You feel you don’t belong on this path

You feel like a piece of yourself is missing. You yearn for a way to express yourself in the world, in the work you do, and with the people you surround yourself with. You feel like there has to be something more to your life, but the search for that missing piece has become exhausting.

The problem isn’t you.

The problem is the expectations that have been placed on you by society and those around you. You’re expected to be a certain way and follow the same path as everyone else. You’re expected to be a practical, rule-following woman, or to try to be more like a man to make it in their world.

It’s time to free yourself from expectations, and let the woman buried inside of you out.

It’s time:

To question everything you’ve been told about how to be and succeed as a woman in this world
To listen to your inner knowing and wisdom instead of the noise around you
To get in touch with your innermost desires & make your dreams a reality
To fulfill your passions and purpose with work you love
To fall in love with the woman you are
To start living a life you feel good about—one that looks like your own
To become the truest version of yourself and align your life with who you are

It’s time to embody your feminine truth.

I let expectations guide me too

For as long as I can remember, I wanted to be an artist. When I was faced with college decisions in high school, the pressures to be practical led me to explore other careers, but ultimately I chose to visit an art school.

When I returned home, I was excited and ready to declare my major and school choice. That was until I was dealt a crushing blow when my parents told me they would not support me in going to art school (no financial support made it near impossible). They said I needed a “well-rounded” education.

From that point on, I resumed exploring more practical career paths. I looked at STEM fields since they would prove my intelligence, something a creative field couldn’t offer, even though no other career path ever felt quite right. This was one of the first beliefs I found myself living.

Other externally influenced beliefs included:

I can’t get married. An equal, loving relationship doesn’t exist and will prevent me from being the independent woman I am.
I can’t have kids. I will lose myself in exchange for being a mother – which becomes your entire identity instead of a part of your identity.
I can’t have long hair. It’s overly feminine and makes you appear weak and unintelligent.
I’m going to start a business, but I can’t make money as a graphic designer. People don’t pay for pretty things, they pay for practical things like websites.
I have to hustle to succeed. I can’t take time off my business for self-care, hobbies, or family. I have to always be working, always be creating something for my business, otherwise I will never succeed.

These beliefs make me laugh a little looking back at them. But they weren’t funny when they were affecting my life decisions and direction. They felt very real.

Those beliefs weren’t my truth.

For a long time, I thought my parents were primarily responsible for misleading me, and while they did play their part, their expectations were influenced by society.

Our patriarchal society expects us to be a certain way and follow a certain path. These norms ignore the inherent differences in individuals, expect men to be one way and women another, and some even expect women to be more like men to adapt to a man’s world.

And these expectations left me feeling unfulfilled and like a piece of myself was missing.

It’s time to question everything you’ve been told

Luckily, as a Questioner and bit of a Rebel (Gretchen Rubin’s The Four Tendencies) and INTP (can you tell I love personality profiling?), I don’t settle for the norm. I was always questioning and seeking out my truth. I strived to get to know myself better and listen to my inner truth.

Getting to the heart of what I wanted, and shunning these external pressures and societal norms allowed me to gradually, through trial and error and lots of lessons, return home to myself.

What happens when you listen to yourself and what you want out of life instead of what others expect of you or what you think you should do? You no longer feel like a piece is missing. You begin to feel whole.

By breaking down these rules I created for myself based on external expectations, I allowed myself to marry my best friend and equal partner, had a daughter and didn’t lose the other parts of myself, threw away my STEM degree to pursue my creative business, then pivoted my business to break free from “shoulds” and do only things that lit me up, and even started making art again.

I’m a work-in-progress, but I’m also releasing from the hustle and striving of leading my business from the masculine and tuning into my feminine cycles and finding more flow in my life and work.

You can find your own truth as a woman and align your life with your dreams.

I’m here as your guide to help you question what you’ve been told, listen to your own inner wisdom, and reconnect to what is true for you. When we’re done, you’ll feel free to be yourself, do more of what you love, and live a life that looks like your own instead of someone else’s. I’m here to help you feel whole again and work towards the life of your dreams.

It is my mission to create a movement and community of women showing up as their true selves, who do what they love instead of what they “should,” who listen to their heart instead of the voices around them, who are deeply connected to the woman inside and not afraid to let her out, and who quit letting external pressures dictate who they are and what their life should look like.

I hope you’ll join us.