The return journey home on the hero’s journey is strange.
So much of what used to work to fuel your life just doesn’t anymore.
The return journey calls you to step across a threshold of identity where you drop much of who you thought you were to become the person you’re called to be…
A more honest, true, version of yourself, no longer confined by your old conditioning.
And one of our deepest fears when we really commit to this kind of radical transformation is that we’ll be alone…

Over the holidays one of our community members reached out to wish me a Happy New Year (Happy New Year, BTW!).
He shared that he recently moved back to Saigon, Vietnam, after many years in the west, and named his place “The House of Belonging & Liberation.” He’s building it as a hub for colleagues and peers in Vietnam who need connection and community to create and collaborate.

I hope you’ve had a beautiful holiday season, and welcome to 2024!
For so many, I know that 2023 was tough. Most of us can be too damn hard on ourselves, so whether or not you feel accomplished about this past year, you got here. Congratulations.
And now onto 2024!
Here’s what’s on my mind and in my heart for this coming year…

Whether you celebrated or are celebrating Hanukkah, the Solstice, Christmas, or Kwanza, I send you blessings of connection, joy, and hope this season.
Earlier this week, my family went to the Descanso Gardens “Enchanted Forest” – a beautiful arboretum decorated with different light exhibits throughout (pic below). One of the things I love most about this season (besides the family and food) is the lights – they’re so enchanting!

If you have a new calling – a big calling…
Something that feels like your life’s calling…
Chances are, you’re someplace on the return journey home in the hero’s journey.
The old doesn’t have much energy anymore (which could be your old business, old products, old clients, old ways of working, etc.).
And that new vision and calling is vibrant, exciting, and potent (well, that, and unfamiliar, disorienting, confusing, risky, etc.).

As courageous messengers, part of our soul’s yearning is to be explorers, so that we discover new solutions that our market and this world is hungry for.
As part of that call, we’re regularly pulled to explore different fields of study, get trained in seemingly disparate modalities, visit interesting places… each informing us and adding different colors to the palate with which we can create.

Last week I shared about the return journey home on the hero’s journey, and how so many of us struggle with the “refusal of the return.”

Perhaps making the return journey home is something you do more for yourself than anyone else.

It’s when you have the elixir from ‘facing the dragon’ (facing your deepest wounds) on your journey…

And the elixir feels so good that you just want to bathe in it and hang out with other elixir-holders!

Just like there’s a deeper cause to the symptom, there’s a deeper mission hidden under the solutions you provide.

Over the last couple of years I have slowly but surely dismantled the old business model I had, and I’ve been in the process of recreating.

When I’m in a recreation process, I tend to have big emotional waves…

I’ve always appreciated that phrase that we’re all walking each other back home. The other day while talking with a colleague, she mentioned offhandedly that all of her clients/audience are existentially ‘homeless’.
That idea struck a chord with me because the people in my community have a shared wound around belonging. It’s that raw human place of not feeling like we have a home in the world (or in ourselves).

There are groups of people on the planet that share planetary missions… and the people that are most purposeful for you to work with are those that share a mission with you.