Tell me what is the way.

A few weeks ago, I attended a local community event. I've been wanting more place-based roots since Geneva - it has been a long time since my work with Springhouse, and Project ROZ is physically too far at times.

A woman stood out. After our introductions she gravitated toward me - we shared English in a room of fluent French speakers. She wanted something. She didn't ask for it directly; she made a sweet comment about her friends adopting a child, connecting it to the foster care work at Project ROZ. I knew there was more, so I listened and made room.

Her heart was yearning. Her mind was searching. I wasn't scared or turned off by it. I know that feeling.

She asked me about my journey. I shared.
She asked when my turning point was. I named a few moments of darkness and grief.
She asked if I know my purpose. I declared it.
She asked when I knew. I told her: today. And also yesterday and last week. But among the weeks and months and years, there are plenty of days I don't - or doubt, or hoped it was something else.

She was skeptical. She concluded plainly: living in Geneva, having a job, being here - that is already a privilege. I really shouldn't want anything else. But ... what should I do?

I warned her. "What I'm about to tell you is not an ingredient list. There are no books, no courses I can point to - not really. There are breadcrumbs. You'll keep finding them and keep better at attuning to them. You learn to trust the knowing inside that knows it all makes sense.

And then I told her the other thing: surround yourself with women who have walked the path, who've turned off the mainstream highway and questioned it all. Not because you need to walk the same path - but because it will calm and caress the longing. It will help you to know there are many turns, that you're not lost, and many have sought before you and will after you.

I remember flinching at that exact advice eight years ago. Especially when it arrived as a sales pitch - a significant investment, a six-month cohort, a certificate to make the pain creditable. And the trouble of how do I know which is the right one for me?

I've joined more than one. Workshops, retreats, cohorts, and festivals. Different sizes, different values, different energies. Each one connecting me more to myself. And the more I came home to myself, the more I could feel the net of women around me - the weaving they'd been doing. The more I could appreciate their gifts. Not to be healed or made better, but to experience myself in that field.

Season Two of YINtentions — stories women were told not to tell — is about exactly this. Women I've had the joy, the pleasure, the deep gratitude to know across the years. Who've woven their own journeys into the fields they hold for other women. Who help us find our own strength, our own power, the memory within that makes us more ourselves and more in love with the world.

It opens with Tiffany May Yan Chan - who walked the same corridors I once walked at the World Economic Forum, felt her spark go dim inside them, and found her way back through something neither of us had been trained to trust: that love is not a softening of leadership. It is its most sophisticated intelligence. You'll find it right here. Spotify. Apply Podcasts.

---

Back to the story - about the woman. We parted exchanging details. I've not heard from her since. Our conversation - a small breadcrumb. I know she will find her way. We all do, because she already knows the way.

And there will be more of her. There always are. That is why this work exists.

---

Tell me, how have you learnt to trust your way?

Hit reply. I read every single one, and your experience is part of how I understand this more fully.

with joy and deep reverence,

Anna Teresa