A few days ago my friend, Cee, sent me a note asking a deceptively simple question.
What do you live for?
The first answers that came to me were surface—what I thought I should live for: to uplift others, to make this world a little kinder, to raise consciousness, to share what I’ve learned, to experiment, learn and grow, etc.
But I didn’t answer her right away. I decided to sit with it.
What do I live for?
What is the truth?
Because she had read my book, she knew that there were times I didn’t want to live anymore. There were periods of my life that were so dark I didn’t see the point in continuing.
Yet, I did. Why?
I sat with it for a couple days. Then the answer arrived, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world:
To find out what happens next.
Life is a hero’s journey adventure game full of twists and turns, peaks and valleys. When you’re at the top, you think that’s it, you’ve made it! Everything is going to work now, forever. But then, suddenly, you find yourself back down on the ground in the valley, looking up, up, up at yet another mountain peak wondering…
“Can I really do this again? Can I get up again? Can I climb again? Can I try again? And do I even want to?”
I’ve hit many places in my life where the answer felt like a resounding “no.”
It felt too hard. I felt too tired. I couldn’t see how or why it would be worth it. Because I had already climbed so many mountains, reached so many mountain tops, and fallen back down into so many deep, dark valleys.
Why do it all again?
To find out what happens next.
A Story
It’s a more profound answer than it sounds. Let me explain with a story.
I have many stories I could share with you. But the one that stands out is when my marriage ended (amicably) 16 years ago and all my then-identities fell away.
We ran a children’s education charity together that built schools in Laos—one of the most meaningful things I’ve ever done. We travelled the world doing intensive personal growth and spiritual growth retreats together. We held space for each other. We challenged each other. He was my best friend but we had never been in love. That’s a longer story you can read about in my book, if you’re interested.
What matters is that, within the span of a few months, I was no longer the executive director of my own children’s charity. I was no longer a wife or a sister-in-law. I lost a huge extended family that I cherished. I grew up estranged from my parents with very few relatives nearby.
I now had to sell my dream house—a century old Victorian farmhouse in Meaford, ON, on two acres with a permaculture hobby farm I planted myself—and the real estate market had crashed a couple years back with no light on the horizon, so we were going to lose a lot of money.
The way it all played out left us with one week to empty the house. There was no time to sell anything and nowhere to store anything. We loaded all my furniture and treasures I had collected from around the world onto the back of my brother’s trailer and took it to the local thrift shop.
As we pulled in a family was getting out of their car. The father came over and asked if we were donating the furniture, because they had just moved to Canada from another country with nothing. It felt divinely timed. I gave them everything—including my beautiful couch, where I’d spent hours in the warm glow of the fire of my dream wood stove we’d had installed, watching movies on my old VCR.
My 80 year old neighbour asked if she could have the piano for her grandson. That was a hard one—my childhood piano. But I was glad someone would be playing it, since I honestly barely did anymore.
The items were all drenched in memories. Giving them away felt like losing pieces of myself.
But the forest garden was the hardest thing to let go of in the end, because I had heavily invested in the fantasy of that future. I spent two years, hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars planting what I imagined would be an educational food forest with a walkway through it, a fire pit in the middle, fruit, nuts and more growing wildly and abundantly everywhere, Korean pine nut trees defining the perimeter. I imagined holding retreats there, where people could connect with themselves, each other, and the food forest. I even imagined creating an intentional co-living community, though I’ve since learned co-living with groups is not great for me. I need my own private space to regroup from the world.
I still miss my food forest and all the magic that was part of watching it grow. I was devastated when I returned a few years later and saw that the new owners removed all my fruit trees to create a soccer field for their kids. They even removed my beloved magnolia tree, which I had always dreamed of growing, watching it bloom each year.
I was shocked by the shortsightedness of these new owners—how could they not value the beauty of these living things? It was a hard time.
After the divorce, I moved into a one-room apartment in Bloor West that looked down on a little courtyard. It was a cute place and, since I had no way to prove a source of income, it was a miracle I got it at all. But I still went into a state of such deep grief I didn’t know if I could emerge. I had lost everything I thought defined me. I didn’t have any savings either. (Yes, I realize saving has never been a strongpoint of mine, and I keep trying to improve that.)
What I Learned
I’m not a religious person in the book sense, but I have had a truly ridiculous amount of wild and unexplainable spiritual experiences, and my work as a clairvoyant depends on that ability, so I know there is an intelligent River of Love that flows through everything. In my book, I call it The River of Higher Possibilities (there’s a whole chapter on it). It’s always trying to take us toward something better, which sometimes requires taking us through hell first.
But when you are lying there alone in the darkness with nothing to hold onto—no identities, no things, no people to help you, it’s extremely difficult to trust in that River. I know.
When I look back, it was so very dark. I caught myself fantasizing about ways to end my life daily. I tried hard to focus on gratitude for what was still good, but I really couldn’t feel it. I felt dead inside.
I’ve since learned that identity death is actually a good thing.
It’s part of evolution. The old dies to make way for the new. You can’t have new life without death. The forest fires of life come through to clear out everything so that something new can grow. Yes, they burn. They hurt. All we can see is the devastation. But underneath the ashes, new seeds are bursting open. New possibilities are growing.
I didn’t think any of these profound things during that dark time, by the way. I was on my knees in a field full of the burned ashes of my dreams.
What did I live for, then, during that dark, confusing time?
Only one thing.
To see what might happen next.
Because that is something I’ve experienced again and again. It’s the hero’s journey (which my book has two chapters on, because I feel it’s so integral to understanding the hard things we go through).
If we keep going, the River carries us forward to new possibilities—new stages in the hero’s journey.
In that darkness, a seed was planted and, slowly, it grew.
New Seeds Begin to Grow
I had the idea to throw myself even deeper into a year without identity. I called it “The Year of Giving Myself Away.” I put away my dreams of being an author, speaker, teacher, world changer (as an identity), and I just spent a year volunteering most of my time in complete anonymity: in community food programs, youth detention gardening initiatives, seniors homes, a permaculture conference and more.
I could write an entire book on just this period of my life (and there is a chapter about this time in my actual book) but I’m just trying to show you something here.
The River of Higher Possibilities is real and it is always trying to help you move forward on your personal hero’s journey, even when that help is painful.
The amount of incredible awe-inspiring adventures that happened to me and through me after that dark time is such a long and list, I can’t share it all here.
Here’s the core of it.
I spent five years in a stable, life-expanding common-law relationship where I lived in a condo in Liberty Village, expanded my capacity as a high-performance coach with leaders and became an urban gardener—the only person with a full-size greenhouse and a full container garden on a balcony in the neighbourhood.
Another Identity Death: And More New Seeds
When that ended, I went through another dark night of the soul that was even darker than that last one. It was just one too many identity deaths. and, once again, I had no money, no home, nowhere to go. One night, I caught myself writing goodbye letters to all the people who mattered. I knew that some fed up, grief-swamped part of me was taking over, and it felt dangerous.
So I went to Mexico for a month, with a goal to find a way forward and to start writing my second book—a long-time dream. It took a lot of courage. And, to be totally transparent, I did have it in my mind that if I didn’t find a way forward in Mexico, I could end my life there.
But the River showed up and lovingly carried me forward. It gave me a series of beautiful people, experiences and events that reminded me good things could still happen. Maybe, most important, it introduced me to dancing, something I’d never done my whole life because I was disassociated from my body.
When I returned to Canada, I became obsessed with learning how to dance salsa and bachata. I spent the next year dancing up to five hours every single day. I lost 20 pounds, not just physically but emotionally. And I met a bunch of incredible leaders who were moonlighting as regular people in the dance scene—CEOs and entrepreneurs with their startups. They all hired me to coach them (I’m a psychic clairvoyant coach and medium who specializes in helping high-performing leaders/creators. Even though my human is quite obviously messy, my ability to channel guidance for others is accurate).
So you see, the River gave me everything I needed. It is my knowledge that the River is real and always secretly helping me. Even when some part of my struggling human self doesn’t believe in anything good at all, that knowledge allows me to continue on my own hero’s journey.
So if you find yourself at any time wondering:
What am I here for? What do I have to live for? Why continue?
You are welcome to adopt my answer:
To find out what happens next.
Because as long as you keep going, it’s often true that, even against all odds and all logic, the best is yet to come. And you only can really appreciate the best when you have experienced the context of the worst, so those hard times turn out to be a gift.
Life is a game of context and contrast. We are all playing that game and co-creating it together.
What I’m Living For Now
So what do I live for now? Is it really just to find out what happens next on this crazy adventure as a spiritual being having a human experience?
I’ve been sitting with that question. The answer is no. There’s more.
When I get very present with myself I can feel that there are other things I care about that motivate me to continue.
Things like helping people remember who they really are, and how to understand and play the game of Life in a way where it hurts them less and they enjoy it more (with The Third Person Method, shared in my book). Also, by helping to create a better, kinder game—a win-win world where we can all thrive together—by helping leaders who actually care about that sort of thing to do it all at a higher level, using my personal experience, skills and gifts.
As someone who has known the darkness of feeling lost and alone, one of the things I also live for, and get out of bed for, is to walk other people out of that darkness, back into the power of their own light.
Nothing makes me feel happier than freeing people from their pain.
But I’m human just like everyone. I have my own pain, and sometimes I need to dedicate time to that inner work to get more clear and grounded.
As I write this, I’m doing my own two-week retreat. Part of that is taking a break from being a full-time caregiver to my senior parents, who are fairly independent but both have over 80% hearing loss and other health problems. That has been its own journey. Perhaps I’ll share it in a future post, if you’re interested.
For my personal retreat, I’m walking daily in High Park—a place that has hosted many of my identities over the years. A place that is my own version of a sacred temple. I’ve been going there since I was five years old.
While walking there, both alone and with friends, I’ve been meeting those old versions of myself with love, forgiveness and understanding. Sometimes, in return, they surprise me and delight me.
I have realized that you never really lose your old identities. They form the foundation of your next incarnation in this life. The lessons learned become rich compost to grow all new things in better ways. But they also help you understand what you really enjoy, value, care about, want more of … and less of.
Recently, my old identities are like friends that come to visit me, reminding me of things I’ve always cared about—things that light me up inside that I’ve lost touch with.
Like writing. I haven’t written anything much in months.
Yet, suddenly, here I am, writing this to you.
You never know what might happen if you just keep going. So you should always keep going, even if you have to take a break sometimes.
I’m very glad to share that, no matter how hard or weird things get now, I don’t ever have thoughts of ending my life anymore. I still struggle sometimes, and I can withdraw from life for periods of time, but I have finally managed to help the struggling parts of my human self to believe that it’s always worth sticking around to find out what happens next… just in case it’s awesome.
Because it really can be.
If any of these ideas resonate with you about life as a game, the hero’s journey, the River of higher possibilities, simple tools to keep going during hard times, or you would just like to read more of my stories and insights, you will probably enjoy reading my bestselling book The Third Person Method: A Daily Practice to Lead, Create + Live From Your Higher-Self Intelligence published by Outsiders Press. (This is the Canadian link, but it’s available on all Amazon platforms around the world.)
