Reinventing Yourself – How to Create a Life You Love Despite Life’s Ups and Downs.

Not afraid to take big leaps

The truth is I’ve always been a person who is comfortable with taking big leaps. I’ve enthusiastically leapt into new jobs, new businesses, and new creative endeavors. Many of my leaps have made absolutely no sense to the outside world. My former brother-in-law once commented with equal parts awe and horror, “How does she do that?!”

I suppose to the outside world it appears as if I’m leaping suddenly, without thought or without a net, or both. But I’m not, and there is a clear tie between “leaping” and “reinventing yourself,” which I’ll get to in a little bit.

A lot of my leaps have been in my career. I left a job with a wonderful title for a job with lessor title, made more money and gained a lot more professional visibility. I left a high profile job to start my own business. And, then years later, I leapt from a job when the economy was bad and everyone cautioned me against it. I ended up making more working part-time then I did full-time for the next fear years. My leaps weren’t always financially lucrative but they have always, always led to more fulfillment.

My biggest leap and “reinvention” began in April 2013

I want to tell you about one of my biggest leaps and “reinventions.” It began on a Friday night in April. It was April 19, 2013 to be exact. I had spent that Friday evening like I spent most of my Friday evenings – celebrating the end of the work week with dinner and drinks with a couple of my best girl friends. Sometimes my husband would join us after his work out at the gym. This Friday night he didn’t.

Over dinner, my friend and I had a lot to talk about. For the past two years, I’d been doing marketing contract work in the morning, helping a large manufacturer build a brand new global website and the afternoons I was making art, cute whimsical, happy art for product. (Mary Englebreit, Kelly Rae Roberts, etc.) My goal was to launch my new art licensing business at the huge SURTEX tradeshow in New York City. As fate would have it, due to numerous extensions with the website project, the huge website and my big art launch in New York City were now going to launch within one week of each other! I was both excited and terrified.

Although stressful, those two years leading up to the two big launches, were the happiest I had ever been. I was doing contract marketing in the mornings, and in the afternoons, I was designing and creating art that I love. Our son was in college; as empty nesters my husband and I were enjoying more free-time, taking weekend trips, either alone or with groups of friends. We had a beautiful home and a beautiful life.

But something seemed off. Over dinner, I shared with my best friend that I was worried about my husband. He seemed a bit remote and something else that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I fretted that I’ve been too stressed and too distracted with my two big work projects. In true best friend fashion, she assured me that my husband was still crazy about me.

That night I went home, my husband told me he didn’t want to be married to me anymore. He wanted a divorce.

And so began the end of a 29-year marriage and the beginning of whole new journey.

An intuitive knowing carried me through one of the most painful experiences of my life

Before I tell you about the journey I want you to know that ending was one of the most painful periods in my life. Earlier in my life, after the birth of my son, I started having panic attacks. I would go on to battle panic attacks and bouts of depression for eight years, before I discovered a Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program, which completely set me free. Years, later I had a miscarriage and lost a baby.

My point it is, like most of you, I’ve experienced pain in my life. I deeply loved my husband and the pain of 31-year relationship and 29-year marriage ending was the most emotional pain I’d ever experienced. It might sound overly dramatic, but it literally felt like I’d been stabbed in the heart and then run over by a mac trucks a few times. The one thing that got me through it was the uncanny sense that this – the ending of my relationship and marriage – was for my highest good. I didn’t know exactly what that meant at the time, but that knowing felt like truth and it was persistently with me the whole time.

Nurturing myself through divorce leads me to Sedona

So that was April. After some initial attempts to save the marriage I could see that my husband just wanted out so I let him go. While I was waiting for our divorce to finalize, our 29^th wedding anniversary was coming up in June. I didn’t want to be home moping around so I started looking around for some place to go. We had briefly visited Sedona during a cross-country RV trip many years ago. I had always wanted to go back. As synchronicity would have it, the Sedona Creative Arts Center was offering a three-day art retreat on the weekend of our anniversary. I immediately signed up.

I flew to Sedona June 22^nd and enjoyed two full days of art classes. The third day was a free day, which I used to hike part of Airport Loop and Cathedral Rock, two famous vortex sites in Sedona. I fell in love Sedona during those hikes. It’s hard to describe but I fell in love with the land. Hiking in the sun and immense summer heat of Sedona, felt like it could burn the grief right out of me. It was beautiful, sacred, and very accessible for walker like me. It was so different from anything I’d ever known.

On the plane ride home, I started to ponder the possibility of moving to Sedona. I’d been wanting to move to a warmer climate for years so I could walk everyday. The divorce provided an opportunity to do this. A chunk of my family had retired to Florida so I thought that’s where I’d go. Yet, on the plane trip home from Sedona, I started to think, “why not Sedona?”

Sedona felt like a much bigger leap. I’d only been there three days and I didn’t know a soul there. Yet the idea intrigued me. The landscape was gorgeous, it had tons of easy accessible hikes for a walker like me, 300 days of sunshine, beautiful art galleries, a huge metaphysical community, and as a freelance marketing consultant I could work anywhere in the world, as long as it had internet access.

But still, my family, especially my Mom, would be so disappointed if didn’t move to Florida.

The tipping point came a week later when I met with a psychic medium in Concord. I had made the appointment weeks earlier in hope of gaining insight on the future direction of my life. But when the psychic asked me, “How can I help you?” Instead of asking about my life path, I started with, “I just got a surprise divorce and I’m thinking of moving to Florida, but then I went to Sedona….” The psychic immediately began describing my grandmother, my Nana, who I am named offer, and then said, “She understands why you’re thinking of moving to Florida but she thinks you’ll love Sedona more.”

A simple acronym guides me to my best life, and a whole new journey

Now, I don’t believe in blindly following the insight of psychic, but everything she said resonated. And the more I thought about Sedona the more perfect it felt. You see a few years early, I heard a podcaster suggest that we create an acronym to represent the things we valued and wanted to experience more of in our lives. I can’t remember what she called her process, so I named it the Living Intentionally Today (LIT) acronym process. The acronym I created was J.A.W.S. and it stood for Joy, Art, Walking and Spirit.

I begin using this acronym as a filter. If someone asked me to chair or serve on a committee, I ran it through my acronym – if it didn’t have a healthy mix of creativity, joy, spirit or walking, then I said no to the opportunity. If it did, then I said yes. Using this as filter, also led me to create that perfect work environment, doing marketing contract work in the morning and art licensing work in the afternoon. Career and life-balance wise, I had finally achieved nirvana. So as crazy as it sounds that acronym guided me to two of the happiest years of my life.

And so when it came to a choice between Sedona and Florida – Sedona had it all Joy, Art, Walking and Spirit. Also, knowing my grandmother was with me during this transition gave me added strength to take the biggest leap of my life. Right then I made the decision to move and I broke the news to my family and friends.

Breaking the news to the people I love was hard

Telling people I loved and that loved me that I was moving away was not an easy thing to do. I dreaded telling my Mom the most. She had always been pretty vocal about her preferences. But she surprised me. I was going through a tough time and she just wanted me to be happy and so she supported my decision. Telling my sister, five-year-old niece, my best friends, my good friends that I was moving away, it was hard. They were going to me miss and I was really going to miss them. I know for some, it was if I was saying they weren’t important anymore. That just want’s true at all, but given the pain I was in, I felt I deserved to do something totally for myself. I needed to do something just for me. And my heart was saying it really wanted to go where there was sunshine to grieve and heal.

After I broke the news to my family and friends everything easily fell into place. Within a couple of weeks, I worked out a deal where my ex-husband would move back into our home and take over the mortgage payments, which would be deducted from my portion of the profit when our home sold. I found a place to rent, packed my half of the contents of our house, and two months later I moved to Sedona.

It was hands down the best decision I’ve ever made

The home I rented over the internet turned out to be absolutely charming. All of my furniture fit perfectly and I had the most gorgeous view of the red rocks, including the famous vortex Bell Rock. Upon moving to Sedona, I made the decision to work part-time for a year. After launching two huge projects and getting a divorce, I had emotionally hit a wall. I had nothing left. I decided to discontinue the art licensing venture, ignoring the 66 leads I earned at Surtex, and instead focused on the large marketing contract I had, as it could pay the bills. I worked in the morning and in the afternoons I cried, slept, walked, and hiked. In the evening I read, following my spiritual inclinations and metaphysical interests. I read about dark nights of the soul, spiritual transformation, forgiveness and healing techniques, and I practiced what I learned on myself.

After six months of nurturing myself in this fashion, I no longer needed prescription meds for acid reflux or the high blood pressure medicine that I’d been on since my early forties. I have been medication-free since.

In addition to giving me a place to grieve and heal, I found my spiritual home in Sedona, at Unity Church. With its New Thought philosophy and A Course in Miracles teachings, I happily discovered a place and a people that resonated with my beliefs.

Following my passions leads to untapped abilities and gifts

Sedona is the metaphysical playground of the Universe. It attracts alternative healers and holistic practitioners from all around the world. I was suddenly in place, where rather than just read books about subjects I loved, I could take classes and meet people who were interested in the same subjects I was. And so I followed my interests. I took classes in energy healing, past life healing, intuition development, A Course In Miracles, spiritual development, pottery, art and more. I became a certified Reiki Master Teacher, certified consulting hypnotist and earned certificates in advanced Integrated Energy Therapy and basic Theta Healing. I discovered I’m not a potter but I found friends that like to paint and draw. It was never my intention to become professional energy healer, hypnotherapist and intuitive consultant but as I followed my interests, doors kept opening for me, and I just kept walking through them.

About a year and half later, after the intense part of my grieving period was coming to end, I discovered several places with a great bands and wonderful group of friends that liked to dance. I had always loved to dance, and so now I was dancing with a group of friends two or three nights a week, hiking on weekends, doing marketing work, and using my new healing and intuitive skills at a local wellness center.

As a result of my divorce and in moving to Sedona, I was able to rediscover aspects of myself that I had set aside. In Sedona, I let my spiritual and intuitive sides blossom. As I result, I discovered interests and talents I didn’t know I had.

Rediscovering love

Although the journey began with a loss, a seemly big loss, it has truly resulted in a much bigger gift – the gift of becoming more of me. That voice that kept telling me the divorce was for my highest good? Well to be honest, I thought it meant there would be a better relationship for me. Even though I deeply loved my husband, our relationship had never been smooth or easy. It turns out, though, that my highest good was not a relationship with someone else. The gift was falling in love with me, and my own life in a much bigger way.

I’ve come full circle now. In true Gemini fashion, I’m learning to integrate all aspects of twin selves, the mystic and the marketer, the seeker and the healer, the creative dreamer and the realist, the magical and practical. I am hugely grateful that I now get to work and play in the mystical and magical every day through my work as an intuitive healer, teacher, writer, marketer and designer.

Five Strategies for Reinventing Yourself and Creating a Life You Love

I’d like to share with you a list of FIVE things I learned about my journey and reinventing one’s self:

1. Have a North Star – Creating a LIT acronym and having a personal mission statement served as a North Star guiding me towards living a more intentional life. It helped me filter out activities that were sapping my time while allowing in activities that were more enjoyable. Ultimately, this practice helped me create a life filled with activities, people and experiences that I enjoy and are much more fulfilling.
2. Make Room – We often pray for a better job, more creative fulfillment, more fun, and so on. At the same time, our lives are filled to the max and there’s absolutely not room for the experiences we’re asking for. We’ve got to make room for the things we enjoy. Don’t wait for life to hit you over the head with a spiritual two by four (or a divorce!) to move out of the job, relationships, and responsibilities that are no longer fulfilling you. Sometimes making room is scary because we’re not used to having nothing to do, we’re not comfortable with that icky in-between time. Yes, it may initially feel empty and uncomfortable, but having free time gives us the space to hear our inner selves … to hear the passions and abilities that are trying to emerge from within us. It also gives us the space and freedom to experiment and try new things.
3. Listen to Your Intuitive Nudges & Where Your Spirit Wants to Grow –All of the personal and spiritual growth work I’d done earlier in my life made that two-year “sweet” spot possible. But it also meant that I was becoming less and less a match for my former husband. Despite many warning signs along the way, I persisted in staying, sacrificing many aspects of myself in the process, which I’m sure he had as well. Luckily, my soul had bigger plans for me and when I wouldn’t budge, it booted me out so I could continue to grow and create a more fulfilling life. Don’t wait for a spiritual 2×4, listen to your gut and your heart, and start moving towards your dreams.
4. Baby Steps versus Big Leaps – I’ve made changes in my life with both gradual baby steps, and as I’ve shared, with bigger leaps. There is no perfect way to become more of who you truly are. If you’re more comfortably moving slow, move slow. If you like making bigger leaps, then leap away. The truth is you’ll get where you want to go either way. Just move forward.
5. Facing your Fears – Reinventing ourselves and taking leaps doesn’t mean we’re not afraid. Courage is developed as we face and move through our fears. After my divorce, I told myself I was done being afraid of anything. Fear robs us of our potential and our freedom. Fear is a cage that keeps us stuck in situations or with people that are no longer the best for us. Don’t get me wrong, just because I decided I was “done being afraid” …it didn’t mean that I was no longer afraid, anxious or fearful. No, what it means is that as I become aware of a fear, I lovingly face it, heal it, and move through it to the best of my ability. One of the biggest surprises and lessons I’ve learned is that joy and living my best life is on the other side of fear.

We can’t predict where life will take us. Sometimes the life we’re living crumbles or goes up in smoke. If and when it does, I hope you’ll seize the opportunity to go deeper into your experience, that you’ll lovingly and honestly face your fears, heal and forgive yourself and those around you, and be brave enough to follow your heart and your passions. In the end, reinventing ourselves isn’t about changing into someone new; it’s about embracing and becoming more of who we truly are.

Namaste,

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About Natalie Eve Marquis

A healer, teacher, mystic, marketer, writer, and artist, Natalie helps seekers discover deeper connection and meaning in their lives. She is the owner of the Wisdom Within and the Reiki Release® Emotional Healing Method, a powerful process that pinpoints and releases the root cause of emotional wounds and negative beliefs. Natalie offers intuitive energy healing, hypnotherapy, past life regressions, and spiritual psychic readings and consulting. She teaches all levels of Reiki certification, both online and in person, and provides a variety of fun and informative workshops on intuition development, past life healing, personal growth, and more in NH, MA, AZ, and NC.

You can work with Natalie by phone and zoom. Visit: https://nataliemarquis.com/ or call/text (603) 642-4949.