Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Sam Pfotenhauer. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Sam, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Was there a defining moment in your professional career? A moment that changed the trajectory of your career?
I have had three defining moments in the last five years – two of which are personal in nature but had a significant impact on my professional career, and one professional. They all feel like they build on each other, so I’ll share all three, but of course, feel free to pick and choose what is helpful for the story that you write.
I grew up in Arizona, attended the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill where I majored in environmental studies and minored in marine science, and then immediately went to Tulane University Law School. I graduated law school at the age of 24 and was at the top of my class, which allowed me access to prestigious and significant professional opportunities.
The first opportunity was clerking for a federal district judge in a federal court in New Orleans (the Eastern District of Louisiana). Clerking is where you work for a federal judge, conducting legal research, drafting opinions, and managing the docket. The second opportunity was an offer at Davis Polk and Wardwell, one of New York City’s most prestigious law firms – which was a very exciting opportunity coming out of Tulane – which is a good law school but not a great one (please don’t print that it’s just for your context and reference.) Davis Polk is home to some of the best lawyers in the country and is globally recognized for their excellent work, so it is a fantastic place to begin a legal career. Like all big law firms, it is also known for its very demanding hours, rigorous work, and very high expectations.
The first defining moment was a spiritual awakening that began one year after I graduated while clerking in New Orleans. The second was quitting Davis Polk without a plan but a knowing that there was more for me out there, and the third was calling off my wedding to my partner of 7 years, two weeks before the big day, after a stunning and surprising realization that it was not the right relationship for me. All three experiences have a few common themes: the importance of coming back to the body for wisdom and guidance, a certainty that there is more to life and that its up to me to explore what that is, that authenticity is a core value for me and a guiding light, and a commitment to following my own joy and vibrancy above anything else (including disappointing people I love). These values and experiences inform my work and are a lot about what I teach (though how it is applied looks different for each client.)
Defining Moment 1: My Body Keeps the Score
The year following law school clerking was one of the best of my life. I worked for an incredible judge who mentored me, supported me, and inspired me. My colleagues were whip smart, kind, exceptional at what they did, and led fun and fulfilling personal lives. Working in those chambers instilled a sense of confidence and competency that served me very well practicing law in New York and set a foundation for the rest of my life. I was 25 living in New Orleans, one of the best and most fun cities in the world, living with my best friends, focusing on my fitness and health for the first time in years, and having fun all the time. Because I went from undergraduate straight to law school, it was also the first time I had a full-time job, outside of summer work, and I worked basically a 40-hour work week, which gave me time to explore hobbies for the first time in my life. I made self-exploration a priority – I wanted to figure out what I cared about besides exceeding at school/career and partying.
Though my life was so positive in many ways, it was also the first time I ever struggled with mental health for a prolonged period. I began to have low-level anxiety attacks, where I felt an overwhelming sensation that my throat was closing and that I couldn’t breath. I would feel afraid that someone was going to hurt me and anxious around my safety and wellbeing often. I found myself feeling anxious on almost a daily basis, with these surges of intense anxiety in my throat every few days. I couldn’t figure out what was going on and I didn’t know how to fix it. I wondered if I was just destined to feel scared for the rest of my life and considered whether therapy or anti-anxiety medications could help me resolve this.
Because I was in a season of exploration, I was very open to trying all sorts of new experiences. I found myself participating in the swing dancing festival, attending numerous music festivals, taking on new crafts, exploring new work out classes, and when my friend from law school launched a spiritual podcast, deciding to check out of the New Orleans businesses she mentioned, which was hosting a crystal energy healing and sound bath. I bought a ticket and showed up, with no idea what I was getting myself into and zero idea that my entire life was about to change. I was open to trying anything that sounded interesting, so I went.
I didn’t know what an energy healing was or a sound bath. I knew about crystals, but I didn’t know what they meant from a healing perspective. I wouldn’t have described myself as a spiritual person, though I was open minded to the power of energy and went to yoga. And because of my love of jam bands and hippie music festivals, had experimented with my fair share of psychedelics and had been exposed to new age spirituality before in passing, without really engaging in it.
I arrive at a raw juice bar, and go upstairs to their healing space. There are about two dozen different percussion instruments, gongs, and crystal sound bowls out. There are also a number of crystals. The two facilitators explained that we would lie down on our yoga mats and drop into a meditation. That this was a healing space and it was important to consider what we wanted to work with and heal. One of them would give us a sound bath, while the other would work on our energy fields and place crystals on our body.
I remember lying down and closing my eyes and thinking “My life is perfect. I don’t have anything to work on.” But that thought was quickly followed by “What are you talking about? You feel anxious all the time and are constantly afraid that men are going to harm you.” For the next several minutes. I took in the sounds of the sound bath, which in itself felt like a mystical experience, and I thought about this anxiety. My mind was flooded with memories, specifically a memory when I was in college when I was physically attacked in a stairwell at a fraternity house and strangled. I fought back and got away and ran home. The next morning I put on a turtle neck, covered up the bruises, and carried on like nothing happened. I never shared the experience at the time because I was really drunk when it happened and I felt responsible. I felt this overwhelming knowing that this unprocessed memory was connected to feeling like my throat was closing. I then heard this voice in my head – “Your body is holding these experiences. You need to feel. If you don’t feel, you will begin to close to life. You need to look at these experiences and feel them.” I sobbed crying, overwhelmed by the emotion coming up. I remember the energy healer came up to me and put a crystal on my neck. She told me at the end of the session that she could feel that my throat was really blocked and that I had things that I needed to start sharing with people. I had this intense sense of clarity that I needed to start to look at these past experiences – I had a number of scary experiences in a short period of time at the ages of 19 and 20 that I never really shared or processed. I new I needed to share them with others.
It feels obvious now, but at that time, I believed that the anxiety I was feeling now was spontaneous and unrelated to past experiences. I felt like when these experiences happened in college, it was easy for me to move on and not share them, so that meant they weren’t a big deal and didn’t effect me. This experience gave me this visceral awareness that these past experiences were living inside my body, they were making me afraid of the present moment (even when there was nothing to be afraid of), and they were holding me back. That I was carrying a lot of shame around them, which is why it felt so scary to share them and why I hadn’t, and that if I wanted to feel safe in my body, that I would NEED to process, feel, and share these with friends and family.
My anxiety dropped about 95% that night and stayed low for a few weeks. I began to share with my partner and my best friend. It would creep back up over time, and I would know it was important to share with more people, to look and feel and process more. I began to see a therapist who helped me explore and process these experiences. I continued to feel the need to share with loved ones – parents, siblings, close friends – and noticed that if I didn’t, the anxiety would build.
That night also initiated me on a spiritual path. I was so shocked that I could experience such intense relief from an anxiety that had plagued me for a year in one night. And by the sudden clarity and awareness I had about the importance of processing and feeling. I didn’t have people in my life talking about this before – I didn’t know that past experiences could impact me so viscerally. It made me really curious. If one $30 energy healing sound bath session could do that, what else was here for me. Shortly after, I tried breath work for the first time, which again, brought up so much emotion. Then I saw my first psychic healer, another formative experience. I found myself binging spiritual podcasts, seeing spiritual healers every few months for readings and sessions. In those first few months I learned about Human Design, energy healing, and channeling, all modalities I practice with my clients now. I had no idea that I would become a healer. I just had this voracious curiosity and this knowing that this information could help me and the evidence that it was already working.
I moved out of New Orleans to NYC two months after this sound bath. I began practicing law in New York, and felt so grateful that I had some tools – like meditation, gratitude practice, and affirmations – to help me find my center and confidence starting this new job. I also felt like I was dealing with real stuff in my personal life (the processing of trauma, shame, and big emotions), which gave me a lot of perspective for my career. My job felt important and challenging, but not the most important or most difficult thing I was handling in my life.
Defining Moment 2: Leap of Faith in the name of Career Satisfaction
It was the summer of 2020. We were a few months into covid and I was living in Brooklyn, New York. I had bene practicing law at Davis Polk, a prestigious corporate law firm for nearly two years. The work was very rigorous and the hours demanding (70-80 work weeks were not uncommon), but I worked with some of the best lawyers in the country. The opportunity to learn from their professionalism, mentoring, and devotion to producing excellent work product for their clients is something that will stick with me for the rest of my life. But I was fading. I didn’t enjoy the work, I felt disconnected from a larger feeling of purpose, and I was burning out. I began to look at other jobs, mostly outside of law, considering everything from banking compliance to working at an organic juice shop.
In the first year or so at the firm, I struggled to figure out if I found the work dry and unfulfilling because there was something wrong with me, or if this just wasn’t the right fit. I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t just get myself to like it. I felt like I needed to change to fit this work. I felt like my dissatisfaction was because I couldn’t hack it and perhaps wasn’t intelligent enough to be successful in this field (even though I was doing well as an associate and receiving consistent positive feedback). I also wondered if it was simply unrealistic to enjoy my job, that maybe I’d just have to accept that work was work, and to find meaning in other places in my life. However, through my spiritual journey and through my discovery of human design, a birth time system that identifies how your energy works (like a cousin system to astrology), I began to question those notions. I began to open to the idea that there was nothing wrong with me, that my career did not define my intelligence or capabilities, that I was not unreasonable for wanting a career that I enjoyed and felt passionate about, and that I didn’t have to change to fit a job, but could change the job to fit me. It was okay to change my mind and to want more.
I had began saving money as soon as I started at the firm specifically for my exit. I knew I would likely need to take a significant pay cut when I moved jobs and may want to pursue non-profit work or something creative, which can be difficult to pursue in an expensive city like NYC. I also had saved for extended travel. I had planned on leaving the firm without a plan to travel for 4-6 months. During the pandemic, I realized I wouldn’t be spending a few months in India or Costa Rica anytime soon, and I decided I could use those funds for something else. This offered me freedom to consider a variety of options.
In the summer of 2020, I began working with a mystically-oriented embodiment coach, Danielle Dillard (also featured by this magazine). Through out work I had begun to tap more deeply into the wisdom of my body. I realized I really wanted to leave my job. I saw how unhappy I was, how disenchanted I felt, and how exhausted by body was. With Dani’s support, I also realized that it was important to be wise about this decision. If I jumped headfirst into a new job, mostly to run away from where I was, I might be in the same position in 6-12 months. I didn’t just want to run away, I wanted to run towards something I wanted. But I didn’t know what that was.
When I was honest with myself, I could see that I needed a break from work and I needed space to see what I wanted to do next. I couldn’t tell if I wanted to be a lawyer – I didn’t know if I enjoyed law but just needed a different subject matter and a different environment, or if the entire profession was not aligned for me. I also realized that I wouldn’t be able to make that decision or identify new paths from where I was standing. The only pathways in front of me were more traditional legal paths – going in-house, smaller litigation boutiques, nonprofit legal work. I knew that my path would likely be untraditional, and that I hadn’t seen it yet.
I decided to quit my job without a job lined up or a real plan. I decided I would pursue environmental law. My undergraduate degree is environmental studies with a minor in marine science and I focused on environmental law at Tulane. I went to law school to be an environmental lawyer, so it felt natural. I had reached out to my professors at Tulane Law School, who are incredibly supportive of me, and was offered an advisor role at the Tulane Center for Environmental Law, which was not a job, but could help me develop a network in the field and allow me to work with environmental law students in a mentorship capacity, which was really fun. I continued to work with them for several years.
I realized I was more scared of staying where I was than leaving without a plan. I trusted that I would figure it out. I trusted that I would find the resources I need to move forward, that I would learn about opportunities, and paths would emerge forward. I believed that if I gave myself space, the right things would come in. I could use the money I had to float me for a while. And worst case, I could go back to full-time law practice.
This was scary for me! We were early in the pandemic – I didn’t know if we were about to go into financial collapse or a recession. I didn’t know if this was crazy, or selfish. I was nervous about what others would think. I felt reckless.
But I knew I wanted more. I was nearly 28 years old. I felt too young to commit to a path that I knew wouldn’t make me happy or fulfilled. My life felt too valuable to commit my time to something that limited my potential. I wanted to love my job.
Shortly after quitting, amazing things started happening. I began to received a prestigious invitation for a legal job I hadn’t even applied for, which I didn’t want, but made me feel confident that I would be able to find employment if I needed it and that I was supported. Within two weeks of leaving, I was offered a part time environmental law role – a dream role – from an alumni of the firm I met through a contact. Again, I didn’t apply for this role, it was offered to me after we had an engaging phone call. This offered me financial support and allowed me to stretch my savings further to continue to explore what I wanted.
The first several months of my “sabbatical” were healing, but not productive. I went on a 3 week solo road-trip through Montana and Wyoming, camping alone for the first time, to work on feeling safe in the world. I returned on New York, expecting that I would feel excited and ready to figure out my next step. I was surprised to experience very low energy and persistent exhaustion. It felt like it took all my effort to do regular things, like cook meals, go on walks, and keep my home clean. I often slept 11 hours a night. In retrospect, I see that I was healing from burnout and needed rest.
But I began to experiment and follow the crumbs. I knew I wanted to share myself and my ideas online, but I didn’t know in what capacity. I created an IG account called Wild River. I planned to share about environmental education, but I though I might also share on connecting with earth consciousness – the energy of Earth – and perhaps other spiritual ideas. I started sharing in November 2020, talking about food waste and mindset about sustainability, but would also talk about my personal journey and thoughts.
I had also started studying a birth time system, roughly similar to Astrology, called Human Design, that had captured my interest a few years prior. Human design is a system that helps you see yourself. It helps you identify how your energy works, how you impact others, how others impact you, your core gifts, and ways you naturally thrive with more ease. I found it in 2018 and began experimenting with its teachings and it had helped me so much in connecting with myself and trusting myself.
In October 2020, I had enrolled in a course that would teach me how to read charts. I viewed it as a hobby, but it gave me something exciting to focus my energy towards. By early 2021, I began to give readings to friends, and they started referring me to strangers. I started offering readings professionally, meaning I was paid for them by others. I also started sharing human design online, which brought me into a human design community. I loved giving readings. I loved providing people with information that helped them understand themselves. But what I loved more what holding space for them and going deep into their emotions. I knew that to do more of that, I would need to get more training and create different ways to work with clients. I wanted to see them on an ongoing basis and I didn’t want to focus on human design; I wanted to focus on them and have human design be just many tools to help them transform their inner world and relationship with themselves. I also knew that so much of personal growth and healing was sourced from the body, and that the relationship with the body was key. I realized I wanted to be a somatic coach – somebody who helped people move their lives forward by developing their mind-body connection and strengthening their sense of self and connection to their body. I didn’t know where this would take me, or the best way to get there. There isn’t an exact path for this sort of work, so I focused on taking baby steps towards my curiosity and interests.
Around this time, Spring or summer 2021, I had begun hosting women’s circles again after a break for the pandemic. I hosted them virtually with a human design reader and therapist-in-training (now therapist) I had become friends with (Nadia Last, who is now my business partner). In these circles, I guided people into meditations to connect with Earth energy, and some folks had mystical experiences. They were seeing visuals and beings and experiencing intense visualizations. I realized that these were not normal meditations. I suspected I was doing energy healing on these folks without realizing. I did Reiki training and got my reiki attunement and began practicing energy healing on folks, continually surprised to see people were having powerful and healing results. And I continued my study of human design, and sharing it in hundreds of professional readings.
I also began my coaching training. I enrolled in extensive coursework with professional organizations, studying both traditional corporate coaching and mind-body coaching, as well as studying somatic trauma therapy practices. I began a mediumship mentorship to develop my intuitive abilities, which expanded by abilities to guide sessions and support clients in connecting with themselves on a soul level in tremendous ways.
Beginning in fall 2021, I co-led two group coaching programs that focused on connecting with your spiritual self, with my business partner Nadia Last. Together, we also ran three 4-month courses training others how to read human design charts.
Over the course of two years, the vision for Wild River began to take form. It trickled in in pieces. It first felt like looking out of a window into the dark night – nothing really was visible. And then a very foggy window – you could see the rough shapes of green outside, but nothing beyond that. Over the two years, the window became clearer. I could begin to make out the shapes of trees and bushes. And now its pretty clear. Over this time, I knew I was making space for a new dream to come in. I tried my best to stay patient, which was difficult because I didn’t always have the trust that I would figure it out. I hoped I would, but I didn’t know. I felt like I was being led somewhere and I would just have to wait and see. And that’s exactly what happened. Over time, new pieces of information began to come in. I realized I wanted more than just human design, I wanted something more holistic and intimate, with continuity. The intuitive piece came in. The somatic education was introduced. And I needed time to develop these skillsets, meet and study from the right teachers, and of course practice. I began taking my first 1-1 coaching clients almost two years ago, in May 2022. I am so grateful for those clients for trusting me, a new coach. And the results were profound. I watched their lives change – their confidence, vibrancy, and self-trust radically transform. I witnessed life-altering healing. I recognized that this wasn’t me – instead, I was holding the space and guiding them through their own healing. They were doing the work, and I was showing them the way.
Wild River supports your spiritual and emotional health. I offer a podcast, workshops and group programs, 1-1 sessions, and ongoing weekly and bi-weekly support. I draw on a number of modalities, such traditional coaching practices geared as self-understanding and forward movement, somatic practices to get in the body and process emotions, energy healing to connect with the soul and regulate the nervous system, psychic channeling to expand spiritual awareness, and human design to support self-inquiry. At a core level, I work with my clients to help them know and love themselves, living a purposeful and fulfilling life, and learn to feel and express their emotions. I blend the practical with the mystical to create truly transformative results.
In a few weeks, Nadia and I launch a business called Moonrise. It will be a platform for exploring, learning, and contemplating human design and spirituality. We will have a Youtube channel, podcast, written Human design guidebooks, and deep dive courses. It is such a joy to share this system in our unique voice, to an incredible community. Human design is fascinating and amazing, but at its core, its just a tool to help you get in the heart and love and accept yourself and other people, and it is our hope that Moonrise will help empower that self-love journey.
This work is extremely fulfilling for me. I am so happy I didn’t accept a career trajectory that was so dulling and unsatisfying. I love helping people feel empowered in their lives and I love seeing them take advantage of their life more fully, because it is a blessing to be alive and our lives should be lived fully. I love being an entrepreneur. I am constantly learning new skills, challenging myself, and working through problems. I appreciate how dynamic it is. And it challenges me to be my best self. The only way I can do my job well is to be all in. It required a full lifestyle commitment. It requires me to take time every day to care for my physical body, emotional body, and spiritual body. It also requires me to walk my talk. I can’t teach authenticity and living your values and being brave if I am not authentic and living my values and being brave. So it asks me to step up and be the best version of myself that I know how to be (also recognizing that I also have many blind spots and am always growing and evolving). I love living like this and it is 100% worth it.
Defining Moment 3: Calling off My Wedding and Beginning a New Chapter
Because the last two sections were long and this feels the least important, I won’t give this as much time. But last March, March 2023, I called off my wedding two weeks before the big day and exited my relationship with my partner of 7.5 years. This was a loving and joyful partnership. There was nothing bad or egregiously wrong with it. And I felt excited to marry this person. Until a few weeks before, I had this sudden realization that it wasn’t right. It hit me on a body-level first. I suddenly got extremely nauseous, couldn’t eat or sleep, and began crying all the time.
I took some time by myself and started to evaluate the relationship. I realized there were some significant ways that I was compromising what I wanted, for my life and from my relationship. I realized I was dismissing my own needs. And that I had told myself for a long time that I didn’t need these things or these qualities in a partner, when in fact I really, really wanted them. I saw that I entered this relationship at the age of 23 and now at 30 years old, after undergoing significant transformation, it no longer fit me in the way that I wanted. I also didn’t trust that it would grow with me.
I wanted different. And I wanted more. My ex is a wonderful, kind man, but I wanted da relationship that offered me more that what I had. More connection, more support, more alignment in values, more adventure. And I didn’t know if I could have it – I wasn’t confident I would find more, maybe I’d be trading this in for something different but not more – but I knew I needed to give myself the chance to have it. I knew that if I didn’t, I’d always wonder, and I knew that if I was going to be staying with someone and marrying them, I needed to be fully choosing them. I couldn’t do that.
This whole process was fast. From the first time I had the thought to calling off the wedding and exiting the relationship was about 10 days. It was the most painful and intense week of my life. It was devastating.
But on the other side, I felt a huge burst of energy. I felt renewed. I never once doubted by decision or regretted it. And I felt excited by all the newness.
The next six months were extremely dynamic. I spent a few months living in Denver, processing all the big emotions that come with such a dramatic life change, but also having a ton of fun and spending time with people I loved. I left Vermont, where I had been living with my ex, and got rid of all of my possessions except what I could fit in my car (downsizing from a 4 bedroom apartment). I then spent 4 months living out of my car (not sleeping in it – staying with friends, family, some camping, and airbnb), traveling throughout the American West, exploring new places to live, meeting new people, and seeking adventure. It was some of the best four months of my life. I experienced magic everywhere. I was led solely by my intuition, letting this inner knowing guide me to the next place and adventure. I met incredible people along the way.
It was also an emotionally intense time. I experienced intense pain and grief as I processed the end of one chapter and the unknowns of the next. It was hard at times, emotionally, to have no idea where I would be next week, let alone in one year. And I had to really look at the relationship and see my role in it, which was difficult too. I learned so much over this time and matured a lot. I realized how strong I am and how it was my inner resources and trust of myself that made me feel safe, not stability, or a house, or knowing the future.
By November, I had landed in Austin, Texas, where I live now and expect to live for a long time, maybe forever. I love it here. I have met incredible people. I’ve had a lot of fun. Seen some great music. I feel at home. I am excited to plant my roots, nurture Wild River, and build community, and hopefully meet my next partner and one day start a family here.
Sam, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I think I answered this before, but will copy and paste what I wrote there and add a little bit to it:
My business Wild River supports your spiritual and emotional health. I offer a podcast, Wild River Podcast, price-accessible monthly workshops, group programs, 1-1 sessions (80 minute readings called Clarity Calls), and ongoing weekly and bi-weekly support (coaching). I draw on a number of modalities, such traditional coaching practices geared as self-understanding and forward movement, somatic practices to get in the body and process emotions, energy healing to connect with the soul and regulate the nervous system, psychic channeling to expand spiritual awareness, and human design to support self-inquiry. At a core level, I work with my clients to help them know and love themselves, living a purposeful and fulfilling life, and learn to feel and express their emotions. I blend the practical with the mystical to create truly transformative results.
One of the things that sets me apart is that I believe your emotions, and your connection to them, are one of your biggest pathways to success and to getting what you want out of life. Your emotions are not a burden or a distraction, but rather the pathway to understanding yourself, connect with your intuition, identify your desires and needs, build intimacy with others, as well as the way to feel vibrancy, increase your magnetism, and develop unshakeable self trust and confidence. Learning how to sense, feel, and express your emotions is wildly beneficial, yet something most of us were never taught to do.
As a deeply spiritual person, but also a lawyer, I have an appreciation for the mystical, but am pragmatic and practical. Connecting with your spiritual self provides an incredible resource for purpose, positivity, perspective, and clarity, but I firmly believe that if you can’t see or feel how something is helping you in your day-to-day real life, than it might not be worth pursuing. Our lives are meant to be lived now, in the present, in the mundane, in the real. I feel that sometimes the spiritual world can feel too abstract or out there, and one of my gifts is grounding the benefits of those perspectives. I find that I am a bridge between two worlds.
Lastly, I am embodied in everything I teach, and fully commit to living according to my values and the practices and perspectives I share with others. I always strive to live from the heart – as authentically, loving, and transparent as I can. I highly value integrity, and often consider how to ensure that I am always sharing and leading from a place of integrity.
In a few weeks, on April 8, Nadia and I launch a business called Moonrise. It will be a platform for exploring, learning, and contemplating human design and spirituality. We will have a Youtube channel, podcast, written Human design guidebooks, and deep dive courses. It is such a joy to share this system in our unique voice, to an incredible community. Human design is fascinating and amazing, but at its core, its just a tool to help you get in the heart and love and accept yourself and other people, and it is our hope that Moonrise will help empower that self-love journey.
If you could go back, would you choose the same profession, specialty, etc.?
I would choose going to law school and pursuing Big Law again and again. It showed me that I was resilient, hard working, extremely capable, and very intelligent. I didn’t know those things about myself. I hoped I was those things, but I had lost my confidence in those qualities. And through realizing I needed to leave law, I learned that I was all of those things whether or not I was a lawyer. I am intelligent because it is who I am, not because I work at a fancy law firm.
I also would choose the path again because it was what I wanted at that time. I wanted to see if I could be successful on a traditional career path. I craved the validation of prestige. Now that I’ve had it, I realize it is not very meaningful to me. But I would have always wondered and wanted it if I didn’t have it and see what it did and didn’t offer my life.
I am also extremely grateful for the mentorship I received from such excellent lawyers and people. I learned fantastic skills and believe the skillsets I learned translate to my coaching and human design business every day.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
The three stories I shared on the first question illustrate my resilience. One thing I notice in these big leaps are that I continued to want more out of my life and believe that it is possible. I think this desire for more comes from a deep respect of what life could be and the blessing of it. It is an incredible gift to be alive at this time, in this body, with these talents and privileges, and the opportunities in front of me. In the history of the planet, relatively people have gotten to be 31 years old, healthy, highly educated, resources like food, health care, travel, additional education, and with no significant responsibilities (such as children) or limitations. If I am lucky enough to have the opportunity to build a life that I want, I am going to take it. I am not going to accept something that is perfectly adequate, but does not make me deeply happy or fulfilled if there is a chance I could have more.
I’ve realized it is very brave to want more. It requires you to decide that you are worthy of more. And for me, I have felt that others may think I am greedy or selfish. I already have a stable, high-paying job or a kind partner . . . you still want more?! I’ve worried that this desire for more will be insatiable. That I’ll get more and it’ll never be enough. That I won’t ever find contentment. But I’ve seen that it isn’t true. It’s not that I always want more money or friends or places to visit. I have found a lot of contentment when I am not making very much and when my days are quiet and simple. I’ve realized that my desire for more is not because I am insatiable, but because what I had was simply not enough. And when I looked for more, I got it, and it satisfied me.
Each time I took a leap in the search for more, amazing things happened. Magic happened. Incredible opportunities or people or ideas emerged to help me with the leap. But it was also extremely difficult. It was very hard to walk away from my high-paying salary into unemployment, knowing that I would likely be pursuing a career that was likely to be less lucrative. It was very hard to put myself out there as a practitioner in a very alternative field – transformative coaching and spiritual healing. It was very hard to call off my wedding and hurt someone I loved. Each chapter brought intense instability and a lot of mystery. I didn’t have the evidence things would work out when I leaped, except for a trust in my self and my capabilities (and the privilege of people around me and a family who could and would support me, financially and emotionally).
Contact Info:
- Website: www.wildriver.live
- Instagram: @wildriver
- Other: Moonrise website will be www.moonrisecommunity.com – it is not up yet but will be soon!
Image Credits
Photo credits to Mandee Rae Photography https://www.mandeerae.com