I’ve heard the term “quarter life crisis” before but until very recently, never quite understood what it entailed. It wasn’t until a month before my 26th birthday that these huge questions started to arise and flood my mind, life and actions. Questions like: “am I successful?”, “why am I not financially stable yet?”, “what does it mean that I’ll be thirty in four years?” etc.
While working through these overwhelming feelings, the biggest gift was that I stopped pretending like everything is fine. Like I know what I’m doing. Like I’ve got this whole adult thing figured out and that just by pursuing my passion, everything is falling into place effortlessly. I found out that that’s quite a bit of BS and the more I told people about what I’m going through, the more I realized they get it because they’re going through it too.
So I’d love to start this story with a little bit of a recap. The other day, a life coach friend asked me to list off my achievements from the past year. A bit stunned but willing to play the game, I started rambling off the various pursuits I undertook since June 2021. I became a certified mindfulness teacher after a yearlong intensive training with two internationally known and beloved Dharma (Buddhist) teachers. Then I moved to NYC for three and a half months to finish my Masters at Columbia University in person. While there, I led nature meditations in Central Park and achieved climbing goals I’d been working towards for years despite several injuries. The strength it took me to overcome various life threatening and traumatizing events while living there was probably my biggest “success” on a developmental level this year.
Arriving home from that whole saga in January, I plunged myself into my life coach training and sped through it in three months, which is considered the “fast track” (and I mean, it felt like the famous German “Autobahn”). Why did I choose to complete my coach training at that speed you may ask? Because I had applied and gotten accepted for my professional ecotherapist training starting in April of 2022 and needed to be a fully fledged coach by then to learn this incredible modality. And here I am since then, about halfway through a five months one-of-a-kind ecotherapist certification program and now also the CEO of my own coaching business. It sounds cool but I’m really just a solo entrepreneur navigating what that even means and how to live out my passion to serve others.
Okay, so backing up, that was a lot. On the success and achievements level, it is a lot. On the mental brain capacity, it might have been too much, since I’m being totally honest with you. Being a hyperachiever personality type has its pros and cons. I’m working on that. I have immense gratitude to have been able to do all of this in one year and most of the time it feels great, especially when I’m coaching a client online or in nature. Other times, I’m exhausted and just trying to catch my breath and notice where my internal compass is pointing… which brings me to my personal developments.
Back in October of last year, I got a strong intuitive sense that I needed to go back down to Baja California, Mexico after finishing my studies in New York. This past February, I took my third solo trip ever and celebrated the completion of my degree in clinical psychology and spirituality in Todos Santos, Baja California, Mexico. I went there because I’d traveled to Baja on a sailing trip 6 years prior after dropping out of college . I thought then that I was “closing the loop”, returning as a alumn to the place where I’d gone when I had no sense of what to do next. Joke’s on me because I ended up having such a special time and making new friendships and connections that run as deep as the love I feel for the land (and sea) there. So naturally, I went back as soon as I could, at the beginning of May. Little did I know that my first international surfing trip would turn into another only three months later and potentially many more to come, with growing dreams and plans to start bringing others to experience this Baja magic through wellness and nature retreats.
Sounds amazing right? I cannot deny it and yet, while circumstantially and on paper, this one year may shine in a certain light, the journey of life as a human on Earth is still full of mysteries, storms and rainbows combined. Well, if we are talking about a collective or societal level right now, we may even go as far as calling it a very stormy year (or make that more than two years…) So where does that leave me with my quarter life crisis? Right bang in the middle of it all; with lots of diving deep since returning home from my second Baja trip. There’s been moments of incredible hardship and new wisdom insights alike.
Twice now I’ve spent one-on-one time with friends and received gratitude afterwards for the open conversations we had. It may seem like a small thing but I believe it’s actually an indicator of the profound shift I am undergoing as I enter this new phase of my life. This phase where the US health insurance system labels you as a legal adult and cuts you off from parental insurance, with very few exceptions. This phase where as a woman, society tells you you should start thinking about settling down and having kids soon enough. Or that you should be in a stable career position, making X amount of dollars so you can put a down payment on a house soon enough… Hmm… All of these external success factors that feel out of alignment with my life, my soul and my path.
And that’s when I realized that I am, as a dear friend put it, “an antagonist”, that my inner fire and drive for doing things in my own authentic way, is stronger than the voices in my head telling me how I should be living my life right now. Becoming an entrepreneur with no backup plan has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. It has brutally revealed all of the self-doubt I’ve been carrying internally since childhood and my socially complex teenage years. It constantly plunges me into uncertainty, into the vast unknown about my prospects for financial stability. I’m running a start-up in its third month of existence and expecting it to flow because throughout my entire professional education, I’ve had my ego boosted through the roof by teachers and peers. I’m not blaming anyone, I’m simply advocating for a different way of doing things. I’ve followed the normal steps towards “success” and been left disappointed, even disheartened. Owning what it means to be different, trusting my potential to help beings in this world, but accepting that doing it the same way as everyone else, might not work for me. My unique way is what I’m trying to figure out right now. And through that, I am allowing my heart to come forward and be the guide. My soul has been longing for a change, my entire body has been telling me it is time to shift. I am aligning “success” with my internal state rather than with the external parameters passed on by society like status, income, identity etc… What does it mean concretely? After three emotionally challenging weeks of working through all of these questions and realizations, plus other strenuous life circumstances, I am slowing down and accepting the pace of my business and life as it is. It does not mean I am just sitting back and waiting. While I continue to support my existing and future clients, I am also working part-time in animal care, allowing me to take some sighs of relief and show up more fully to my work. The relief from not feeling all of the financial pressure and expectations on my burgeoning business is huge, and I instantly become more energetically available and spacious to hold a bigger container for my clients.
Success for me on the verge of my 26th year around the sun is living in balance and integration. It is being able to do what I love by being of service and still being able to take care of myself. It is about being present for my loved ones and embodying the decade of spiritual growth and teachings from my journey so far. I heard these words today as I meditated on who I am: “no parts of you are turned away, all parts of you are integrated and welcome”. That to me, is what success feels like.
