I Changed My Mind. About Quite a Few Things.

I changed ArcheSoul Return.

Actually, I changed quite a bit of it. The colors, the photographs, the website, the way I talk about the work, even some of the things I want to talk about in the first place.

And somewhere in the middle of changing all of that, I had a slightly uncomfortable realization: I had built a brand about returning to yourself while still editing the hell out of myself.

Well, shit.

The funny thing is, there wasn't some big dramatic moment when I figured this out. No thunder or perfectly timed song. No staring meaningfully out a window while suddenly understanding the mysteries of my life. I just started noticing that something felt off.

Not wrong. That's an important distinction because I still believe deeply in the work I've created. I believe archetypes can give us remarkable language for understanding ourselves, especially during those seasons when life shifts and we start questioning roles, expectations and identities we've carried for years.

What I realized was that somewhere along the way, I had made the way I presented that work a little too polished, too careful and maybe even a little too precious.

And if you've spent any amount of time with me in real life, you already know I'm not particularly precious.

I laugh loudly. I question things. I change my mind. I occasionally swear, fine…I swear A LOT. I have very little patience for bullshit dressed up as wisdom, and I am perfectly capable of having a meaningful conversation about identity, grief, getting older, purpose and the strange experience of becoming someone you didn't expect to become, only to follow it five minutes later with, "Well, that's fucking ridiculous."

Both of those women are me.

I finally realized ArcheSoul needed to sound like both of them.

Apparently, I Had Created Another Damn Map

There is something pretty ironic about creating work called ArcheSoul Return and then realizing you've started performing a version of the person who created it.

I didn't do it intentionally. I think I simply collected a bunch of ideas about how this kind of work was supposed to look and sound. A meaningful brand should sound like this. A woman doing transformational work should talk about these things. This subject is serious, so it should look serious. Don't be too much. Don't be too funny. Don't wander too far away from the "work."

None of those rules were actually written anywhere, of course, but apparently I had created another damn map for myself.

And I've already spent enough of my life following those.

So I started pulling things apart. Not because I thought ArcheSoul needed a prettier website, but because I wanted it to feel more like the person behind it.

I wanted more color, more life, more humor and more honesty. I also wanted the conversation to get bigger.

Archetypes matter to me, and they are still an important part of ArcheSoul. But I realized I didn't want to spend all of my time talking only about archetypes because, frankly, I'm interested in a hell of a lot more than that.

I'm interested in what happens as we get older and discover that aging isn't necessarily the tragedy we've been sold. I'm interested in work and ambition, particularly what happens when the thing you spent years chasing suddenly doesn't impress you anymore.

I'm interested in relationships, grief, creativity, books, identity and the things we want but aren't entirely sure we're allowed to want. I'm fascinated by the things we outgrow, including things we once desperately wanted.

And maybe most of all, I'm interested in those moments when something makes you stop and think, Wait. Do I actually believe this, or have I just believed it for a very long time?

That question interests the hell out of me.

Which Is How I Started Thinking About a Podcast

Once I gave myself permission to expand the conversation, I started thinking about what else ArcheSoul could become.

Because I don't only want to write about these things. I want to talk about them.

I want conversations that have enough room to wander a little. I want to start with a book, an archetype, something happening in my own life, something somebody said that I can't stop thinking about, or one of those questions that seems simple until you actually try to answer it.

And somewhere in all of that, I started thinking about a podcast.

It's still in the works. I'm figuring out what I want it to be, what belongs there and, probably more importantly, what doesn't.

But I already know I don't want it to be another place where someone sits behind a microphone and explains how the rest of us should be living.

God knows we have enough of that.

What I want is conversation. The kind where you can think out loud, change your mind halfway through, laugh at something you probably shouldn't, hear another woman's perspective and end up somewhere neither of you expected when you started.

That's where ArcheSoul: Life, Reconsidered is headed.

Not because I'm suddenly trying to become "podcast host Mary." Please.

It's simply another way to explore the questions I'm already interested in.

Because the more I've reconsidered ArcheSoul, the more I've realized that I don't want it to be only a place where I teach women about archetypes.

Archetypes are a lens.

The woman was always the point.

Her life, her choices, her contradictions. What she wants now that she didn't want ten years ago. What she no longer wants but keeps doing anyway. Who she's been, who she's becoming and what happens when she finally gives herself permission to reconsider some of it.

Right now, the podcast is another idea I'm building around that conversation. We'll see where it goes.

Honestly, that feels pretty appropriate for something called Life, Reconsidered.

This Isn't Really a Reinvention

For all the visible changes I've made, this doesn't feel like I created something new. It feels more like I stopped holding something back.

Maybe that's what I've been trying to say through ArcheSoul all along. Returning to yourself isn't necessarily this beautiful, soft, peaceful experience.

Sometimes it's disruptive as hell.

You might have to admit that something you worked incredibly hard to build doesn't fit anymore. You might disappoint somebody or change your mind after very publicly announcing the first one. You may even realize you've become exceptionally good at being a woman you don't particularly want to be anymore.

That's a strange thing to admit.

But there's also something incredibly powerful about finally being able to say, "No. We're not doing that anymore."

We talk a lot about the importance of knowing who you are. I'm becoming much more interested in what happens when you're willing to admit that who you are has changed.

Because of course she has.

How could she not?

So What Is Life, Reconsidered?

It's where I want to have these conversations.

Here first, through these pages. And eventually, as the podcast takes shape, there too.

I'm not interested in standing on one side of the internet dispensing wisdom as though I've cracked some secret code to being a woman. God, no.

I'm 62 years into this experiment and still regularly discover that something I was absolutely certain about deserves another look. That's part of what makes life interesting.

Life, Reconsidered is about identity, change, relationships, work, getting older, creativity, archetypes, what we want, what we've outgrown and all those assumptions we've carried around for so long that we've forgotten we're allowed to question them.

Some conversations will be personal. Some will start with an archetype. Others might start with a book, something somebody said, an experience I can't stop thinking about or something happening in the world that makes me wonder what the hell we're all doing.

I don't necessarily want to finish every conversation with an answer.

I'd much rather pull up a chair and say, "I've been thinking about this. Have you?"

Because I suspect there are a lot of women standing in the middle of perfectly respectable lives thinking things they're not saying out loud.

Maybe you've built a good life and still want something different. Maybe you're incredibly grateful for what you have and also restless. Those things can exist in the same woman.

Maybe you love the people in your life deeply but you're tired of arranging your entire existence around what everybody else needs. Maybe you've reached an age when being liked isn't quite the compelling career opportunity it used to be.

Or maybe you're beginning to notice that some of the rules you've been following aren't actually rules at all.

Some of them might even be bullshit.

If any of that sounds familiar, we probably have things to talk about.

The Part That Hasn't Changed

Underneath the new colors, new website, the podcast I'm developing and this bigger conversation, ArcheSoul still comes back to the same idea:

Your life should feel like yours.

Not the life you were told to want or the version that looks impressive from across the room. Not the one you've become exceptionally skilled at maintaining.

Yours.

And what "yours" means is allowed to change.

What you wanted at 30 may not be what you want at 50. What you believe at 62 may seriously piss off the woman you were at 42.

She's allowed to be annoyed. She got you here.

But she doesn't get to make every decision forever.

That's what reconsidering means to me.

It doesn't mean we have to burn our lives down or reinvent ourselves every time something feels uncomfortable. And we certainly don't need another five-step plan promising to turn us into our "best selves."

Maybe we simply need to be willing to look at our lives again through the eyes of the women we are now, keep what still belongs, question what doesn't and find the nerve to change the things that need changing.

That's what I've been doing with ArcheSoul.

It's also what led me to start developing ArcheSoul: Life, Reconsidered.

And, if I'm telling the whole truth, it's what I've been doing with myself too.

So yes, things look different around here.

They should.

I do too.

And I have a feeling we're just getting started.

Mary