The Next Chapter
Awakening the Inner Lighthouse
Yesterday, I closed a chapter I never expected would reopen. Life is a journey in experiential learning.
Over 25 years ago, I began a journey to become a counselor educator. Supporting students in discovering that we are all both teachers and learners was never simply a profession for me. It was a calling of the heart until illness changed my plans.
A year ago, I received an unexpected gift: the opportunity to return for one final year to teach virtually my favorite courses in my cherished former counselor education department at SUNY Brockport in upstate New York.
That gift changed my life.
It allowed me to leave the nursing home where I had lived for nearly two years and return home to once again live with my partner as she underwent treatment for cancer.
At the time, I could not have known that this chapter would also prepare me for what comes next.
Yesterday, I completed that journey.
And today, I begin another.
I look around my community, our country, and our world and sense that we are living through a profound period of transformation.
Disruption is everywhere.
Economic vulnerability.
Environmental instability.
Global uncertainty.
Fear.
Disconnection.
Loneliness.
Exhaustion.
There are many reasons to feel overwhelmed by what we see unfolding around us.
And yet…
my heart and spirit keep turning toward what is possible.
I find myself asking:
From what have we become disconnected?
What essential truths have we forgotten?
How do we begin building community in a world shaped by division and fear?
What might become possible if we learned to connect differently with ourselves and one another?
How do we remember that each of us is here with purpose—and that the larger picture is incomplete without our unique perspectives?
These are the questions guiding this next chapter of my life.
I believe there’s an inner lighthouse within each of us.
A quiet beacon that calls us home to ourselves.
Throughout our lives, many of us have learned to become sensible, responsible, productive versions of ourselves in order to survive, belong, and meet expectations.
These versions aren’t failures.
They were adaptive.
Protective.
Necessary.
And yet, beneath all those layers, something truer remains.
A deeper self.
A wiser self.
A self connected to something larger than fear.
Our lives often leave hints and clues pointing back toward this deeper truth.
Moments of synchronicity.
Unexpected longings.
A quiet inner knowing.
An awakening we cannot fully explain.
The Inner Lighthouse is not about becoming someone new.
It is about remembering who you have always been beneath the many roles and identities you learned to carry.
As we awaken and remember, we begin to align differently.
We begin listening more closely to our intuition, our hearts, and our deeper knowing.
We begin creating our lives from a different place.
Not from fear.
Not from proving.
Not from endless striving.
But from alignment with something more authentic and alive within us.
And we are not meant to do this alone.
I believe we are being called to awaken and remember together.
As we reconnect with ourselves, we become capable of connecting differently with one another.
With greater compassion.
More openness.
Deeper presence.
Sacred humanity.
Our world is calling for this.
The health of our relationships, our communities, our bodies, and our planet all call us toward a more compassionate and connected way of being.
To create from love rather than fear.
To listen with presence beyond assumptions and division.
To live in greater harmony with ourselves, one another, and the world around us.
That journey may sound impossibly large.
But often, it begins very quietly.
With a moment.
A pause.
A feeling that something within you is beginning to wake.
A subtle realization that there may be a truer path waiting beneath the surface of the life you have built.
And perhaps…
that is enough to begin.
This is the work I feel called toward in this next chapter.
Through writing, workshops, coaching, and community, I hope to create spaces where people can reconnect with their own inner lighthouse and discover that they are not alone in this journey.
If something in you recognizes itself here, I would be honored to walk alongside you.
There is much for us to create together.
The world is so fortunate to have you in it. Your inner lighthouse has been a beacon for me. 🙏
You have been a beacon for me since the moment I met you. This is a magnificent piece of writing and I am honored to be part of your path forward.
🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷