When I think back about the version of me before I left, I realize I spent years living next to my life.

That’s the only way I can describe it. Like I was watching myself from the outside, going through the motions of a life that looked good from the outside but felt disconnected.

Airport floor agent. Film festival coordinator. Administrative assistant at an independent newspaper. Executive assistant in finance.

I kept switching jobs because I’d get bored, but also because it always brought me back to the fact that I wasn’t happy. The problem wasn’t the job. It was that I was living separated from my own soul.

You know that feeling? When you’re physically present but emotionally, spiritually, energetically - you’re somewhere else entirely? That was me. For years.

Between ages 17 and 34, I flew to NYC nineteen times.

Nineteen.

That’s not a vacation pattern. That’s your soul trying to tell you something.

Every time I landed at JFK, something in me came alive. Every time I left, something in me died a little. And yet I’d go back to Switzerland, back to trying to make it work.

Because that’s what you do, right? You follow the rules. You stay where you’re from. You build a sensible life.

Yet I stayed in Switzerland, believing that following society’s rules would give me belonging. But here’s the paradox that nearly broke me: I wanted so badly to belong, while at the same time feeling this rebellion in my chest against the exact structures I was trying to fit into.

The truth? I believed my voice didn’t matter. That because I was struggling, something was wrong with me. That I would never be enough.

So I stayed in that weird in-between space. Having beautiful moments, yes. But always with this underlying sadness because I wasn’t actually IN my life. I was next to it.

Do you know how exhausting that is? Living next to your life for years?

It’s not dramatic. It doesn’t look like a crisis from the outside. But internally, it’s a slow erosion. A quiet dying.

At 34, I finally listened.

I do remember the moment. But that’s a story for another time.

What matters is this: I finally stopped pretending I didn’t know what I needed to do.

I had been saving money - working three jobs because deep down, I knew. I was preparing even while pretending I wasn’t sure.

Left Switzerland and moved to NYC - the city that had been calling me for 17 years - with savings from working three jobs and zero doubts.

Today, from my home in Hawaii, I help women who feel that same separation - living next to their lives instead of in them.

Because here’s what I learned: that feeling of not belonging? It’s not because something’s wrong with you.

It’s because it’s all about you. You ARE the life. When you put yourself first in all aspects, that’s when you finally own your life.

And for me, I found the place - in myself and physically - where I intentionally wanted to grow my roots.

Have you ever felt like you’re living next to your life instead of in it? Reply and tell me.

💫