Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is refuse to build the plan. Some things need to steep before they can be served.
Last week I traveled to Denver to attend the EDUCAUSE conference. It continues to serve as an anchor point for me. It’s easy to think back to EDUCAUSE in Nashville one year ago, reflect upon the connections from that time, and see how much has changed. Each year seems to bring more change than the last.
I connected with an old friend this week, and as we sat down for a delightful conversation, he asked me about my writing. “What do you call it? Do you call it a blog? Because it seems more like a spiritual journey.”
In that simple statement, he named what’s been swirling within me for months. It’s fair to say it’s both. It’s a blog. LinkedIn calls it a newsletter. Substack calls it, well, a Substack. But what I actually write has changed over the years. What started as a leadership blog, sharing decades of wisdom from my leadership journey, has evolved. The last five years of my life have been a spiritual journey, and this blog has, in part, chronicled it. I no longer think of it as a leadership blog. It’s a life blog. But I hope you’ll keep finding value in it, even if leadership is what first introduced me to you.
Steeping
I haven’t written anything in two months. Plenty has been swirling around in my head, but nothing has asked to be written out. And so, I’ve been steeping. Letting the thoughts roll around in my head, revealing, little by little, what they care to reveal.
The lesson I find myself learning, yet again, is patience. Looking back, I realize I unknowingly spun a cocoon when I began my nomadic journey. Like the unwitting caterpillar, I don’t know what will emerge. And I’ve been in that cocoon for nearly two years now.
I remember in May 2025, as I headed to Santa Fe, assuming my time in the cocoon was coming to an end. As I settled into a three-month house-sitting stint, I’d have time to build and create. The home even had a whiteboard, one of the easiest ways for me to get my creative juices flowing. I sat down and sketched out a consciousness program, imagining a pilot offering where I’d guide a group of people on a path similar to my own, helping them raise their consciousness.
And the intuitive message that came back was that it wasn’t the right time. The program remains dormant. I’m still steeping.
In my meditation teacher training program, we were asked to read Bill Plotkin’s Journey of Soul Initiation. I’m not recommending it. I found myself skipping large sections that didn’t feel relevant to my journey. Still, I took away several pearls of wisdom.
In Plotkin’s model, he describes a framework for developmental stages. One stage he calls The Wanderer. And it’s the stage of the cocoon. It maps unmistakably to where I’m at right now. I’m literally wandering.
I don’t expect my path to follow the path Plotkin outlines, but one lesson really hit home for me. In the Wanderer stage, we are figuring out our soul purpose (those are my words; he calls it our ecological niche). I’ve described mine as accelerating the evolution of human consciousness. But several people have told me to hold that loosely and not get too attached to those words. The words can constrain the purpose, putting an artificial box around it. So I’m allowing that purpose to steep as well.
Plotkin says at this stage of life, while we are discovering our soul purpose, it is premature to build the delivery system. The delivery system is the mechanism we use to bring that purpose to reality. Plotkin shares several stories of people who think they’ve figured out their purpose and immediately start building a plan to realize it.
As I read those words, I knew immediately why my attempt to build a consciousness program ran out of steam. It wasn’t time to figure out the delivery system yet. As much as I wanted to set a vision, build a plan, and execute it, this wasn’t the time. It was, and still is, a time for steeping. And so the plans are filed away. Perhaps they will resurface, or perhaps something else will take their place.
Making Space
I spoke with an intuitive recently and shared my frustration with the long-running cocoon phase. She shared that the chrysalis was becoming transparent, and you could begin to see the butterfly within. I hope she’s right, but in my gut I’m not convinced that’s the case. Either way, I do feel guided, and I’m content to let the Universe’s guidance unfold at its own pace.
Over the past few months, I’ve watched with fascination as things have begun to fall away organically, apparently making space for whatever comes next.
It began with my meditation teacher. We’d been meeting fortnightly for several months, and I enjoyed our conversations and her guidance. Yet as we entered a session back in June, I knew it was time to pause. I shared my decision at the start of my session, and our last session became a celebration of what I’m becoming, as I entered a chapter where I would look inward for guidance.
As I sat in a meeting with my Doctums colleagues, the Universe nudged me again. For several months, I’d realized it was time to shift the nature of our partnership, and in that meeting, the message came through clearly. It was time. And so we shifted our relationship. I’m still connected to Doctums and love them dearly, but I can also engage directly with higher education again.
Then I watched, fascinated, as I joined our monthly call with a third group. I have been active in this group for three years, but slowly moving in another direction. I had told myself I’d stay through the end of the year and then step away. During that call, the facilitator openly invited those of us who no longer felt called to step away sooner. She sensed where I was headed, and she gave me a graceful off-ramp.
As the Universe often does, it acts in threes for me. Three opportunities to make space, preparing for something new. I’m just not sure what that something new is yet, and when it’s coming. I think the point right now is not to fill that space up. Life moves in a rhythm of contraction and expansion. The doing in my life is contracting. My intuition tells me to let that continue to contract, and allow being to expand.
Putting It Into Practice
Give yourself 60 seconds to pause.
Close your eyes.
Connect gently with your breath.
Allow any thoughts to float by without latching on to them.
Listen to whatever message arises.
Check in to see how your body reacts to that message.
If the guidance feels resonant, trust it to nudge you in the right direction.
Tales of Wanderment
Since driving across the country, I’ve switched locations 11 times in 12 weeks. My travels have been filled with nourishing connections which I have thoroughly enjoyed. I am grateful to the friends and family that have opened their homes to me. Now, I am ready to settle for a spell. I have returned to a rental in Bethany Beach, Delaware, where I expect to stay put until Thanksgiving.
I began searching for rentals for December and was frustrated with the lack of available spaces. Everything I inquired about wasn’t actually available. I took my own advice, closed my eyes, and opened up to the Universe for guidance. A simple message came back. Keep trying.
And so I did, and I found a space in Virginia for December. Not only did I find a place, but I watched 2027 begin to fall into place. While everything is subject to change, I’ve found a rental in Asheville in January. Santa Fe in February. Back to California in March. Then I’m eyeing Ashland, Oregon, which has popped up at least three times and clearly deserves a look.
I have no interest in settling down right now. I may be nomadic for years. I have a feeling the next twelve months will give me greater clarity on which waystations matter most to me, and then my pace of exploration may slow. Time will tell.
If you want to follow my movements, I’ve built a simple website to keep people posted on my plans (or rather, Claude built it with my guidance). Thanks for sharing my wanderings with me.