On the Coast – Families Issue 105 I April/May 2020 | Page 26

Gap Year
Inspiring change
BY KYLIE BAILEY
I
woke up one day and wondered,
is this it? Life in my 40’s with
my family! With my profession
as a Mindset coach, a top skill of
mine is setting goals and aligning
my life with my values.
I naturally know how to take small steps
to make my big goals come to life and for
a long time felt quite fulfilled with what
my family and I had achieved.
We had our beach house...well 5
minutes away which was close enough
growing up in Sydney suburbs, had made
the renovation with our entertainment
area and was quite satisfied with our
home for a long time.
Then this wave washed over me and
all of a sudden we went from enjoying
all we had achieved to feeling very
unsatisfied and scratching our heads
wondering...Is this it?
Life in our 40’s, 2 gorgeous kids but so
busy all the time between work, school,
activities and social events to really enjoy
all we had worked for...
Life had started to feel like groundhog
day without the satisfaction of enjoying
our children and this chapter of life with
them. This lingered for some time and then
with a sliding door moment, an opportunity
washed over us that we can re-write the
script and live life on our terms.
So, we decided to take back the pace
of life and the control, sell our house
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O N T H E C OA S T – FA M ILIES
and travel around Australia with our
kids and put our kids through Distance
Education.
This is when life started to become
exciting again...as we started to feel the
unwiring of our minds of what we were
conditioned to and how the past 15 years
of collecting material possessions had
shaped us.
We started the process of letting
go of our belongings either by selling,
donating or throwing stuff away... No
doubt – we would of made Marie Kondo
proud!
The process into the simple life began
and since that moment mid last year
when we decided to re-write the script,
life has never looked so clear now that
we are living life our way instead of
doing what society tells us we need to
do...life on our terms is so much more
enjoyable!
I’m not going to say it was all easy. To
be honest, the journey into freedom was
the most stressful 6 months of my life.
Daily, I was working my coaching
systems on a massive scale and practising
every mindfulness technique I know
to overcome the massive overwhelm
I was feeling. It was tough but worth
every bit of stress now I know what
life looks on the other side, after the 6
months of freeing my family from the
financial pressure, the juggle of activities,
watching my husband work his butt off
along with travelling that freeway and
never really having enough quality time
together as a family.