I’ve always been unconventional. My Mum used to say I was too unconventional as if that was a bad thing. But I couldn’t help myself. I simply responded to a deep seated urge to challenge the status quo, not out of bloody mindedness but because I felt something rise up from my gut insisting that I take notice.
My Mum was conventional and very traditional, and I was an innovator - always questioning and seeking a new/better/different way. Over time, I learned to suppress my unconventional streak. It would still pop up now and again at work. Usually in those bone-crushingly boring meetings when I wondered why I was there and how this added to the sum of human happiness.
I was in my early thirties when I first started to ask myself, is this it?
There was no earth shattering moment of awakening for me. Many people, my husband included, live through a pivotal moment that puts them on an entirely new path and completely transforms their lives. I merely plodded on, changing jobs on a regular basis, hoping against hope that every new one would be it. Yet, six months would pass, and I would find myself at square one again.
There was another way but I didn’t know what it looked like back then.
During the time I lived in London in my twenties, I worked for a business that specialised in the analysis of body movement to help teams to make decisions more effectively together. We all did the Myers Briggs psychometric tests and had a profiling session. The results gave me a small insight into what made me tick. I was very private and played my cards close to my chest!
This new understanding helped a little and made me more aware of how I behaved. But it was just the tip of the iceberg. The real breakthrough wouldn't happen until I was in my late forties.
Throughout my career, I'd been challenged for being too quiet. Nicola needs to speak up more in meetings was the perennial comment on my annual appraisals. I really tried but speaking up was difficult. For one thing, I could scarcely get a word in edgeways because of all the extraverts in the room. And I couldn't formulate ideas on the spur of the moment like they could. I dreaded being asked what I thought about a topic. My mind would go blank as I scrambled to say something half coherent.
A couple of online conversations with an introvert coach gave me strategies that I'd lacked before. I understood why I couldn't come up with ideas off the top of my head. I needed time to allow thoughts to percolate and form. This translated into asking my boss to share the agenda and discussion points 24 hours before the meeting to give me time to get my act together. I discovered that while I might not say a lot, usually when I finally did it was worth hearing.
I logged on to the Sixteen Personalities website and took their tests. The results helped me build up a clearer picture of my style. Best of all though, How to Fascinate, showed me that my unconventional approach was a key strength, not a weakness. I was the Provocateur, which explained my deeply engrained need to challenge the status quo. It was also why I could never understand why the majority wanted to head off in one direction when I could see the solution in the opposite direction.
While psychometric tests can be a bit marmite, I found them hugely helpful in recognising and owning who I am. They were a gateway, for me, on to a different path.
These insights didn't solve all my issues. My Mum still challenged my unconventional ideas. We had, at times, a difficult relationship. It was only after she died and I met my future husband that I began to really connect with who I was. This doesn't happen overnight and I'm sure it's a lifelong journey.
In April 2019 a woman, I had met only briefly, died. She was Joy Marsden. President of the Professional Speaking Association, Chris and I had heard her speak at an event. She was vivacious and inspiring, and made a big impression on me. Only 57 when she died, it was the nudge I needed to leave my then day job as a Business Advisor.
I was at a crossroads. I was mid life, menopausal, mid 50s, both my parents had died in recent years, and mortality was knocking at my door. There must be another way to live and work, and I had to find it.
Joy's death was a catalyst and leaving my job turned out to be a pivotal moment. Six months later we decided to relocate to Derbyshire, something we would never have contemplated had I still been working in Manchester. I'd closed one door and another had opened.
Now, we live in a rural village somewhere in the middle of nowhere, Derbyshire. A long held dream of mine, and a huge part of my journey to live at a gentler pace and on my own terms.
As I write this, it's early 2022. My shift from employed to self-employed didn't take a clear route. For months in 2019 I replicated my day job daily routine until I realised what I was doing. Building a new way of living didn't come naturally, especially after 25 years of work ethic being engrained into me.
I bobbed about, danced around the handbags, acted busy, did work that I hadn't originally intended. I wrote blogs on a haphazard schedule, recorded podcasts, took some photos, posted intermittently on Instagram, all the while remaining firmly below the parapet. I was almost invisible. I talked a lot about forging your own path but I wasn't living the dream.
I launched online courses, tried to build a community, created Boot Club and shared 30 days of living at a gentler pace. I thought I knew where this was all leading but really I was creating a scattergun effect.
I started out as Seed to Source, renamed as A Gentler Pace, changed again to Live a Gentle Life, and then reverted back to A Gentler Pace.
It's been a convoluted journey.
For two and a half years I thought I was wasting my time. I saw no real progress. I felt as if I was treading water.
Then, almost at the year's end in 2021, insights began to flow. Finally, A Gentler Pace made sense.
I was determined that 2022 would see me publish a book, come hell or high water. As I gathered together all the material I'd created in my blogs, podcasts, eCourses, and Boot Club, there was my book. It needed shaping, editing, adding new content but I'd been building the foundation all this time when I thought I was achieving nothing.
Thanks to my beloved Obsidian, I'd been gathering notes, quotes and references since April 2021. All my writing was contained there too. A moveable feast, much of it needed organising in a logical way.
I also chose, as my Word of the Year for 2022, the word wyrd. Meaning to become, wyrd, for me, goes back many years. With connotations of destiny and truth, it was a perfect word for a year when I wanted to live my truth.
The foundation of everything I do is the Essence Map. It's been my companion for around 15 years. It emerged following various losses and shifts that I experienced in my life when I began to see patterns and cycles of change.
I first noticed endings in my twenties. I sat alone in cafes and journaled about the circumstances surrounding these endings. In my thirties many of these were job losses and redundancies, plus my short lived marriage. Around the time of the internet bubble, it was always boom or bust. Job hunting and the prospect of having to do it yet again didn't fill me with joy but I was never unemployed for long and found that each time enabled me to move forward in some way. Endings weren't necessarily a bad thing after all.
A framework began to appear. I had plenty of opportunities to test my theory and uncovered an upward spiral of change, each instance teaching me something new about myself, peeling back another layer, and connecting to something deeper within me.
Some time later I came across Joseph Campbell's, The Hero's Journey. While some of the phases had different names, I found that I could overlay my Essence Map on to it.
The Essence Map became my route map through life. It explained the challenges I was experiencing, guided me through the ebb and flow of life, and showed me how to handle each phase. I added more detail to it with each ending and new beginning.
Although the map was intended to illuminate our individual journeys, it also fits the path we're taking as a global collective.
In this book I want to share with you what I know of the Essence Map and the overarching message that, despite the circumstances, there is always light at the end of the tunnel.
