A Symphony of Passions

I’ve spent decades exploring different callings: restaurants, catering, coaching, art making, writing, vlogging, videography, photography, branding, design, programming, website building, e-commerce, fishing, farming, entertainment, music, family, community work, and an unending series of hobbies. My focus flowing throughout this tapestry of experience; sometimes waxing, sometimes waning, always finding something new to add to the mix.

It took me a long time to accept that this multi-faceted approach is, in fact, the truth of who I am. Not being able to ‘pick a lane’ has been the source of much consternation for me; and I’ve fought it constantly by trying to strong-arm myself into something that would stick. This continued to compound over the years and it caused increasingly negative spirals.

Then, one day, from the bedrock of my lowest low, everything started to click. I realized there was no further depth to sink to, there was no bottom underneath the bottom that I stood on. I looked up and all the stories of who I was in the world, who I thought I should be in the world, who I wanted to be in the world, floated above me like clouds. I then realized my feet were finally standing on the ground of just… me. That ground said: “I am”.

I began to really pay attention to the battles that were occurring inside me, that always had. In almost every case, it came down to a part of me that simply ‘was’, being assaulted by the part of me that thought I ‘should be’. As I examined the ‘should be’s’, my understanding of the multilayered influences of family, culture, society, religion, and privilege; all of it intersecting with my neurodivergence, began to make sense in earnest. I could finally see the vast network of forces that conspired to keep me from embodying and accepting who I actually am. It's been a game changer.

I used to walk down the street, a hunch to my shoulders, disguising my self-judgement as what I imagined others thought of me. “That guy has problems”, the imagined voices would say. Nowadays, I tend to put my shoulders back, lift my head up and walk self-referentially; the imagined judgement of others not as constant a narrative as it once was.

This is the gold that I bring to my many pursuits now, whether it is coaching, creating, service, or self-care: the gift of coming into alignment with who I am, and the deep understanding of how I got there. It is my mission to share that gift with others through everything I do, but most importantly, by simply being it.