Tag Archives: life journey

Memoir

Through the Woods to the Sea: A Journey of Becoming Me

For a while I was putting up chapters here but then I got so entrenched in the editing process that I kind of neglected that. After several rewrites and many – many edits and a  title change my memoir is done.

It was published at the end of April and we have been doing a soft release. As I get ready to put it out into the world it is scary exciting! This is after all my life, my story, events and details.

Why would anyone want to read about me? my life?

I hope that in sharing my story other women who have been through challenges, lost their sense-of-self, felt empty or gave up on their dreams to meet the demands of others or the world will feel connected and not alone. I hope it inspires you to believe in yourself and follow your dreams at any age or stage of life.

It is never to late to become your true self and live the life you dreamed about in secret.

It has arrived. Come along and be a part of My Journey of Becoming Me!
Get it on Amazon.com
or at The Mermaid’s Purse and Sugar Island  Bakery              on Topsail Island

 

update Memoir CoverIn her Memoir, Through the Woods to the Sea: A Journey of Becoming Me, she shares her story, her life, and her journey of stepping out of life to create one. It is one of emotion, hope, perseverance, letting go and beginning again.

“I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. What a journey you have been and still are on. I laughed, I cried, I rejoiced in your life experiences.” Marie

 

I’d love to hear your story – send me an email at cathyt@cathyteoste.com or jump onto my facebook page

Step into Yourself-Step into Your Life

Let’s Prepare for Your Journey

Step into Yourself – Step into Your Life Program

 

Preparation

 

I am sure you are anxious to jump right in and get it accomplished. However, it is my belief that rushing in and trying to make too many changes too fast only comes to a crashing halt. Taking time to lay a solid foundation and shift both in your mind and environment is critical for you to have long lasting results.

 

Thoughts to bonder before you begin:

What does identity and sense of self mean to you? What is the disharmony between your deep core and how you are relating in the world? Think about allowing yourself to imagine opening up to all the possibilities of being more than you have ever dreamed possible. What is it you truly need? You are getting ready to step into you at your fullest potential. How do you want that to look like?

 

What do you need to do to prepare a healthy place for you to create and grow? What will assist you in growing new roots and provide you with room to create and grow. Believe that you can create a healthy place for you to grow and create.

  • Day Dream Find a few minutes and let your mind wander-daydream-open up to the possibilities of being and living from deep within yourself. Take a walk and let your mind wander let all the questions of who you are and who you wished you had become and who you would like to become. Become comfortable in the questions. Relax into them.

 

  • Simplify De-clutter – The personality of your home-where you live should be a true reflection of you loves and likes as well as comfortable

 

  • Create a Sacred Space Create a place where you can go and be in solitude. You need to be comfortable in this place. Find a place out in nature that you are comfortable and that provides you with a sense of peace. Also discover a place outside your home, a bookstore, or coffee shop.

 

  • The Gift of Sacred Time Give yourself time and space to focus on your soul needs, self-care and yourself. Know that you are worth of this. Time is probable you most difficult step. We already have our days filled with responsibilities and things we must do. Often we are too busy to think about caring for our self never mind caring and nurturing our inner soul and dreams. But if you don’t take the time to nurture yourself you may never become who you are at your deepest level.

 

  • Set Boundaries Give yourself time and space to focus on your soul needs and yourself. Know that you are worth of this.

 

  • Create a Toy Box Buy yourself a simple notebook for journaling, a pen, markers, crayons if you want. Add magazines and pictures you like. Add anything that provides you with comfort and inspiration.

 

  • Create a Ritual Now that you have your sacred space and have discover and chosen your sacred time, you will plan a small ritual you will do each day during this time. You can continue with whatever activity you used to discover and test your possible times. Or you can create a new ritual that helps you feel excited and cared for.

“Rituals are any action that speaks to the soul and to the deep imagination, whether or not it all has practical effects. Even the smallest rites of everyday existence are important to the soul.”

Thomas Moore

 

  • Gather Support Find a friend or someone you trust who will just be there for you, listen without judging you or what you are doing. Someone who will offer you encouragement and positive feedback. Join in and comment and connect on FaceBook @StepintoYourself

 

  • Trust the process This is an every changing journey that will take you to places you never have imagined. Allow it to flow and move.

 

Personal Essay, Travel Essay

Restlessness in Homeport

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I am about to embark on an Epic Journey of a lifetime. My sister planned this trip while I was enjoying our last cruise. A year always seems so far away when you plan something special. You wonder if it will ever arrive.

Life goes on day by day. My everyday life is sometimes crazy busy filled with work and social obligations and other times somewhat like a vacation itself. I live in a beach community that fills with tourists during the summer season. The islands life and economy revolve around this time of year.

Some of the locals get very caught up in daily life and never enjoy the island or the beach. I try not to let that happen. I spend as much time on the beach as possible. I have a social circle of friends that get together regularly. I intermingle work, beach and fun weaving a life that many would envy. Tourists ask about my life and many do envy it.

I love my life. I wish I made more money. I wish I could find a way to earn money and do the things I love. I putter at it often trying to make it happen but nothing has manifested. I keep focused on enjoying life the best I can.

People always ask me what I do on vacation or even why I go on vacation. The answer is simple. I love to travel. I love spending time with my sister. I love cruises. I love the ocean and the seas. I love discovering new places, meeting new people, discovering new things about myself.

I have wanderlust. I have always had wanderlust. When I could find a way to jump from cruise ship to cruise ship, beach to beach, amazing place to amazing place all around the world and earn a living I am there! I guess you could say that is my dream.

In the meantime I fill my life with small adventures. It is nice to have an amazing base to come in and out, homeport I call it. Homeport is safe and wonderful. Still I get restless easily and am always ready for the next adventure.

The anticipation and the planning is what gets my sister high. I fill that time with beach and island life in my homeport. And then suddenly the days are counting down to the time to head out to sea. It arrives suddenly sneaking up on me. Time flies. A year has passed and it is time to head out again on another new adventure.

This year our adventure is Epic for us. It is a trip we never really imagined planning but we did. Now it is getting close to embarkation day. I can’t even imagine what this trip will be like. I have no expectations or vision of any kind. I haven’t really been able to wrap my mind around it. My imagination has even been stumped.

What I am sure of is being on the ship. Ship life is something I know and am comfortable with. I love ship life. I am so ready to return to sea. I do not have any idea what the ports of call will be like. What will the ports look like? What experiences will I have? What activities and places will I see? What new discoveries will I make? How will what I see and do change my view of life and of myself? What new aspect of myself will I discover? Will I be up to the challenges of being in places I have never been before?

Travel and experiences always reach deep into me. In discovering new places, cultures and meeting new people I find new aspects of myself. What I am capable of or not capable of? What brings up excitement or fear? I find new activities and food I love or hate. I hear and see new points of view on life and living.

Each day I become me. I become more of who I am. Sometimes I choose aspects of who I am becoming sometimes I stumble upon aspects of myself. Everyday life, moment by moment I am becoming who I am.

Traveling not only enriches who I am and who I am becoming it is who I am. I am every place I go, everyone I meet, every experience I have. It is why after being in homeport for a while I am anxious to set sail and set out to sea again.

Restlessness has set in even with a major move this summer to a new homeport that is closer to the sea and to my being. Seeing her everyday has given me solace. Yet I have sat looking out over the Atlantic Ocean every morning sipping tea and dreaming of being out there upon her charting new courses and discovering new ports of call.

I may be embarking on an Epic adventure but I am returning to who I am to my core being within, to expand who I am and to continue being and becoming.

The time is almost here. I am preparing for a new adventure, new challenges, and new experiences, to be inspired and in awe, to be at sea for twenty-three days. It will be the longest journey yet. It will bring me to ports I never imagined going. I have no idea what I will learn.

I am an archeologist of self and life embarking on an expedition to unearth who I am, who I am becoming, to uncover new corners of the world yet uncharted (by me), and stumble upon new views and beliefs, retrieve long lost loves, to stretch myself beyond my current beliefs about myself and life, acquire new passions, make new friends and spend the best time of my life with my sister.

 

Memoir

Memoir: Introduction

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This is the Introduction of my Memoir

Through the Woods to the Sea: Stepping into Myself, Stepping into My Life

By Cathy Teoste

Introduction

My life from the very beginning has been a long, winding, confusing, chaotic path that has led me to where I am today. It has been a journey to find my identity, to strengthen and stand strong in my sense of self and to live in alignment with my authentic self. To live each day being present in the moment expressing who I am in everything I do, in each choice and decision I make.

I just want to be happy and experience all the wonderful things life has to offer.  I want to not hate myself or be self-conscious or be afraid of taking risks or trying new things or worry about what other people think of me. I want to know who I am and be comfortable in my own skin. I want to live life being myself and being in and a part of my own life fully and completely

I have felt like I don’t belong in this world for as long as I can remember. Yet I have to live in this world. If I don’t fit in, if I don’t see why life has to be lived according to all these expectations of others and the standards others have set then it must be me who is wrong – who is defective. I tried to pretend that I could live as was expected yet everyone always seems to point my failures out to me. I multiplied those failures inside me. I forced myself to try harder to please everyone but I could never please anyone especially myself. The more I tried to be like everyone else the more I hated myself. Yet this suffering was internal. No one could see how it was destroying me.

This conflict of my identity has caused me such struggle and guilt within and throughout my life. I have had so many dimensions and faces of myself yet a deep knowing that none of them are really me. I feared that it can never be unraveled. The tears that I have cried create an ocean. Any progress I made seemed to get sucked up into the waves of worldly life and into living my life according to the rules and expectations of others and society. Whenever I hinted at what I wanted and believed, I was shamed into feeling guilty, irresponsible and selfish.

Unknowingly, throughout this journey it has been part of my life purpose to experience dissociation, depersonalization, depression and discontent within myself.  Though I often asked why I needed to go through these experiences, I now know it was necessary for me in order to arrive here, today, searching for answers not only for myself but for other women who must travel their own similar, but unique, paths. My story has many starts and stops, and twists and turns. It begins early in my life at five years old and continues on until the present moment as I am writing this, and will continue to unfold as I write this story, and will continue on after I stop writing.

Mid-life and all its changes opened the door for me to journey into all the hidden depths of myself and begin to unravel these questions. I had no idea what I was doing or why when it began but now I am grateful for the all the uncertainty, fear and panic that lead me to begin. It has changed my life but more importantly it has changed me – it has changed how I see myself- how I feel about myself- how I know myself- It hasn’t changed who I am- I have become who I am. I have Stepped into Myself. And now I am Stepping into My Life, living in alignment with my true essence.

As I was walking through this journey seeking to find the answers to my questions, these answers that are uniquely my own, strangers asked me my story. In telling strangers my basic story about leaping out into the unknown and that at this very moment I am still free falling from that leap, I was asked to write my story. Each person’s story often begins with these same basic questions yet each journey is unique and different and holds its own inspiration. I have learned from many other women’s stories. My story is your story and your story is my story all intertwined and connected.

Here is my story from my deeply personal messed up self trying desperately to unravel all the tangled pieces of myself as I process through it.

I hope my story inspires you to become your authentic self and leap into your life more fully and to share your own wonderful life story with others. Enjoy who you are each moment and each day and the rest of your life will take care of itself.

“Long Life, Deep Friendship, Honey in the Heart.”

This is an excerpt of .my Memoir Through the Woods to the Sea: Stepping into Myself, Stepping into my Life By Cathy Teoste

This manuscript is still a work in progress.  I will continue to share excerpts from the manuscript as I continue through this rewrite/edit.