I didn’t set out to become a ‘personal reinvention guide.’ I became one because I’ve had so many ‘different lives’ myself that I eventually just stopped being surprised by change—not that I’m never shaken by it—and started paying very close attention instead.
The changes started young.
My mom had struggled with her mental health for most of her adult life, seemingly worsened by a marriage she was unhappy in. My parents split up when I was in high school. I moved into my own apartment shortly after that, while I was still finishing my final year. Then I waitressed my way through an honours business degree with a minor in psychology—not because I had a career plan, but because I didn’t. I just knew that ‘business’ would be part of any business I’d get into, and I wanted to understand how people’s minds work. By the time I graduated, the only thing I’d figured out was that if I wanted a different kind of life than the one I’d been handed, I was going to have to go build it myself.
So that’s what I set out to do.
What followed was not a straight line
I spent nearly a decade helping build a private wealth management firm. Then I managed a landscaping company. Between those I took a foray into writing and television—and ended up hosting a cooking show that ran for three seasons. Later, I produced and hosted my own eighteen-segment television series on holistic well-being. I continued my entrepreneurial journey doing event planning, consulting, teaching, sales, and real estate investing and development. I led teams, built things from scratch, and pivoted more times than I can easily count.
Woven through all of that, I spent several years studying world religions and other wisdom traditions, alongside quantum physics, metaphysics, and the nature of reality. Not as formal degrees, but out of genuine curiosity: to understand the common threads that seem to run through all of our different seeking, across every culture and every era. That study changed me in profound ways; I continue to learn and discover new connections and come to deeper realizations to this day.
Along the way, I sought out some of the best teachers I could find. One of my earliest mentors was Barbara Sher, known as ‘the godmother of life coaching.’ I completed Tony Robbins’ Mastery University. I trained as an Infinite Possibilities Certified Trainer under Mike Dooley. I learned in person from Martha Beck at a curated retreat on a game reserve in South Africa.
I’m not telling you all this to recite my résumé. I’m telling you because it all matters to what comes next.
The pattern I kept seeing
Somewhere in the middle of accumulating all of that experience, I started to notice something:
Change kept following a pattern.
Different circumstances each time, different chapters of life, different players—but the same underlying process. There was always a period of dissolution before something new could form. There were often stretches that felt more like loss than transformation. There were always moments when I couldn’t see what was coming next and had to decide whether to trust the process and move forward anyway. And there were always mindset shifts—sometimes subtle, sometimes seismic—at different stages along the way.
I noticed this first in my own life. Then in the people around me. Then in the clients and groups I was working with. Then I started learning and seeing how this same pattern had played out on a much broader scale across history.
The caterpillar metaphor I wrote about in Butterfly Soup wasn’t something I invented—it’s been used by probably hundreds, if not thousands of people over the years. But it’s something I kept being handed from every direction until I finally understood what it was trying to tell me.
The change that changed everything
One of the hardest changes I’ve ever had to go through—and there have been many ‘hardest’ ones—is the way I lost my mother.
Through the end of my high school and early university years, my mom continued to fight her mental health struggles. My younger sister and brother suffered more than I did after I moved out. Finally, years after becoming a parent myself and going through my own divorce, there came a long stretch where it seemed like we could all stop worrying about her the way we had when we were younger.
Or so we thought.
One mild Monday evening in June, when I was in my thirties, she died by suicide. She was just weeks away from her sixty-first birthday.
The reasons were layered and complicated, as these things always are. But at the center of it was something I’ve never stopped thinking about: she felt trapped in a life she believed she was powerless to change.
That belief was not true. It never had been. Looking back with an adult’s perspective, I can see that she had made many brave changes in her life—given the circumstances she came from, the era she lived in, and the resources available to her. But she didn’t know how to make the changes she most desperately wanted. She didn’t have the support she needed. And most of all, she didn’t believe in herself.
It was losing my mom in this way that made Dreamsmith not just a business or a brand, but something I feel genuinely called to. Because I’ve seen and felt what happens when people don’t find their way—or more accurately, when they stop believing they can.
I’m often unsure whether to share how I lost my mom. I don’t share it to drop a heavy weight on anyone, or to garner sympathy. I share it because suicide rates are alarmingly high, and the more honestly we talk about it, the less alone people feel in their struggles—and the more we can actively support each other. I also hope it helps you understand why I speak about the difficult stages of changing your life as deserving to be honoured and supported. Even treated as sacred.
What I know to be true
Not every dissolution turns into a butterfly. I know that.
But I also know, from decades of watching this process—in myself and in others—that the capacity to change is real, and that’s true for every person I’ve ever met. What most people lack isn’t the ability. It’s the map. It’s the guidance, the support. Sometimes it’s just having someone who has been through enough versions of what you’re going through to say with genuine conviction: I know this part is hard. I know you can’t see what’s on the other side. And I know that if you keep moving forward—if you keep trusting that life is supposed to be good for you—you will get through it.
That’s what I want everyone to know, deeply, in their heart.
Not only that, but more often than not—especially when you learn how to manage your mindset and how important it is to surround yourself with the right people (and, how to actually do that)—you’ll find that once you can get through some of the toughest challenges life hands you, what comes next is often much, much better than you could have ever imagined at the outset.
There is so much goodness waiting for you on the other side. There is joy, and success, and peace. There is love. I know this is as true for you as anyone else.
I don’t claim to have it all figured out. But I am someone who has been lost enough times, found my way back, and discovered new treasures I couldn’t have even conceived of, that the path itself has now become familiar—no matter how many twists and turns it presents. And I find deep meaning in walking this path alongside others.
I’ve been beyond fortunate to have had some of the very best teachers, guides, and mentors—from many different fields and areas of expertise—help me along my path. My writing and my work here at Dreamsmith is my way of paying it forward.
The framework I eventually distilled from all of this—the pattern I kept recognizing across my own transformations, my studies, and my work with others—is what I share in my programs. Just knowing what the stages of transformation are can go a long way to helping you through.
If that sounds helpful, you can learn more about my Navigating Change workshop here.
Let’s gently become together. 💛
Kelly