An enchanting tale about a girl who changed her story

Once upon a time there was a girl who had it all, at least according to mainstream society. She traveled the world, drank fancy wine, ate at some of the top restaurants in the world. Hell, she was a wine sommelier.

She was good at calling in fun jobs that served her local community and looked pretty cool online, too. She was a powerhouse networker and professional who always went the extra mile to make badass projects come to life. Her friend circles looked like supermodels in photos, she was popular in the bar scene, and she always had a killer outfit.

She had the picture perfect relationship, too. In September 2023, she got engaged to said man in a castle on the coast of Sicily and started planning a wedding in the Sacred Valley of Peru.

I mean, come on. Have you SEEN a dreamier engagement?

Everything about her life looked put together.

She must have been happy, right???

Well, on the surface, for a time.

Underneath it all was this sense of duty to fulfill the checkboxes of society's idea of a stable, successful woman. Keep going. Keep achieving. Keep building. Keep making it look good.

Then, after the engagement, something strange happened.

She went into a deep depression.

She started denying herself pleasure. She became nearly asexual. She started questioning her life, what she had created, and eventually, who she was.

And then came the guilt.

“I had a fairytale engagement. I owe it to him to make this work.”

“I chose this life. Shouldn't I be more grateful?”

“I have everything I said I wanted. Why isn't it enough?”

She started gaslighting herself daily. How could she possibly be this unhappy inside a life she had actively created?

Meanwhile, her body started speaking louder. Bladder issues she had dealt with for years became so intense that she couldn't sleep through the night without getting up to pee at least five times.

She eventually found a doctor who helped her begin healing physically, and for the first time in a long time, she had moments of respite.

Then she went to Egypt.

It was one of the most incredible trips of her life, and it forced her to face some extremely difficult truths. She noticed herself avoiding her fiancé. She noticed where she was outsourcing emotional intimacy to her friendships. She started seeing their incompatibilities with renewed eyes.

Around the same time, she had a deeply illuminating plant medicine ceremony where she encountered the part of herself that had been denying pleasure.

She asked what that part needed.

The message she received was clear.

“You are not in the right relationship. We are created to be in sacred loving union with women at this time. We are denying who we are, not just in our sexuality, but in other areas of our life, and you are ready to listen.”

She was APPALLED.

Because the girl in our story took her commitments VERY seriously. So you know what she did?

She doubled down and kept planning the wedding.

She couldn't trust herself yet. She brushed everything off as insecurity, fear, and catastrophizing. She was terrified of giving up the beautiful life she had built and even more terrified of how her friends, family, and community would react. But something deep inside kept asking her to question. Not necessarily to leave. Not to destroy everything she had built.

Just to QUESTION.

She asked her fiancé to go to therapy together to prepare for marriage. And that's when things got interesting. Once she opened the door and became willing to look at herself honestly, she started uncovering beliefs she didn't even realize were running the show.

“Holy shit, I believe that to be a powerful woman, I have to control everything.”

“I believe that to be valued and loved by my peers, I have to present my sexuality as heterosexual.”

“Being straight is easier than being queer.”

“Appearing to live a luxurious life makes me more trustworthy and respectable.”

“Being the face of an organization, even if they treat me like shit, keeps me relevant.”

“I have to do everything on my own.”

And the list went on. Suddenly, she wasn't only questioning her relationship. She was questioning the stories underneath the entire life she had built.

And this is where something we find really freaking cool about this girl comes into the story.

She happened to be studying Quantum Human Design.

She had spent years learning this system, but suddenly she wasn't interested in using Human Design to tell her who she was. She wanted to know if she could use it to understand the stories she'd been telling herself about who she had to be.

So she went back to the books.

And she began rewriting her story. Not by deciding the old version of herself was bad. Not through extremes. Through self compassion.

“I am a woman who can trust herself.”

“I trust the intelligence of my body.”

“I can do hard things in the pursuit of living a life of love and service.”

She got DEEP into her experiment. She practiced her Strategy. She listened to her emotional waves. She gave herself time. And eventually, she made the incredibly difficult decision to call off her wedding and leave her relationship.

But ending the relationship wasn't the transformation. 

It was one decision that came out of a much bigger transformation already happening inside of her. Because changing your circumstances is one thing.

Learning how to become the woman who can live inside your evolving life is another.

She suddenly had to live without many of the identities that had made her feel safe. She had to be willing to disappoint people, be misunderstood, and have people think she made the wrong choice.

More than 100 wedding invitations had already gone out.

Who am I if I'm not the woman with the picture perfect life? Who am I if I'm queer? Who am I if I stop performing success? Who am I if I don't need to be impressive to be valuable? Who am I if I trust my body even when what it tells me disrupts everything?

And somewhere in all of that questioning, she realized something that completely changed the way she understood Human Design.

Deconditioning wasn't about discovering who Human Design said she was.

It was about becoming curious about every story she'd been handed about who she was supposed to be.

That curiosity started spreading into every corner of her life.

Her relationship with work changed. She started noticing where she was performing and where she was able to lead from authenticity.

Her relationship with productivity and rest changed. She started trusting the natural rhythms of her body instead of obsessing over hyper performance.

Her relationships CAME ALIVE. Her defenses started coming down. She began seeing more deeply into the hearts of her clients and friends, and something about her connection to humanity started to shift.

She listened to her body more. She eventually put down alcohol, something she had wanted to do for years but had struggled to imagine outside of the cultural connection she associated with it as well as the identity she wore as the “Wine Sommelier Friend”.

She became more willing to disappoint people and learned that disappointment didn't always mean disconnection. She could have boundaries. She could change. She could get things wrong. She could repair. She could stay in relationship with people without abandoning herself.

And most importantly, she realized not every story needed to be destroyed.

Some stories were completely hers. Some needed to be softened. Some needed to be rewritten. Some had simply outlived the woman she was becoming.

And some she had never actually believed in the first place. Over the next year, something unexpected happened. The girl didn't become a completely different person.

She became more herself.

She still loved beautiful clothes. She still traveled. She still loved incredible food and beautiful experiences. She still loved bringing people together. She still had big dreams.

She still loved being a little extra.

But she wasn't using those things to prove who she was anymore.

Slowly, she started building a life that didn't just look like her.

It felt like her.

And if you haven't figured it out yet...

That girl is me.

I wish I could tell you I navigated that chapter gracefully because I had Human Design.

I didn't.

I questioned myself constantly. I needed mirrors. I needed community. I needed somewhere I could bring the messy questions that didn't fit neatly into a reading or a chart.

I needed somewhere I could ask:

“Is this actually me? Or is this just a story I've gotten really good at living?”

And THAT is what changed the way I see Human Design.

I don't believe this system is here to give us another set of labels to perform. I believe it can be a storytelling technology.

A framework that helps us notice the stories we've inherited, the identities we've constructed, and the patterns we've repeated for so long that they started feeling like truth.

Then, with compassion and curiosity, we get to ask whether those stories still belong to us.

Your life doesn't need to blow up.

I actually hope it doesn't.

Transformation doesn't always look like leaving a relationship, changing careers, moving across the country, or making some enormous declaration.

Sometimes it's much quieter.

Maybe there's simply a story underneath one part of your life that's ready to be questioned.

Maybe it's the story that you have to be productive to be valuable. That you're too much. That you can't trust yourself. That changing your mind means you failed.

Maybe it's the story that wanting something different makes you ungrateful. That disappointing someone means you've done something wrong. That because you chose something once, you're obligated to keep choosing it forever.

What becomes possible when you stop asking, “Who am I supposed to be?” and start getting curious about, “Who am I becoming?”

That is why I created Growth Compass.

I built the container I wish I had when I was questioning everything.

Not a program designed to tell women who they are. Not a program about blowing up your life in the name of alignment.

A place to get curious. To experiment. To understand the mechanics of your Human Design while also examining the stories you've attached to who you believe yourself to be.

A place to have mirrors and community while you figure out what is actually yours.

In true third line fashion, I've gone through my own trials, errors, experimentation, pain, pleasure, breakthroughs, and giant WTF moments. I'm not here because I figured out the perfect way to live.

I'm here because I learned a different way to meet myself while I'm living it.

And I created Growth Compass so you don't have to do all of that questioning alone.

We start October 20 with twelve women who want to explore Human Design as a storytelling technology rather than a labeling system.

I see this system with completely new eyes now.

And I am honored to share it with you. Learn more here.