Embrace the shifts in identity

It’s been five years since I started Humble Phoenix and much has changed in the world and my own life. So, I felt like it was time for a retrospective! I wanted to reflect on what this journey has taught me and how I have landed where I and the business are at now.

This is the third and final part of my retrospective of the last five years. This process of reflection and writing was going to be about reviewing the early days of Humble Phoenix but the further I got into it, the bigger and deeper it became (which is partly why its taken literally months to pull together, and why I’ve rewritten this final chapter a few times!).

Part one was largely about how my life has changed, and how even the best laid plans or most aligned intentions can shift.

Part two did focus on the business, how it has evolved as I listened to intuitive nudges and what I’m letting go of to make space for what it needs to be now and in the next five years.

Part three was going to be about discerning the action you need to take at any point in time. But then it became a multi-page reflection on my experience during the Covid years, lockdowns, online work, burnout and breakdowns/throughs. Useful for me but probably not that interesting to you! We were in that storm together though all in our own boats, with our own challenges. Even several years later I think we’re still processing it all, and I really encourage you to write it down, draw it out or talk it through if you haven’t already!

Anyway, what I’ve come to realise and appreciate is that this past five years has reshaped ME, my identity, inside and out. 

It’s helped me find myself again, bounce back from that burnout with stronger boundaries and set a path forward that’s more aligned with my own energy, passions and purpose.

I let go of pushing and expectations so I could see the forest for the trees. I needed to reconnect with myself again and with what I needed and wanted, not what I ‘should’ be doing, what I saw others doing or what I thought I would be doing. Maybe this moment would have happened even without the interruption of Covid, or maybe it wouldn’t, and this five-year retrospective would read very differently! We’ll never know.

It's been a period of learning in so many ways, not least of which is how I value myself and my time. Any service provider will tell you, when you have to put a price on spending an hour with you there’s some deep psychological stuff that plays out! I set some pretty big goals when I first drew up my business plan, which when I look at it now, I see were a fantasy and driven by external advice and markers of success. 

One question that I have pondered more than most is “if I wasn’t doing this for money, what would it look like? What would I stop, change, continue?”. That’s when I understood that I’m not really in this for the money. Now, if I break even (which I’ve actually done every year, even if only by $100) it’s successful year.

Could Humble Phoenix be in a bigger, more profitable, more visible space if I had made different decisions? Absolutely! Does that bother me? Honestly, yes it does sometimes. But I also think that like all of us, I did the best I could with the skills I had and circumstances that were presented to me.

I’m human. I’ve made mistakes, both through action and inaction. I’ve pushed too hard and not hard enough. I’ve pulled back and dissociated from myself and world (and associated hard with my screens!), until that became boring and frustrating and I called on all my courage to take a heart-full step forward.

All I can know for sure is that I followed my instincts and took the actions that felt right at the time.

I hand-on-heart believe in divine timing, in the wisdom of the universe and that we’re all exactly where we need to be. Even on the days when I feel like I’m not contributing at work, there will be one small moment where I make a difference or connect with someone. I’m more open now with colleagues from whom I would once have hidden much of the spiritual and personal side of myself – perimenopause is a regular topic of conversation; and I’ve shared meditations, talked about Reiki and mused about astrology and the moon.

Life is messy and confusing. No matter how many self-help books, teachers and leaders are out there, there’s no rule book or guidebook to follow. Once you get past a certain age, your decisions and actions are yours for better or worse.

And one of the big learnings for me over the past five years is that none of them are totally right, none of them are totally wrong. But each thing I did or decision I made all took me another step along my path.

Each one of them helped uncover new parts of myself, and to see them as an integrated whole. It's the essence of Humble and Phoenix, always learning, always growing, always starting again – not from scratch but by building on the ashes of the past.

I feel more real, more whole … and more ready to take on the next five years and beyond. I’m on the downhill run to 50 now, and while my 40s probably haven’t played out the way I thought they might and that I was excited for, I’m gradually realising that each decade is a chance to learn more about yourself, dive more deeply into that authentic part of you that’s yearning to come out and recalibrate everything. At the end of the day, I'm in a pretty good place with who I am, where I am and where I'm heading.

So …

Lesson 3: Embrace the identity shifts that life will inevitably throw at you

In summary, what I’ve learned over these past five years of life, work and business … keep exploring, keep following what lights you up, don’t be afraid to pivot, don’t be afraid to shift the goalposts when what you’d set your sights on no longer feels right.

Keep showing up for yourself and whatever your mission is. And as I continue on my own path forward, and as Humble Phoenix continues to show me what it’s meant to be, I’m here to hold space, walk beside you, share ideas and help you through your own inner or outer transformation. And it feels kinda nice to be able to do that!

Want to know more?

If you feel your identity shifting and want some quiet space to contemplate, rest and listen to your heart, Reiki may be the perfect support for you!

Get in touch to book in a discovery call or your first healing session or find out more about Reiki and how I share it here.

Photo by Shannon Baldwin on Unsplash