The Threshold
On the Eve of 41
I’m writing to you on the eve of my birthday, and as such I’m feeling reflective, thinking back over the past year, the woman that I have become, the way that I’ve changed.
One year ago I was in Bali celebrating my 40th birthday, about to embark on a beautiful psychic retreat with my husband and friends. And today I sit in London in the middle of a heat wave, which I’m not unfamiliar with in the middle of summer.
And there’s a different kind of contemplation that’s going on in my mind. A contemplation of all the things that I have created in my life, all the dreams that I follow, the ways that I’ve changed, the ways that I’ve grown. The woman that I’m still becoming and the dreams that still sit just beyond the threshold of my awareness, even though I can feel them already calling me forward, not quite knowing what shape they’ll take or how I’ll bring them to life.
I’ve always loved my birthday. I’ve celebrated in so many ways over the years — wild nights in Berlin, winter birthdays in Argentina and Paraguay, summers at the beach or the pool. I’ve had nights that were fun and wild and crazy, and I’ve had days and nights that were tame and calm.
This year feels different. It’s hard to explain. I normally know exactly what I want to do, how I want to celebrate, and I plan. But this year I didn’t have the heart to go through a big planning. Something in me was calling for a deeper reflection — more space, more time to sit and see and think.
What has come over the past year? What have the past seven years brought me? And what am I working towards now?
There’s so much that’s falling away. There’s so much that is yet to be born. I can feel the shift — I’ve been feeling it for a while. I know so many of you have too.
I support my clients through the very same transformations that I am currently experiencing myself. There’s a threshold moment here — a moment where everything that’s come before is falling away, or already has, and everything that’s yet to come is not yet formed.
I’ve been in a lot of resistance with this process. Trying to figure it out, trying to control, trying to manage the situation. I’ve always been a high achiever. I work hard, I love to create new things in the world, and I’m willing to go to any length to bring it to life.
But lately I’ve recognized that that way of creating, that way of being, no longer feels aligned with where I am in my life — with who I want to be, with the level of peace and alignment that I want to feel. As I deepen on my own spiritual journey and my spiritual path, I know that a deeper level of connection is awaiting me.
There’s more alignment to be had, and it doesn’t come from pushing or striving. It comes from more allowing. From connecting to the things that I really want and allowing myself to not only see what I want — to own it, to claim it, to ask for it — and to stop at nothing to make it happen.
Most of us struggle to know what it is that we want. That’s why so many dreams are left unfulfilled. It comes from a lifetime of people telling us who we should be, what we should do, how we should act. We look outside ourselves, we watch TV, we scan Instagram, and we look to others to tell us who we should want to be, what we should want to do. And slowly we start to lose touch with who we actually are and what we actually want for our own lives.
It’s almost as if we want to borrow that certainty from someone else. Well, they look like they have it all together, so I’ll just do what they’re doing. It seems so simple at first — to just borrow this vision, borrow these dreams and desires from another person. And yet the more we do it, the more we quietly erode our own ability to tune into what we want.
The truth is that it can be so hard to see clearly, and yet we can build the muscle. It’s something that we can work on. It’s something that I work on every day.
So as I sit here at this precipice of a new birthday, of a new year, I’m getting honest with myself about what I really want. I’m taking a look at all the different places and ways in my life that I have succumbed to listening to others, to letting someone else dream and plan for me, to the quiet ways that I have abandoned myself to fulfill the dreams of another.
Now don’t get me wrong — this isn’t because someone else has asked me to do just that. They haven’t. They might not even know the influence that they’ve had on my life. The truth is that it’s always coming from me. The choices that I make are always mine to make. And I make them willingly.
But on this precipice, I’ve decided to reclaim what I want. To tune in to the yearnings of my soul, to that inner knowing — that deep place within me that always knows exactly what I want, exactly what I need — and I’m determined to stop drowning it out.
I’m ready now to own the things that I want, the dreams that I have. To let go of the projects, the people, the expectations that don’t align and were never really mine to begin with. To let go of this idea of how life is supposed to be — the ways that you’re supposed to feel, how to be in relation to others, how to grow a business. While I’ve had a lot of success with all of those things, they no longer feel true for me. And because of that, I no longer wish to follow a path that isn’t in alignment.
And so I’m ready to come back to myself.
I will be doing my best from here on out to be true to myself, to make the choices that don’t make sense logically, to find that stillness and quiet within that helps me know deeper, and to find those moments of uplift and joy and celebration that also bring me closer to myself. The moments of fun and lightness.
To wander in nature, connect with the trees, talk to the birds, and let them sing me a song of what is true in my heart. I’m ready to reconnect to the traveler within — the brave woman who’s not afraid to enter any continent, any country, and wander the streets as if they are her own, meeting new people and cultures along the way.
The past seven years have been a reclamation of safety, security, and grounding. I felt so held and supported and loved throughout this period of my life. There are so many people to thank for that, but most importantly my husband. He has been nothing but a rock for me. He showed me what true grounding and safety can feel like in a way that I had never experienced before in my life. Now it is from that ground, from that safe place, that I know I can reach the next level — the new heights that I’ve been dreaming of.
If you’re still here with me, still reading, thank you. Thank you for being witness to this process and for giving me your time and hopefully seeing a piece of yourself in what I share. If you’ve been looking for permission to find a path forward that is truer to who you are, truer for who you want to become, let this be your sign that you can do it too. That it is possible to find alignment and follow a path forward that belongs to you, even if it doesn’t make sense to others and even if others would prefer that you stay in the known.
I’m so grateful to have you here with me, walking this path beside me, and I can’t wait to see what this next phase of life will bring.
Sending you all my love,
Amanda