Have you ever dreamed about having a secret life? It’s been a thing for me ever since I was a kid. I had a couple of different secret life options as a kid—in each secret life I had a name and a backstory, I knew what made each secret life version of me tick. It’s still a fun game I play with myself from time to time, especially when I am feeling particularly overwhelmed or stressed but it’s a game now played in an adult way.
A couple of weeks ago, while house-sitting for a friend, I had this epiphany that I could have a secret life while house-sitting, I could check out from my day-to-day life and spend an entire weekend in retreat, in exploration of some questions that had been banging around: What if I enjoyed myself more? What if I felt freer to do the work I love? What if I could fully embrace unselfconsciousness and say, Who cares?
It was a weekend of inquiry. It looked a lot like the photo up there: me, a journal, and warm cuppa tea moving between bed, sofa, and the back deck. I thought hard and questioned harder. Every time I hit on something, I asked myself, What does this mean for me? Who am I when no one else is looking?
Here’s what I learned about myself on my secret life weekend retreat:
I like privacy. A lot.
My work process is personal. I get invested. I want clients to feel better and see results.
I need to make smarter use of my limited time to do the work I love. See above.
I have started revisiting a practice that I learned from a friend and mentor back in college: marking transitions. The practice only takes a short amount of time and it always brings clarity, loosens the tightness I’ve carried home in my body, and slows my racing mind. When I come home from work, I sit in my room for a few minutes, eyes closed, one hand on my belly, breathing slowly. Sometimes it takes seven breaths, sometimes seven minutes. I do it without imposing time constraints. It takes the time it takes.
I need to come to the table without expectations. I have been working on this for most of my adult life. Sometimes I excel, sometimes I fail. I do know that my best practice is letting go of expectations and then, when my mind tries to make it into something, I flip the script, I lean in, I let it be love or a prayer.
Talk to me about your secret life. Do you have one? Do you run from it? Have you ever considered claiming part of your day for you, for your own purposes? For me, claiming time is an act of freedom. It feels a bit laissez faire to remove yourself from the world where validation comes in the form of likes, where comments and unsolicited responses rule the day, but imagine what that might feel like.
Start today:
What if I enjoyed myself more?
What if I felt freer to do the work I love?
Who am I when no one else is looking?
What would you do or make if all you had to do was please yourself?
Who are you when no one is looking?
I will be undertaking a seasonal detox this week with a group of people ready to start spring off in better health (Interested in joining us? Reserve your spot in our summer group here). Yay! I will follow that with a Full Moon Parasite Protocol next weekend so there will be lots and lots of self-care happening in my house over the next 10ish days: I’ll be opening up my drainage pathways with the Functional Medicine Detox, then the Parasite Protocol, spend time in the infrared sauna, do a couple of castor oil packs, and yes, even a coffee enema (your girl knows how to have fun!).
I’m slowly adding information about all of these things on my website (see links below). If there is something you would like to learn more about, reply to this email or pop into my DMs on IG and let me know!