Awakening often begins with an ache, an inner signal alerting you to the fact that somewhere in the daily rhythm of living, you lost your Self. Your passion, your curiosity, your spark. And now, you’re realising that the way you’ve been living has become too small for who you truly are.

You might look around and see that everything appears fine, yet inside you feel restless, misaligned, disconnected. The roles you have played and the expectations you have carried start to feel heavy, as though you have outgrown the life you built.

For some, this ache arrives gently, a whisper that says, “I don't feel like myself anymore.” For others, it comes like a storm, shaking the foundations of everything that once felt certain. Sometimes it feels like every cell in your body is crying out, “Enough is Enough!”

The calling comes in many forms, through exhaustion, through love, through stillness, through success. Although it may feel like it is here to destroy everything you have built, it is actually here to simply awaken what has been sleeping within it.

And this is how awakening begins, with the realisation that your True Self has been missing from your life, and the quiet courage to turn inward and explore what that ache is really trying to show you.

The following story is about that very moment, a woman standing at the edge of her own becoming, ready to stop resisting and finally respond.

As you read, see if you can find traces of your own story within hers, the quiet echoes of your own calling waiting to be answered.

The Calling

    Our story begins in a small apartment on the fourth floor of an old brownstone in New York City. Outside, autumn has begun its slow descent. The trees along the street are half bare, their remaining leaves catching the low amber light before drifting down to join the rust coloured blanket along the pavement. The air is crisp, carrying that faint scent of rain and roasted coffee that only the city in October seems to know.

Inside, Elara stands by the window, her hands curled around a mug that has long since gone cold. The soft hum of the city seeps through the glass, taxis, voices, the rustle of wind sweeping down the avenue. The light is honey gold, slanting across her sketches scattered on the table.

She loves this time of year, the stillness before winter, the way everything seems to exhale before letting go. Yet lately, that same quiet has begun to echo inside her. There is a feeling she cannot name, a mix of fullness and emptiness, gratitude and restlessness, as though life has become something beautiful she can no longer quite feel.

Her days are full, meaningful work, a steady marriage, laughter that still feels real, but somewhere beneath it all runs a silent undercurrent asking for more.

Not more success, not more things, just more of her.

Outside, a gust of wind carries a swirl of leaves past the window, and something inside her shifts. It is not sadness exactly, but recognition, the sense that something within her is also ready to change seasons.

She takes a slow breath, watching the leaves twist and dance through the air before settling again. A soft ache blooms in her chest, one she has tried to ignore for months. It is not sharp or dramatic, it is subtle and steady, the kind of ache that lives in the pauses between moments.

She tells herself she has no reason to feel this way. Her life is good. She loves her husband, Daniel, his quiet humour, his warmth, the gentle steadiness he brings to her edges. She loves her work, the feeling of shaping space and light, the satisfaction of creating something lasting.

And yet, there is something missing.

It is not that she wants to leave, it is that she wants to arrive, fully, honestly, completely, in the life she already has.

She presses her palm against the glass, tracing the faint fog of her breath. The city looks different through it, softer, blurred, almost tender. For a moment, she imagines what it would feel like to move through her days without the tightness in her chest, without the quiet performance of holding it all together.

The thought alone makes her eyes sting.

She whispers, barely audible, “What’s wrong with me?”

The question hangs there, heavy in the air, and then, beneath it, something answers. Not in words exactly, but in knowing.

There has to be more than this.

The words pulse through her body like a heartbeat. They do not sound like a demand, but a truth.

Not more to achieve. Not more to prove.
Just more of her.

More presence in her laughter. More honesty in her words. More aliveness in her skin.

Her throat tightens. She exhales, slow and trembling. The tears come before she can stop them, quiet at first, then unstoppable. She does not wipe them away. She just stands there, watching the city blur behind the glass, until her reflection fades into light.

And as she allows the tears to fall, she realises,

She isn't failing.
She isn't broken.
She isn't lost.

She is finally waking up.

The end.

Reader's Reflection

Elara’s ache isn’t asking her to abandon what she has built. It’s asking her to bring more of herself to it.

• Where in your life do you feel that same quiet pull? The longing not to change everything, but to show up more completely for what’s already here?
• What if that ache is not a sign that something is wrong, but a reminder that your True Self is ready to lead?

And when you are ready to follow that rhythm, to live it, breathe it, and master it, I will guide you through The True Self Quest.