Leaning into Life’s Pivots

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Coming in August: This newsletter is expanding and I’m going to start offering paid posts that will include conversations about herbal allies, plant medicine, rituals for wholeness, pictures of unfinished art pieces, and more. The free version will continue every other month and I’ll still be sharing life stories. <3

Storytime: What does it mean to Pivot

There comes a time in all our lives when we begin to get comfortable. Life settles in and we find ourselves not necessarily happy, but also not unhappy. Coasting in the middle. Somewhere between, I could do more, but I’m unsure of what else to do. Yet, we intuitively know that we want something more, craving more, desiring more. During these times it can feel like borderline complacency, but we don’t want abrupt change, we just need a little dose of something different, something new. This is when opportunities to pivot become ideal, healthy, and down right good for our wellbeing. I invite you to listen to my YouTube video: Leaning into Life’s Pivots—Trusting the Wisdom of My Inner-Child’s Guidance.

Now, let’s chat about the definition difference between pivot and change.

Define pivot vs. change

Merriam Webster defines pivot as “to adapt or improve by adjusting or modifying something”. In the sport basketball, a pivot is a movement in which the player holding the ball may move in any direction with one foot, while keeping the other (the pivot foot) in contact with the floor. A slight direction change, a perspective shift if you will.

Change is defined as “to make radically different”.

Changing and Pivoting are natural parts of life, but I believe there is a difference.

Storytime: Change

Between March 2020- January 2021:

• I quit my nonprofit job in Baltimore city working as an Education Coordinator

• Packed up my 2012 Toyota Corolla and took a cross country road trip with my dad + everything I could fit in my car, landing me back in my hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas

• Started working as an AmeriCorps member at a local community farm, began beekeeping, growing food, and caring for chickens, which I had never done before.

This was a major change in my life. As dramatic as moving back home felt, it was probably one of the best decisions I had made for myself during the era of my late 20s. I had no plan when I left Baltimore. I was fresh out of a hard break up, confused about the “career path” I had chosen in the nonprofit realm, unsure of what I was going to do for work, uncertain about the state of the world, and on top of all that I felt like I had nothing: no job, no man, no direction, moving back in with my momma, no successful career. There were many tears shed my friends, many, many tears, even though the change was necessary and from the outside looking in, it may have even looked like a sexy glowup since I became an agri-bae.🙃

Storytime: Pivot

Between January 2021-2023:

• I began sitting my thoughts and feelings and asking myself “How do I want to live my life?” because the traditional structure of “be a good kid, make good grades, follow directions, get a good job with benefits” no longer seemed to be working for me.

• I asked myself “What have I always loved to do since I was a child before old people told me ‘that ain’t gonna make you no money’?”.

• I listened to the answer: “ exist outside, learn about plants, trees, and non-human creatures, play so hard I got dirty, put on my fairy wings, doodle and daydream” With that answer, I knew that I was being called to work with the earth and create art, but I had no idea what that would look like or how I was going to get there or how I was going to make money (now I’m the old person saying ‘that ain’t gonna make me no money).

• I was craving something more, something creative, something different, but not abrupt. I began doing small acts that allowed me to embody the answers to the questions I was asking.

• I began to research vocabulary related to environmental science and careers in conservation, agriculture, art etc., looking up salary ranges, career longevity, career benefits, people’s stories about their work life balance was for each career, best place to live to pursue the career, degrees required, certificates suggested, etc. and meeting people in these fields and asking a BUNCH of questions

• A job at the Nature Conservancy opened and while I was still employed (this is important, because during my changes I would quit jobs with no job lined up) I applied and waited until I was hired to quit my job at Heifer.

Sermon: Trusting my inner child’s guidance and my adult skills to adapt

A vision began to grow and a plan began to develop. The major differences from my life change vs. my life pivot was how I felt and how I implemented. Pivots ask us to reevaluate a situation, environment, a way of doing things, while maintaining.

It asks us to get curious, to change our viewpoint, to shift on our pivot foot WITHOUT picking up our planted foot. Said another way, pivoting asks us to turn our head without turning our whole body; to pick our head up from the daily mundane and dare to look around. To ask ourselves, “Is this still worth my time, energy, heart and/or attention? If it is not, then how can I tweak what I’m doing it?” And most importantly, it asks us to listen when the answer comes and to adapt our process to fit our needs.

Let me tell you a secret that’s not a secret…I had zero experience in the environmental and agriculture realm except for a class I took in 7th grade where we learned how to drill holes in trees and count the rings to see how old they were or my experience as a middle schooler collecting leaves of Arkansas trees and learning to identify them by their leaf and tree bark, or my experience listening to birds and learning their calls, or from the first strawberry plant I planted on the side of my house when I was in elementary school.

How in the world would my skills from early childhood help me get am adult job because last time I checked you can’t put experiences like those on your resume and expect to be taken seriously as a professional. Little did I know, those experiences were the exact foundation I needed to help me pivot my career from working behind a desk in schools to working in the soil in agriculture and education…I still work behind a desk, however, my job is flexible so that desks can be wherever I am.

Pivoting can be intimidating, especially if we are comfortable and worked hard to get to that level of comfort. Pivoting also can sound like privilege, and it is. If you have the ability to even consider a switch of direction of taking a risk that could disrupt you security net, then that in itself is a privilege, I recognize that for sure. And pivoting is a way of how we continue to learn to become more evolved versions of ourselves—if you’re into that sort of thing. It is the opportunity to apply some of the lessons learned during our journey to our new pivoted move and to keep expanding who we thought we were. It also doesn’t only have to be narrowed down to career. Pivoting can look like shifting how you speak to people, shifting how you care for yourself, etc.

Lastly, I want to note why I say my inner child’s wisdom. Growing up, I wanted to be many things until adults told me I couldn’t. I wanted to be a professional volunteer, a plumber, a construction worker, an artist, and I’m sure more. However, if I think back to my very initial dreams before I shared them with others, it was to be an artist. Now, you and I are different, maybe you wanted to be an astronaut or a spy and that’s not really feasible during this chapter of your life. And that’s real. However, I wonder, has your intuition whispered ideas to you that you may have shrugged off? Have you felt a spark while you were doing an activity and a thought popped in your head “I could do some more of this”, then that is also the inner wisdom to trust.

Support: Suggestions on how to initiate and navigate a pivot

Nowadays there are many books, tools, YouTube channels that can support us during our pivotal life adjustments. I’d like to share a few tools that I used.

1. Make a dream journal (digital and/or analog).

   1. Dare to dream what you’d want to do if you did not have to consider anyone else’s needs—even though I understand, some of us do have to consider other’s needs, and I’d suggest we can also consider our own at the same time, maybe not all, but definitely some.

      1. This is a visualization step. Take time to find a quiet place, close your eyes, invite your inner-most sacred self to meet you in that quiet place and ask them:

         1. What are my skills?

         2. What skills would I be comfortable pimping out to earn money?

         3. For how much am I willing to share these skills with an organization for? This can be a range.

         4. What are ideas of activities I’d be interested in doing for 8 hours, but never let myself consider them because of the constraints of reality and/or my self-doubt?

         5. What type of activities make my heart-smile and feels easy to make money from?—this may be a hard question, but really allow your feelings to guide you. Some work might not be glamorous and you might be excellent at it (that is what scheduling and cleaning up data does for me!).

   2. Once you’ve visualized these items, write them down, draw them out, digitize them however it comes to you. Let this be your guide.

2. Using AI as a tool to create a plan (I know AI is controversy and it also could be helpful in supporting your need to develop a pivot plan). I like the AI tool pi.ai.

   1. Prompts I used to gain support were:

      1. Sharing with AI my general interests e.g. plants, nature, education, fairies with a follow up question of: What are some suggested jobs and/or careers that involve the interests I mentioned previously.

      2. I also like to add a sentence about the condition of the job I’d prefer e.g. flexible hours, working outdoors, ability to advance, etc.

      3. After receiving a list of options (you can always set the number of options you’d like to receive and/or ask for more if the options provided don’t fit your interests) I then respond with:

         1. I like X option, please provide me with a X month plan to help me pivot out of my current job into this new role.

3. Shift your perspective and rewire what you believe is possible

   1. Find people who are doing what interests you and learn about their journey. Follow them on social media, register for their listserv, attend their functions, learn as much as you can on how they got to their level of success.

   2. Find books that support you. Bookstore clerks or librarians are great resources.

4. Document and follow your own journey, celebrating yourself along the way.

   1. As important as it is to learn from others, don’t forget about you! All the work you’re putting in also deserves to be highlighted and praised.

   2. Pat yourself on the back, give yourself a hug, smile at yourself in the mirror, because you’re doing it!

   3. Create a vlog or blog to note what you’re trying, what you’ve tried, and your experience with it. This doesn’t have to be shared with others or it can be…it’s up to you!

Now don’t be getting mad at me when things get hard, I never said they wouldn’t, but please remember that you are capable! If a young human can learn to crawl, mumble, walk, eat, etc. then trust in your ability as a older human. You can do it my dear friend, have faith!

Take care my fairy friends,

Lavender the Herbal Fairy ₊˚🪻of arkansawblk’s orbit

🌑🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘