I’m on a Journey. Come with me.

Hi! My name is Audrey and I’m happy you found me here. Today, I am 46 years old, I’m very happily married to an amazing and supportive partner.  I live in beautiful Santa Fe, New Mexico. I have three biological sons, six step-children and one other beautiful soul that I also call my son. So, yup, there are 10 kids in our immediate family plus their significant others (current and former), several grandkids, plus a few close friends. I also have a huge immediate family; my mom, brother and sister, their families plus about 100 aunts, uncles and cousins. It’s a lot of family and they all really mean so much to me.  Unfortunately, my dad passed away in 2009 and that loss impacts me on a regular basis. (Tomorrow is his birthday so maybe he is pushing me to post this today.)

I recently finished a career in public service after nearly 30 years. It was wonderful! I met so many amazing people, I helped them and they helped me. I spent my formative years focused on community outreach, helping people and organizations grow and find their way in, primarily in marketing and development. I really enjoyed my work and the people I worked with. It wasn’t always easy and I have tried to look at the challenging times and experiences as opportunities for growth. “What is this trying to teach me?” “What am I supposed to learn from this?” “Why does this keep happening? I’m obviously not learning the lesson here. Help me to see it, please”

I have always been one to learn from others and I’m not shy about reaching out for support. I’m that person who asks questions at the end of a presentation (please don’t hate me!) but  understanding is key for me. I want to ‘get it’ and understand the ‘why’. If I’m expected to be involved in something and I don’t understand the ‘why’ I’ll do it but I won’t be fully invested going into it. My passion may develop over the course of the project but it really helps me to have buy-in from the beginning. This has taught me that believing in something is essential for me to be intrinsically motivated.

For the past five years I worked with an amazing coach, Kelly Wendorf and her company Equus. I knew my career in public service would be coming to an end in 2018 and I knew I had more to give to the world; heck, I’m just beginning! From my time with Kelly I realized that I wanted to continue to help people grow; specifically, people who have a desire to grow and improve themselves. This is where the idea of Momentum Santa Fe was ignited.

For the past couple of years I have been fleshing out the details of it all. The business plan, the marketing plan, what my ideal day would look like, my offerings, desired clientele and the associated feelings with it all. It was feeling great, until it started happening.

When the calendar turned to 2018, reality started to sink in. The finish line marked in the sand was still there and I was still moving closer to it, but now I could see it in the distance. As, time started passing the line got closer, I did all the work preparing to cross over it and then, suddenly, I was on the other side of the line. I did it! I crossed over (yay, me!). Now, I looked out at the landscape, I was still on a beach, there was still an ocean out on the horizon but no longer with a line in front of me. In fact, only opportunity was ahead of me, vast miles of opportunity and it was paralyzing!

In hindsight I recognize that I didn’t really think through the transition. I didn’t think about the feelings of losing the structure I had always had, the people I had been surrounded by, day-in and day-out. I didn’t think about how that would feel.

So, for the past several months I have been working to try to understand my new reality. On the surface it seems simple… I have all the time in the world to do whatever I want to do. But think about it for a second, for the past 30 years of my work life I have had an agenda (goals to accomplish for my employer all laid out in a jam-packed calendar, I had a job to do-for someone else) and for the 16 years before that I was a kid, also following an agenda (go to school, do homework, eat right, sleep well, etc.) to suddenly not have all of that is a little unsettling.  

I am blessed to have super supportive family and friends, I truly am. They have been amazing and always there for me when I reach out. But, they each have their own lives and they have their own things going on. So, this journey has been a bit lonely at times, even though I know I’m supported.

I’ve called on trusted advisors, my coach, my psychotherapist, select members of my family and select members of my tribe. I have a beautiful, but small tribe, of amazing friends who have been walking this path alongside of me, while also going through their own transitions. We are learning from each other and I know, sometime soon, we will look back at this time and we will be stronger for it all but, man, it is challenging right now.

I share all of this with your in an effort to provide context and an introduction into my life today. Moreover, I am inviting you to come with me on this journey. I am going places, I have some guideposts  in the distance and I am walking the path to reach each one, or to explore other ones I see in other directions. This is a journey of creativity, life and personal growth. This is a real story being written day-to-day, and I want to share with you.

I don’t have all the answers, heck, I don’t even know some of the questions! But, I have confidence, belief and faith that I will get through this, I will find my momentum (pun intended) and when I look back at this time, 20 years from now, I will see a beautiful growth experience.

Please consider this your personal invitation to join me. Feel free to reach out and share your personal stories and growth experiences either here and on social media. I hope through this experience we can grow together as we travel this path, remember, Always Forward Never Straight.

Let’s go!

#onward