Redefining success and reclaiming a shamelessly whole self
A college reunion update edition
This is a special edition of my Substack. Officially on a break from publishing new pieces at the moment, and, getting ready to travel to the US soon, to attend my 25th year college reunion, on campus at Harvard University.
I’ve been told that the whole college reunion thing is a super American dream type of caricaturised experience for non-Americans.
More than once, my non-American friends have said to me, “You really do that?” As in, you travel halfway around the world to go to your college campus and meet people you haven’t seen in a quarter century, and you probably barely even know back then?
Yes. we do that. It’s not just a Hollywood movie thing. It’s a bit of a strange human ritual, I know. But I am strangely excited.
To me, this trip represents a homecoming of sorts. A re-integration. A reclamation. A merging and emergence of a fully matured, freshly discovered, unashamed, un-compartmentalized version of me. A birthing of the person that I have been becoming all these years.
For the first time in my life, I feel no need to hide anything from anyone, including myself. As I reflected when I was interviewed for my class podcast a couple months ago, it is so refreshing to see just how comfortable I am now, being me. I have taken a pretty unconventional path relative to most of my college classmates, and I find that cool now instead of cringey.
I no longer have to hide my weird, woo-woo, witchy self from my college friends. And I don’t have to hide my education and intellect from my spiritual hippie friends. My myriad dimensions can co-exist without conflict.
Below is the article that I submitted for my Harvard 25th year reunion “Red Book” entry, entitled: Redefining Success. Hope you will enjoy reading it.
Redefining Success
Since the turn of the century, I have been on a wild and winding journey to redefine what success means to me.
I followed the predictable, prescribed path for a while. After graduation, I lived and worked in New York City for five years. It wasn’t quite as salacious as Sex and the City, but it was still a small town Midwestern girl’s dream. Then I moved out to California to get my MBA. I ended up settling in the San Francisco Bay Area for the better part of a decade.
I achieved some level of conventional success. I got promoted. I got headhunted. I landed a job at a big-deal consulting firm with a fat salary. I got myself an impressive senior title. I even had several underlings. But things only got really interesting when I decided to jump off of the corporate ladder and start forging my own trail through the wilderness.
When I left corporate life, I didn't know that I was leaving for good. I thought I was taking a sabbatical to destress and refresh myself. I figured I would return to “real life” eventually.
Later, I learned that real life was waiting for me out there — on the other side of the unknown.
For 10 years now, I have been a solopreneur on a spiritual self-development journey. I have traveled around the world, traversing the realms of meditation, yoga, Tantra, non-duality, sacred sexuality, breathwork, sound and energy healing, transpersonal psychology, shadow work, holistic health and plant medicine, among others.
I have chosen to re-home myself in Thailand now, having acquired many practical and magical skills along the way.
I am the author of an award-winning book (Regenerative Purpose, 2019). I offer mentorship to those on a purpose path. I have a Substack channel focused on the intersection of spirituality and social change. I guide individuals on psychedelic self-healing journeys. I lead group experiences for conscious(ness) leaders. I also steward a beautiful piece of land where I am developing a nature sanctuary and healing retreat center, using permaculture principles.
What I learned about success over the past 25 years is that success defined by external markers is empty.
The thing about living a life is: It’s not about how it looks. It’s about how it feels.
What I believe humans are hungry for these days, more than anything else, is an experience of aliveness and alignment. A sense of belonging and purpose. A centered, unshakeable knowing that we are always in the right time and place — engaged in a dynamic, co-creative conversation with Life that will accrue benefit to collective thriving.
What I believe the world needs now, more than anything else, is for humans to embrace an awakened way of living. A way where our unique gifts can be fully expressed, unimpeded by conditioning. A way where we can hear the guidance of our hearts over the din of an extractive economy. A way where the entirety of who we are can be loved and accepted unconditionally. A way where we can receive the true abundance of life that is not tethered to material wealth.
This is the red thread that runs through all of my work these days: Everything I do is in service of guiding humans back to an easeful, interdependent way of living, in harmony with Nature within and without.