Episode 44: Returning To What Matters
In this episode, I share my newfound clarity after being sick for a couple of weeks. I’m re-energized and ready to focus my energy on what matters most to me. I also share two of my favorite books that I love to return to again and again as I continue to grow and evolve.
Episode Details
Summary
After being sick for a couple of weeks, I’m returning to the Shoreline with a renewed sense of clarity. Being forced to stop gave me time to notice old patterns, sit with my thoughts, and reconnect with the practices and ideas that have supported me through other seasons of transformation.
In this episode, I reflect on the balance between being a human navigating the ordinary parts of life and being a soul having a much larger experience. I share how The Power of Now and The Four Agreements have helped me return to the present moment, loosen my grip on the past and future, and remember how little we can truly control beyond our own actions and perspective.
I also share how meditation, body scans, journaling, time outside, and intentionally releasing stored emotions have helped me reconnect with myself. Sometimes leaning into discomfort instead of trying to escape it allows us to move through it with more compassion and less attachment to the stories our minds create.
Coming out of this pause, I’m feeling clearer about how I want to spend my time and energy. I want to focus on relationships, projects, creativity, and experiences that genuinely matter to me, while letting go of the maybes, obligations, and old patterns that no longer deserve so much space.
Resources
The Four Agreements by Miguel Ruiz
The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
This episode is for you if…
You’re ready to find clarity on how to move forward and want to focus on what matters most to you
You need some tips on how to figure out what is important to you
You’re ready to release the past and old emotions you may be holding on to
You are looking for tools on how to find peace right where you’re at
You’re curious about starting a meditation practice or how to tap into your own spirituality
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Welcome to The Shoreline, where we explore the tender in-between seasons of the human experience. My name is Kim, and I'm here to support you as you navigate your next becoming. Here, we don't fix, we listen. We don't rush, we allow. Hello and welcome. If you're new here, I'm so happy that you've made your way to The Shoreline, and if you're returning, welcome back. I'm so glad that you're here. So, friend, it's been a little bit since I've shared, and that's because I've been sick for the last couple of weeks, and sometimes life just has to intervene and kind of turn everything upside down to give us some newfound clarity, and I really feel that's what I've been going through. The getting sick kind of, it felt like it came out of nowhere, and I was really forced to pause and be with my thoughts and kind of confront some of my old patterns and the ways in which I've been holding myself back. So while my body has been physically going through it and recovering, I've also been on a spiritual journey as well, and really getting to know the inner workings of my mind. And now that I'm healthy again, I feel like I do have this new found clarity. And it's not that my intentions or desires have changed. I think that I've been able to just really let go of a lot that hasn't been serving me. And I think that one of the in-betweens that I personally struggle with is kind of balancing being a human and living kind of a mundane life and balancing what that means in terms of just getting stuff done and having to do things like go to the grocery store and, you know, pay bills and all of that. Balancing that with my spiritual journey and knowing that I'm a unique soul who came here to have an experience. And sometimes I feel like I'm either too zoomed in on all of the details or so zoomed out that I forget what this is all about in the first place. And so that's something that I've been working on for a while now, just finding that balance and understanding that, you know, being a human, doing those things like paying the bills, like that's spiritual and it's all part of it. And then also just trying to understand my thoughts and all of the things that we attach to our actions. And I think that what is coming forward most for me right now is just letting go of the past and really focusing on the here and now. I really felt called this week to reach for a couple of books that I've read before that I really helped me in the past. The first one is The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. And that's a book that I found in kind of the beginning of what I would say was my first spiritual awakening and really when I started to dive deep into myself and my intuition. And that book really helped me just kind of bring awareness to my patterns. And one of the parts of the book really talks about this idea of time and clock time versus the ways that we attach to the past and the future and how easy it is for our human minds to focus on everything that's happened up into this moment and then trying to predict everything that might happen in the future when the reality is that we only really have what's right here right now in the present. And so I've really been focused on just letting go of the past and understanding that, yes, it's part of my story, it's part of my history, and I don't know what's going to happen next. I think the mind is really good at trying to predict. And especially for the overthinkers like me, it's trying to come up with plans A through Z and be prepared and having a plan for every possible outcome, there is a sense of feeling like you're in control. And we just don't know what's going to happen. And so that is a really lovely illusion to have this idea that we can control what's around us and what's going to happen. And we really just can't, all we can control are the actions that we take, and how we perceive our reality. And so I've been doing a lot of work to really just kind of shift my perspective. And I've come back to these tried and true practices that have been really important to me over the year. So coming back to the power of now, I've reignited my meditation practice, also in the power of now. He talks about this idea of having these kind of pain bodies, which are just like emotions that are built up in your body. And this is something that I've also worked through in my intuition work. And in that sphere, we called them kind of emotional bean bags. And these are just things that maybe are just stored inside these beliefs that you have. And so every night before I go to bed, I've been doing like a little body scan. And just looking for any little bits that might be wanting to be released. And I try to really breathe into them and feel what needs to be felt. And then just lovingly release it and let it go. And that has been a really beautiful practice. I used that a lot when I was sick and I had to spend a lot of time in bed. And I think that's one of the most challenging parts about being physically sick, is that you have a lot of time and you can get really stuck in, or at least for me, I can get really stuck in my thoughts because I like to, in kind of everyday life, I like to be active and moving and I can take for granted my physical health. And when I wasn't able to reach for the support that helps clear my mind, like working out, going for a walk, even knitting, I wasn't even able to really knit. When those weren't available to me, I had to really confront my thoughts and what was on my mind. And I felt like this meditation practice and releasing and really feeling into what my body was going through, it helped me just get through it and not be so attached to the stories of why I got sick or what that meant. And I will say, I was sick for two solid weeks. And there were points during that where it just, it felt really permanent. It felt like I would never get better. And that was really challenging to face. Of course, rationally, logically, I knew like time will pass, I will get better, you know, I'm young, I'm healthy, and this is just something that I have to go through. But it felt really permanent and really intense in the moment. And so I was trying to reach for anything that might help. And it feels counterintuitive, but sometimes really leaning into the discomfort, really leaning into the pain helps it kind of pass quicker. Yeah, getting back to my meditation practice. So that's something I kind of started when I was sick. And I've been feeling like I needed to reignite this anyway. And being sick was kind of the jump start that I needed. And it's something that I'm continuing. And it really has been just helpful and nourishing in a way. So that's another thing that I'm coming back to. I've also brought back one of my favorite books. It's called The Four Agreements. I just find that book to be really grounding. And in The Four Agreements, the author talks about how these four agreements can really help transform your life and give you a sense of personal freedom. And I really highly recommend reading that book. It really changed my perspective, and it's something that I think about often. And I'm excited to just dive back into it. So yeah, I will put the link in the show notes to The Four Agreements and The Power of Now. Both of those books really, really helped me. I'm actually thinking I'm wanting to maybe write like a blog post of kind of the books that have really helped during times of personal transformation. So if that's something you're interested in, let me know and I can share that. But yeah, The Four Agreements, and I definitely think that you should read the book at something that is just great cover to cover, but The Four Agreements are be impeccable with your word. Don't take anything personally. Don't make assumptions and always do your best. And these are really things that I try to live by, and I find them just to be so helpful because, yeah, we cannot control how other people show up. We can't control a lot of what happens in our lives and the obstacles that show up. But what we can control is our perception of what's real. We can control our perspective. We can control how we take care of ourselves and how we work through those obstacles. And that's really, I think, the power of these books and the power of any sort of mindset work is really just understanding that, you know, there's a lot that we can't control, and we are in charge of our own reality and how we see things. I feel like just on the other side of being sick, I really have more clarity on what I want to work towards, the life that I want to build in this kind of next phase of life. There are so many unknowns for me, but I find myself just coming back to practices and philosophies that have really served me before. I think that I really want to come back to being more proactive about setting intentions. I know for myself, having that deeper meaning behind my actions is what really fuels me. And so setting intentions and maybe revisiting, what do I want out of work and out of career? What is all of this for? How do I want to show up in my life? And what does it mean to me to be a good person? Or what is my value system? And really making it explicit to myself of what is most important to me? And then honoring that. I really want to really focus my energy on what is most important and just kind of let all of the maybes and the sometimes and the things that don't serve me, just like let it go, because it's just not, it's not worth it to give my energy to relationships that don't give anything back or to projects that aren't really fulfilling, to saying yes to something that I don't really want to do because I don't want to hurt someone's feelings. Like I really want to be laser focused with my energy because I don't want to waste any of the precious time that I have here. And I want to bring my ideas to life. I want to be able to express myself creatively. I want to spend time, like good quality time with the people in my life who are most important to me. I want to spend good quality time with my animals because we get such a short amount of time with them. Like I really just want to like take it all in. I want to really enjoy the beauty that's around me. I live in such a beautiful place and I don't want to take that for granted. That was another thing about being sick is I wasn't really able to go outside for days at a time and I forgot just how important going outside is. I think that's something we can easily take for granted. And when I was sick, I was really craving that. And I'm just so grateful that I can go outside now. And I've started going on walks again. And I just really want to take it all in. I've been journaling more and yeah, like none of this is revolutionary. And these are all things that I've done for years. And I think that is something that always surprises me is like how consistent of a person I am. Like I love a lot of the same things that I loved when I was five years old. Like my taste is my taste. I love what I love and it can evolve, but it doesn't really like drastically change. I'm not like that experimental with like my style or my hair and all of that. Like I just am truly one of those people who I like what I like. And sometimes it's a phase, but more often than not, I love things for a long time. And so it feels exciting to kind of return to these practices and return to these books that maybe I've put away for a little while and to just bring them out with a new perspective and look at them from a new vantage point because I'm continuing to grow and evolve and change. And that's exciting. And I really want to embrace that and allow myself to continue to grow and evolve and just see what happens. So that's a little update for you. I hope that you are well and I hope that you are navigating, whatever you're navigating with some self-compassion and love. And I just want you to know that I'm here for you if you need. I will say that I might be making some changes to my private coaching practice. For now, if you're curious about getting a clarity reading, or you want to talk to me about the Shoreline private coaching sessions, you can find more information or schedule time to meet with me on my website. The link is in the show notes, but just know that things might evolve and change. And so if that's something that you've been thinking about for a while, I would encourage you to just take the leap and schedule time with me or reach out, and we can dive deeper into your own inner landscape. We can talk about what you're navigating, and I'm here to support you and walk alongside you. And I would love to be there, and it would be such an honor to work with you. So if that's something that you're interested in, you can find the link to my website in the show notes, and that's where I'll leave you today, friend. I hope that you take good care while the waves carry you closer, and know that your next version is already waiting on the shore.
If you’re feeling stuck in the foggy middle and exhausted from having to always “figure it out” alone, I want to invite you to…
Explore The Shoreline Private Sessions to find aligned support as you navigate a significant life transition
Use this FREE intention setting worksheet to help you find your north star and get clear about your path forward
Learn about my favorite tool for self-reflection and uncover deep insights about yourself
Listen to this visualization when you want to invite more peace and calm into your life and use a somatic practice to come back to your body and the present moment
Kim Kogane is a writer and intuitive guide helping you navigate the tender in-between seasons. She lives in Seattle, Washington with her dog, Cauchy, and three cats. Learn more about Kim
