Lately, I've been diving deep into old journals, driven by curiosity about the seeds of wisdom I have planted and forgotten. Among treasures of past ideas and insights that quietly guided me in creating the life I'm living now, I found this question:

What would it be like to live your truth?

Seeds of Truth

At the time I wrote it in my journal, I had not written any answers, but I'm certain that somewhere deep down they were there. Simply asking the question had planted a seed that began to shape my path from that point forward.

Finding this journal entry after so many years was a bit surreal. I remember that the question came from an article about a woman who was living her life in a way that she described as completely true to herself. I can't recall where I read it or why she was featured, but I remember the photographs: she looked joyful and at ease. I longed to feel both those things.

The idea of "living my truth" stuck deep within me. Honoring my authentic self through how I lived my life was both deeply appealing and completely audacious.

A few years later, I encountered this concept again in Martha Beck's "The Way of Integrity." Martha describes her experiences after committing to tell only the truth for a year as her New Year's resolution, and how this unraveled a tangle of lies and untruths that had shaped her life.

This time when I met the idea of living my truth, those earlier seeds had taken root. I had much clearer ideas about what it would look like and how it might feel, both to unravel parts of my life and to embody what was actually true for me.

Beck's books were so validating of my own experiences that when I decided to pivot into coaching—a big step in honoring my own truth—Martha's Wayfinder training was the clear path. While learning tools to support others in connecting with their truth, I became clearer about my own. Little by little, I continued to make choices to honor and embody it.

The Path to Growth

Whether you seek big changes or tiny shifts, the process remains largely the same: know how you wish to feel, plant seeds for where you'd like to go, and take one tiny step at a time in that direction. You set the pace, though sometimes life moves differently. When the seeds you've planted are nurtured by your attention and intention, the path unfolds and the garden grows, often in unexpectedly beautiful ways.

Stepping into the Garden of Your Life

We're all gardeners of our own lives, whether we recognize it or not. Maybe you've already cultivated something authentic and lovely, maybe you're feeling lost in the weeds, or somewhere in between.

Wherever you are, take a moment to imagine yourself in the garden that is your life. Notice what surrounds you and how much of your time, attention, and energy are required to maintain it.

What have you been cultivating—either intentionally or subconsciously?

Is what you're growing a reflection of your authentic desires or someone else's vision?

Are you choosing seeds to plant out of fear and scarcity or from clarity and intention?

If there was one thing you could plant today or one thing you could remove completely, what would it be?

Surrounded by your garden in your mind's eye, notice what it feels like to be there.

What, if anything, do you desire to change or to create?

Now, take one teeny tiny step in honoring that desire today.

Sometimes the most profound transformations begin with the simplest questions. The seed you choose to plant today might become the tree that shelters you tomorrow.

I'd love to hear what these questions spark for you. Share your thoughts below or message me directly.

To Have

Sometimes, if we're fortunate enough to pay attention, we stumble upon a truth that sets us free and redirects us back onto our own path. For me, this happened with something I'd written in my journal a few years ago.

I remember exactly where I was sitting as I let words flow onto the page. At that time in my life, I was desperately searching for clarity. I often wrote many pages trying to unpack my thoughts and fears, hoping that somewhere in all those words I'd find directions for what I needed to do to feel the way I longed to feel.

The truth is that I already knew what I needed to do, I just wasn't ready to admit it to myself. That June morning, much to my horror, the truth came quickly and bluntly onto the page:

"It's scary to want what I want because it means I might have to let go of what I have."

Yikes. That truth stopped me dead in my tracks, both in my writing and in my life. I wrote nothing else that day and for nearly a month after. I remember that idea tumbling around in my mind for weeks as I went about my daily life.

To Hold

For most of my life, I found myself caught between two paths: one where culture told me to go and one my heart longed to follow. For years, I did all the "right" things and checked all the "right" boxes. On the outside, I looked successful in many ways, but inside I felt completely stuck and deeply exhausted. I longed for a life rich with meaning, authentic connection, and joy.

At the time of that journal entry, I was in the final stretch of my Wayfinder Life Coach Training, juggling my daughter's busy summer schedule, logging my required coaching hours, and trying to figure out how to launch a business—all while my marriage was quite literally sucking the life out of me.

I was living in true survival mode, though I didn't recognize it then. I just felt like I was failing miserably at everything. I remember describing my role in my family to my therapist as "holding up walls." By holding up those figurative walls, I thought I was sparing everyone else from the arduous task of keeping our life together and protecting us all from the threat of them crashing down.

Those walls were the unequal share of mental load and household labor, my attempts to fix and conceal the toxic stress in my marriage, and the lies I was telling myself to stay put because I didn't trust myself enough to do what I knew I needed to do. I was trying to make everything okay for everyone else while unwilling to tell myself the hard truth: everything was not okay, and I most definitely was not okay.

Let it All Go

Fast forward almost two years, and the landscape of my life looks nothing like the path I'd been trying so hard to maintain. One of my favorite quotes from Martha Beck is "Being created always feels like being destroyed." I have felt quite literally destroyed so many times over the past two years, and yet here I am—more whole and more connected to my authentic self than ever before.

All those walls have come crashing down. Out of the rubble of my life that was once so pretty on the outside has sprung a life that is beautiful at the core. Is it all rainbows and fair weather days? Absolutely not. But it is real and authentic and expansive. Filled with worthy challenges and also with freedom, joy, and possibility.

A big part of my journey has been to free myself from the drama and heal from the trauma that were the cornerstones of the life I'd been trying to uphold. In the process, I am learning to let go of trying to control what happens in my life and instead accept reality as it is and take responsibility for how I choose to experience it all. This has been the single most transformative shift in my life.

While each of us is navigating our own unique journey, I’ve found that this path through resistance, acceptance, destruction, and rebirth is a cycle told in many different ways throughout human history.

No amount of holding up walls will spare us from the suffering that comes when we deny our own truth and force ourselves to maintain a path that's not ours to walk. We're all taught from an early age what success looks like and that to be "good" and "polite" means ensuring other people's comfort, often at the expense of our own. We do this in small and sometimes profound ways throughout our lives—saying yes when we mean no, telling ourselves we're okay when we're not. We stay in jobs or relationships because we don't want to let others down or be perceived in a negative light, even when they are draining the light out of us.

Sometimes we stumble upon a truth that sets us free and redirects us back onto our own path. Sometimes we make a conscious choice to seek the truth because we can no longer deny that while our life looks good, it most certainly doesn't feel good. Other times, life stops us in our tracks, leaves us feeling completely destroyed, and we have no choice but accept the truth and find a new way forward.

However we arrive at this crossroads, once there, we have the opportunity to choose how to proceed and how we experience the journey. When we stop holding up the figurative walls that drain our energy and disconnect us from our authentic self, we clear the way for innate clarity and inner guidance to emerge. When we let go of what's causing our emotional suffering, we become more whole and more connected to our authentic self than ever before. From this place, we can reclaim creative control of our experience and envision a path forward creating a life well-lived, on our own terms.

As a coach, I have the unique privilege of walking alongside clients as they traverse their own journeys back to Self. I witness them admit truths and create shifts in their lives—both big and small—in honor of their own needs and desires. In the weeks ahead, I'll be sharing more about my coaching approach and offering insights and practices for reconnecting with your authentic self.

What's one small thing you can let go of today? What's one small shift you can create in honor of your own needs and desires? If nothing comes to mind, what thought might be getting in your way? I'd love to hear your reflections in the comments, or simply share what resonated with you.