You Probably Need a Maiden Voyage

Taking my Maiden Voyage 🚢 was the ultimate expression of my love of ritualizing thresholds.

If you haven’t heard me talk about this month-long trip to Japan, the short version is…

After decades of indecision around motherhood, leaving my first marriage due to the uncertainty, and through a series of mystical experiences… In my mid 30’s, I ultimately tapped into my deep desire to be a mom.

An achey and electric longing that the English language does not do justice.

But before my husband and I could begin trying for a baby, I wanted to pay tribute to the Maiden in me.

I wanted to honor my fiercely independent parts that had been running my life for three decades.

I wanted to celebrate the adventurous side of me.

I wanted to give reverence to the only person I’d ever known myself to be.

Of course this trip needed a name (because I’m me).

And, also because I’m me, the name came in the form of a “download” on a long solo hike in the woods.

My “Maiden Voyage” was waiting for me.

The actual story of my Maiden Voyage and the decades of motherhood indecision that proceeded it, are sitting nicely inside a sacred first draft of a “maybe someday” book.

But I’ve been thinking about that experience a lot lately…

My journey from Maiden → Mother.

And it’s not just that particular threshold that has my soul swept up.

It’s all the doorways marked with:

• Becoming an Entrepreneur

• Before his death → After his death

• Casual Writer → Published Author

• A Quarter-Life Calling (or Crisis 🙃)

• Discovering yourself after divorce

• Entering a new decade of life

My thoughts arise more sporadically now… less fully formed than they used to be. Often, while watching my son grin up at me as he nurses, or in the moments as I push the stroller through the neighborhood (a reset for both of us.)

I’m realizing how my work is naturally evolving into what I’ve been thinking of as “Threshold Work”.

And it’s all starting to make sense why this space is where I’m uniquely gifted to work with women.

And why it lights me up so much.

When crossing through the doorway from who you used to be → to who you are becoming…

Doubt is meant to meet you there.

Doubt is an expected, necessary, and welcomed visitor.

Doubt becomes the fuel for transformation.

For alchemy.

At least, that is what’s possible when you do the work to foster Self-Trust. Every threshold becomes a remembrance of who you are.

Of who you are meant to be.

So if you happen to find yourself standing in front of a rounded, wooden fairy doorway in a dense forest…

Second guessing yourself…

Wondering if it’s worth it…

Uncertain if you’ll be able to survive…

Questioning if you can actually trust yourself…

I want you to know that you’re not doing anything wrong. You’re exactly where you’re meant to be. Nothing is wrong with you. You’re not broken.