Thanks for joining the conversation here on Substack. I hope this space serves as a sanctuary for slower thinking, a gathering place for collective sensemaking, and a field journal for the paradigm-shifting soul.
This first week, we’re not launching…We’re simply sensing where we are.
If you’ve been feeling like the ground beneath your life is shifting, you’re not alone.
We’re standing at the edge of something. Not just personally—but collectively.
The stories that once made sense are softening at the edges. The rhythms that once held us feel out of step.
One metaphor I keep returning to is Cape Finisterre, a rock-bound peninsula on the western coast of Spain. In Roman times, it was believed to be the edge of the known world.
Finisterre literally means “the end of the earth.”
And while that might sound dramatic, there’s something deeply human about standing at an edge we didn’t choose…where old maps dissolve, and we’re asked to feel our way forward without a script.
I don’t share this to sound grand or apocalyptic, but to name a feeling I suspect many of us are quietly holding: That the “solid ground” we were told to build our lives on… may not be so solid after all.
This space ~ From Grit to Grace ~ is not so much a podcast as it is a vessel. A place to hold conversations, metaphors, and moments that help us grow our collective resilience. Not just to survive change, but grow stronger from it. This capacity emerges when we learn to meet change with creativity, capacity, and care.
Here are the questions I’m swimming with this week:
Where in my life am I standing at the edge of what I’ve known?
What part of me still longs for solid ground…and what part is ready to step into the sea?
Who else is standing along this shoreline?
I’d love to hear from others standing at the water’s edge. A few words, a reflection, a resonance…whatever may be stirring within you. This is a space for noticing together.
With gratitude for your presence at the edge,
Laureen
The question you pose, “who else is standing along this shoreline?” is important to me. I recall that feeling I had when hesitantly standing on the edge of the high dive board as a 12 year old, yearning to experience the movement and being cushioned by the water below, but the “stories in my head” held physical power and held me back. I am discovering that my awareness of what is a “story” helps greatly. It might have been a story that served me well in the past but is now a barrier. I thank it and let it go now.
When I then notice that there are others also awakening, mirroring back to me and sharing what they are witnessing, I feel the safety of being in a community which helps me to trust that I don’t have to know it all or to control the future. I believe humans are wired to be in community and when simply present within community stories and fear of the future have no physical power to hold me back. We can take one next step and sense our way, grounding and physically present, to identify what is needed. It reminds me of the “chaordic stepping stones” that Laureen Golden introduced me to many years ago.