Doing & Being
When Your Life Becomes the Work of Wholeness
This weekend reminded me that the most beautiful conversations rarely happen in planned spaces. They happen between the booths, between the breaths, between strangers who feel like they’ve known each other longer than a few minutes.
I met some incredible souls … mothers, caregivers, teachers, and travelers … all of us doing the work in our own way. One woman told me she had walked the entire Camino de Santiago with her husband, step by step across the miles of Spain. Her story carried her grit, she shared her reluctance about the accommodations … how she thought she couldn't finish and almost quit … then she found the courage that she could, and she did!!! That makes three people I know that have completed this pilgrimage. If you don’t know what it is, I encourage you to look it up.
These conversations are the kind that linger long after the telling. Others spoke of raising children, caring for aging parents, involvement in the community with their restaurants that I had frequented, or teaching generations of students to find their voice. Each story held its own quiet reverence. Some conversations began with talk of upcoming shows or creative projects, but as it often does, the dialogue drifted toward the deeper why … the heart work.
When someone asked what I do for a living, I smiled and said, “I help people remember it is okay to allow time for themselves, and to get reacquainted with who they are through art, story, and stillness.”
That’s the simplest way I can describe it. Because what began years ago as crafting candles and sewing denim has grown into something much larger: a practice of wholeness.
There was a time I thought “doing the work” meant long hours and steady output, always striving toward the next goal. But over the years, I’ve learned that being the work means letting your life become the message … that how you show up, listen, and create carries as much weight as the finished piece itself.
Wholeness work isn’t a business plan or a product line. It’s a way of living, one that honors the rhythms of rest and renewal, creativity and contemplation. It’s in the quiet act of pouring wax with intention. It’s in the conversations that turn into prayers without ever saying “amen.” It’s in the art that speaks what words can’t.
Each time I attend an event, I notice how the exchange has shifted. I may start by talking about a candle or a piece of jewelry, but somehow, we always end up talking about life … grief, growth, faith, the search for meaning. That’s when I know the work is working through me.
Maybe that’s what it means to truly live your purpose: not to separate your calling from your daily life, but to weave it into everything you touch.
When I listen to others share their stories, I see reflections of my own … the healing that happens when we give ourselves permission to be real, to be seen, to be unfinished and radiant all at once.
So yes, I’m doing the work.
But more than that, I’m learning to be the work.
To live the peace I speak of. To embody the creativity I encourage.
To show up to the table … or the market … as a whole and human being, not a finished product.
Because in the end, that’s what draws us together: the willingness to be present, to listen, and to let our light spill into the world one conversation, one creation, one encounter at a time.
A Thought to Carry
So here’s a realization I am having in this season … maybe “doing the work” isn’t about adding more to your list. Maybe it’s about allowing who you are to pour into everything you already do.
Show up. Create with love. Be present.
Let your life be the work.
“The measure of a life, after all, is not its duration, but its donation.”
— Corrie ten Boom“And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men.”
— Colossians 3:23 (NKJV)