When Life Pulls You Toward A New Shore: Beginning Again And Exploring The In-Between Space After An Unexpected Life Transition

Nov 25

Episode 01: When Life Pulls You Toward A New Shore

This episode explores what it feels like to move through a major life transition, especially when you’re being called toward change before you fully understand what it means. I introduce the concept of the shoreline as an in-between space where you’re not quite who you once were, but not yet who you’re meant to become.

Episode Summary

I’m so grateful to share this space with you and to talk about how this new chapter began. In this episode, I’m reflecting on the unexpected turns that shaped the start of my year. A simple day trip reminded me how much I loved my life, and only a week later, I received a letter telling me I had to leave the home that had become my sanctuary.

I talk about what it felt like to be pushed into an in-between season and how losing my dad shortly after changed the ground beneath me. It was a time that asked me to soften, to grieve, and to trust the quiet pull toward what was coming next, even when nothing felt steady.

I also share how The Shoreline grew out of this tender space and why these transitions have become such an important part of my work.

My hope is that this episode helps you feel less alone in whatever you are moving through and reminds you that your next becoming is already forming gently within you.

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. Welcome to The Shoreline. I'm so happy to be back, sharing and podcasting, and whether you're new or you've been listening since the beginning, since the floating experiment days, I'm just so excited to have you. So thank you for listening. And today, I want to share a little bit more about how The Shoreline came to be. So we'll start, I guess, at the beginning of this year. I remember feeling really like kind of restless in my life, but excited for no immediate changes. And I remember wanting, it was January of this year, January of 2025, and I was really wanting to just kind of get out of my neighborhood, try something new. January in the Pacific Northwest can be kind of a slog. A lot of the days are just gray. The sun doesn't come out. It's rainy. Everyone's kind of staying inside. So I thought it would be fun to just kind of like go on a day trip. So I decided to go to Bainbridge Island, which is just a short ferry ride away from downtown Seattle. And it's a really fun way to just get out and to feel like you're traveling somewhere new without really going very far. And the ferries here are just so fun, so magical. Even just taking the ferry and like going there, coming back is really just quite an experience. So I went to Bainbridge. I was also kind of thinking in the back of my mind, like maybe this is somewhere I might want to explore living someday. Like, I'm happy, I was really happy where I was at, but I was kind of like also thinking about what was next. And I had started kind of making a dream wishlist of like the next place I wanted to live. And one of those like must have wishlist dream items was a view of the water. And I thought it would be maybe more easily attainable somewhere a little bit further out from Seattle and Bainbridge being an island. There's a lot more opportunity to kind of be on the shoreline. So I just wanted to explore it. I remember going and kind of immediately was like, oh no, like it's a really cute place, but not somewhere I really saw myself living. And at the end of the day, when I came home, I remember just feeling like, wow, I really love where I'm at. Like, I'm so grateful for this life I've cultivated for myself. I love my house. I love my routines. And like maybe things don't have to change. Maybe I don't have to think about what's next. And it really wasn't long after that where I was just like so happy to be home. I wanted to really just plant roots and ground where I was at, even more. It's that the townhouse I was living in was, it was the longest place in my adult life I had ever really lived. And that felt really special to me. So I was just like, okay, like this is, this is my sign that I meant to kind of just stay where I'm at. Well, very shortly after, maybe I want to say like a week or so after, I received a letter in the mail from my property management company that they had decided to sell all of the townhomes and I would have to move by the end of May. And that was just so shocking. It like really hit me like pretty deep, especially after the whole last year, all of 2024 was just like so chaotic with, you know, my cat passing away and then adopting a new cat who was pregnant and having ankle surgery, and then my dad going to the hospital. It was just like a lot. And, you know, coming home from Bainbridge felt like, okay, like I can finally like exhale. I'm okay where I'm at. I don't have to wait for the other shoe to drop, and I can just be. And then I get this letter that's like, well, nope, you're moving. And it just was really hard to process. And I had just never experienced that before. Every other place I had rented in my adult life, I got to choose when I left. It was always like, I love it here, but I'm ready for something new. And I would just flow into a new place. And it was always of my choosing. I've never had a landlord or a property management company tell me that I had to leave. So it just felt like almost like a violation of sorts. And I was pretty lost. So I had kind of like a breakdown. I shed some tears. And this is, as a side note, I am chronically on Zillow. I love looking at real estate. I always have, like, I remember being a kid. And my mom and I would just like go to open houses for fun. So that's always been kind of part of who I am. And so I kind of had an idea of what the rental market was like because I was always looking. And I started more seriously looking for myself. And it just felt like every place I was seeing, it felt like a downgrade. And every past move that I had done had been an upgrade from where I was. And I just really, I felt really defeated and really sad. And I was like, I don't want to give up this house. Every other townhouse in the neighborhood was a lot more money than I was paying. And it was not as great. And I felt really like it was important to find another new build. This was the first place that I had ever been the first person to live in it. And I loved that neutral energy feeling. And I was just really struggling with this idea of moving, even though I had already kind of been thinking about moving in the next year or two. So I remember kind of talking to my parents and being like, this, the market here is just atrocious. I don't know what I want to do. And my dad kind of floated the idea to me of like, well, what if you just like looked at what was for sale and you considered buying something? And I had never thought about it because I had never really saw myself being a homeowner in the first place. I had never thought I would commit to a place long enough. And it always had felt like it would be really restrictive and limiting. But when my dad kind of floated the idea to me, I felt myself kind of like relaxed. And I really started to see like, I think I'm done. I think I'm done renting. Like I don't want someone else to decide how long I get to live somewhere. I don't want to renegotiate a lease every year and to kind of think in this year-to-year way. Like I really want to settle in and build my life and this next chapter for myself. So I started to kind of just look around. I really felt strongly that I wanted to stay in relatively the same area. I really love my neighborhood. I love the connections I've built. I love the access to nature, and it's really close to the water. And, yeah, I just really wanted to stay where I was at. And I also really wanted to find a yard for Cauchy, I think, at the same time. Like she, her and I were kind of done with the, like, having to, like, leash up and go outside multiple times a day, like, for bathroom breaks for her. And I just wanted a little bit more ease in my life. So a couple days after I received that letter, I ended up going to an open house. And immediately when I walked in, I just felt so at peace. It was nothing really that was on my wish list. Like, I said that I wanted a new build. This house is 100 years old. But it did have a water view, and it was in the same neighborhood. And yeah, just immediately when I walked in, I was like, I just feel so at peace. It feels really cozy. And it just felt like this was where I was meant to be. So I think it was a Thursday in January that I received the letter that I had to move. I went to the open house on Saturday. And then the following Tuesday, I put in an offer, and it was accepted, which felt super scary, but also very exciting. And then a week later, that next Tuesday, my dad died. And that day was just a crazy day. And I think that'll have to be a story for another time, just talking about what happened and the grief, because that, it really just changed me completely. But the timeline of how everything happened was so quick. And during that time, I had to kind of decide, like, do I still move? Moving in a time of like such deep grief felt very hard, but at the same time, like, I had to move no matter what, and I had found this home that felt so aligned and so perfect. So I went through with the home purchase. I was up in Alaska for most of the closing, and I felt pretty detached from the entire process. I wasn't even, you know, in the same, wasn't in Seattle for most of the closing process. I was up in Alaska, kind of working through putting together my dad's service, being there for my mom, like going through the grieving process. So it was really strange to come back to Seattle after being gone, after having gone through this very intense experience. And I remember coming back to my townhouse, and I just felt terrible. I mean, I felt terrible because I was going through something terrible, but it just didn't feel like a home anymore. And I just started to feel like I was in this freefall of like everything just felt so off, like this place that had been such a sanctuary to me just didn't feel that way anymore, partially because I was so deep in grief and just trying to process losing this really important person in my life. But also going back to that letter, I felt like that sense of security had been taken away from me the moment that they told me that I had to leave. And it almost felt like I had done something wrong even though I hadn't. And what was really crazy about receiving that letter is, I had already received my lease for the next year, and I was getting ready to send it back to them signed, and then to kind of receive that letter saying, I had to leave before I could get the lease back. It just felt like, well, what if I had not taken as much time? Or I was just kind of questioning everything, and I had to pack up and move, and probably the most difficult thing that I've ever been through. But I moved, and I made it into my new house, and that was also just so uncomfortable, like, moving into this new phase. I felt like I hadn't yet had the time to grow into the version of myself that fit living in this home, that fit kind of moving into owning something versus renting. And so, for the first few months, I was really questioning my decision, and just wondering, like, had I made a mistake? Like, everything just felt really... I just felt really raw and vulnerable, and I had nothing to hold onto. I had let go of this place that really felt like home, and that really healed me. I was still in the same area, but I had moved a little bit further out to the point where, like, all of my routines were different. Like, I wasn't just down the street from my coffee shop anymore. It was a little bit longer of a walk. And so, it just felt like so much was different. There was nothing to hold onto, and I had no choice but to really just, like, move through the grief, move through not only the grief of losing such an important person, but also, like, the grief of, like, losing who I once was. Like, my dad dying is such a distinct before and after in my life. And that, I think, is something that's not talked about a lot in grief. And maybe I'll get into that in the future. But there was just a lot happening of, like, just so much grief, so much loss, loss of identity, like, loss of a parent, loss of a sense of security. Like, I was just, like, really going through it. And I had to just kind of, like, let myself. Those first few months were really tough. Like, it really just took everything I had to even, like, get out of bed in the morning. And I just felt like I was going through the motions of life. And I was in a space that didn't really feel like mine yet. I didn't feel like I was ready to take any of this on. Not that you ever are, but I just felt like, oh, this felt like I, like, maybe if I had a couple more years, that maybe I could have been more prepared or something. And it was just really, really challenging. And I knew that I needed support. And so I kind of explored some different avenues of, like, what that could look like and kind of leaning on the different tools I had cultivated over the years. But I felt really called to start working with a leadership coach. And there was someone who I have known for, like, a few years now, and I had actually done a discovery call with her a few years ago, and it didn't work out for us to work together the first time. But I decided to reach out to her on Instagram. She had posted that she was taking new clients. And so I just sent her a message, and I was like, hey, I know we already did a discovery call, but I'm in a completely different place in life, and I want to explore working together again. So I booked a call with her, and we just talked through where I was at, how she could support me. And I just felt like in that call, she so clearly could see who I was becoming and how grief can be this really magical, powerful portal of transformation. And it was right after that discovery call that I took action on developing The Shoreline. I was like, okay, I'm ready to be in service again, maybe go back to work. And I wrote down everything that would be part of like my dream coaching container. And once I did that, I quickly realized like, I think I'm too close to this work, that I need to call in more support. And so I asked my friend Caitlin, who is such a, just a wonderful person, who like really sees and understands me and my work. And she's such a dear friend, but she's also just so magical with words. She's a great wordsmith, and we've worked together in the past. And I knew that like, if I couldn't write this for myself, like she's the person I would want to put this together. So I asked her to do some copywriting for the sales page of my coaching program. And what she gave back to me was just beyond what I was expecting. It was such a gift. And she really put words to everything that I had been thinking about and trying to create. And that's really where The Shoreline was born. And as I kind of went through the process of like marketing and deciding like how I want to like birth this into the world, I started to think about like, really, I think that The Shoreline is... is something bigger than just one-on-one coaching sessions. Like, it really feels like a calling of sorts for me to... to share these in-between seasons of life. Like, I'm... I've grown and changed so much, and I've experienced so much in my life so far. And it's really through these liminal spaces that I... I have learned the most. And I think that it's something that really is just such... It's such a rich time, and there's so much opportunity there that I really want to shed light on... on the in-between seasons of life and what happens when you let go of something that you know is no longer for you without truly knowing what's coming next. And that's... that's a tricky place to be, and that's really what The Shoreline is all about. You know, this podcast has been through a few iterations. We started with The Floating Experiment, where I kind of was like learning to be in flow, connecting back to my intuition. It evolved into The Kim Kogane Show, which was really just exploring more of like a journal style podcast. And here we are now. We're at The Shoreline. I'm still navigating my transition, my in-between space. I'm exploring what is life like with no certainty, which I think is such a huge theme that comes from grieving, where you're like, nothing is certain. We don't know how much time we have left. And I just really want to explore all aspects of transition and in-betweens, whether you're also grieving the loss of a loved one, or maybe you're leaving a career, or you're ending a significant relationship, or you're just shedding an old identity. Like, whatever it is, we're all going to experience this in-between at some point in our lives. And so, yeah, my goal here is really just to share with you, like, what I'm going through, and to explore these different themes. And I hope that you'll continue to listen and follow along. And yeah, maybe it inspires you to kind of look at where you're at in your life, and if you're in an in-between season. So that leads me to kind of what am I doing now? I have my Shoreline offering, which is a private coaching container. So I'm offering one-on-one coaching sessions for people creating. My hope is to create a space for clients to explore, and I'm really going to lead with my intuition. And the goal is for it to be a container that's completely tailored for you. I think in a lot of coaching, it can be like applying the person to the modality. Like you go to a coach for a specific type of training, and as someone who is multi-passionate, I've collected a lot of experiences, I've done a lot of trainings, and I want to fit the modalities to the person, not the other way around. So in this coaching container, it's completely tailored to you and what you're going through. It's a very intuitive approach. I bring in my somatic training, and it's really just a space for you to pause and kind of reflect weekly on where you've been, where you are, and where you're going. So if that's something that's of interest to you, if you're looking for one-on-one support, you can go to my website to learn more about The Shoreline coaching container, and I offer clarity tarot readings as kind of the discovery call. So if you're feeling called just to even see what's next for you, you can book one of those. It's completely free, and I would love to connect with you. So I will leave all of that information in the show notes, and I look forward to going on this journey with you. So thank you so much for listening. 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…

Connect to your north star using my FREE Intention Setting Worksheet.

Book a tarot reading to clarify where you’re heading next.

Read this resource to help you find clarity in the unknown.

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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.