that I get better at accepting them for what they are and let them unfold, without stressing as much as I did when I was younger.
Interesting you are drawn to being back in Scotland - I went back after 15 years abroad in 2020 and stayed for 3 years. It was a process to find belonging again at home, but I was happy there and glad I returned. I now have better connections to home and own a wee flat in Edinburgh, which I am very happy about. But because of not finding work at home, I ended up moving to Dubai, which is where this recent period of unsettledness comes from. I would like to go home again - but having gone through the stress of moving - it doesn't feel the right time yet.
Good luck as you move through your own transitions - I hope that have meaning for you and lead you to a place you feel good about. Do let me know if you are around Edinburgh too!
Hi Catriona. I'm here for all of it as you slowly and carefully unpick the seams to release all the stories that are sown into your skin. It's the people who have the generosity and audacity to share the stories of their lives who create the oxygen that the rest of the world needs to breathe. I for one am glad that you moved to Nicaragua and didn't just find a job and stick with it. I'm inspired by your courage, by your seeking, and by your commitment to making sure your voice is heard. The more you commit to sharing the stories that have created you, the more the world will come to recognise their value.
Thank you for sharing this. In a world of carefully constructed perfect images, it takes guts to share the blemishes.
I’ve had periods when I’ve been ‘between’. I’ve known the feeling of dislocation when I’ve no longer had the career that I now realised defined me and i didn’t know who I was. I called that the feeling of living someone else’s life. I think I need to write about that.
Thanks for your encouragement Julie and for sharing your own experience of in-between. I know what you mean about that someone elses life feeling - it looks good on paper but it feels wrong or at odds with who you are. And I get why it is easy to get stuck in those spaces because these in between, working out times are so difficult!
Your piece is so tender, Catriona! I am sorry you're going through this; the in-between times can be harsh on our self-confidence and sense of self-worth. Remind yourself it's not a permanent situation, although it may seem like it now. The way you describe that you navigate this in-between time seems perfect. You're present, you're journaling, you're trying to enjoy or appreciate the little things. The little things are the big things, you know? And you're applying for jobs whenever something comes up. That's it, you're doing it all. But it's a tender time. ❤️
Having too many parts of yourself to easily fit into one narrative?! That's a privilege you've earned, that's rare (in a good way), that's what makes you a real, multi-faceted human. Most people have not-enough-parts to fill the narrative, you know??!
I love your take on this Monica - thank you. I never thought about having so many stories as a priviledge - as I often just find myself trying to explain myself as people get confused that I lived in this place and this one and this. But you are right it is a priviledge and I want to embrace that perspective.
And yes - its the confidence that takes a bit of a blow because ultimately these times are an inside job - you have to keep doing the inner work and its not easy to believe yourself after a while without additional outside proof.
Wow, Catriona, thank you so much for sharing this! I feel deeply seen and understood. I similarly have been feeling very stuck in an in-between time, and also really resonate with the idea of having too many parts of myself to easily sum up.
"I constantly feel like I am failing." – While perhaps this feels like a small comfort since it's not about the corporate world, I want to emphasize that the writing you are doing on here is evidence that you are certainly NOT failing; in fact, you are making a meaningful difference in the lives of others. I have been touched by your words, and I know that other readers have undoubtedly been encouraged by your vulnerability and candor. ❤️ Wishing you well during this time!
Thank you so much for your kind words. I am so glad to know they meant something to you too. And thank you for encouraging me with the stories I am telling here - its not always easy to know whether I am going in the best direction with my writing - I so appreciate your encouragement and positive feedback and to know that this helped you feel seen.
❤️❤️❤️
There is so much here, Catriona, that I relate to in so many ways. Since last June, when I got paid for my last big consultancy contract, I have been working very little, and earning a tiny amount of money. This is the first time in my life that I don't have a steady income or a scholarship to sustain me. I do have savings, but they will run out eventually, though I am good for a while.
I spend my days reading, visiting museums, going to the cinema, reading again, and writing a little bit here on Substack. Some days I feel like I deserve this time off, it is the first time ever that I am what you could call unemployed (technically I am self employed, but only work a couple hours per week and earn a fraction of what I need to cover my expenses.).
It is both liberating and I also somehow feel embarrassed about it. I have had a good career so far, have lived in many exciting places and I know I could probably get a job if I really set my mind to it and was willing to relocate. But I like my new life in Lisbon, and am not ready to give up. Should I worry or not, I don't know. I visited my mum recently who grew up in socialism and had a job from which she couldn't be sacked and now has a rather nice pension as she retired at the right time- she is a bit worried about me and even if I am not worried about myself, her worry did rub off on me a bit.
I think I am giving myself until the end of the summer and if things don't improve in my self employment plan (I don't really have a plan, maybe that is where my troubles begin), I'll probably start looking for a job.
Sorry to use this space as my personal rant place. I do love how you write, I love your honesty, I love the curiosity you have for the world around you. I hope things work out for you the way you wish them to.
Hey Liza - thanks for honestly sharing your story here too. I really enjoyed reading where you are at - and relate to so much of this. I think what I struggle with is - how to enjoy these in-between times - because there is something good in them - as you point out - you enjoy your new life. I don't enjoy mine so much - it feels like limbo - but there are moments I feel I have more peace, more times to work things out and do things I enjoy than I would working 9 - 5 and that feels healthy and needed. I think, we do need time to orientate, work out what we enjoy away from other pressures, but then once we are away from the systems of the world, it takes energy and focus to re-join those systems. Look forward to hearing what comes next for you.
Catriona, it was a delight to meet you today in Clare Egan's the Artist's Way zoom session and I love the theme of your Substack and your journey through life so far sounds full of incredible and I'd imagine sometimes challenging and certainly life-changing experiences through your chosen work. In-between times are hard to navigate, I've had those in my life, and now with a sudden low-back injury isolating me in an apartment in Barcelona just two weeks after arriving, I feel that, too.--so ready to leap into my new life here, start a new chapter even at 64, post divorce and post caregiving for my mom and believing it is never too late to begin again. So that is what I will leave you with--you are not failing, I am not failing, we are living, changing humans and as long as we pay deep attention to what is happening inside of us, honor it and bring to the world our gifts (for you and I, in our writing), we cannot possibly be failing.
Hi Amy - thank you for connecting and for this comment - I loved hearing about journey during the call with Clare and amazing to find more of it on Substack. I can relate to what you share about being ready to dive into what is next - but still stuck in limbo to properly do that. I aso agree with you on failing. Choosing new paths for ourselves as women is still not easy - we often have to fight through much judgment and conformist expectations to make our own way. For me, when I think about failing, I think it is more about the story I was told about a linear path in life and the standard expectations of what life should look like. How I feel I need to present myself on a CV to be taken seriously. I am very inspired by your new journey at 64 which gives me the feeling of having new chapters to look forward to.
Oof! Catriona, that sounds like a lot and also lovely in its moments of simplicity and slowness.
It was lovely to connect with you on Clare’s call last week btw. I’m glad you found me here!
I felt drawn to read this post, and I resonate a lot with what you share. Your writing offers distinct details that are definitely yours, yet I relate to the suddenness, the unexpected crumbling away of the ground I thought was there, the unknown, and the weird liminal of what is (that I honestly question if it’s an inbetween at all, or perhaps a deeper calling to realize I’ve been living at a speed and in a way and in structures that no longer fit who I am inside and who I am becoming.)
This has been me for the last almost 2 years, maybe three I’m honest.
I feel like I’m only now beginning to emerge. And that doesn’t look like what I imagined. Indeed, the surface life has crumbled, I remain holding to certain things I’ve felt the call this last week to let go of and surrender to, the new that is wanting to come through. The unimagined life.
Perhaps you are not meant to return to those old ways, to those old structures?
I think I’ve found in life that when I’m not listening to something deeper within me, life shows up and pulls the rug out from under me. I lose a job, or more recently, I burn out and have mental health/physical health crisis, and a slow realization none of what I’m living truly aligns with my deeper values or who I want to be and the way of life I want to live in the world.
It’s just that I couldn’t see this, or didn’t want to, because from living in that place, everyday, I had no idea how to do it any differently. And no space to feel any of this in my body.
I think we’re called sometimes to slow down because it’s in those slow spaces, we might finally listen to ourselves and what we’ve been denying ourselves all along.
And it’s in this slowness that space emerges for us to more deeply connect with our bodies, and really feel. Who we are, what we want, the way of being we want to inhabit. And we get given an opportunity to have a felt, lived, embodied experience of what’s possible. That more is possible for us.
I don’t think that would have been possible for me to really access in that way if I’d kept plowing along the way I was.
I wonder if it resonates for you.
I’ve realized life needs space to emerge sometimes, that we need space to emerge, to be born. And when we don’t give it to ourselves, life will invariably find a way to give it to us. To shake us up and summon us to listen more deeply.
These places become doorways, or invitations, to a life much deeper within us that may be calling us home.
And steeped as we were in the busyness of our previous life, we might not otherwise have been able to see this.
I think also something that’s emerged for me is my reluctance to lean into this, to take the lead in my own life in the ways that are being asked of me.
I have my ways I want to do things. My ego thinks it knows. (Hah. I’m realizing what do I really know?) I think that a deeper knowing can start to emerge in these spaces. Or a deeper intuition.
Just starting to feel the immensity of this this weekend. I feel like Rumi’s words, “don’t go back to sleep.” It’s so easy to turn away. Because my sense is I might get to let go of a lot of what I’m holding onto that I thought was me, (is me). And that’s probably pretty accurate!
I’m curious if there’s something else wanting to be born through you. If you feel a deeper call too. And what that might be.
I’ve been finding a lot of solace and wisdom in many of James Hollis’ YT interviews and lectures, especially “the summons of the soul” btw. I love listening to other writers and speakers who can help me put language to my experience. Also David Whyte’s work. I imagine you might be familiar with one or both of them, but if not, I can highly recommend them.
I’m listening to a very recent interview DW did with Tim Ferriss, and I think on the theme of how we navigate uncertainty, you might find some solace within it too.
I have no clue how we navigate uncertainty. I think I do it by tapping into a deeper felt sense, by listening to more now to my soul, to my body, trying to allow myself to be guided. Trusting my experience. Trusting the process. Allowing the old to fall away. And giving ourselves as much grace as we can in the process.
I just read your post about leaving Scotland for Dubai last year, and felt drawn to share part of what’s emergent for me right now is returning to Scotland.
And I haven’t been back since I left in 2002! (I’m in Brighton in the UK atm.)
In some ways, in the past, stopping here has almost felt like delaying the inevitable. Now, these last few days, I feel something shifting. Timelines coming together. The past me meeting the present me. Healing across timelines. A realization that the girl who left isn’t the woman who’d be returning.
And that that counts for something.
I can’t find words for it beyond this, but in some sense it feels like having more ownership over myself and my own storyline.
I’m about to post on a few pet sitting and travel groups etc to see if I can find a pet sit or someone willing to host me in Edinburgh for a few days this month or next. (I can’t afford Airbnb prices sadly atm). It feels time to go back/go ‘home’, whilst recognizing my understanding of home is truly shifting and changing at a soul level. And that I think this is all a deeper journey that includes belonging. I have questions rather than answers, and a sense of bigger things underneath it all.
I’ve been terrified to lean into this. I think I’ve been scared I might wind up wanting to move back, or feeling I have to. Which would mean leaving here, which is the most rooted I’ve been since I left my life behind in the US five years ago.
I’m still terrified. But a sense of “I think this is where I have to go toward.” Just letting myself do this in my imagination and energetically these last few days has opened up a lot for me, where I previously felt stuck, and powerless.
I definitely don’t know the next thing, or overall direction, the ground feels like it’s shifting but also meeting my feet as I walk, and I can almost trust this. But it requires me to keep walking. To keep taking those steps. I’m probably the most scared (and possibly excited) I’ve felt in ages.
Sending much love to you, Catriona, as you walk your own way through too 💕
Hey Sandi - thank you for sharing your own journey and own working out of these complicated things. So much I could reply here.
This is unfortunately about the 10th time I am navigating a period like this, I think its the career choice which meant a lot of short term contracts, so here I am again, trying to work out what is next. That makes me feel slightly jaded about feeling there is a meaning in this process. Yes - I think it will unltimately lead to something better and more aligned, but I have tried so hard in times of transition to make them have meaning and I am a bit over it now.
I wrote a novel in a similar period a few years ago - which never found a publisher. I used another similar period to pivot in my main career which I thought would make finding permanent work easier - but here I am again.... I feel I have tried so many alternative solutions to shape alternative options which haven't panned out.Instead, each of these periods always seems to lead to another chapter rather than a more settled desitination. I guess I always knew that Dubai was temporary in some way - it is that sort of place -so at least I knew that upfront.
I think the main value of going through so many transitions is that I get better at accepting them for what they are and let them unfold, without stressing as much as I did when I was younger.
Interesting you are drawn to being back in Scotland - I went back after 15 years abroad in 2020 and stayed for 3 years. It was a process to find belonging again at home, but I was happy there and glad I returned. I now have better connections to home and own a wee flat in Edinburgh, which I am very happy about. But because of not finding work at home, I ended up moving to Dubai, which is where this recent period of unsettledness comes from. I would like to go home again - but having gone through the stress of moving - it doesn't feel the right time yet.
Good luck as you move through your own transitions - I hope that have meaning for you and lead you to a place you feel good about. Do let me know if you are around Edinburgh too!
Hi Catriona. I'm here for all of it as you slowly and carefully unpick the seams to release all the stories that are sown into your skin. It's the people who have the generosity and audacity to share the stories of their lives who create the oxygen that the rest of the world needs to breathe. I for one am glad that you moved to Nicaragua and didn't just find a job and stick with it. I'm inspired by your courage, by your seeking, and by your commitment to making sure your voice is heard. The more you commit to sharing the stories that have created you, the more the world will come to recognise their value.
This is beautiful Michelle. Thank you for this encouragement. I love the invitation to commit and lean into this storytelling more. Thank you
Thank you for sharing this. In a world of carefully constructed perfect images, it takes guts to share the blemishes.
I’ve had periods when I’ve been ‘between’. I’ve known the feeling of dislocation when I’ve no longer had the career that I now realised defined me and i didn’t know who I was. I called that the feeling of living someone else’s life. I think I need to write about that.
Thanks for your encouragement Julie and for sharing your own experience of in-between. I know what you mean about that someone elses life feeling - it looks good on paper but it feels wrong or at odds with who you are. And I get why it is easy to get stuck in those spaces because these in between, working out times are so difficult!
Your piece is so tender, Catriona! I am sorry you're going through this; the in-between times can be harsh on our self-confidence and sense of self-worth. Remind yourself it's not a permanent situation, although it may seem like it now. The way you describe that you navigate this in-between time seems perfect. You're present, you're journaling, you're trying to enjoy or appreciate the little things. The little things are the big things, you know? And you're applying for jobs whenever something comes up. That's it, you're doing it all. But it's a tender time. ❤️
Having too many parts of yourself to easily fit into one narrative?! That's a privilege you've earned, that's rare (in a good way), that's what makes you a real, multi-faceted human. Most people have not-enough-parts to fill the narrative, you know??!
Sending you hugs! 🤗
I love your take on this Monica - thank you. I never thought about having so many stories as a priviledge - as I often just find myself trying to explain myself as people get confused that I lived in this place and this one and this. But you are right it is a priviledge and I want to embrace that perspective.
And yes - its the confidence that takes a bit of a blow because ultimately these times are an inside job - you have to keep doing the inner work and its not easy to believe yourself after a while without additional outside proof.
Thank you!
You got this! Be kind to yourself; so many people are already inspired by your journey.