Five different lives, 46 years, and rediscovering what gives me the grit to keep going.
Well, I turned 46 on October 28th!
I've been doing a lot of reflecting lately, especially about the different lives I've lived over the past 46 years. It's interesting how we can go through life without necessarily recognizing how much our circumstances influence the way we think, the decisions we make, and what we believe is possible for ourselves.
I started thinking about this because I've been struggling with something lately. Something that has always been a pretty big part of who I am: my ambition and grit. I've always been someone who gets excited about ideas, loves building things, and enjoys the process of turning possibilities into reality. But lately, I've had a hard time finding that part of myself.
If you've been following Cat Unmuted, you've probably noticed that I took a little break from recording. It wasn't intentional. Every Tuesday would come around, and I would think about recording an episode, but I just couldn't find it in me to want to. Normally, the perfectionist side of me would have insisted that I stick to my schedule, but this time I decided to leave it alone. I figured I'd get back to it when I felt like it.
I think a lot of it started after the four-day study tour I attended in September. It was a wonderful opportunity, but four consecutive days of being in a classroom environment with about 40 people completely wore me out. I was so peopled out that I didn't particularly care to interact with anyone outside of the people I already knew. It took me about three weeks to feel like I'd recovered from that experience.
But even after I recovered, I still wasn't feeling like myself. I continued working on my business here and there, exploring opportunities, and having conversations, but the excitement and drive I normally feel just weren't there. I couldn't figure out why, especially considering how many opportunities have been presenting themselves lately.
Then my birthday came around, and I started thinking about the five very different lives I've lived. And somewhere in that reflection, I began to understand what might be happening.
My First Life: When I Could Dream About Anything
Until I was 13, I lived with my mom. We moved around quite a bit between Japan, Taiwan, and Denver, so my childhood wasn't exactly what most people would consider conventional. But despite the challenges that came with growing up, I still had the capacity to dream about what I wanted to be when I grew up.
I went through all kinds of phases. At one point, I wanted to be a ballet dancer. Then I wanted to be a fighter like Jackie Chan. I thought about becoming a police officer because one of my uncles was one, and I even went through a phase when I wanted to be a veterinarian because I loved animals and wanted to help them.
I didn't necessarily know what it would take to become any of those things. I was a kid! I just knew that these were things I could imagine myself doing someday. Whether those dreams were realistic wasn't particularly important to me at the time. I had the freedom to imagine possibilities, and that's what I did.
Then, at 13, I moved in with my dad in Japan, and my life began changing in ways I couldn't have anticipated.
My Second Life: When I Stopped Seeing a Future
When I first moved in with my dad, things were relatively normal. But after he married my stepmother, my home life changed significantly. I experienced years of mental and emotional abuse, and over time, it affected my confidence, my sense of self-worth, and how I viewed myself.
By the time I was 20, I was still attending high school, and things at home had become difficult enough that I decided to run away. When I left, I accidentally left my wallet behind. My dad had it, and despite my attempts to retrieve it, he wouldn't give it back to me. All I needed was my identification, but every time I tried to get it, he remained silent. I didn't understand why he wouldn't give me something that belonged to me and that I needed to move forward with my life.
Without my identification, I couldn't pursue normal employment opportunities. I couldn't simply apply for a career job, enroll in school to pursue a degree, or begin building the kind of future most young adults would be thinking about. I ended up working night jobs that didn't require identification, and I lived on whatever money I earned.
For four years, I lived this way without fully understanding why my situation was what it was. It wasn't until I was 24 that I learned I was an illegal resident in Japan. Suddenly, the situation surrounding my identification made more sense. But understanding what had happened didn't change the reality I was living in.
I want to emphasize something here. My life didn't suddenly become limited when I discovered my immigration status at 24. I had already been living with those limitations since I was 20. By the time I learned the truth, I had spent years unable to see a realistic path toward building a future for myself.
And when you spend that much time living without opportunities, it changes the way you think about your life.
I didn't have a reason to save money because I couldn't envision what I would be saving for. I wasn't planning for a career, a home, or retirement because none of those things seemed attainable. I couldn't dream about becoming something when I couldn't see a way to get there in the first place.
There were many times when I felt like I had no reason to live. I don't mean that I wanted to take my own life. I mean that I couldn't see what I had to look forward to. I wasn't building anything, working toward anything, or imagining what my future might become. I was simply living each day because that was what I could do.
We hear people talk about the importance of living in the present all the time. And I agree that being present is important. But there's a difference between choosing to enjoy the present because you're content with your life and living only in the present because you can't see a future for yourself. I wasn't living day to day because I'd discovered some wonderful way to appreciate life. I was living that way because I didn't believe I had any other options.
Looking back, I don't think I lacked ambition. I lacked opportunities, and that affected my ability to have hope. Without hope that something could be different, I couldn't dream about what my future could become.
And without something to work toward, where was I supposed to find the grit to build that future?
My Third Life: Discovering Hope Through Stability
After living with the knowledge of my immigration status for about two years, I eventually made the decision to leave Japan and move to the United States. I moved to Denver, where my mom was living at the time, and for the first time in years, I felt like I had possibilities again.
I could legally pursue opportunities that weren't available to me in Japan. I could find a career, get an education, and start building a future. At least, that was what I expected.
Except finding employment turned out to be much harder than I anticipated. I spent an entire year looking for a job without much success. I suspect that having a resume filled with work experience from Japan may have contributed to my difficulties, but I don't know that for certain. Whatever the reason, I found myself struggling again, only this time I was living somewhere that offered opportunities I couldn't seem to access.
Eventually, I decided to join the United States Air Force, and that decision changed so much about my life.
For the first time, I had stability. I had a steady income, a career path, and opportunities to grow professionally. My plan was to make the Air Force my career and eventually retire from the military. I could actually envision what my future might look like, and because of that, I started making decisions that supported it.
I saved money, planned trips, did my job, and made sure I enjoyed myself along the way. And believe me, I had plenty of fun! But the difference between my life in Japan and my life in the military was that I was no longer simply trying to get through each day. I was enjoying the present while also building toward my future.
Having stability gave me the space to think beyond tomorrow. I could make plans because I had something to plan for. I could save money because I had goals. I could imagine retirement because I had a career that made it feel possible.
For the first time in years, I had hope for my future, and that hope gave me direction.
My Fourth Life: Learning to Dream BIG
Eventually, I decided the military wasn't going to be my lifelong career. After leaving the Air Force and spending some time working in a corporate environment, I became a licensed massage therapist and opened my own business.
I successfully operated that business for nine years, and those years gave me an entirely different understanding of what it meant to dream.
When I was in the military, I had a career path that I could follow. I knew what I wanted to accomplish, and there was an established structure to help me get there. But becoming an entrepreneur was different because I wasn't simply following an existing path. I was creating my own.
And I absolutely loved that!
I had so many ideas for what my business could become. I didn't want to spend my entire career being the only massage therapist providing services. I wanted to grow my business, hire other therapists, and build relationships with corporations and organizations. One of my ideas was to work with senior living communities and other organizations that could benefit from having reliable massage services available to the people they served.
My goal wasn't simply to provide a service. I wanted to create relationships built on trust, where organizations could depend on my business to take care of their people. That was just one of the many possibilities I imagined, but it gives you an idea of how I was thinking about the future of my business.
I loved exploring those possibilities. I loved thinking about how I could grow, what I could offer, and how I could make everything work. There was an excitement that came with knowing I could potentially turn those ideas into reality if I was willing to put in the work.
And I was willing to put in the work!
The more opportunities I discovered, the bigger my dreams became. My vision expanded, and so did my ambition. I had something I was excited about building, which gave me the determination to keep moving forward, even when things became challenging.
Not everything I imagined happened, and not every idea worked out. But that wasn't the point. The point was that I had the freedom to dream and the opportunity to pursue those dreams.
When I look back at the woman I was in Japan and compare her to the woman who built a successful business in the United States, I realize something important. I didn't suddenly become an ambitious person overnight. My circumstances changed, and those changes affected what I believed was possible for myself.
The woman I was in Japan couldn't envision owning a business because there wasn't a realistic pathway for me to pursue that dream. The woman I became in the United States had the opportunities and stability to explore those possibilities, and eventually I built something I was proud of.
That difference has made me think a lot about how much our environment and circumstances affect our ability to dream.
My Fifth Life: The Future I've Been Waiting For
Which brings me to where I am today.
Josh and I have been preparing to move to Okinawa, Japan. We put our house on the market in April, and our expectation was that we would have moved by now. But here we are, more than six months later, still waiting for the house to sell.
And I think that waiting has affected me more than I realized.
When we put our house on the market, I began living with the expectation that we wouldn't be here much longer. I started putting things on pause because, in my mind, we were leaving soon. Why commit to something here when we were supposed to be moving? Why make certain plans when I didn't know how much longer we'd be in New Mexico?
Everything became about what would happen once we got to Okinawa.
I still worked on Beautifully Unhinged, had conversations, and explored opportunities. But when it came to the bigger vision of what I wanted my business to become in Japan, I was mostly waiting. My thinking was that we would get to Okinawa first, and then I would figure everything out once we were there.
At first, that seemed reasonable. But as the months passed and we were still here, I began losing the excitement and drive that normally came with working toward something.
I knew what I wanted. I was excited about living in Okinawa, and I was excited about the possibilities for Beautifully Unhinged. But I didn't have a clear path to get there, and that was affecting how I approached everything.
I kept wondering where my grit had gone. Why wasn't I as motivated as I used to be? Why was I having such a difficult time getting excited about things I knew I wanted to accomplish?
Then, the night before my birthday, I started reflecting on all these different phases of my life. And I realized that perhaps I hadn't lost my ambition at all.
I had lost sight of the path forward.
I had spent so much time waiting for my future to begin that I'd stopped actively working toward it in the way I normally would.
Now, I want to be clear that my circumstances today are nothing like the circumstances I lived through in Japan. I have opportunities, resources, experience, and choices that I didn't have back then. But there was something familiar about not being able to clearly envision how I was going to get from where I was to where I wanted to be.
And I think that uncertainty was affecting my motivation.
Finding a Pathway to Okinawa
Over the last couple of months, I've started developing a clearer vision of what I want Beautifully Unhinged to become in Okinawa. My personal development workshops are becoming a bigger part of the business, and I'm beginning to see how I could build something that brings people together while helping them develop a better understanding of themselves and their relationships.
But there was still the question of how I could legally establish a business in Japan.
Japan's requirements for foreign entrepreneurs had become significantly more demanding, particularly the amount of capital required to qualify for a Business Manager visa. This made us question how we would accomplish what we wanted to do, especially with our house still on the market.
Our original thinking was that we would move to Japan as tourists, spend time exploring our options, talk to people, and see what opportunities might become available once we were physically there.
But the night before my birthday, I started looking into the requirements again. During a conversation with Dingus, which is what I call my ChatGPT, I learned more about Okinawa's Startup Visa program.
What caught my attention was that eligible foreign entrepreneurs could potentially establish themselves in Okinawa while working toward meeting the requirements for a longer-term business visa. There were still criteria to meet, and it wasn't a guaranteed approval, but it was an opportunity worth exploring.
So I did what I normally do when something catches my interest. I started researching.
I found an organization that helps foreign entrepreneurs interested in starting businesses in Okinawa and sent them an email explaining what Beautifully Unhinged is and what I wanted to accomplish. I wanted to know whether my business concept might be eligible for the program.
They responded quickly, and after a couple of emails discussing my business background and my nine years of experience running my massage therapy practice, we scheduled a 15-minute meeting.
I was so excited!
Not because I had been approved for anything or because I suddenly had everything figured out. I still had a lot to learn, and there were requirements I needed to understand before I could determine whether this was a realistic option for me.
I was excited because I had finally found a possible pathway.
I had made contact with people in Okinawa who could help me understand what I needed to do. I could start gathering information, developing my business plan, and taking actual steps toward what I wanted to accomplish.
And I could do all of that while still living here in New Mexico.
I didn't have to wait until we moved to start working toward my future.
That realization made a difference because, for the first time in a while, I could see how the things I was doing today might directly contribute to the life I wanted to build tomorrow.
And that gave me hope.
How Hope, Dreams, Vision, and Grit Connect
As I reflected on these five different lives, I started thinking about the relationship between hope, dreams, vision, and grit.
I think hope is what allows us to believe something might be possible. When we believe something is possible, we can start dreaming about what it could become. Those dreams give us something to envision for our future, and that vision creates a direction we can work toward.
And having something to work toward gives us a reason to develop the grit needed to pursue it.
Of course, I recognize that survival takes grit too. I know that because I lived it. Getting through each day in Japan, especially under the circumstances I was living in, required determination. But the grit it takes to survive isn't necessarily the same experience as the grit that comes from working toward a future you're excited about.
In Japan, I was trying to get through my circumstances. In the military, I was building toward a stable future. As an entrepreneur, I was creating opportunities and expanding my dreams beyond what I originally imagined possible.
And now, as I prepare for my fifth life, I'm learning that even someone who has experienced that kind of ambition can lose sight of their direction.
I think we sometimes put too much emphasis on motivation and discipline without considering what might be affecting someone's ability to envision their future.
We tell people to work harder, stay focused, set goals, and be consistent. But what happens when someone doesn't believe those goals are attainable? What happens when their circumstances don't allow them to access the opportunities they need? Or when they've been in a waiting stage for so long that they've stopped recognizing what they can do right now?
I don't think the answer is always to push harder.
Sometimes, we need to look at our circumstances and figure out what's preventing us from seeing the possibilities available to us. Maybe we need a change in environment. Maybe we need more information. Maybe we need to have a conversation with someone who can help us see opportunities we didn't know existed.
Or maybe, like me, we need to recognize that we've been waiting for something to happen when there are things we could already be doing to move forward.
Returning to Where I Once Couldn't Dream
One of the things I find most interesting about my life today is that I'm preparing to return to Japan, the very place where I once couldn't see a future for myself.
Except this time, I'm returning with a completely different perspective.
I'm no longer the 20-year-old who couldn't figure out how to build a future because I didn't have the opportunities to do so. I'm returning with years of experience, skills I've developed, a business I've successfully operated, and dreams that have grown considerably since then.
And the business I want to build in Okinawa is something I couldn't have imagined when I was living there before.
I want Beautifully Unhinged to become something that helps people understand themselves, improve how they communicate, and create better relationships with themselves and others. I want to create opportunities for conversations that people might otherwise avoid and build something that can continue growing beyond just me.
I have no idea exactly how everything will turn out. We still have to sell our house, figure out our move, and determine what opportunities will actually be available to us in Okinawa.
And I'm still working on finding my grit. That hasn't magically returned just because I've had this realization.
But I do feel like I'm beginning to see my future again, and that's something I haven't felt quite as strongly in a while.
I've also realized that I'm not necessarily waiting to begin my fifth life. In many ways, I've already started it. The conversations I'm having, the things I'm learning, and the work I'm putting into my business are all part of building that next chapter.
I just needed to recognize that.
So, if you've been struggling to find your motivation, or if you've been feeling like you don't have the same drive you once had, maybe it's worth looking at what you're working toward.
Do you have a vision for your future? Do you believe that future is possible? And if you don't, is there something about your circumstances or environment that might be making it difficult to see those possibilities?
I'm not saying that hope alone will change everything. It won't. Having hope doesn't guarantee that our dreams will happen, and sometimes there are very real obstacles that we have to work through.
But I do believe that having hope gives us a reason to start looking for possibilities. And sometimes, discovering even one possible path can be enough to help us start moving forward again.
At 46, I'm still learning about myself, and I'm still figuring out what my next chapter will look like. But when I compare the different lives I've lived, I can see how much my circumstances shaped what I believed I could accomplish.
And I think that's something worth paying attention to.
I'd love to hear your thoughts. Have you ever gone through a period when you couldn't envision a future for yourself? Did a change in your circumstances or environment help you begin dreaming again? Or have you ever found yourself waiting for something to happen, only to realize there were things you could have been doing all along?
I'd love to hear your experiences, so feel free to share them in the comments.
Until next time,
Cat ❤️
Through courage comes bliss.
🎙️ Catch Up With Cat Unmuted
After taking an unplanned break from recording, I'm back with Episode 35, Hope Comes Before the Dream.
In this episode, I share more about the five different lives I've lived, how my circumstances shaped my ability to dream, and why I've been struggling to find my grit as we prepare for our move to Okinawa.
You can find the episode and catch up on previous conversations at b-unhinged.com under Shows → Cat Unmuted. or click on the button below
