Dark night of the soul shit.

If you follow me on social media, you’ve likely seen my most recent journey of sorting out some ongoing health issues. Amidst that, I’ve been in the final phase of a huge career transition and a lot of other life changes. Since I moved out of the city I’ve essentially been on a big ass life transformation journey and it feels like it’s all finally culminating in a huge final shift. 

It’s kind of weird because for a lot of my life I was always seeking some grand transformation that seemed just out of reach. There was always this laundry list of things I wanted to change and while it always seemed external, I realize now the real change I was seeking was internal. There was so much jumbled in me that I just couldn’t make sense of or peace with and over the last few years I’ve been slowly chipping away at the mess and suddenly it doesn’t seem so jumbled anymore.

This health journey has been the catalyst that allowed me to really see the extent of the journey I’ve been on. At some point I used the words “release, rebuild and rejoice” to explain the process I’m going through to get my physical health in order. Those words just kept replaying in my head and I realized there were some other fun R words I could use to really explain and lean into the various phases of this full life transformation: Release, Reset, Rest, Rebuild, Rejoice. 

I have a bit of a timeline with my health journey and when I’m transitioning to the next phase so I figured why not build myself out a template for my overall path right now. The timing aligns perfect with my career changes, as well as some big life things I’m prepping for next year. I like goals but with a lot of flexibility. Like I know the general thing I’m reaching for but I like the freedom in how I will get there and the openness to what it might actually look like in the end. 

So I’m setting myself up with a template of sorts, some milestone makers and a timeline to aim for with these different phases with the goal of rejoicing these huge shifts at the retreat I’m co-hosting the end of March. I want to hold myself accountable for staying present and documenting this journey so I’ll be using this blog to do a weekly update. I’m sharing for me, because writing is how I process a lot but I also know in sharing our stories we can often help others so if people read this and get something out of it, cool. If not, I know it will be fun for me to go back and see the progress I’ve made. 

This is the general timeline I’m working off of:

Dec-January: Release

Early February: Reset

Late Feb: Rest

March: Rebuild

Retreat: Rejoice

Next week I will go in depth about what release means for me right now. The idea of the phases and timeline is to take the burden of “what’s next” off my plate. My body is releasing a lot right now and I need to just sit with it without worrying about trying to rebuild muscle or find a new exercise/sustainable eating routine. I’m following a protocol to release all the gunk and we’ll go from there. Same with career changes. Right now I’m simply adjusting my day to day and projects to help lay the foundation for the rebuild but without the pressure of having to get all of this new stuff off the ground. I’m letting go of old patterns and habits and just playing with new options. 

The reset will be a short phase to give myself room to ground into this new normal and curate what things will look like moving forward. 

Rest is exactly what it sounds like. Stepping out of all of it and giving myself intentional down time/alone time and making sure I’m physically, spiritually and emotionally ready to really embrace this next chapter. 

Rebuild - this phase will end up being way more than a month but my thoughts are spending some very intentional time finding my new flow, getting projects off ground and really setting my foundation for this new chapter. 

And rejoice, is just that. I will be in an amazing location with new and old friends and it feels like the perfect time and place for some intentional celebration of how far I’ve come and what the future holds. 

I’m leaving myself plenty of space and grace and zero expectations for how all of this plays out but having some structure is essentially giving myself a bit of a swift kick in the ass. I’ve been lingering in the inbetween for too long, knowing what I need to do but not doing it. Holding on to things I need to let go of and day dreaming of when the various parts of who I am and the life I live are in full alignment. I know damn well the only way that day is gonna come is if I actually start doing something. 

This is not some new year, new me bullshit. This is the culmination of 5-6 years of some dark night of the soul shit. True transformation takes time, intention, grit, and a deep belief that you are meant for so much more.

Next week I’ll dig into the Release phase of all of this so if you want to stay up to date, just pop your email in and you’ll get an alert every time I post. I also plan to do a monthly newsletter so you’ll see about 5 emails a month from me if you join the list. 

“I’m going on an adventure!”

JOIN ME TO REJOICE ON THE RETREAT!