(Chapters 1-4) After the Candles, Before the Answers

The quiet, uncertain terrain I’m walking — and why I’ve chosen to share it in real time

A Soft Note Before We Begin

One of the most soul-stirring commitments I made to myself on my 41st birthday was this:

To embody the precious gift of freedom.
To step more deeply into the ocean behind me of consciousness and being, instead of outward and downward into the dramas of my Ego, and under the keeper control of my Superego.
To observe, and continue to see, to listen, to choose.
And to do so by continuing to go with the flow of life, allowing it to naturally unfold and to release, release, release. Every moment, every opportunity, instead of taking each into control and constriction, instead to release each and to more fully open.
You can read more about the story here.

I’ve written about my life journey before — in my welcome letter sharing the terrain I’ve walked, sharing my life philosophy (and the very unexpected place it came through), and even a reflection from one year ago, when a conversation transformed a piece of my life journey path.

But now, something deeper calls.

As part of letting go, I’d like to open up that experience to share with you. What does this look like?

To share the pages of my life as they unfold — not just in hindsight, not only after the storm clears, but here, in the middle of the story.
In real time. In rawness. In truth.

This letter is the beginning of that promise.
To open further. To bring you closer. To sit with you in the sacred pause before the next step reveals itself.

I had realized that my intentions for what I share here on Life Journey: empowered were only to be reflections, and possibly some ponderings. But now I open my heart and soul to you to also share those moments (currently) residing in the pause.

I will humbly admit that this post is not about having it all figured out, or already reflecting back on what resulted.

Instead, it’s about witnessing. It’s about choosing presence, even when the path ahead is fogged with uncertainty. And it begins right here — in the space between a birthday candle wish… and the collapse that followed.

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Chapter 1: The Sacred Middle

It had only been a few days since my birthday — a day filled with sunlight, basking in the songs of mockingbirds and the dances of hummingbirds, as well as the soft giggle of my inner child, when I went back and picked the cake she wanted all along. My post about that birthday was one of freedom, a quiet realization that I had released something I had carried far too long: the grip of my ego, the illusion of needing to plan and prove.

But life, in its wisdom, has a way of handing us the very next lesson the moment we set the last one down.

I walked out of my birthday and directly into a dust devil.

Not a storm — at least not at first. It was quiet. It spun up like they do here in Arizona… sudden, swirling, and strangely captivating. You don’t always see them coming. They don’t form over concrete. They find their power in raw earth — the dry, sunbaked kind that remembers every footprint.

Mine began with something seemingly small: a final renewal notice for my Google Workspace account.

When I opened the portal, I saw the structure I had built over a decade, now in a new light. I had built a digital ecosystem inside that workspace — files from over a decade of creative work: videos from my YouTube years, personal reflections, coaching materials, early visions, spiritual notes, past projects, writing drafts, sacred downloads. Plus a slew of ideas I hadn’t yet shared. Thousands of gigabytes. My story is stored in cloud folders.

But in the bask of this new light, I suddenly realized in that moment that I couldn’t afford to keep them any longer. Not in their current state and structure.

I now, had five days to make a decision: either pay a top-heavy bill I could no longer carry… or lose access to it all.

No “easy” way to downsize. No option to pause or fully restructure. I could stay, and find a way to pay. Or I could leave, and lose what I didn’t have time to download and save.

I took a moment to be still, to go inward.
I poured hours of myself, and in many cases, ‘blood, sweat and tears’, into much of it. I worked so hard to make all of this, and now I was willing to just release it to the wind? Letting it get sucked into the digital abyss because I just didn’t know how to save what? Like, I couldn’t make a decision? Of course, I should save it all! What if I’ll need it next week? Or in the future? Or at some point, and then I won’t have it? What will I do then?

Oh, hello, Ego. 😆✨

In that moment of realization, I knew this was an invitation to reflect, to regroup, and release.

Digital files are such interesting creations.
I haven’t yet understood the (odd) permanence of them, and how easy it is to continue to ‘carry them all’ forward. With physical items, the sheer footprint they can end up taking up, in our garages, closets, or corners of our workspaces, helps remind us of how much there is. With digital, it’s floating around in a cloud somewhere. Our banks feel it with each recurring subscription charge. And unless our budgets or spending becomes uncomfy, we don’t think twice.

This was now my invitation to shed what no longer served me.

Could I make a mistake? Sure.
But with physical items, does the same risk present itself? Absolutely.

I knew this was my open window to finally have the courage to release and let go. To allow the stale air (and stale files) to be freed.

And so I did.

Three days. Over twelve hours each. I made a plan on what I wanted to retain (and felt deeply into the ‘why’). I sifted through thousands and thousands of pictures, videos, and documents, continuing to check in with this intention I had set. When my internet bandwidth was throttled and my hourglass was close to running out, my husband graciously helped me pull down from the cloud what was left. And then the speed collapsed entirely (a download speed of 2 Mbps!).

And in those final hours of reviewing, together, we downloaded what we could.
Then, when the window closed, I let go of the rest.

Goodbye.

I made the very real call on what I needed and why. And the anxiety of my Ego kept roaring. But I kept breathing.

A large sense of release I had not felt in years was gently lingering within my aura.

I thought that would be the story.

But it was just the beginning.

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Chapter 2: Meeting My Ego at the Table

The very next morning after releasing the energies and files of my 30’s, I returned to the stillness that anchors me. Sunrise. My recliner. A copy of A New Earth in my lap. And these words that held me as if I had always belonged to them:

“In some cases through disaster or war, people have lost all of these things [possessions, family members, social position, reputation, physical abilities]...
or they lost all of these simultaneously and found themselves with “nothing”.

We may call this a limit-situation.

Whatever they had identified with, whatever game them their sense of self, had been taken away.
Then suddenly and inexplicably, the anguish or intense fear they initially felt gave way to a sacred sense of Presence,
a deep peace and serenity and complete freedom from fear.”

“…the people who experienced it ask themselves:
In the face of this, how can it be that I feel such peace?”

I sat there, still. Because that was exactly what I had been asking myself.

I sat with that peace. And I felt it. Not imagined. Not forced. It arrived gently and fully.

And then he continued:

“The answer is simple, once you realize what the ego is and how it works.

When forms you had identified with, that gave you your sense of self, collapse or are taken away, it can lead to a collapse of the ego,
since ego is identification with form.”

And suddenly, I saw it.

My Ego, sitting across from me at the table.

I wasn’t just reading a book that morning.
I was interviewing my Ego.

Like the seasoned Talent Acquisition professional I had become, I was meeting a candidate I’ve never actually looked in the eye before.

There you are.
There you’ve always been. But now I see you clearly.

What I didn’t know then was that another dust devil had formed just 12 hours after that early-morning breakthrough. That evening, on that same day, I was staring into its circular winds and swirl.

Only this time, it was financial in form.

The money I had carefully set aside after leaving my corporate job last September had finally run out just over a month ago.

By the happenings of the flow that evening, I was invited to sit at the table to understand the full lay of my financial lands, as well as understand the beginning of the gravity of those missed payments.

This was also the moment to sit with the feeling that I could see that my business bank account had not moved from this initial realization about a month ago. The $13.53 I had was not going to satisfy my debt payments.

I had continued to ‘dig my ditches’ through faith, connecting and writing here, continuing to write my manuscripts on a couple of upcoming books (including The Inner Interview), as well as host cohort coaching and community with my Career Clarity business.

Now, for the first time in over fifteen years, I began to be late on payments. Loans I’ve had for decades. Credit cards I’ve never once defaulted on. Accounts I built with pristine care and total consistency.

All blinking now with “past due” and “minimum missed.”

The phone calls had already begun. But not just with reminders. Some of them came equipped with lies. One creditor told me they “knew” I had received a large tax return and I “needed to send it to them immediately”.

The wild part? I hadn’t even yet filed my taxes.

So now my consciousness was becoming aware of the deep lines of lies, control, and manipulation, threading across the voicemails and calls, gently multiplying over the last couple of weeks to a height that was now disturbing.

Did the over fifteen years of timely payments and multiple payoffs matter? No.
I was treated as if I had committed an unforgivable, despicable offense. And most of all like I was a vicious repeat offender.

I’ve never missed a payment before. Not once.
And now, they’re all happening at once.

The dust devil’s vortex was now in full motion.

I sat inside the vortex of the total picture, seeing all of my slashed credit limits. I was not late on all my cards or accounts, and many didn’t even have balances. But as time continues to unfold, I will continue down a late payment road.

What caught my attention was on the cards that were not yet defaulted on, not yet late. Those creditors had cut all of my available credit down (some by more than 85%), not strictly out of fear I may default on their cards…but intentionally to drive my utilization to above 70%, which automatically triggers their ability to charge the legal maximum interest rate here in Arizona.

I learned after a few calls there at my desk that this is incredibly common.
This is also allowed.

I had never heard of this before, and humbly share this here with you too, so that you may know that there are other ways missed payments can suddenly become an unmanageable, entangled, escalating dust devil of fees.

I sat there in awe. It wasn’t just about money.
Now it was about values. Systems. The violence of shame; quiet and institutionalized.

I started to inquire quietly, internally: how did I accumulate this debt in the first place? When did it first occur, and why?

What came to me in that moment was what Michael A. Singer shared in The Untethered Soul:

“Most people have the second reaction when it comes to the limitations of their psyche. They want to stay in there and feel safe. They don’t say, “Get me out of here! I’m locked in this tiny world in which everything has to be a certain way. I have to worry about what everybody’s doing, what I look like, and everything I’ve ever said. I want out.” Instead of wanting out, they try to keep their cage stable. If something is not comfortable, they do whatever they must to protect themselves and get back to a feeling of safety. If you’ve ever done that, it means you love your cage. When the cage of the psyche got rattled, you fixed it so that you could be comfortable inside.”

My goodness. The realization came to me. I had constructed and cared for a cage.

Much of what I had purchased was for my ‘cage’. I ran into the cage, attempting to escape from a world that was incredibly difficult for me to stay in. For my mental health, for my intense sensitivities and abilities to deeply connect with many, which uncovered things I wasn’t yet ready for. I also knew, years ago, that I had already outstayed my welcome. Yet over time, I continued to ‘pad’ my cage with pleasures and pillows that made it easier to reside within it. It kept me justifying my stay in the cage, instead of inquiring as to why I was choosing to be there at that moment.

I truly left that cage when I left my corporate job. But I was still in possession of all of the extras I had purchased, including the debt that accompanied them.

Yet even after reflecting and inquiring through this (my debt origins, where I was, all I was facing, and even some possibilities of what may lie ahead),
shockingly, here I was… feeling peace.

Eckhart’s quote then bubbled up from within:

I sat with it for a moment longer, and then I felt the sheer fear erupt from within.

My ego was now in stages of full collapse.
Thrashing, justifying, yelling, throwing fear, throwing excuses, throwing anger, lashing with words and insults. Powerful fountains of regrets shot up: regrets on all of my choices, regrets for leaving my “safe” Corporate job, regrets for taking a chance on me, and now amplifying my debt and reducing my pristine financial picture and credit score…
My superego was in full go-mode of reminding me of everything I’ve ever learned about finances, bills, credit, credit scores, credit accounts, credit advice, and credit collapse. The financial fears and ruin my parents spoke about, gossiped about with others in the neighborhood, and those I saw along my life journey who were initially buried under financial collapse. Those fears that were enviable if you were “those people” who defaulted…

Then, a waft of Eckhart Tolle wisdom floated by:

For the first time, I wasn’t clinging to those forms.
I wasn’t spiraling with the fear.
I was instead sitting across from my Ego at the table, letting it speak.
Letting it cry. Letting it be seen. Letting it be heard.

As some of the initial exhaustion of my Ego set in, I heard something quieter.
A knowing I have trusted since before I had words for it.

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Chapter 3: The Shock and the Spiral

In Human Design, my conscious Moon hosts Gate 51 — the Gate of Shock.

Shock is not chaos. It’s initiation. I believe this deeply, as I have experienced countless cycles. Shock is instead the moment when your former certainty crumbles, and a deeper truth demands to be experienced.

Shock has always lived deeply in my life journey story. I’ve been told it’s because of Gate 51’s prominent position in my conscious bodygraph. My life journey is chock-full of “shocks” that many I’ve shared them with look at me in utter awe.

Then, in my conscious Sun, I carry Gate 24 — the Gate of Return.

This is the spiral. The revisiting. The rethinking. The long, slow digestion of experience until wisdom gently surfaces. It’s like holding a rough stone in your hand and, over time, through contemplation, reflection, and revisiting, the rougher edges are smoothed between your fingertips and under the friction and become softer.

I don’t grow through tidy steps. I grow through disruption, followed by descent. Then contemplation. Then rise.

My Guides spoke to me about this, too, as I gently held space for all the perspectives coming through “the voice” within:

"Now you’ve got the perspective of your Ego, and your fears, and your foretold beings…"

I paused at the word they used: foretold.
It isn’t part of my daily vocabulary.

But when I looked it up, it struck a chord.
Foretold: to predict or tell of something beforehand.

What if some of these voices inside my mind were old predictions? Old agreements? Old fears that circulated within my consciousness to be recycled into my experience? Old wounds, trying to tell me what comes next, based on what once came before?

And if I provide the ample space to listen to them, to allow them to rise up and be seen and heard… what if I now no longer believe them?

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Chapter 4: The Choice in the Void

What is ‘the void’?

My beautiful friend

Billie Moon

said it best:

"It’s like being suspended between worlds, no ground beneath your feet but somehow still upright. "

I’m currently between structures. Between income. Between knowing.
But not between love. Not between grace.

Something so precious and sacred about the void is the absolute power of this pause (as I refer to it often).

Within it is a state of absolute observation and reflection.

I’ve been contemplating my debt picture.

And the truth is: it was two-fold.
One part is that I operated from an old paradigm — a survival-based model that said:
Use credit as a solution. Buy time. Buy peace. Buy stillness.
It continued to accrue and accumulate through the addiction to padding my ‘cage’.

And the other part, with whom I associated so intimately (every thought, opinion, and perspective), is, in fact, not me. It is my Ego. The architecture was crafted with each thought and emotion, like a standing building. And instead of being within it, looking outside, instead, I am standing outside of it, looking up at its stature and shadow.

The I Am part of me is emanating from deep within: this structure is no longer in resonance, no longer in harmony.
It is not me. It is not mine.

I’ve been contemplating and feeling into what the current void space is sharing with me.

I don’t need to punish myself for the past.
But I also don’t need to repeat it.
Now, at this point of peace and of healing, I know that I will forever choose differently.

Not from fear.
Not from panic.
But from presence.

I am at a moment where things need to break open in order for more light to come through, for more to be illuminated, for more resonance to be created through flow, not through force (as was so present all across my previous experiences).

I’ve been contemplating what is next for me career-wise, life choices-wise.

Do I attempt to return to the Corporate world?
Do I dive more deeply into writing books, following my first one?
Do I continue here on Substack? Move it to part-time?
Is there something else within me that stirs the excitement and joy that I have been too fearful to explore?

I’ve been contemplating all that I believe.

My Guides — whom I lovingly call my ‘Soul Support Squad’ — have shown me that I’m not just shedding old files or missing payments.

I’m also unwinding a belief system.

The one that told me:

“Your value is in how perfectly you perform.”
“Your credit score is your character.”
“Your worth is proven by how much you hold together at once.”

And with every shock, every deadline, every inner voice that rises in fear—

I keep hearing my deeper voice say:

“Let go.”
“Trust.”
“This is not collapse. This is the ground shifting to reveal the next step.”

Richard Rudd, the founder of the Gene Keys, speaks about the power of contemplation.

Not rushing.
Not analyzing.
Not spiritual bypassing.

But the middle space. The sacred pause. The quiet, still unfolding with insights.

That is where I am now.

Not in a fix-it mode. Not in a make-sense-of-it-all mode. Not in a panic and pad-it-more mode.

But residing gently in the void.

The sacred middle.

Where the old system collapses.
Where the ego sits exposed.
Where the shock has come and gone — and left something shimmering in its wake.

I’m now walking through this with my sacral as my compass. As a Pure Generator, I respond. I trust my gut. I feel when something lights me up or falls flat. That’s my rhythm. It hasn’t always been, but it’s been more and more of a daily practice within the last couple of months, and it has single-handedly shifted my whole life, and its course.

What’s lighting up from it now is this:

Tell your story while it unfolds.

Not later, when it’s polished. Not once I know the ending.

But now.
While the bills are still due.
While the questions are still unanswered.
While I’m learning to live differently with debt, with identity, with freedom.

This is a slow turning of experience in my hands, until something inside me begins to glow.

As Eckhart shares:

“The ultimate truth of who you are is not, ‘I am this or I am that,’
but simply, ‘I Am.’”

That is the peace I feel now.

Not because my problems are solved.
But because I’m no longer mistaking the problem for myself.

I Am. I am still here. I am still opening. I am still feeling.

And if you’re reading this, you are witnessing this sacred opening, too.

…to be continued…

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A Gentle Note of Thanks

This is not the end of a story. This is the beginning of one.

And I want you to know that you are standing here with me, not reading the recap, but witnessing the becoming.

I don’t know exactly what comes next. But I know it’s arriving one step at a time.

This is not a moment to rush. This is a moment to trust. To listen. To pause. To ask: “Does this feel right?” And to move only when it does.

This post is part of something sacred and slow and deeply personal. And I promise to keep sharing as it continues to unfold.

If you’d like to stay close to this unfolding, I welcome you to subscribe and walk with me. And if a particular letter I write moves something inside you, I welcome your support as a paid subscriber or even through a small gift of tea.

Just knowing you’re here means everything.

Thank you for walking with me.

Namaste,
💜 Lavender

Hello, sweet friend! 👋 Yearning for connection and deeper meaning?
I'm Lavender, and I have a deep passion for unearthing the wisdom woven into life's tapestry. ✨ My own Life Journey, from navigating childhood complexities to a 20+ year corporate career with 55,000+ hours of interviewing (deeply studying humans), has honed my ability to discern human potential. Now, I share stories (past to present) that illuminate our paths, exploring resilience, transformation, purpose, and connecting with the magic within. Your deeper exploration begins here.✨

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My last Stories from My Own Life Journey post, if you’d like to wander through it:

The Gift of My 41st Birthday

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💗✨ If the content here at Life Journey: empowered has resonated with you, if a story sparked a moment of self-discovery, or if the shared wisdom illuminated your path, I welcome your kind support. Creating this space is a heartfelt endeavor, fueled by a desire to connect and empower. Your contribution, be it the cost of a tea 🫖 or the joy of a new book 📖, directly nourishes this work and allows me to continue sharing these soulful explorations. 👇