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Imagine making the momentous decision to pack up your entire life and move cross-country from Pennsylvania all the way to Portland, Oregon. You decide to start your move on January 1, 2020, because it feels clean and fresh with possibilities, and you embark on your journey with enthusiasm and optimism.
And then everything, and we do mean everything, promptly falls apart.
You get COVID, but you don’t know it’s COVID yet because no one knows what it is, and almost die.
Your partner loses their job because of the pandemic, making you the primary breadwinner while you’re still struggling to breathe every day.
Your teeny tiny apartment, where you’re now trapped with your partner in a brand-new city where you don’t really have friends and can’t make new ones, is infested with spiders.
That’s just a taste of what Kristen Kalp’s 2020 was like … and lord, the hits kept comin’. So, we sat down with Kristen, our friend-we’ve-never-met-in-real-life, to talk about what was inarguably the worst year ever. She got into…
- How she managed to keep functioning when literally everything was awful and she was trying not to die.
- Why she didn’t totally lose faith, even in the pit of despair, that things would ultimately be OK.
- How, less than a year after her disastrous move, she ended up right back where she started at the end of 2019, but isn’t upset about it.
- Her wisdom for you, if you’re terrified of making the “wrong” choice and everything turning to crap.
Leave a comment below after you’ve listened to share how Kristen’s crazy journey resonated with you!
MORE ABOUT KRISTEN KALP
Kristen Kalp is a teacher, healer, and business coach who helps people create lives of meaning. She facilitates long-lasting change with the help of breathwork, gentle presence, and laughter; has published a bunch of books as both an author and a ghostwriter; has been living with and learning from chronic depression for 20 years; and has enjoyed speaking gigs, retreats, and workshops in 17 cities and in 6 countries around the world. Standing ovations are her favorite drug.
LISTEN TO THESE EPISODES NEXT
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Bonus Book Club! The Wisdom of the Enneagram (Part 1) (August, 2019)
Bonus Book Club! The Wisdom of the Enneagram (Part 2) (August, 2019)
Side Chat: Enneagram Soul Child Theory (February 2020)
I’m so glad for Kristen that things have turned around so much from a year ago! This episode was super timely for me and probably just what I needed to hear. After YEARS of talking about moving, my husband and I sold our condo (closed yesterday, in fact), because with the craziness of the 2021 real estate market, we were finally not underwater for the first time since we bought it. We got approval from both of our jobs to work remotely, and after staying with family and regrouping for a couple of months, we’re planning to move to a city where we know no one and travel throughout the region to try to find somewhere to put down roots in a milder climate. Sometimes I jolt awake in the middle of the night and think, “What are we doing?!” But I try to come back to one of your common phrases: “What’s the worst that could happen?” Hopefully, it’s not spiders invading our laptop 😉 or you know, a global pandemic that keeps us from visiting our families. Yes, it’s a huge pain to move, and we hope not to have to do it too many more times – but we’re just doing what feels right for us right now, despite being scary, and hopefully as we go we’ll see signs of what’s right for us in the next moment.
Wow, no kidding Molly, this conversation couldn’t be more timely for you. The good news is, your moving adventure has GOT to be a better experience than Kristen Kalp’s was! 😂 But hopefully hearing her story was a good reminder that, even if your move doesn’t go exactly as planned, you’ll still end up right where you need to be. I just hope (and believe) your journey will be MUCH smoother! 🙂 I wish you and your husband all the good luck and none of the spiders during your move!