Your journey won't look like everyone else's—and that's a good thing.

Last Thursday and Friday, I attended an online coaching convention. It was two eight-hour days of presentations and dance breaks, of inspiration and information. It was nurturing and challenging, and motivational as all get out.

One of the presenters, Robert Hartwell (who is a Broadway star and the executive producer and star of the upcoming TV show, “Taking Back the House”, co-produced by Oprah Winfrey network and HGTV), focused on how things changed suddenly and dramatically for him at the start of this year. Robert had been running a business called The Broadway Collective before and during the pandemic. With all the shifts, changes, and challenges due to COVID last year, that business took a huge hit.

Robert (now in his late 30s) was good enough to share some of his numbers with us, so that we could understand how bad things got. But he also “took us to church” by sharing that when he saw the actual numbers in January of this year, he realized he had to let that dream go. It was a dream he started when he was only 7 years old, and had nurtured and grown ever since.

Robert realized it was time for a NEW dream. He is letting go of that past one, even though it was his lifetime dream. Instead, he is shifting to a new business, using his talents as a speaker and presenter to start a new venture, Strength on Stages.

This isn’t an ad for his business or his upcoming TV show, by the way, though I’m happy to say nice things about him. Instead, I want to talk about life journeys, and how they all look a bit different, and how sometimes, we need to change course, even when we’ve invested a lot of time and effort into who and what we are now.

Your journey won’t look like everyone else’s.

…and that’s a good thing.

Having your own journey is a superpower, not something you settle for.

When we think of people we admire—whether it’s Robert Hartwell (above) or Oprah Winfrey or Glennon Doyle or Adele or anyone else—one of the things we often admire is their journey, not just their skill or talent.

The most interesting people often have unusual journeys to get where they are. Parts of their lives are stunningly messy, sometimes making observers uncomfortable. Their messes and mess-ups can be so visible, that anyone with a modicum of empathy reacts by cringing at times.

Our lives—our journeys—are no less messy and uncomfortable than those of the people we admire.

Some people in this world may live a painless, easy life, but I am certain (a) it’s not me and (b) it’s nobody I personally know.

My sweet husband, Morris, is (mostly) living the life of his dreams these days: he teaches tai chi and qigong, which he loves; he has a wife and cat and home that he adores (he’d tell you the same, btw—he reads these posts before they go public, and would have made me change this if I was mistaken); he really likes his car, and he loves traveling and vacationing. But his path to get here includes all sorts of disruptions and detours.

Morris didn’t even discover tai chi (his true life’s purpose) until he was 46 years old. Even then, he found it because of massive speed bump in the form of a heart attack. Once he was recovered enough to resume exercise, his kung fu teacher refused to teach him kung fu for a while, instead introducing him to tai chi. It would take another decade or more before he taught his first class, and longer than that until he was retired from his day jobs and could dedicate himself to teaching tai chi and qigong the way he wanted to.

Similarly, my life has taken a circuitous route to get me where I am now—and I look forward to winding my way into the future. Looking only at my career path, I graduated college with a degree in music and a minor in English literature. My first job out of college was as an assistant manager at Toys R Us. I then worked for four years as an inventory control coordinator at a steel company before leaving the business world for law school.

I worked full-time (and overtime) as a commercial litigator up until my rheumatoid arthritis sidelined me from full-time work in 2002. Being physically disabled didn’t cause me to want to stop doing things in this world, so I began writing. I wrote for children: I’ve been published in Highlights Magazine, in more than an handful of anthologies, and in a picture book entitled At the Boardwalk. I contributed poems to adult journals and anthologies, and even won two national poetry awards from Writer’s Digest.

Along the way, I began to learn art. I took an online class with Val Webb, whom I highly recommend, to draw birds in colored pencil. And several courses (online and in person) with the magnificent Tracy Verdugo, starting with Paint Mojo. I developed a small art business and began selling paintings and greeting cards online and elsewhere. I got additional coaching from arts advisors and money mindset people and other sorts of coaches, slowly dropping some of the self-imposed baggage I’d taken on.

I became a different person along the way, a freer person: one with fewer restrictions and limits, despite a limited income and the limitations of (now) two disabilities (RA and fibromyalgia). I am now a happier person, with a home, husband, and cat that I adore, and two grown daughters who are finding their own paths as they moved toward the age of 30. (How is that even possible?)

My purpose at this point in time is to help other women to find their way back to themselves. To help them ditch all the shit that they carry that doesn’t light them up, and help them to reclaim their inner shine. In 2019, I started Actually-I-Can, Inc to be my hub: the place where I would offer whatever I can to help other women find their way forward.

I became a life coach, a business consultant, an energy worker, a reiki practitioner, an aficionado of gemstones and elemental magic. I expanded my practice of feng shui (now 25 years strong) and my reading of tarot cards (at least the past 35 years).

To get where I now am, I embraced change, and then changed again, taking small, brave steps toward a freer future for myself and my family. Change has been transformative, and is ongoing.

My journey, marked by all those changes, has also been inherently uncomfortable because it has been unpredictable. I’ve been navigating parts of it without being able to see past the horizon, and of course, when you forge your own path, there’s no map.

Having your own journey is a superpower, not something you settle for. It’s inherently uncomfortable because it’s unpredictable, and because there’s no map.

On days when your path feels hard and things feel uncomfortable or difficult, and you start to think it means there’s something wrong with you, I want you to remember that your journey won’t look like everyone else’s—and that’s a good thing. It means you are following your own calling, and choosing yourself and your dreams.

It feels uncomfortable because it is singularly yours. No one else has walked this precise path before. No one else has encountered the same obstacles in the same way. No one else has dreamed your dreams, and been willing to seek ways to make them real.

And, if you are at a crossroads right now, or feeling as if you might have accidentally got yourself stuck in a box canyon (where all you see in front of you is a solid stone wall), I have something that might help.

It’s happening online this Sunday, May 1st, from 1-4p.m. via Zoom, and it is the Beltane session of Dream It, Do It, my workshop to help you unlock or uncover your dreams for the next 2-5 years, first visualizing what your life will look like, then helping you map out a way to make that dream real.

Maybe there is a book you want to write, or a course you want to take. Maybe you want to change careers, or are thinking it might be time to retire. Maybe you want to change a current relationship in some way (drop it, improve it, establish boundaries) or are looking to find something new (a new friend group, a partner). Maybe you want to buy or sell real estate, move to a bigger or smaller home, or upgrade your current place with new or different decor.

Maybe you don’t know what your exact dream is right now. You just know that whatever is happening in your life right now isn’t it.

If you are sitting in that canyon or at the crossroads, or you are in an emotional and mental place of dissatisfaction where you know that something has to change, even if you aren’t yet certain what it is, then Dream It, Do It is for you. Three hours in community, a guided visualization followed by guided journaling to capture your vision so you can revisit whenever you like. Then make a start on an energized vision board using my layering process to amp up the energy of your board with a mix of energy techniques. And finally, map out the first few steps of your path toward that future.

Sound good? I’ve got one thing that might make it sound even better. Instead of the usual $149 price, I am gifting you a $30 discount when you use the code BELTANE at checkout. I’d love for you to join me.