the rules of reinvention

Reinventing yourself is about how you carry yourself through a season of becoming while bridging the gap between fear and creating or doing what you’re called to.

This morning I woke at 5.30 am — a time that I would much rather be sleeping peacefully, unlike some of those overachieving insta-people who like to boast about their 6 am ice baths — to meditate on a question that has been haunting me recently.

What is next?

I nuzzled in under the covers, having asked the universe for guidance and assistance and allowed the waves of connection to Source/Goddess/Energy roll through my body slowing down my breathing, smoothing over my nervous system.

Slowly, softly, answers emerge.

You are on your path.
The next thing will come.
Just not on your timeline.
Be patient.

It’s annoying. I want to know now. I’m in a self-inflicted cycle of uncertainty and my entire Being is trying to escape the discomfort of that.

I have had to make peace with the fact that my life journey and path as a human is centred around reinvention. To not judge myself harshly for it. To softly acknowledge and accept it. To even celebrate it. One of the ways I’ve been able to do so is to understand it. 

If you’ve been journeying alongside me for a while, you will know I’m a master at reinvention.

Life took me on an incredible healing journey in my early 20s while I was studying psychology and experimenting with various things. Then, struggling with the broad systematic approach to individual mental health, decided I didn’t want to become a psychologist. Instead, an opportunity to work as a contractor for music festivals arose and I spent 5 years sent to far-flung corners of the earth acting as an artist coordinator for large-scale events. It was a wonderful wild time. Soon, that life became tiring and no longer supported my growth so I stopped for a year and worked as an event coordinator for a dance school in London before heading to India and deepening my spiritual journey there. During this time I realised that our world didn’t have moulds that I could fit and that I’d have to create my own. Inspired by the ethical organic textile industry I created a small conscious clothing label called ‘etica & ella’ but quickly realised that while I had lots of creative ideas I knew nothing about marketing or running a business and disliked having to manage lots of stock. When that idea didn't work I felt like a failure. It hurt my ego for two years during which I lived in Sydney and worked as a business manager for a small marketing firm, gathering as much knowledge and experience as I could to start my own business. Alongside that, I started a blog, which became the platform for the work that has supported me across the past decade. During the first few years, I travelled the most: a month in Portugal, three months in Amsterdam, four months across Central America, six months in the States, five months in London, four months in India, almost a year in Australia, nine months in New Zealand, six months travelling across south-east Asia. Then things slowed down. My partner and I at the time moved to Canada, where he was from. We tried to do the ‘settle down’ and ‘buy a house’ thing, but he and the life he was offering was not for me so I left. I moved to Mexico for two years. All the while, growing and teaching and offering my work to the world through my online business. With the addition of my stationary brand Plannher, I decided to come back to the Western world for a while to support the growth of that. And then the global panini happened. I had no choice but to stay and made the seaside town of Brighton in the UK my home for 18 months until I decided the winters were too cold for me and swapped it for Mallorca which was beautiful but confining, and returned to the UK five months ago. Since then, I have moved five times, trying to figure out what corner of the universe I belong in.

That’s a lot of iterations of myself and the life I have lived. I have had to reinvent myself and recreate my perception of the world at every corner.

I’m at these crossroads. I feel like I need to choose between 3 lives.

1. The online entrepreneur life, selling programs and products and refining my sales funnels. 2. The corporate career life, getting a job with a company that aligns with my values. 3. Becoming a wayfarer, chasing the summer and beach life at low costs in other countries.

As I feel in and consider each option, none delight me.

I’m in a season of life where I’m considering my future. Who do I want to be? What kind of life do I want to have? What am I setting myself up for?

I want it all. I want a beautiful home in Forest Row where I live right now. I want to teach and write and make art. I want a sense of community and belonging. I want to spend months at a time on wild unkempt beaches in less civilised places.

My whimsical 20s have come and gone. What am I building the foundation for into my wise woman years?

Maybe they’re questions I don’t need answers for but they are something I feel to consider now.

I have a financially successful online business doing and creating things I love (alongside the less-loved administrative side of things) that’s offered me incredible location and financial freedom but it’s been increasingly lonely and the mental health impact of that is something I can no longer ignore.

The corporate career world baffles me. I have this enormous skill set and range of experience that doesn’t fit into any of the boxes and when I look at the expectations of time and input vs wages… 36 hours per week in an office for £16 an hour! It’s a joke. My friends who know this world well tell me it is no more stable and secure than working for yourself.

The drifting summer and sea-chasing life is one I adore, but it has limitations too. I enjoy it to the extent that I feel invested and involved in a place. I need to be anchored into my environment to feel at peace and unified with it. Community and connection are as important in this context as any other.

Plus: I am tired of the pseudo-spiritual digital nomads that are all noise and little substance. They are not my people.

All I have is questions and no answers at this point but it’s the discovery journey that I find brings the most unexpected solutions.

What I do know is that all change in the universe is cyclical rather than linear as demonstrated by the highly scientific paradigm known as yin yang or polarity. Or ‘the medicine of opposites’ as I like to call it.

Reinventing yourself is about how you carry yourself through a season of becoming while bridging the gap between fear and creating or doing what you’re called to.

It is a balancing act between waiting to be shown and choosing your destination. And then finding the way there — weaving between working with energetics and taking action — to create the foundations and integrate with practical measures to witness the changes. 

If there’s one thing I know about reinvention, it’s this:

Don’t rush life. Don’t chase superficial ideas of success over inner contentment and satisfaction. Don’t force yourself to do things for external validation. Too often people settle for things that don’t satisfy their wants and needs. Stop looking for the next new thing. Let the things meant for you find you. Your soul already knows and will guide you on your path if you get out of your way.

When I began ruminating more deeply on ‘what is next?’ during a long walk in the woods this weekend I decided to share a little piece of those thoughts on Instagram. The conversations that ensured — the most potent parts of which I shared and saved in the highlights under ‘crossroads’ — were astounding. So many women are struggling.

This world was not made for us. Or we were not made for this world.

We don’t live life in a straight line.

Life is a spiral: a series of cycles through which we are learning and growing.

Renew is a practical insight offering practices and ways to navigate this cycle. A 5-part digital video and audio program that takes you through the renewal cycle. A gift for paid Substack subscribers.