I Created My Own Eden Inside the Bigger Eden I Got Kicked Out Of

Reconnecting with the Magic Mom, Coffee Talk

Ready, Set, Cook and the girl I was before life started telling me who to be…. And a little nod to my. Human Design Incarnation Cross

I’ve been thinking a lot about authenticity lately, but not in the performative social-media way where everybody is trying to prove how real they are. I mean actually reconnecting with the essence of who you were before life started telling you who to be, and before you started editing yourself according to what was practical, impressive, acceptable, profitable, or expected.

I was listening to a TBM episode about authenticity, and it hit me hard because so much of it was about going back into your childhood and looking at the things that lit you up before you learned to fit in. I’ve coached some version of that for years, because I’ve always believed there are clues in your childhood about who your authentic self actually is, but for some reason it landed differently for me right now.

Maybe because I’m in another identity shift. Maybe because it’s my birthday week. Maybe because I went to church yesterday and the sermon was about anxiety, the mind, and how so much of the drama isn’t necessarily the thing that’s happening, but what your mind starts doing with the thing that’s happening. I was sitting there thinking, this is all stuff I talk about. Your thoughts, your perception, the meaning you assign to things, how your interpretation of reality influences what you do next, and how your mind can turn something into the defining story of your life if you let it.

And while I was listening, I had this thought that I almost have my own version of church. I don’t mean literally church, and I certainly don’t mean becoming some weird cult leader. I mean I want my own version of a pulpit. I want a platform where people can come and get a dose of reality mixed with inspiration. I want to talk about how your reality can change when your view of reality changes, how the mind can create an enormous amount of unnecessary drama around what is happening, and how sometimes a different perspective changes what you are able to see and therefore what you are able to do.

I want people to walk away informed and inspired. Not flat-out manifestation with no receipts. Not somebody telling them to just believe harder. I mean realistic hope, based on something I can actually see in their life, their patterns, their experience, or their design. Practical magic. Something that gives a person an actual reason to think, maybe there really is something here for me.

Then this morning I did the authenticity meditation again, and it took me back into my childhood. I started remembering things I haven’t thought about in forever.

I loved my reading books at school. They were those big, thick, almost square books, and I remember being excited every time I opened one because I didn’t know what story was going to be next. There were fairy tales and adventures and all kinds of stories that were technically there to teach us how to read, but I was just as interested in the storyline and where it was going to take me.

I remember feeling smart holding that giant book and thinking, I’m supposed to read all of this and understand all of this?I loved the challenge, but I also loved the adventure. I think that’s probably where King Midas first got onto my radar, which is funny because here I am all these years later still talking about Midas.

I loved anything that made me feel like there was more going on than what I could see. I used to go around my yard making potions out of things. We had all kinds of shrubs and trees and little berries and lavender and whatever else looked remotely magical to me, and I would imagine I could make something out of them. We had this huge old tree with a big round hole in the middle of it, and of course I imagined there was an entirely different world inside of it. Very Alice in Wonderland.

I don’t really remember being bored because I could always create a whole storyline around whatever was in front of me. There was always something more than meets the eye. That was just naturally how I experienced the world.

I also loved those kids’ shows where somebody would show you how to make something out of ordinary things you already had around the house, or they would do some little experiment, and I would immediately go looking for whatever I could find so I could make my own version. I loved making something out of nothing. I loved taking regular common things and turning them into something that felt special or interesting or magical.

And when I had kids, I did exactly the same thing.

I made regular life feel magical. I would tell them, “Okay, everybody come down for Coffee Talk,” and I would put little teacups out for them in the morning before school. It was mostly cream with a little splash of coffee in it so they could have their little hot drink while I had mine. We would sit there before school and have Coffee Talk.

I would say, “Ready, Set, Cook,” and everybody would start going through the pantry and refrigerator and freezer trying to figure out what we could make for dinner out of whatever was in the house. I loved the Stone Soup story when I was little, so sometimes I would tell them we were making Stone Soup, and we would throw everything we could find into this giant pot and make vegetable beef soup. To this day, that is still what they call it. Stone Soup.

And then there was The Magic Closet. I would make their sandwiches and get their drinks ready for their lunches, but then they got to go into the Magic Closet and choose their own side things from all of these little bins I kept stocked. My daughter still talks about Magic Mom, which was basically the version of me who would suddenly say, “Okay, let’s go see what’s in here,” and turn something completely ordinary into a scavenger hunt or an adventure.

When I really sat with that this morning, I realized that I was creating the childhood I would have wanted. I was becoming the atmosphere and the mom I would have loved to have had. I got to create Eden for them in a way that I never really had it created for me.

Maybe I was doing that because some part of me always knew exactly what Eden was supposed to feel like. Wonder, beauty, fun, adventure, safety, magic, something to look forward to, something that could make an ordinary day feel special. And maybe because I got kicked out of Eden so early in my own life, I got very good at building little versions of it for myself, and then later for my children.

Now I think I want to build the adult version of it for me.

Not from some I’ll show everybody place. Not revenge. That doesn’t do anything for me. It’s more like, yes, I acknowledge what happened. I know what was lost. But I refuse to let that be the end of the story. I refuse to get cheated out of the rest of it.

I want the juicy life. I want the beautiful version. I want adventure. I want to be weirdly, magically vital for my age and defy all the norms around what aging is supposed to look like. I want to feel beautiful and alive. I want the version of adulthood that still has wonder in it.

And I’ve always wanted to be seen. That is another thing I remembered very clearly.

I used to sing constantly. I would put on little concerts for my family. My dad recognized really early that I had this unusually good voice and that I could basically sing pitch-perfect without having to work very hard at it. I didn’t understand why that was impressive. I just loved to sing.

So of course I wanted to be in the talent shows. I wanted to be in the plays. I got the lead in things. I wanted to perform and be on stage. I wanted to model. I would secretly send these ridiculous little pictures of myself into teen magazines even though I barely had any pictures of myself at all, because somehow I still thought maybe somebody would see something.

I wanted to be seen as beautiful. I wanted to stand out. And then when I got older, that turned into wanting to be successful. I would watch movies like Working Girl and imagine the career, the success, being smart, being influential, having my own money and creating the kind of luxury life I wanted.

I have had luxury in my life in certain ways, but I have had it through somebody else’s definition of luxury. I have never really had full agency over the exact version of it that I would create for myself, and that matters to me. I want my money. I want my own success. I want to be able to create my own Eden.

I can see what that looks like. I want the house that feels like a retreat: long and open and private, with a wall of windows, a pool, and preferably water somewhere behind it. Candles everywhere. People gathering. Retreats. Interesting people. People who are successful in their own right but also deep and spiritually evolved. People who are alive inside themselves.

I want to create that atmosphere. I want to be able to invite people into it. I want to be part of communities like that. And I want my own version of a stage too, a place where people come because they want to hear what I have to say.

Not because I need them to look at me. Because I have something to give them.

I want them to leave with a different perspective. I want them to leave with hope, but not fake hope and not delusion. I mean hope attached to something real: something I can see in their life, something I can see in their patterns, something I can see in their design, something that makes them think, Okay, maybe there actually is something here for me.

And all of this made me realize that maybe authenticity is not about inventing the next version of yourself. Maybe it is about remembering the version of you who was already there before life got so layered over the top of her.

Because when I look backward, the same things keep showing up: wonder, adventure, magic, storytelling, performance, beauty, visibility, creating an atmosphere, making something out of nothing, finding possibility inside ordinary things, inspiring people, and making people believe there may be something more here than meets the eye.

None of that is new.

That girl has been there the entire time.

Maybe this version of my life is not about creating somebody brand new. Maybe it is finally letting all of her come forward at the same time. And maybe nothing has been wasted — not the hard things, but not the beautiful things either.

The singer wasn’t wasted. The little girl making potions in the yard wasn’t wasted. The girl reading Midas stories wasn’t wasted. The one imagining an entire world inside a tree wasn’t wasted. Magic Mom wasn’t wasted. The woman who wanted the stage wasn’t wasted. The woman who wanted success, beauty, influence, freedom and her own money wasn’t wasted.

Maybe all of those versions of me were always telling me the same thing in different ways:

This is who you are.

And maybe now I finally get to build the Eden that has room for all of it.