Finding Myself Lost and Adrift: An Aha Moment

I had a massive aha moment this week.

My morning routine looks like this. Up around 06:00, usually with nudges from Bamber, my husband’s Guide Dog. His stomach will be grumbling. We go downstairs. I open the back door. Sometimes he’ll go out. Other times he’ll stick by my side as I weigh out his food, as though it might vanish if he doesn’t keep an eye on me.

Afterwards, toileted and with fresh water in his bowl, Bamber goes back upstairs for a snooze.

I make a coffee, sit in my favourite chair, and enjoy the peace and quiet in the house for half an hour. This is my sacred time before I go to the farm to get the hens up, feed and water them. Occasionally, if an idea is nagging at me, I’ll drink my coffee in my study, and write for a while.

As I checked the stats for a post I’d published yesterday, this caught my eye. And blew my mind.

Mapping the Journey

I’ve been putting together The Essence Map for around 15 years (maybe more). It was naive of me to think that there were no gaps in that story. After all, it’s an iterative and evolving journey.

In 2019, I resigned from my job as a Business Advisor. The sense of there must be something more has followed me for much of my life. And here it was again.

That September, we decided to relocate to Derbyshire. The following year, we moved. 2021 was busy. Unpacking, sorting out the new house. Google came to film Chris. And there was other work. Mid 2022, I started a new 9-5 job where I stayed for 18 months. But that there must be something more nudge was still snapping at my heels.

The idea of writing as a way to generate income wasn’t new. But, each time, I’d failed and fallen back on a proper job.

A Third Act

Last year I became aware of a shift that was unfolding. Post-menopause, just turned 60, and with my word of the year as alchemy, I was crossing a rubicon. On top of the something more came a different kick in the seat of my pants - now or never.

I saw it all as a new element of the Essence Map. Tick tick, done.

But I was floundering. I was rudderless, again. Only I couldn’t see it - yet.

I was loving lambing and my new found shepherding skills. Being on the farm and in our smallholding are my favourite parts of the day. I feel at peace. I chat to the hens, the cows, the dogs, the sheep and lambs. I’ve found a sense of connection and a passion for farming that was unexpected.

We have found community here in the Derbyshire Dales. Mostly among farmers who have become friends in the truest sense. As a Director of a recently established Men’s Shed, I’m heading along another alternative path.

Still, I’ve felt adrift. But I couldn’t put a name to it.

What Do You Do?

I’ve been pushing and pushing to generate income, occasionally job hunting, writing, playing at being creative without recognising what was happening.

Andy Johns perfectly captures the thinking that accompanied much of my career, and describes my most recent mindset.

… one day, the metrics lose their meaning. The work feels like performance rather than purpose. The internal void becomes impossible to ignore. You're not just exhausted—you're existentially empty. You're not merely busy—you're fundamentally misaligned with the life and work you’re still living.

Going back to a day job is not the solution. It would be putting off the inevitable, and delaying this reckoning. The only way is through.

I know all about the Void - I write about it in the Essence Map - but I thought I was already at the new Beginning. I was wrong. I was pushing ahead when I needed to take a breath.

The work to be done here is not on your laptop. The work is with your body, mind, heart, and soul.

For the past few months, I’ve been living under a cloud of fear and anxiety. I’ve gone about my day, cuddled the lambs, rejoiced in the opportunities at the farm to live my dream but, eating away at me has been a little voice in my head. How will you survive? How will you pay your bills? How long can you go on like this?

When people ask what I do, I have no answer. I’m no longer a Business Advisor. I don’t want to fall back on building websites. Just because you could, doesn’t mean you should. I’m not sure what I want to do. I write lists of possibilities and vacillate between the options.

… true transformation requires a period of not-knowing, a fertile void where new possibilities can germinate without premature definition.

Comfort in Other Stories

For the first time in a while, knowing that I’m in this valley between two mountains, a weight has lifted. My situation remains unchanged but I know what I need to do - let go, allow my new life to unfold, wait for the path to appear, busy myself with creative stuff, and stop pushing. The answer is out there and will present itself when it’s good and ready.

Carl Jung referred to this pattern as circumambulation—the psychological process of circling around the Self, our deeper center of being. Rather than moving directly toward wholeness, we approach it obliquely. We orbit it. Sometimes, we feel close to it; other times, we feel lost and far away. But the path winds for a reason: transformation isn’t linear, and the soul doesn’t grow by marching forward in a straight line. It deepens through layered revisiting—through the sacred rhythm of approach, retreat, and return.

In many ways, this phase is exciting. I know, because I’ve experienced it before, that there is always light at the end of the tunnel. My Dad often said, nothing lasts forever, neither the good nor the bad. This, too, will pass.

Until this week, I hadn’t recognised this transition for what it was. I hated feeling lost and unmoored. I hadn’t considered that the post-menopausal shift was a journey, not just a single point on the map.

For a time, there's no clarity, no plan, nothing solid to grasp. Only space. And the uncomfortable task of learning how to be when you've spent a lifetime learning how to do.

Aha Number Two

I watched a video with Chris Williamson, someone I’ve only recently come across. He recorded a fantastic podcast with Naval Ravikant - a long, long podcast crammed full with wisdom. I’ve already listened to it twice.

I knew nothing of Chris. This video gave me some background but it was the final ten minutes that truly resonated. Here was a man, clearly successful in his field, living his dream of interviewing people like Naval, and being interviewed by Joe Rogan. Yet, he still has doubts. He’s still hard on himself and battling the same demons that we all do.

He talks about the old patterns that you thought you had transcended can start to come up. Life is never a done deal.

As I sit in the Void between where I've been and where I'm heading, as Chris says, I'm going to be a bit kinder to myself, work through these old patterns, and look at living my life very differently.