Every year, millions of people devote enormous time and energy to planning for retirement. They calculate savings goals, rebalance investment portfolios, estimate health care costs and decide where they want to live.

Yet there is one question almost no retirement plan prepares us to answer: who will I be when the roles that defined my life begin to change?

As we gently emerge from Utah's river canyons and wash the silt from our skin, one question lingers:

What remains?

For me, it isn't just the breathtaking landscapes or the miles we floated together. It's something quieter.

It's the freedom that appeared when life became wonderfully simple.

Lately, I've been reminded of past lessons in trusting unfoldment. Like our very first Honest Heart Journeys trip to Baja in 2022—a brand-new concept that revealed rich connection, belonging, ease, and natural joy among a group of women. It also marked the beginning of healing journeys for several of us who continue to travel together, stay in touch, and support one another. That week changed our lives.

Dear Mom,
It’s taken me six decades to build and release the hurts, and to now stand clear and grateful. We women are as diverse as the stars in the sky! And yet now, I see how much alike we are — and how much you, and even the hurt, have made me who I am. Our generations asked such different things of us. In your time, even as an Ivy League graduate, you were expected to raise a family and were offered limited professional opportunities.

One concern has lingered with me from recent women’s circles as I traveled. While women shared their own questions, they didn’t stop there. Often, conversations turned toward the men they love. Across cultures and continents, women are thinking about their sons, partners, fathers, and brothers. They’re noticing how quickly roles are shifting — and how uncertain this moment can feel for everyone. There is both care and quiet concern in these reflections.

Rising. Again and again, we rise from the ashes of our lessons, not carrying the smoke—but the light.

This is the rhythm of life.

To choose growth. To allow the weight of mistakes, shortcomings, and “not enoughness” to fall away, making space for something new. Fear, doubt, disappointment, even shame; seen, given grace, released.

How many of us recognize a cycle of familiar lessons that comes each time from a different perspective?

Over the past month, I’ve traveled halfway around the world — from the seamlessly choreographed chaos of motorbikes weaving through the streets of Hanoi to the vast, breathtaking stillness of the Masai Mara.

In both places, life moves with its own rhythm. Distinct. Yet deeply human.

I’ve come to believe that my opportunity in life is to desire, to dream, to envision and build — to be unlimited. The Divine gathers all the pieces and assembles them for me with great joy.

Finding this freedom has been quite a journey. Never a straight line, it’s taken years of unearthing limitation and accepting my innate worth.

We absorb far more than we realize during childhood. Long before we have language for it, we are taking in what we see, what we hear, what is modeled in quiet moments and casual comments.

Though I’m admittedly skeptical about resolutions, I love the clean slate that arrives with a new year—the fresh intentions, invigorated curiosity, and openness to noticing new possibilities as they emerge.

Lately, I’ve been reflecting on the Year of the Horse we’ve entered—especially after discovering it’s also my birth year. And yes… I am very much a horse. I embrace the momentum, power, and forward motion she represents. But a friend also reminded me that even the strongest horse needs a wise jockey—one who knows when to rein her in so she doesn’t run herself to exhaustion.

There’s a difference between rest and renewal. Most of us are experts at the first, but it’s the second our hearts quietly crave.

Honest Heart Journeys has learned that the most powerful itineraries don’t just cross continents — they cross new thresholds and question assumptions within us. We travel not to escape life, but to return to a deeper truth: that we are whole, connected, and more spacious than the defined roles and routines we’ve been living inside. And in that remembering, something shifts. We begin to see ourselves with wonder again.

A butterfly cocoon carries a thousand stories.

Sue Monk Kidd’s midlife memoir When the Heart Waits offers just such a cocoon—one that holds insight, longing, and connection—on our Utah trip—Journey Into Grace. The butterfly’s transformation, the central metaphor of her spiritual unfolding, reminds us that beautiful things are born in darkness. From womb to tomb, light and life emerge.