As a kid, I was an outgoing, loud, and free-spirited little girl with a big imagination and a magical connection to nature and the spirit of the earth. I loved music and singing.
Rumi said, When you do something for your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.
Singing was my soul work. It carried me away from the mundane existence of the classroom. It washed out some of the emotional wounds from the bullies on the bus. But by my early 20s, after I’d put everything I had into shedding over a hundred pounds (with the perceived promise of instant and unyielding love and belonging), the weight of anxiety and perfectionism I’d developed was a much heavier burden to carry around. The river moving in me had all but dried up along the way.
On the surface, my dreams of a career in music were coming true. I’d moved to Toronto to study music at Humber College. I was collaborating with phenomenal musicians, recording a solo record, and got my first gig performing in a musical. But underneath, I was in a lot of pain. Everything had become muddled. It was all about what things looked like from the outside: the brand of Amy Pitt. Instead of looking inward, I just found other ways to numb out—some of them much more dangerous than the food and television I’d turned to for comfort in my younger years.
Around this time, my Nan died. Being with her during her last breath stirred something back to life within me. A second wave of personal spirituality began to emerge. I read all kinds of books on the wisdom traditions. Buddhism, the practice of mindfulness, and its accompanying idea of ‘not naming’ was particularly impactful for me. Long walks along the lake, witnessing the enchantment of the world when it didn’t carry a label, was powerful stuff. In hindsight, something inside me trusted that freedom would come if I removed the shackles that my identity as a singer/songwriter seemed to carry, the toxic ego-driven energy that had built up around it over the years, because shortly after graduating and releasing my debut album in 2009, I made the conscious choice to pull off the badge of the singer/songwriter, and essentially leave the music industry.
It was scary. I didn’t know who I was without that identity. But the payoff was huge. It was like unclogging a damn; the magic of my life began to flow more freely. Both disorienting and liberating; I could listen for direction and move around without always bumping up against how things fit with the role I was supposed to be playing in the world. This allowed my interest for the wisdom traditions, positive psychology, and other passions for social justice, (specifically children’s/women’s/and Indigenous rights), and holistic education their space to be nurtured and grow within me.
Looking back now, I see this step as one of the most creative decisions of my life, a pivotal choice that turned me back towards my most authentic self after too many years of walking away.
Since then, I’ve done a lot of more personal growth work and training, acquiring other labels along the way; teacher, writer, speaker, life coach, and mother to name a few. But I now know at my core that to show up vulnerably and authentically from a deeper place beyond any of those roles is imperative if I’m to contribute in meaningful ways as any of them.
Ultimately, mine is now a soul-led life.
For me, the soul is the capitol T True Self. The heart-center. It’s the still small voice that Ghandi talked about. It’s, as the Buddhist say, our true nature where we connect to one another at the deepest level. A constant beneath the illusion of separation. The soul is the place where we touch the infinite and unknowable universal energy that some call God with our unique fingerprint. The divine creative spark born into us from the beginning where a sense of true belonging and compassion reside.
Don’t get me wrong—being guided by my soul hasn’t been a journey filled with rainbows and butterflies. There have been dark nights and foggy, dense wilderness along my path. But for me, life isn’t about trying to feel comfortable or happy all the time anymore.
It’s about living a life of meaning.
A life of unique purpose.
A creative and courageous life of contributing to the world, in ways that only I can.
Although unique-- unfortunately, my experience of childhood trauma and addiction is not unusual. Due to our conditioning, many of us start walking away from our most authentic selves at points in our lives and sadly, many never make our way back—permanently exiling core aspects of ourselves to fit into some mould of who we think others want us to be. There are very real repercussions for this. As I experienced in my own life, research shows that when we trade our authenticity for safety, we have a greater chance of experiencing things like depression, anxiety, addiction, anger, resentment, and grief.
But a deeper knowing remains way down below the surface for all of us.
A burning in our hearts that, even when the embers cool, cannot be fully extinguished.
It’s always there—patiently waiting for us to remember.
I'd love to help you remember.
Amy xo
Read more of Amy's story in her memoir-style masters thesis;
Spiraling Back to the Spark: A Spiritual Journey Towards Authentic Creativity