If there’s one thing I’ve learned from working in innovation it’s that real, lasting change is never easy. But it’s always necessary.

Over the past year, I’ve experienced a lot of change in my life. And while I've shared parts and pieces with those closest to me, I've struggled to weave together the bigger picture. To make sense of the good, the bad, and the ugly of it all. Because when we're still inside the flow of change, we're usually too busy keeping our heads above water to tell the story of how we got there.

At the time of writing this, I'm still treading water. But writing has always helped me to understand what I'm moving through.

To quote the late, great Joan Didion, "I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see, and what it means."

So I'm writing this now to see if it brings clarity. And I'm sharing it in hopes that it may inspire someone else to move through their own river of change with a little more ease.

It all started with a severe case of burnout. A dark night of the soul kind of moment. In the years following the epic human disaster of 2020, we're all experiencing our own version of the work burnout darkness. And mine wasn't unique, or different, or any worse than anyone else's. So I want to honor the fact that many of us are working and living in ways we're not built for. And also recognize the fact that I'm extremely privileged that I was able to deal with my darkness in the way that I did.

For the first time in my life, I took an extended leave from work and traveled internationally. I signed up for an intense, 200-hour yoga teacher training situated on a remote beach in Bali, Indonesia. I detached from all my typical responsibilities and went deeper into the darkness, processed the pain, and tested my limits. And through literal blood, sweat, and daily tears, I slowly returned to myself.

Bali sounds like paradise. And it kind of is:

Consistent, tropical weather.

Coconuts on demand.

Near-perfect waves at every beach.

But that's just surface-level stuff. That's what the vacationer experiences.

When you go to a place like Bali, and really dive in deep, you discover an inner language written in the spirit of the land that's expressed through the energy of its native people and the more-than-human world that percolates through the island and the surrounding sea. A nonverbal language that is felt but can't be articulated.

This is why I've had such a hard time expressing to people, especially fellow Americans, why I decided to quit my job at a time when so many are out of work. And why I'm leaving behind a life I've worked so hard to build over the past 15 years to relocate to a small island in the middle of the Indian Ocean where my accent and my skin color will mark me as other. Where fitting in will be even harder. And where I'll have to relearn how to live.

But here I am, about a month out from my departure date. I bought a one-way flight to Denpasar, Bali. I've sold a lot of my belongings, and given away even more. On one hand, this process has been about letting go, giving in to a pulse that's pulling me towards something else. Something that my mind, try as it might, cannot logically reason. But something that I know deep down I have to follow. On the other hand, it's change that I've actively pursued. Because change is at once something that happens to us in ways we can't control, and happens because of us in ways that we invoke and activate with our inner authority.

Before I left for Bali a few months ago, I was speaking with a teacher of mine about how excited I was to try surfing. And how badly I wanted to feel that feeling of riding a wave, of letting nature be my playground, dangerous as it may be. She said, "Of course, you're excited for that. It's the perfect metaphor for how you live out your design."

I didn't realize how right she was until I experienced it firsthand. I spent much of my free time in Bali surfing or connecting with surfers and surf culture—from the bliss of catching a wave to the terror of being caught in a powerful riptide, encountering sharks, and being bludgeoned in the face by my own board.

Change is like that—it hurts and it can be scary AF. But amidst the pain of the process, we can always find moments where we feel like we're flying.