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One of the comments from The Abundance Code film that comes back to me a lot was from Victoria Labalme. She said (and I’m paraphrasing here) that when you’re having trouble making a decision, there’s often a lot of noise in your head around it. But when you finally make that right decision, suddenly it goes quiet.
I remember that comment really resonating with me at the time.
Well, I had this exact experience recently…
For a while now I’ve felt like where I’ve been living in Sydney, Australia wasn’t quite right for me anymore. I was feeling hemmed in.
I mean, don’t get me wrong… Sydney is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. AND yet, it’s still a city. I grew up in the country, and there was a part of me that was yearning for more space, more quiet and cleaner air. Less hectic activity all the time.
The constant bustle of the city was wearing on my nervous system. Maybe it’s my age (I passed 50 last year), or maybe it’s a calling to turn more inward and to have the space for deeper reflection. Whatever the reason, more and more, I felt that I wanted a ‘tree change’… to somehow find a way to live closer to nature.
At the same time, I’m not the only person in my family to consider. I co-parent my daughter with my ex-partner Savannah (who transitioned gender from male to female a couple of years ago). And Savannah is also my business partner in our trading education business, which is based in Sydney.
So, I had a lot of noise in my head telling me that the ‘tree change’ I was yearning for was not going to be possible. The noise in my head was saying that Savannah would never want to move as well, so that we could continue to co-parent our daughter. And how would we manage our team in Sydney if we moved, anyway?
I didn’t want to break up our co-parenting situation, which is working really well. And I didn’t want to bail out on our business either.
So I thought about just getting a weekender in a quiet place, maybe a couple of hours from Sydney. But somehow the idea of that just made me feel more tired. Like I would be managing two households instead of one, and juggling schedules, and commuting back and forth, and all the logistics of that… ugh.
Lots of noise!
But then an amazing thing happened. One day Savannah and I went out to lunch and had a nice talk about life, the universe and everything.
As it turns out, Savannah was actually feeling the same way I was! She wanted a tree change too! AND, once we sat down and discussed it, we realized that we both were wanting to move to the same place, a place we had always loved visiting: Queenstown, New Zealand.
We also worked out that we could alternate coming back to Sydney to manage our team and check in with them in person. One week a month each. It’s only a 3 hour direct flight from Queenstown to Sydney… so one of us could be in the office every other week, and otherwise we would work remotely from New Zealand. We’d be able to keep our pulse on what’s happening with the team, and still get to spend 3 weeks a month, each, close to nature in New Zealand. And we could still co-parent our daughter in Queenstown, where she’d have 1 week a month with each of us, and two weeks a month with both of us.
Finally, when we floated the idea with our daughter, she was also super excited and totally up for a change of scenery. She has always loved Queenstown too! And there’s a brand new high school there for her to attend.
Suddenly, all the noise in my head went quiet. I felt peaceful and the decision to move to Queenstown, on a very deep level, felt like the right choice. For all of us. And even for our business.
Now, there are lots of logistics to this move! Arguably, even more in the way of logistics than just getting a weekender would have caused me. And yet, when I thought about that possibility there was still a lot of noise around it, and it made me feel tired. Comparatively, when I think about moving our home base to New Zealand, my head is quiet, and the idea gives me energy.
I guess that’s how I know it’s going to be a good move.
There’s an element of faith in believing that. Faith in the feeling and the sense of quiet. When I tap into that faith, I’m good. When I don’t, I can still get a bit of anxiety around the enormity of it all. Because, it’s a big, bold move! It even sounds a bit crazy… But the experience of the noise in my head going quiet (which it did in such a profound way), and the sense of peace and certainty that came with that has been my touchstone as I work my way through the many details of the move.
I’m so grateful now to Victoria Labalme for sharing that insightful comment about noise versus quiet! It’s helped me a lot.
As usual, let me know in the comments if this post has helped you in any way…
To YOUR Abundance,
Julie Ann Cairns
