Change

Change can be tough. It requires courage, humility, and patient trust. It asks us to choose how we respond to it – with limitation, or anticipation. 

One moment crystalized in my memory is a lunch period during freshman year of high school when I sat in a bathroom stall eating my bagged lunch. I was living away from home at the time, studying at a ballet school in the San Francisco Bay Area, and unexpectedly had to change schools for spring semester. This painfully shy girl had reached her limit. 

Facing the mean girl stares of other ballerinas across the rehearsal hall stretched me daily and drove me to hide at the back of the room. Sitting in the bathroom stall that day, I just didn’t have it in me to navigate making new friends. And yet, I learned more about myself that year, facing my timid fears, than almost any other time in my life. Courage led me to make a dramatic decision. It was more important to me WHO I was than WHAT I was, and at 15, I gave up my identity as a dancer – the one thing I’d focused my life on – and began anew. 

Last June, when my husband and I packed all our belongings into storage, moved into an Airstream, and became empty nester digital nomads while designing a house and starting new ventures, I had another choice: Dip my toes in part-way, or go for the cannonball?

Over the years, frequent change has developed in me the ability to be flexible and adaptable when outside my comfort zones. To this day, few realize the courage it takes me to “suck it up” and overcome the hesitations of shyness. Maybe some of you know that feeling too?

Launching Honest Heart Journeys is a calling - to nurture the kind of womanhood I believe our world needs, to build and host meaningful connections, and to grow beyond the faith-based community I’ve worked in for years to share Love in new ways. It also means meeting reservation deadlines and financial obligations that can seem daunting, and frankly, not at all within my comfort zone. But I do know that it’s what we learn about ourselves, in responding to learning curves and change, that defines us. 

Who I am IS more important than what I am. Bringing an honest heart to all that I do, and to every venture, is a sure foundation for good things to come. I’m grateful you’re sharing this journey with me!