My 3-year sabbatical that changed everything
For women who’ve built unconventional lives...
This is me on the day that…
I graduated from UBC Urban Design School with dreams of making a life in this field.
Back then I thought having a master’s degree would open up so many doors for me.
But it didn’t.
Later when I started my business pursuing degrees gave way to endless certificates, coaching and courses.
The more credentials I collected the more hollow and insufficient I felt.
Until I went on a 3-year sabbatical from:
Investing in new certificates
Reading self-help books
Hiring coaches
And consuming the content of people in my industry.
It was haaaardddd…
But it was the first time in a long time I heard myself think.
And in those 3 years I began integrating everything I’ve learned through my own lived experience.
For the first time, I didn’t feel like someone who had learned a bunch of things and was just repeating them.
I fully embodied them.
In that process I had to also let go of loads of BS that I no longer had any use for.
Because I was ready to carve my own path…
Shortly after that I learned that my late illiterate grandma helped her family and community set broken bones.
She just knew how…
I was dumbfounded.
These days when traditional training fails me, I ask her (joking, but partly 😁)
We live in a system that measures people by their degrees and certificates (sure, I’m all about running an ethical practice).
But that same narrative prevented me and so many women from trusting the things we intuitively knew.
I separated my lived experiences from my work for a long time.
That changed when women from unconventional backgrounds became clients.
My life experience became the very thing that gave me the ability to facilitate transformation.
The more I leaned into it, the more powerful my containers became (if I say so myself).
It’s about time we stop separating ‘legitimate’ knowledge from embodied knowing.
Most women who’ve built unconventional lives are out here crushing goals, making moves, doing the damn thing… and still feeling like they’ll never find their seat at the table.
And you know what? That’s because the table was never built for us in the first place.
So here’s the thing: You don’t have to keep trying to fit in. You can dream big, live bigger, and build your own damn table. Or flip the one that’s there.
If you are ready to make that choice join The Unconventional Women’s Journey: From Limitations to Liberation
📅 Date: February 11-13
💵 Investment: Your time
📍Location: Zoom
🔗 Book your spot: tinyurl.com/unconventionalwomen
Thank you for joining me on the path of unconditioning,
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Hedi Shah
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👁️ Mindfulness Teacher & Bodyworker
🐉 Nervous system regulation, breathwork, and posture-focused strength training to target the cause of what keeps you stuck and in pain, not just symptoms.
📲 Website | Youtube | LinkedIn | Insight Timer