Writing and thinking about integrity last month and the aftermath of our dear friend Roger’s disabling stroke and a second close call last weekend has me wondering about how we spend our energy and our lives.
How about you? Are you happy with your work life?
Do you feel fulfilled? Over or underwhelmed?
I’ll admit I’ve gotten caught up in the “find your purpose/live your best” life web of trying to find the perfect position which had me moving from one thing to another for years, never really feeling that things felt just right.
I had a tall order. I wanted to find a career in the middle of that Ikigai sweet spot where I’d be able to care for our boys well and be a loving mother and wife, contribute my natural gifts, make a real difference in the world, feel happy, fulfilled, easy AND make boatloads of money.
I’m still looking for that particular unicorn.
The truth is that truly knowing ourselves can take a lifetime and we can’t ever really control the outcome of anything. It seems to me like surrendering and engaging in the process by letting go of our future fears and focusing on what we’re doing right now is all we can do.
I’ve learned that we are only ever experiencing ourselves in the present anyway, so if we’re waiting on the future to feel joy, we never arrive and it keeps us in a perpetually unsatisfying job search.
I think deep down we’re all afraid to fail. We stay in work we don’t love because we don’t believe it’s possible to get what we want or that we’ll lose what we have. But rather than get caught up in these future scenarios, our instincts and intuition can be our greatest guides so let’s give them veto power.
You can’t force clarity, it takes time, unfolds naturally, and works best with an extra dose of self-compassion and kindness. Most importantly, no one else knows what you know, so it can’t be your friends or family who think they know what’s best for you; it has to be you.
Doug and Kris’ story today is about following that intuition.
Sometimes our work life can take us on the most unplanned, unpredictable ride doing things we never imagined possible with no guaranteed outcomes.
They seem to be the ingredients of a well-lived regret-free life.
To live a life true to ourselves no matter how that looks to others. This coming from the one teaching about love and God and making spiritual concepts more practical for our day-to-day modern lives which I never imagined in a million years would be the most soul-satisfying work for me.
To be honest, it has taken me 54 years and about 25 jobs to find this one and who knows what I’ll be doing in a decade?
My hope today is that you’ll find this a safe place to wonder about your legacy no matter what age and stage you’re in or how far down a path you’ve gone… maybe it’s time to make a change and open yourself up to try something new.
Or maybe you decide to stay and double down feeling energized with a new appreciation for the work and life you already have.
Have you heard of Doug and Kris Tomkins?
The photo above makes me smile because it seems to capture their essence in a place in the world that was transformed by their generosity and love.
After falling in love in mid-life, Kris and the outdoorsman and entrepreneur Doug Tompkins left behind the world of the massively successful outdoor brands they'd helped pioneer -- Patagonia, The North Face, and Esprit -- and turned their attention to a visionary effort to create National Parks throughout Chile and Argentina it what was the largest private land donation in history.
To date, almost 15 million acres have been set aside in 17 National Parks in South America. They have even rewilded the areas, and re-introduced species that were becoming extinct.
Sadly Doug passed away in 2015 on a kayaking trip on Chile’s Lake General Carrera. He was with a group of friends, including Yvon Chouinard, founder of the Patagonia outdoor brand, and Rick Ridgeway, a climber and filmmaker. Gusting winds kicked up huge waves, and the kayak Tompkins and Ridgeway were in capsized in the frigid waters. Ridgeway survived, but Doug succumbed to severe hypothermia.
This short trailer from a National Geographic movie released last year captures the essence of the dream that Doug started and Kris finished in her grief. I watched it last night by myself and I had to get up for Kleenex. Twice.
To be honest, I don’t read a lot of business books so I’d never even heard of Doug Tomkins before I saw the book a couple of weeks ago looking for Father’s Day gifts. What initially caught my eye about this book was something I didn’t expect from the Founder of North Face and Esprit.
Regret.
Doug lived the American dream and then he regretted the corporate capitalism that he’d profited from his whole life.
He was a skier and an outdoor enthusiast, a climber, and he had experienced nature the way most of us do.
As tourists.
He was best friends with Yvon Chouinard (Patagonia) and he had four friends who called themselves “The Fun Hogs”…
They did extraordinary things, had incredible adventures around the world, and one time they even got trapped in ice caves together. Here they are sitting on top of the world.
Doug somehow managed to spend three or four months of the year in the wild and jokingly called it his MBA - ‘Management By Absence’.
He seemed to have lived an ideal life by most measures.
He was wealthy and had time and freedom to do anything he wanted.
So why the regrets?
It wasn’t until he was flying OVER the mountains one day and the uninhabited lands of Patagonia one day…staring out the window at Volcano Michinmahuida blanketed in snow that he was profoundly struck by the beauty and wilderness. His intuition took over and his worldview began to shift. He and his wife Kris set about to make some changes after his realization that his work was contributing to the devastation of our planet.
On one memorable fly-over, he was so moved by the clear-cut forests above Washington State that he decided to abandon his life as a fashion tycoon to focus all his effort and resources on halting the destruction.
As a CEO he confessed that he felt responsible for causing much pollution and as he put it…“made things nobody needed.”
Now, he was declaring that it was time to reverse the damage to the planet, and maybe even himself.
His book (written by Jonathan Franklin) “A Wild Idea” tells the story of how he became one of the primary founders of our modern conservation and land protection movement. He stopped dams and saved whales, but he still felt like he was losing the greater struggle.
The same struggle we now all seem to share with our population topping 8 billion.
Long gone are the days when we can feel good or right by simply finding work to create a business and life we love without considering the bigger picture of the impact of our work on the planet.
Our carbon-charged lifestyles are causing species to become extinct. It’s time for us to begin to tune inwards for answers on how to move forward and possibly tie in our legacies and work to help in any way we can.
To use our gifts aligned to the greater good is not just a nice idea, it’s the only one worth having.
I’ve been reading some indigenous people's written accounts of their view of our European culture. We’ve been so busy colonizing them and the world since the 16th century and talking about their culture, are you curious to hear about their impression of us?
In 1932 Carl Jung met Chief Mountain Lake in New Mexico and when Jung asked him what he thought of Europeans he said:
“The whites always want something. They are always uneasy and restless. We do no know what they want. We do not understand them. We think that they are all mad.”
Many others have shared that same bemusement. They believed our lust for possessions and competition was a kind of madness.
The famous Sioux Chief Sitting Bull said:
“ Love of possession is a disease with them… They claim this Mother of ours, the Earth for their own and fence their neighbours away”.
How have we descended into madness and become so disconnected from nature and each other?
One of the most acute observers of the differences between our European and Indian worldviews Chief Luther Standing Bear wrote:
Indian faith sought the harmony of man with his surrounding, the other sought the dominance of surroundings…For (the Indian) the world was full of beauty, for (the white man) it was a place of sin and ugliness to be endured until he went to another world.
Maybe we haven’t exactly been in our “right minds”.
I used to teach History and there is clear evidence of a point in our pre-history when things “went wrong” - that is, when warfare, patriarchy, social inequality, and our concepts of separation became widespread. Before that time, human societies were generally peaceful and egalitarian, and individuals experienced a sense of psychological well-being and connection to the cosmos.
The prehistoric murals that adorned caves had a noticeable absence of images of warriors or warfare in the paintings.
The worldwide myths of a golden age or “paradise” have a factual, archeological basis, not just a biblical one. The transformation began about 4000 BE with climate change in Central Asia and the Middle East.
Then there was an ego explosion. I call it that but A Course In Miracles refers to it as a time when we had “a tiny mad idea”. Biblically we know it as ‘The Fall’, but whatever we call it…this separation from God or love was followed by centuries of warfare, massive inequalities of wealth and power, the brutal oppression of women, classes, castes and so much greed that preceded the suicidal destruction of our planet’s life support systems that are causing natural disasters and are threatening irreversible change.
If you weren’t convinced that we are going insane, what could be more insane than our self-destruction?
I feel optimistic that we’re entering a new historical phase that offers a visionary yet practical path out of the morass that distorts human nature.
The discord in the world seems to stem from a discord in us. Once our minds are healed, we are will no longer able to participate in the destruction of our planet.
I’d be the first to admit this sounds absurdly utopian, but only because we’re so far removed from our true nature and our modern cultures have normalized the insanity.
Culture may still hold sway over us, but I think we’re mostly ready to heal our collective psychosis and shift our culture.
It’s not natural for human beings to kill each other, for men to oppress women, for any of us to despise our bodies, for children to be dying of starvation, or for small groups of people to wield massive amounts of power and wealth or to dominate massive numbers of other people.
So what does this mean for you and me and our work in the world?
Everything. It’s time for us to wake up from this schizophrenic nightmare, use our gifts, and contribute to this process of awakening in whatever way feels natural for us.
Doug and Kris saw that a broader grass-roots revolution was needed.
Doug fell head over heels in love with nature. His hobbies reflected that love, but his work although connected to the outdoors, was doing the very opposite. It was harming the earth.
He allowed himself to see past his ego and desires and see that he was a part of the problem, not the solution.
He cashed in his chips and used them to protect the wildness.
In the beginning, he and his wife Kris moved into a tiny cabin with no electricity or running water in Patagonia and things unfolded from there. It was in that cabin during that time that they had the idea of saving the land by buying it and then donating it back to the countries to be declared as National Parks.
Everyone thought they were crazy.
It was a crazy GOOD idea. This new focus and passion became their whole life focus and since his passing, it has become his legacy.
He and Kris have done the unimaginable - in countries where extraction and mining are their main focus they have protected land and created National parks. They (with their friend Yvonne) seeded a whole new generation of environmentally sound companies.
In 2022, inspired by his friend Yvon Chouinard, founder of the apparel brand Patagonia (Kris was the original CEO and started the business with Yvon), announced that he had voluntarily given away his $3 billion company, placing ownership in a trust and vowing to spend all future profits on environmental causes.
Whatever we decide to do, let’s just admit now that it probably won’t be easy.
The movie last night gave me a clear sense of what an arduous process the Tompkins went through to convince the governments of Chile and Argentina that their motives were pure and they weren’t trying to gobble up land as part of some nefarious scheme that would jeopardize those countries’ national security. Some of the outrageous suspicions made me laugh, but along the way, the couple faced death threats and covert surveillance by shadowy antagonists.
I was moved to tears by their efforts.
I know we look for ways out when things get hard. I do that. But most of the worthy things in my life have been the HARDEST.
The bone-tired feeling of laboring to deliver a baby comes to mind.
It’s our passion and love for what we’re doing that can help us get through just about anything.
The other lesson I appreciated because I need to learn it, is that we won’t always be liked. Doug argued with his friends like his neighbors like Steve Jobs in the 1980s when he was warning of the dangers of technology and globalization.
Maybe we find our backbones when we believe and love something even if it’s an inconvenient truth to tell. I get the impression from the book that he didn’t care what other people thought. I suppose he was probably a pain in everyone’s ass. He was also a High School dropout and yet he seemed fearless. He WAS an uncertified and unqualified force of nature.
“Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.”
Ed Abbey
Is there another mountain you’d like to climb while you’re here?
I originally intended for this Substack to be a safe place for us to come on Sundays and wrestle with the frailties of what it means to be human and how we can move forward more consciously. To trust life and relax into an acceptance that there is a force or a primary organizing principle at play in our lives guiding us.
We have clearly not understood the teachings of Jesus or Buddha or any of the prophets through organized religion.
If we had, we’d be more like them and we’re not.
It seems like the most helpful knowledge that Jesus shared has become so twisted, misunderstood, and rewritten so many times it has been transformed into something barely recognizable from its original beauty.
Lately, I’ve been reading the Essene Gospels of Peace (Jesus was an Essene). They are Christian documents where the Christian Philosophy of life is in harmony with nature.
Wow.
Where were they when I was growing up in Catholic school?
Dumb question. They have been swept into the “Heretical” pile. I mean, even I can see why how it could jeopardize the legitimacy of the Church as the divine representative on earth to release them and I certainly don’t want to challenge others’ sacredly held beliefs in our inherited Christian lineages. But it sure does explain why Jesus and the Essene teachings were a serious threat to the Church’s power structures and economic interests.
This is not shocking news to me and probably not to you - I’ve suspected this for two decades since I studied ancient Celtic Christianity which shares these truths, but no one can change the past.
Here is the point I’m trying to make…
Ancient Christianity WAS aligned with Native and Aboriginal teachings.
And the Natural World is the language we ALL speak so that’s the one I’m going to use going forward as much as possible.
A New Earth is not just a fantasy or a utopia.
Human peace in harmony with nature would result in a global pacifist movement that would prioritize the protection of the earth, and strive for the equality of ALL life on our shared planet.
It feels to me like no matter what career or job we choose, we all only have ONE job to do. To learn that we ARE this great love that we seek.
And of course, we’re here to take the inspired actions that come from that love.
To me, it seems that the nice things that pop into our minds are of God.
Not the judgemental ego voice that criticizes everyone and everything, how others look, the argumentative voice that makes others wrong, and tells us to become an eco-terrorist or buy dumb shit we don’t need.
The part that sounds the opposite of agitated…more like, “Smile at that woman with the cane and see if you can help her load her groceries. Hold your tongue. So they’re late, cut them some slack. Don’t gossip. Get up and go and watch the sunrise. Put your phone down and go to bed. Give your Mom a call and see how she’s feeling. Bring your neighbor who is sick some dinner. Sell your stocks and create 15 million acres of National Parks in South America.”
To create an amazing life story and feel good we need to listen to that inner voice as often as we can and we’ll naturally be led to the bigger things.
Before we know it, we’re feeling energized and getting up at dawn without an alarm and working 12-hour days like Doug and Kris did after they retired to squeeze more marrow out of life.
Or maybe we’ll rescue a dog from the pound and let it rock on the hammock with us in the shade.
It’s ENTIRELY up to us and maybe that is a part of the problem. We let ourselves off the hook too easily.
“There is a force resisting the beautiful things in the world, and too many of us are giving in.”
Steven Pressfield
I like to think of us all as cells in ONE body or like a bee hive; we all have a role to play. In my experience, something feels a bit off when I don’t play the role assigned to me.
I confess without a queen Bee to tell me what to do, it’s taken me five decades to find something that felt right for me. I was on a call with an amazing group of women entrepreneurs this week lamenting about how long it’s taken me to find my way.
I’ve collected so many qualifications, certificates, and paychecks from different places (and a lot of unpaid work) since I was about 6 years old and they’ve all served me on some level but I never felt like I had arrived or was doing what I was meant to do.
No resume or bio could contain my multitudes or captivate the totality of who I’ve become. I don’t even know how to describe what I do but I’m working on that this week.
Have YOU ever listed ALL of the jobs you’ve ever done?
note: For fun, I’ve posted mine below to inspire you to do one to take an appreciative trip down memory lane to see how far you’ve come in your process of discovery.
I’m turning 54 in July and after a lifetime of working in what feels like every sector, I’m FINALLY ready to serve by simply being…
Me.
Not Reverend Nona, just me.
I’ve enjoyed aspects of ALL of the jobs and life that have challenged me in the best possible ways because they have taught me invaluable lessons.
I’ve pitchforked countless wheelbarrows of animal poop, and cleaned toilets, and other people’s vomit. I’ve taught kindergarteners how to play musical chairs and High School kids about plate tectonics.
I’ve led fun hot yoga classes and cheered for children playing sports on every continent.
I’ve married young couples in love, cried with rape victims, and comforted people near the end of life.
I’ve sweated for 10 hours in the hot sun with blisters and burns carrying heavy bags of trees with clouds of bugs on my face and up my nose and I’ve been to a ball in a Castle and I’ve been treated like a princess.
I’ve pushed others outside of their comfort zones as a coach, and I have been outside of my own mentally, physically, and spiritually.
I’ve swallowed my pride and cold-called companies for appointments they didn’t want with no soliciting signs on their doors.
I’ve been given rides in the back of strangers’ pickup trucks, flown in helicopters, and hiked through jungles. I’ve driven big machinery and a school bus license and raced a Ferrari around a Formula 1 track.
I’ve been mugged, robbed, sexually assaulted, and been physically and mentally in too much pain to feel like I could go on for another day.
I’ve forgiven all of the people that have hurt me and I’ve been forgiven for hurting others.
I’ve self-sabotaged myself, been sober, confidently helped others struggling with disordered eating, addiction, and compulsion, and then relapsed.
And I’ve healed.
I’m still healing and discovering the most incredible mind-boggling truths about our true nature that things are not as they seem.
I’ve LOVED my life AND it’s been so damn hard some days.
The answer I keep getting is simply to keep showing up. It may not work out as you imagined but the task is simple:
BE YOURSELF and serve Humanity in some small way.
Don’t worry about what others think or say, you’ll be cared for. You always have been and it’s never too late to answer the call on your life.
“Commit and then figure it out.”
Doug Tomkins
When we live in harmony with nature, and follow the the spiritual wisdom of our inner voices which the Buddhists call “living one’s dharma” we are assured by all scriptures that we will be provided for.
Philippians 4 also says that our needs will be provided for when we align with God.
Trust life to take you to wherever it leads you next which is work that must nourish you, heal the earth, and free our common spirit.
There are many ways to share the mystery that is you, and the greatest of these is love.
To love one another without the expectation of gain is to transform the world.
“The first peace, which is the most important is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit and that its center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.”
Lakota Indian Black Elk
Let’s create peace in the world this week by doing what we can: creating peace in ourselves.
If you don’t have the answers or feel like you’ve landed where you are meant to be, it’s okay, you are in the process, and trust that you’ll know when it’s time to make your next move closer to “home”.
Sunday Evening Essene blessing:
The season’s work comes clear to me,
Amidst my outward growth.
To love it all,
The bitter and the sweet,
For each is drawn to me,
Bringing lessons
To aid my journey home.
How blessed is the student,
How wise the teacher.
And are they not the same?
So grateful to be both a student and a teacher alongside of you.
May all your days lead you closer home to yourself.
With love,
(Just) Nona
Lyrics
Well I have been searching
All of my days, all of my days
Many a road, you know
I've been walking on
All of my days
And I've been trying to find
What's been in my mind
As the days keep turning into night
Well I have been quietly standing in the shade
All of my days
Watch the sky breaking on the promise that we made
All of this rain
And I've been trying to find
What's been in my mind
As the days keep turning into night
Well, many a night I found myself with no friends standing near
All of my days
I cried aloud, I shook my hands, "What am I doing here?"
All of these days
For I look around me
And my eyes confound me
And it's just too bright
As the days keep turning into night
Now I see clearly it's you I'm looking for
All of my days
So I smile, I know I'll feel this loneliness no more
All of my days
For I look around me
And it seems you found me
And it's coming into sight
As the days keep turning into night
As the days keep turning into night
And even breathing feels all right
Yes, even breathing feels all right
Now even breathing feels all right
Yes, even breathing feels all right
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Alexi Murdoch
All My Days lyrics © Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.
As promised…the 25 jobs I’ve done in my life (so far):
Egg collector & farm hand on a bird farm (with horses:)
Housekeeping (maid service) in Ontario & Alberta
Waitress & Hostess
Front Desk admin help in a Car Dealership
Education degree (Middle School & High School Teacher) in Ontario, Switzerland & Africa
Tree Planter and Crew Boss (Ontario, Alberta & B.C.)
Financial Industry: Employee Benefits Specialist & Group Manager, Independent Broker
Stay-at-home Mom, school volunteer, Co-President of parent-teacher council, team sports coaching (and some failed Multi-level marketing attempts)
Life Coach with the Coaches Training Institute
Wellness & Triathalon Coach
Fundraiser for Cancer Research
Ambassador for a Cycling shop and Indoor training facility
Board of Directors for a Toronto Cycling Club
Nutritionist (Institute for Transformational Nutrition) and nutritional sales and consulting
B&A Fitness Model (filmed a commercial in NYC!!)
Vegan Chef and waitress
Nanny to my nephews (for a few months to help in a pinch:)
Recovery coach and Addiction Specialist
__(Long Pause#1…Physical/Mental/Emotional/Spiritual Breakdown)__
Yoga, meditation, and breathwork Instructor
Boxing and Outdoor exercise group instructor
Yoga Studio and Transformative Arts Studio Director
__(Long Pause#2….Covid-19 and mind-blowingly beautiful Spontaneous Spiritual Awakening)__
Ordained Minister/Reverend, Metaphysician, funeral & wedding officiant
Author (Substack and Co-authored book in 2023)
TODAY: All of those things. And just ME (Entrepreneur)