Juice reader,
A few months ago, I decided to work at a flower shop.
A week and a half later, I quit.
Over the course of the past few years I found myself quietly sitting in the in between of life, contemplating my life path and purpose â a feeling that is somehow both like trudging through mud and floating through the wind. Dense and airy. To bring these two opposing forces into some sort of agreement, I walked. One foot in front of the other. Foot to pavement, gravel, sand, grass, dirtâŠfoot to the sturdiness of being held up by something other than my airy confusion and murky heaviness.
I walked. A lot.
Walking has become a grounding spiritual devotion and practice â bringing clarity when asking to receive higher guidance and peace with uncertainty when clarity has yet to arise. In the in between, I was walking with no intention in mindâŠother than to walk. Sometimes that felt like walking sideways, backwards, shuffling, stumbling, and running in circles. It never felt like a straight lineâŠever. This reminds of the time I got lost in Central Park after leaving the MET in my first few years living in New York City. Too stubborn to pull up directions on a map, I walked with such determined conviction for over an hour, confident I was reaching the opposite side of the park, only to wind up directly in front of those famous steps. My body flushed red with embarrassment at the thought of Blair Waldorf snickering at my foolishness â the queen of the stairs observing her dominion and myself perfectly playing the role of the bumbling jester.
A lot of my walks felt like this. Circling. Swirling. Arriving back to the starting point. Eventually, I noticed I wasnât walking for the purpose of one sole intentionâŠrather, many. I was walking through the desolate terrain of the entrepreneurshipsâ wild wild west, walking away from the chase and traditional idea of success and walking towards what brings pleasure and immense happiness into my life.
On my walks, I questioned my professional life most often. You donât question aspects of your life when they are in flow â when they are working. As you may have gathered, this area of my life was not working and I dramatically burnt it all down. The failures, pressure, confusion, doubt and insert any other adjective that comes with burning down a piece of your life is enough to drive you mad. Itâs also enough to bring you straight into the depth of what lies beneath the surface. Underneath the rubble, there were pieces and parts of myself never discovered. An undiscovered mess. A mess of entanglement. Certain parts of myself connected to charred remains. Some parts untouched and waiting to be found. My walks allowed me to find them. I walked with a metaphysical hazmat suit, clearing the mess with each foot forward.
The entangled web of finances, livelihood, career, worthiness, and happiness took up all the space. I thought (more than once) âWhat would I do if this all goes to shit?â If none of this (meaning, the vision for my future and all that I had aspired to create) works outâŠwhat would I do?â âWhat do I see myself doing other than ⊠the creation of LibertĂ© or anything Iâve done in the past? This thought twisted and turned in my psyche until it became a visceral reality. No longer in the wild wild west of entrepreneurship but the fields of small-town farmland, I surrendered to the standoff. Shoot me down, bang bangâŠit was time to try something new.
Flowers. Coffee. Books.
A short list of 3 things I loved. A short list of 3 different approaches of where I considered working next, all of which I would be happy with and none of which I had ever done before. They also did not match the typical grandiose dreams of my past, rather served the simplicity I craved to feel in the present. Brewing coffee with the faint smell of baked goods early in the wee hours of the morning? Yum. Surrounded by rows of books in a small library? Intellectual heaven. Making floral arrangements with beautiful fleurs? Creative dream.
I gave myself one day to look.
By the end of the day I was hired at a local flower shop. Eeeee!
I romanticized in my mind how sweet it would be to work inside of a small-town floral shop. Watering plants, cutting stems, arranging fresh flowers into the most beautiful vases. Surrounded by beauty. Quite literally smelling the roses. If you listened to this podcast, you know how that turned out. My season of becoming a flower lady was short and sweet (soured by a few bad apples within the business). The watershed moment in which I let is nothing to write home about â bad apples being bad apples and me knowing my sweetness doesnât deserve to be soured. I walked away with the realization that 1. I no longer have a threshold for any person, place, or thing that doesnât bring joy and 2. Entrepreneurship is the intended path forward for me. Itâs in my nature and I would be foolish to go against nature, for itâs a force that cannot be controlled. Iâll spare you what I found myself muttering under my breath in experiencing this realization (it sounded a lot like iyay ouldcay oday ityay etterbay and iâmyay urroundedsay ybay idiotsyay) Iâd like to focus more on the fact I could not stand the fact I was nursing some elseâs vision and not my own. Standing inside the shopâs attached nursery while watering mums, tears welled into my eyes at the quiet truth of âthis isnât for you.â I really did want to enjoy the simplicity of arranging flowers and life said... âthink againâ
I tried it on and took it off.
So, I am nursing my creative life and Liberte.
Again.
Truth slips in so quietly. Is there something quieter than a whisper? That how it can feel at first â so faint you can barely hear it. All of a sudden truth becomes a booming roar if unnoticed after too long. Quiet truths will guide you (if you listen) and quietly rebelling against our unnatural world to follow your natural rhythm and path will break you free. Your rhythm is your rhythm. Your truth is your truth. The world will do itâs best to steer you from finding the truth and feeling your rhythm. Donât give into its pressure. Give into your persistence for quietly rebelling.
If you find yourself floating or trudging in the in between, perhaps these words will ground you. You have a spirit inside of you â you are not a paper bag floating in the wind. Some may call it a purpose but I will call it a divine spark. There is a path that is designed specifically for that spark to stay lit and burn brightlyâŠspilling out from every pore of your body. Radiating because joy is too big to be contained. Radiating because your mission is too big to be contained. The joy of what you were designed to do, even if youâve walked through many fires to know what itâs like in feeling pleasure from the flames. If you choose to walk down this path, I must not fool you. Itâs dark. Not well-lit at all. You will not be able to see the step ahead of you. However, there is no need to lose hope. That spark will light the wayâŠitâs stronger and brighter than any other. Let it. Let it shine brightly. Sometimes your divine spark will become extinguished â thatâs okay. Thatâs your time to rest. Rest until itâs reignited and you can carry on safely. If youâre anything like me and become antsy while the light it still out, find comfort in trying something new on. You can always take it off.
Try it on. Take it off. Keep it on. Itâs all just play, itâs all impermanent.
Layer on, two layers offâŠsooner than later you will be led home.
Lastly, if you have no idea what to do next â the layers are frumpy and ill-fitting and the light keeps flickering on and off, just walk. There you will find the quiet rebellion of your truth. Listen to it and the divine spark becomes lit once again.
With love,
M
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