I've Quit Conscious Community...

Untangling from the dark side of spiritual dogma, surviving Saturn Return and rising on the other side, anew.

Dear gentle reader, (said in the narrators voice of Bridgerton because I know, I’m late to the game, but hot damn am I now obsessed with ye olde English gentlemen and binged every episode in the last week)

The English gentleman waiter here in this dim lit cocktail bar just dropped off my warm spiced wine, complete with cinnamon stick and brown sugar rim, that I’m going to pause my writing to take my first sip…

*mmmm, ahhhh* (cue the noises of a Manifesting Generator… IYKYK)

My love language is whiskey bars with crackling fireplaces and a view of a snowy mountain… tick.

This update sets the tone for a new evolution in my business: (classic Emily style)

I’m going on hiatus from Instagram, a deep calling from the truthy-truthiest place… beyond the matrix of trending audios and make $238539 a day as a coach coaching coaches to coach coaches, spamming unnecessary (but hilarious) memes back and forth to friends without a real conversation for weeks, and the pressure to continuously quantum leap…

Ah, I’m breathing a sigh of relief just admitting aloud that I am stepping out of that speed for a while.

A month to start, it could be more. We’ll see what unfolds.

I won’t be posting on my grid at all, but I am allowing myself to pop in to share some snippets of my mountain life (I’ve just landed in the crisp air of Queenstown, on the South Island of New Zealand) because I love that my social media holds memories I can selfishly pull up from the archives.

I’m no longer pushed into productivity by the changes in the algorithm, my “potential” that I’m not ever living up to, or the timeline of my egoic measuring stick that I should be anywhere but… fully, completely, ecstatically HERE.

Because truth be told — I AM ecstatic to be right here.

Perhaps I finally popped through the other side of the self help suckole and arrived to “I no longer give a fuckity” land. I have found the closer I get to my own faith, my own artistry of living in integrity with my values, the noise just matters less. Peoples projections, opinions and ideas about me and my choices slide off like teflon.

I wish this kind of freedom for every spiritual girly that has been caught in the sticky web of weirdness that the new age paradigm can bring…

I have been in a process of untangling myself from “conscious” community for over a year now, and the coaching industry even longer.

Now, I’m a stage 5 clinger, so I’ve made it harder on myself than simply letting go of what was ready to fall…

I’m loyal and stubborn and investment bias kept me in places, spaces and relationships way longer than I was guided to be.

I’m an overstayer, and I felt the repercussions ripple out into my life with more of a knock out punch than a gentle whisper. (Why do we wait until it is so painfully obvious like a flashing neon sign? Oh, that’s right, probably the thousands of years of oppressing women away from their intuition and body wisdom.)

After my pilgrimage through Ancient Egypt last September, I lost 3 best friends. They didn’t die — but they are now as good as dead to me (savage, but honest).

3 people involved heavily in personal development, leaders in the realms of emotional intelligence and intimacy, that cut me off through TEXT MESSAGE. Without any further explanation, declining my requests for one final conversation IRL for closure and understanding. These severings came out of the blue to me and I can only describe it like getting ghosted — but not from some flakey date, instead from people who preach “honest clear communication” and tantric teachings that offered zero information as to why they were choosing to end their friendships with me (these happened over the following months, not all at once).

It was disorienting, and spun me into a series of self reflection about where I kept choosing people who wanted me to be different, that for a long time actually put me down, giving subtle instructions for me to shapeshift into someone far from who I am.

My heart was broken momentarily, and each time it got quicker and easier to move through the grief process of “what the actual fuck? I don’t understand. It’s me, I’m the problem” confusion to “OH I see it. This makes sense. Thank you, God, for getting them TFO my life.”

The intelligence that orchestrates my reality with me knew what it was doing… highlighting the marriage I was holding on to with a spirituality I had outgrown long ago, that these friendships were built upon and represented.

I realised, I was doing the same to them… as considerate as I was (I’m a really really good friend), underneath I was hoping that they would inspire me. They didn’t. Their visions, their longings, their efforts, their choices… didn’t inspire me. Conscious community wasn’t. The events and spaces I used to feel expanded by became a swamp.

They didn’t call me into a lifestyle I wanted for myself, and the relationships revolved around the same thread of whingeing about the industry we were all in. I was *so* done with that… I wanted a fresh environment. A brand new playground.

I’m mindful of having my writings become a whinge-fest of the industry or spiritual circles, too, don’t worry… I can sense the bitterness in my tone of my fire-flavoured tongue… but I will continue to highlight some of the deadly underbelly of being in conscious community that I think so many others are clicking onto and simply want permission to step out without being gaslit by the high-and-mighty coachy friends who will interrogate you into bypassing what is really true for you.

I declined an offer to come to a share circle from a friend and his response was “ah, its because you’re afraid of vulnerability.”

Um, no, mister man bun, I literally do not want to pay money to go sit in a room and listen to other people blurt their stuff and cry. That does not sound like a good time for me rn.

I have about 21395 more stories like this, which I intend to share for the sake of taking spirituality off its high horse (with some humour at the ridiculous self indulgence of it all) and returning to planet earth and all its glory (like: political incorrectness, cheese pizza and warmth of a baileys-spiked hot choccy on a winters night).

The most conscious people I know — my favourite kind — are the ones that dabble in their humanity most. The ones that exude a safety and belonging just by BEING — not the try-hardy energy I have met all too often in new age spaces that truly give me the ick.

I’ve just been approved for a house today, short term (in Emily style, I love to change my environment every few months… no, not because I’m “avoidant” FFS, because this is my design to experience life and one of my most satisfying ways of being in the world) and I sense it will be a creative cave of sorts, a hibernation from who I was, and a cocoon to move me through the metamorphosis of becoming more myself than ever. I’m excited to document the process and prove that it is safe to change — friendship break ups and all — and am truly so grateful that I have you on the other side of this screen, feeling your way through the strange and delightful adventure of being human, too.

My Instagram hiatus prompts a season of refinement in my businesses that I’m excited to reveal more of, and am working behind the scenes to build. 

My voice is being sharpened.

My aesthetic intelligence is being developed. 

My broadcast is tuning itself to a new audience, a new channel, and I’m stoked to have you here (if you decide to stay. No hard feelings if not).

There’s no more adding, dissecting, consuming… it’s a strip tease of shedding that feels like it’s lightening a load I’ve carried for a long time.

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away”.― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Airman's Odyssey

Here’s to a season of simplifying, surrendering fast, and savouring the sweetness of how much is already here.

Yours in living all the way alive,

Emily