Restoring My Nature: A Map Back to Strength

In late 2012, I began a profound journey of being restored in and by nature.

Close friends in Cape Town had invited me to support their NGO in organizing sustainably — but in truth, it was an invitation to escape the hustle and reimagine life. At 26, I was deeply burnt out and could not see a path forward. So desperate for change, I left my legal career and moved across the globe.

I loved my life-draining career in its own way. But reflecting on my newly discovered CliftonStrengths in South Africa made it clear why I sometimes felt alive in my work and why it was no longer sustainable. I needed greater freedom to operate in my strengths — and to learn how to keep my instincts from consuming me.

Over time I realized that many of my environmental conditions, both inside and outside of work, were not conducive to my nature. That incongruence bred dissonance and, eventually, distrust — in people, in systems, even in myself. Therapy and coaching became part of my healing. I often share with clients that learning your strengths is “fuel for therapy,” because most of us can see how they showed up in childhood. We all carry memories of friction against our strengths — and when they’ve been scorned under great challenge, healing is part of how they’re liberated into the future.

My nature — my unique way of being and seeing the world — became something I could finally take responsibility for claiming. With strength awareness, small changes in my environment provided new access to the fuel that powered my best energy. In the years that followed, I invested in my strengths through education and practice, studying what made organizations projects succeed or fail. Each time my strengths met resistance, they were refined. That process was not easy, but it was real — and it was alive.

All of this work began with reconnecting to the flow of strength and life within myself. While hiking through the South African landscape, I began to feel hope returning. It wasn’t a switch to flip, but a map — one that showed me how to move through the darkness of burnout.

I carry that map with me still, and it continues to guide my work today.