Meet Your Guide, Liz Garrett

I remember my first encounter with the concept of time at, maybe, 4 years old. My military family was camping between housing assignments. My father, trying to answer my constant question, “When will we eat,” broke some matchsticks into small and big hands and tried to explain the concept of time. Nothing about that made sense to me, a wild child activated by nature. Still hungry, I pushed away from the picnic table–from this crazy concept–shaking my head and crumbling into tears.

I would eventually succumb to the tyranny of time, as we all do. The family of my childhood was mired by my mother’s mental illness, caught in a dark tangle of abuse, neglect and dysfunction. In fourth grade, I tested-in with the smart kids and followed them along a path that led to college. No one in my family had gone to college, and they weren’t willing to support my going. I made it happen, though, working one, two or three jobs at a time. This was when I learned to hustle. Do you know that frenemy, hustle?

In college, the spiralic journey brought me back around to nature, revisited through the lens of Science. Biology showed me the interrelatedness of all things. Chemistry revealed an intricate blueprint so vast and beautiful, it could only be divine. Oh! And I discovered DNA…well, actually, a Swiss scientist discovered that molecule a hundred years prior, but I got my first glimpse of this messenger that encodes the stories of our past and possibilities for our future. There is beauty in that double-helix spiral that chokes me up every time.

Hustle continued when I launched myself into the work world, always climbing up, Up, UP, seeking more, More, MORE. All I knew was survival mode. This, it turns out, is unsustainable.

In the course of my first marriage, as overworking stretched me thin, I started to feel a strong pull to reclaim what I called “My Natural Rhythms.” I didn’t understand it, and although it was inconvenient, I couldn’t ignore it. Among other things, this meant going off the pill. My then-husband derided that desire, and I couldn’t find language around this rising sense that I was way off-course from my true path. Course correction crashed down hard with an unplanned pregnancy, life-threatening miscarriage, and divorce.

Burnout wiped the slate clean. The spiral brought me back to new beginnings. As I considered how I would rebuild my scorched career, it seemed obvious that I should pursue an advanced degree in science and/or engineering. That was the “normal” next step for a professional like me, but I just couldn’t do it. My browser kept showing me masters programs in holistic health, spirituality, and personal transformation. Thankfully, attempts to talk myself out of this woo-woo direction didn’t work, and I entered a Transpersonal Psychology program that taught me science and spirituality exist on the same continuum.

I had tried to make my life a straight line. Instead, it ebbed and flowed. In perfect timing, it brought me to a program where I could find my way back to wholeness through journaling, meditation, therapy, mindfulness, inner child work, archetypal work, dreamwork, holistic nutrition, and other healing practices.

My business has done the same. Established in the ashes of burnout to help other professionals avoid that fiery fate, it morphed and evolved with me. Like a spiral, at times it expanded outward with organizational focus, and at other times it contracted inward to support individual development. (Learn more about my work at LizGarrett.com)

The golden thread through all is PRACTICAL APPLICATION. Lofty spiritual and scientific principles mean nothing if they don’t inspire and empower us to enjoy a meaningful life! This brings us back around to TIME: how we use it, and how we experience it. The perfect interface for time/intention/productivity/review is a PLANNER, and I’ve loved them all: DayTimer, Franklin-Covey, digital PDA’s (Palm Pilot, Treo, etc.), Outlook, and various apps. For my Masters thesis, I developed “Integrated Journaling,” a planning process combining journaling and intention for all-day, everyday consciousness.

When I added moon phases to my planning approach, magic happened.

As I tuned into mooncycles, observing their impact on me and my work, I saw the moon reflected my cycles of idea generation and review. It taught me when to sow (invest my energy) and when to reap (harvest my return). It shows me when to take action and when to surrender. Cycle after cycle, I released much which didn’t really work for me. More and more, I’ve narrowed my focus to what delights me. Life has gotten easier and lighter.

In 2020, when the pandemic drove us all online, I started leading new moon meetups…and haven’t stopped. Month after month, I guide people in discovering their true nature by setting intentions aligned with their heart desires, and then noticing where the cycle takes them.

In my current season, I go with the flow. There is no hustle. Timing is always divine. I understand we are always whole, and share this message as far and wide as possible. Nothing is really lacking and we are not broken. We are so much more than we think ourselves to be. The opportunity for self-awareness/self-acceptance/self-love unfolds eternally…like a double helix spiral. I hope to meet you soon on the spiralic journey!