Because it is.

A confrontation with things at least part of us wishes we could unsee. The moment when the unknown—or the thing we have been in straight up denial about—becomes known. And once we know, we cannot un-know.

Maybe it starts with heart palpitations. Or a moment of recognition that the story we have been telling ourselves isn’t true. Or at least not the whole story.

And then the questions begin. Because if the life or career or body of work you have crafted so far was built on a lie or a half-truth or a fear that once lived in your unconscious but has suddenly become conscious … WHO ARE YOU REALLY?!

And if somehow you didn’t know—especially if you didn’t know—that you were living in a house of cards, what does that say about you? What does that say about the relationships and resume you have poured yourself into (possibly at the cost of your own well-being)? IS YOUR WHOLE LIFE A LIE?

It’s a moment of deep reckoning. And it can feel terrifying. Does everyone know you are a fraud? When did the smoke and mirrors lose effect?

What can you anchor into now, when your trust in your own perception, decision making and capacity has dissolved in an instant? Or when you realize that the rules you have been playing by were written by someone determined to keep you (or other humans) small, afraid, compliant and useful.

I have crossed a few thresholds in my life …

Losing the religious community I was raised in at the age of 15 as my mother was publicly excommunicated.

The divorce of my parents and the departure of my primary caregiver (not a parent) to enter into treatment for alcoholism.

The loss of my home to my father’s bankruptcy. And the next home to his second marriage.

College. Law school. Marriage. Children.

Re-organizing myself out of a 10-year career with no backup plan—just before the market crash of 2008—even though I was the primary wage earner for my family.

The death of each of my parents. One on my 33rd birthday. And the other when I was not yet 40.

Leading complex change as the CEO of a $5 million nonprofit.

Suddenly realizing in my late thirties that as much as I believed myself to be a fucking superhero, underneath my carefully curated life was a bubbling undercurrent of unclassified fear.

And then, a few years later soon after my mother died, coming to the startling awareness that my whole life felt like a house of cards built on quicksand, without yet consciously knowing what that meant.

Mental illness. Divorce. Choosing to live even though dying seemed like the best thing for everyone (my therapists corrected this lie my severely depressed brain was telling me before it was too late).

The loss of my second career and my employability. Of community. Of family. Of any sense of home or belonging. Of my capacity to feel connected to universal, divine energy that might help temper my own darkness.

Barely checked PTSD bringing me to the brink of personal bankruptcy.

Choosing to engage opportunities and modalities for healing with no promise at first that they would “work” for me.

Starting my own business with intent and purpose (after spending a few years living off of project-based and part-time work for other people).

Gently testing the edge of “What can I do and stay well?” again, and again, and again.

Moving back into the home now owned by my ex-husband so that we could each stabilize financially and co-parent our children in proximity. It works for us. That doesn’t mean I think it would work for everyone.

Returning to the practice of law part-time to help shore up my income (little did I know a pandemic was looming that would eviscerate my business model).

Weaning off my antidepressant after eight years. Learning to sleep unmedicated again after ten years.

No less than six iterations in my business model and offerings as I have moved through market shifts and the personal journey towards wholeness that informs it all.

As much as I love a bright and shiny new idea (one of the reasons I loved the season I spent almost exclusively working with entrepreneurs) the truth is that most new ideas are born out of something that didn’t work or a problem that had no good —reasonable, accessible, affordable, effective, survivable—solution.

Humans as a general rule don’t seek out change. We don’t change or create change until the situation we are in becomes intractable. We don’t chart a new course until we have exhausted all of our options (and possibly ourselves). And we often have especially big feelings about changes that happen “to us” in contrast to changes we initiate ourselves.

Thresholds are often infused with a mix of …

• Grief over the thing that didn’t work out the way you thought it would.
• Excitement about what might be possible.
• Shock. You cannot quite believe you find yourself “here.”
• Anger at yourself and/or at other people for the things you believed, the sacrifices you made, the rupture(s) you didn’t see coming.
• Fear that if or when you step (or are pushed) off the cliff into the unknown that nothing/no one is going to catch you.
• Confusion about who you are, who you can trust, where you can (should) go from here.
• Anxiety in the space between now and not yet.
• Hope that something more beautiful is on the other side.
• Terror that there isn’t.

When anchored in trust, worthiness, a resilient and flexible nervous system, and your innate capacity for wholeness, thresholds can be …

Portals to the version of you who has the capacity to do and hold the life and impact that you want.

Invitations to release ways of being and doing that are no longer serving you and keeping you stuck.

Doorways into new experiences, skills, relationships, and opportunities that you might not have imagined were possible.

Moments that you step into greater leadership and agency.

A return to self and to soul, a homecoming for the parts of you who have never been lost though they may have been obscured.

Pathways to your own soul’s maturation and your integrated wholeness.

But when anchored in your fear stories, nervous system patterns adapted from threat, constructs that are no longer true or aligned for you, and an absence of inherent worthiness and belonging, thresholds are laden with risk that you will:

• Repeat (aka doing the same thing in different context). In other words, “wherever you go, there you are”.
• Return to the same scenario, relationship, job, or situation that pushed you to the edge in the first place.
• Use strategies that used to be really effective but now have diminishing returns and perhaps devastating consequences.
• Engage only “surface level” problem solving without digging into the ground and laying down new roots.
• Attempt to mitigate these risks by holding yourself to perfectionist standards and gripping too tightly to the illusion of control.
• Ignore your emotional landscape and your body’s whispers until your body takes the wheel; leaving you with fewer choices.
• Force solutions out of anxiety-induced urgency to “fix it and feel better.”
• Surrender when you should take action. Collapse right before change takes root and has a chance to bear fruit.
• Decide that any obstacles or challenges you run into are actually “signs” that all of your worst fears are true and you cannot actually have, hold, or create what you desire with the very fabric of your being.
• Incinerate everything when you actually only need to place a few, intentional controlled burns in certain aspects of your life and business.
• Get lost in the unraveling and never make it back.

I have crossed thresholds in perhaps every way imaginable. Grief-laden. Terrified. Angry. Broken. Hopeful. Hopeless. Devastated. Excited. Purposeful.

With grenades. With the maximum amount of resistance (do not recommend). With surrender. With intention. With presence, peace, tenderness, awareness and radiance.

I have soared. I have fallen out of the sky. I have gotten lost in the darkness and almost didn’t make it out.

I have been humbled. I have been held. The universe has caught me every single time, even when it didn’t look the way I thought it would look. I am more whole, more myself, than I have ever been.

I want for you to have what I didn’t have for so much of my life …

• To feel deeply held, seen and supported as you walk across whatever threshold is looming before you (or that you are in right now)…
• To trust that challenges are not a moral indictment or a reflection of your worthiness and the outcome has yet to be written …
• To know in your bones that you belong …
• To claim your power to write your own story, even if you do not control all of the chapters …
• To move from grounded clarity sourced from and with your body …
• To expand into your capacity to live and create from a place of deep, connected wholeness with your soul, self and body intact…
• To step more fully into the authentic expression of your vision, voice, power and potential.

The way we move through thresholds makes all of the difference. The way we move through thresholds decides whether we come out the other side more whole or more fragmented than we were before.

If you are standing at the edge of a threshold or already walking through one in your life and/or work, I am opening up three spots for Thresholds: A 12-Week Private Client Intensive to help you move through this inflection point anchored in the deep wisdom of your own body and your expansive capacity for wholeness. The details are below (my website is about to be under construction).

Love,

Booth