Embracing a patchwork existence
Nurturing a lifelong dream while pursuing other work on the side? Or perhaps you’re an entrepreneur and creative adventurer at heart who will never be content following one thing in a straight line.
Either way, a patchwork existence is inevitable. That is, an existence which comprises of multiple quests and pathways which all coexist to support one to live and feel their best.
When I look at my life and career to date, I can’t help but parallel it with the process of creating an intuitive drawing. Before I’ve made a single mark on a page, I don’t know what is to take shape. A blank page and an assortment of coloured pencils stare back at me; waiting; anticipating; what will you pick first? How will you move it across the page? Anything and everything are possible.
When I completed my bachelor’s degree in communications and started to work full-time in corporate environments, I knew I wasn’t to stay firmly rooted on this path forever. Other aspirations guided me like weeds piercing through concrete; I studied energy healing and became a certified master healer, I continued building connections and started doing freelance writing projects, I began my own healing business, I continued developing my intuitive art practice and published my first book – My horse is my guide (a lifelong dream).
Sometimes people are confused when I share the different strains of my life path. They wonder how my journey as an energy healer fits in with my vocation as a writer and digital marketing professional.
If I entertain the idea of committing to just one thing, whether that be an energy healer or marketing specialist, I feel incomplete. That there are parts of me not able to be expressed. Even if it is sometimes bewildering to other people, I’ve become content with the fact that I have many interests and dimensions of my life purpose that are all worth expressing.
This is why I use the phrase “patchwork existence.” I am not defined by one job, skill, relationship or activity. I am all-encompassing, eager to show up to each moment with presence and creativity.
Going back to the picture analogy – as I start to select colours and make them dance across the page, I become drawn to experimenting even further. At first, it looks like a purge of disjointed lines and colour on a page. But as I keep engaging with the process, all the pieces eventually connect and build harmony with one another, where an embodied picture is born.
Whether it’s to study energy healing or to collaborate with a client on a digital marketing project, every choice works together to create a picture and invites me to make more choices. Even if people looking in from the outside assume various choices to be unrelated, it all plays a role in keeping me engaged so I can show up as the best version of myself.
I can’t live without expressing myself in colour and marks across the page. I can’t feel centred in myself if I don’t transfer my thoughts, emotions and experiences in writing. I can’t feel connected and engaged if I don’t collaborate with others on how to build a brand or tell a story. I certainly won’t ever be fulfilled if I don’t take steps to co-create with the life force energy which flowers all of creation. Every piece in my patchwork is important.
In sharing this message with you today, my wish is for you to embrace all aspects of your life and personality. Build your business, go on that amazing hike, read the book you love, cherish time with your friends and family and be creative. Everything that calls out to you is worth doing.
