I had a plan: become a Dad and start a new business.
I’d enter this new chapter of my life, start afresh. A new role for me as a parent. A new role for me in a new mission.
Last year I’d been ending different work projects. Stepping off the board of Sanctus, ending my work on MSc Entrepreneurship with Staffs Uni.
I’d been preparing myself for another adventure. The kind that comes about only when you step into the unknown.
Having a baby in the midst of doing that was feeling stressful, but it was giving me purpose, direction and certainty within a professional time of flux.
Now, I’m in that time of flux without the anchor of becoming a parent. I’m in the white space of uncertainty and opportunity, whilst grieving too. Rubble everywhere.
I’ve always ran my work life in cycles. Birth, death, starting, ending.
I’ve gone all in on missions and built business, brands and communities that serve them.
In the last 10 years I’ve done that in mental health and I’ve done that in Stoke/Staffs regeneration.
Every time, I find stepping into the unknown before a new adventure really hard. I avoid it because the uncertainty terrifies me.
I’m here again, and I’m scared.
That fear manifests in pound signs in my head, money becomes a representation of all that could go wrong.
I’m finding this void harder to be in, it feels bleaker and blacker than ever. I can’t see anything.
When I left Sanctus initially and I stepped tentatively into the unknown, I was open, curious and life felt bright with opportunities.
This time, as I enter into the corridor of “what’s next” the world feels dark and dangerous.
I never used to think bad things might happen to me, now they have and I’m finding it harder to be hopeful or optimistic.
Every day I wake up and walk outside, noticing the tumble dryer of thoughts in my head. Staring at the grass sprinkled with frosty stars. Gazing at the wisdom of the trees.
Every day I write something, I reach out to someone, I connect, I explore, create or play.
Every day I show up and face the blank canvas of my life.
Deep in the well of my soul, I love this practice. I know in my bones engaging with the world in this way is what I’m meant to do. To work in an unexplainable way, in the edges, in the cracks. In this place where people say “what is it you do again?”
Doing this work has never been this hard though, the unknown has never looked darker and the landscape never more bleak.
I’m having to call on a deep trust in life, the universe, or whatever, that “it’ll all be ok” - I’ll find my next adventure and it’ll all work out.
Me and life have some trust issues to work through at the moment. Life was going to give me a baby and life took that away. Life didn’t do what they were supposed to. I thought I held up my side of the bargain.
I’m calling on a trust that goes beyond the pain I’m currently experiencing, trust that in some warped way this path is meant for me. That there’s some rightness in all this. I don’t see how yet but if there’s any flicker of light in the darkness - that’s the one I’m fumbling for.
I’ll keep showing up every day, and even though I’m hurt, trust that the sun will come up for me.
I hear you 🤗 we are just going through some wintering and it feels like it will never end. But we know that the sun will come out inevitably. It’s just how things work in life. At least that’s what I keep telling myself.
The power of positive thinking will keep you trying. That's good! But (from my point of view only) as a 70 yo woman who was baptized in the Catholic church this week, I'm amazed at the things that have been occurring for my husband and myself that can only be explained by trusting and having faith that God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are working in our lives. This is my testimony...NOT A SALES PITCH! I wish you success; but I only pray for someone who asks me to do so. It's presumptive of me to do so without your consent.