I have this unique experience of traveling between the coast of California and the coast of Oaxaca.
It’s beautiful to be able to live both lives. It gives me so much room to grow and evolve.
However, there are times, especially if I’ve been gone for long periods of time, where I grow so much in one place that I don’t know how to reintegrate into the other.
How does this growth and expansion I’ve had fit into the life of the other place?
In this most recent trip, I found myself in an extreme time of growth. I had found myself in a new way and felt more aligned than I’ve ever felt with my work and my confidence.
But I did all of this in California, on a trip without my husband and my son.
So how do I fit this new version of myself into the life that they’ve continued to have in Oaxaca?
And how does their growth and flow of life then fit into mine?
So we reintegrate.
There’s no expectation that we jump right into our old selves. We take time to relearn and get to know each other.
Growth and acceptance of that growth has always been an agreement we have with one another. We continue to fall in love with each other in each of our stages and phases.
It’s not always smooth. I won’t pretend that it is.
But the shared knowing and agreement has always left us with so much room for gratitude and understanding.
I think we need that same grace with ourselves.
Because sometimes we return to a place where the circumstances haven’t changed, but we have.
And that can be strange.
For my own settling in, I have to continue the growth in the new place. Often, I need to relearn the lessons again and have the opportunity to make the new choices, new thought patterns, and new routines all over again.
Sometimes this feels like, I already did this work.
And other times it feels natural to have the opportunity to solidify the work.
Maybe that’s part of integration.
The lesson isn’t complete just because we learned it once.
Sometimes we have to live it somewhere new.
In California, I feel expansive in work.
I feel connected to the people who are in my network and relate to the experiences I share. I feel excited by work opportunities there.
In Oaxaca, I feel tranquil and balanced.
I know how to slow down and take things as they come. My nervous system is balanced.
Usually, I feel anxious for my trip to California because I love my nervous system here in Oaxaca. I can feel the traffic and rushing around before I even arrive. My body prepares itself for it.
However, with practice, I can now go to California and maintain my balanced state.
It is no longer location-based.
It’s true healing.
And now I want to do the opposite.
I want to take the expansion and excitement I feel around my work in California and bring it home with me.
I haven’t always known how to work here in Oaxaca. But maybe I don’t need to choose between these versions of myself.
Maybe the work is learning how to let them belong to the same life.
I’ve been thinking about this alongside the idea of rewilding and reprogramming.
Maybe rewilding is the remembering.
The parts of ourselves that were always there. The parts that know what feels good, what feels alive, what makes us curious. The parts that existed before we learned so many rules about who we were supposed to be.
And maybe reprogramming is the choosing.
Looking at the patterns we’ve learned and deciding which ones still belong to us.
But perhaps integration is what happens after that.
We take what we’ve remembered.
We take what we’ve changed.
We take the new choices we’ve made.
And then we bring them home.
Not expecting our old lives to disappear.
Not expecting the people we love to remain exactly where we left them.
Not expecting ourselves to become one fixed version of who we are.
But allowing all of us to keep growing.
To keep meeting one another.
To keep becoming.
Maybe that’s the real gift of having more than one place to call home.
I thought I was learning how to live in two places.
Maybe I’m actually learning how to bring all of myself wherever I go.
And now, as I write this, I’m getting ready to leave Oaxaca again.
This time, Ezra is coming with me.
And that feels like another little experiment in integration.
I’ve spent so much time learning how to bring my calm, grounded self from Oaxaca into my work life in California. I’ve learned that I can be in the traffic, the rushing around, the stimulation—and still keep the balance I’ve found here.
Now I get to explore something else.
Can I bring this expansive version of myself—the woman who has found so much confidence and alignment in her work—into my motherhood?
Can those parts of me exist together?
I don’t know the answer yet.
And maybe that’s the point.
Maybe we don’t integrate ourselves by figuring it all out first.
Maybe we integrate by practicing.
By carrying one version of ourselves into a place where she hasn’t lived before.
By making a new choice.
Then another.
By allowing the people we love to meet the version of us who has changed—and allowing ourselves to meet the versions of them that have changed, too.
This is the work I’m in right now.
Not becoming someone new.
Learning how to let all of who I am belong.
A question for you:
Where have you grown or changed, but haven’t yet figured out how to bring that version of yourself home?
Maybe that’s where the next Shift is waiting.
Keep Shifting
If you're new here, you might enjoy spending some time with the previous Weekly Shifts. They’re little invitations to pause, question what you’ve been assuming, and get curious about what might be possible when you start listening more closely to yourself.
Read the previous Weekly Shifts →
And if you’re feeling that pull toward creative life that's supported by your creative practice but you're not sure you're worthy of it or something keeps getting in your way—this is the work we do inside Making the Shift.
Cohort begins September 15th.
Explore Making the Shift →
If you're feeling the pull toward your own creative life, but aren't quite sure what shape it wants to take, 1:1 Wayfinding is a space to slow down, listen, and find your way forward.
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