Make Space for Magic

I have redefined myself many times throughout my life. I've made tough decisions and taken calculated risks to change things when staying where I was became unbearable. 

Let's face it: any change, even happy ones, can be hard. Transition and transformation are challenging and often messy. Like the following quote by Cynthia Ocelli about the seed:

"For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn't understand growth, it would look like complete destruction."

Walking away from the you you have always known takes courage but is also necessary.

When I was 27 years old, I left my mostly comfortable life and job in New Hampshire to move west to Colorado. I felt stuck and like I no longer belonged where I was. I ensured everything was lined up to make my move as smooth as possible, but it was still scary packing up and moving 2,000 miles away to a place where I knew no one.

Moving was the right decision for me. I uncovered a whole new side of myself in the mountains of Colorado.

After surviving a heart attack at 31, I found myself at another crossroads. I knew that working in Human Resources in the corporate world didn't fulfill my soul despite my success in the field. However, I wasn't sure what else to do.

In the years that followed, I received education in life coaching, nutrition, and yoga. I started health coaching and teaching yoga on the side. This felt like a bigger leap, and I took more time to prepare myself. The universe gave me the final push when the company I worked for was acquired. That opened the opportunity for me to take a severance package and focus full-time on the company I had built, this one, Firefly Community LLC.

I dove headfirst into operating Firefly. The business grew slowly, and I continued leading retreats, which allowed me to build a fantastic community of people who returned repeatedly to travel around the globe with me.

In the past two years, my knee and shoulder issues have started nudging me in a new direction, more toward writing. Could it be time for another transition? Am I ready to explore another side of myself? What will that mean for the business I've spent the last 10 years building?

Last year, I attempted to do both. I wrote a book and its companion journal, and I still led four retreats while also undergoing a partial knee replacement in March. I ended up with two tears in my rotator cuffs and a knee that struggled to heal. I made the difficult decision to reduce the number of retreats I was leading to only two this year, scheduled a platelet-rich plasma (PRP) procedure for my shoulder and knee, and focused more of my time on writing.

Has it been enough?

I'm not sure, and as I heard at a writing conference recently, you need to leave space for the magic, for those unknown parts of you to spring forth. I got the message and am taking the advice.

Over the next 12 weeks, I'll create space for whatever is ready to emerge and reveal itself. I'm going on a vacation I've wanted to take for years to Croatia, followed by time with friends and family in NH, camping and hiking in the mountains of Colorado, reading books, watching birds, and writing.

I don't want to abandon what I've built with Firefly Community completely, so there will still be Mindful Monday, Wellness Wednesday, and seasonal eating social media posts on Facebook and Instagram. There won't be another retreat until September, and after that, not until April 2026. There may be fewer yoga classes, except those I'll be teaching on the water at Evergreen Lake and Bear Creek Lake Park. I'll spend significantly less time on the computer, so these weekly newsletters will move to a monthly schedule.

In September, I plan to establish a new streamlined direction for Firefly.

I started two Substack accounts to house my writing. One has been available for some time— Wild Western Wanderers, told from the perspective of my dogs (and sometimes the cats). The other is new — Variety is the Spice of Life, where you can find my writing on all the things I love: travel, animals, our planet, health and wellness, mindfulness, plant-based foods, the great outdoors, and following your passion. 

I hope you'll follow me at one or both of those places or sign up on our homepage to become a member of Firefly Community for a monthly guided meditation, yoga class video, and article.

Join me on this journey of getting to know the redefined me.