Why I’m Telling This Story
From Peaks to Petals is the story of how every craft has roots that go much deeper than the first thing you make. Mine begin in a time when Soaperoni did not yet exist. I had no soaps curing on wooden racks and no jars of botanicals waiting to be infused. I was fully immersed in running REIGroup, a company I co‑founded with Daniele.
From the outside it was success, yet my days and nights were one unbroken line of work. I worked without pause, 365 days a year, a pace I wore like armour. Only now do I see those early seasons for what they were. The ground was softening. The air was shifting. The first seeds of another way to live and work were quietly taking root.
This series, From Peaks to Petals, is my way of honouring that path. Each part shares a chapter in my journey, paired with the symbols and lessons that shaped it. We begin with the climb and the doorway.
Awakening & Release (2018 – 2019)
🏔️ 2018 – Awakening the Climb
In 2018, REIGroup was thriving. I was still giving every ounce of myself to it, working without boundaries, often from sunrise to well past sunset. That rhythm had become my normal.
Late in the year, a few people reached out for help, saying I gave them hope. One conversation with our corporate lawyer stayed in my thoughts. It reminded me that influence can be felt in many ways and often beyond the work itself.
Around this time I began meditating and exploring Bazi, QiMen, and Numerology. These three very different studies seemed to align. They all spoke of change approaching.
During quiet moments a voice within me began offering phrases that felt like anchors:
I am much more than I could think of.
We don’t know what we don’t know.
Resources are always within our reach.
Doing nothing is also an action.
That last one was the hardest for me to accept. As someone who never stopped moving, the idea that stillness could also be a choice was both foreign and confronting. Yet it stayed with me.
🚪 2019 – Closing One Door, Opening Another
If 2018 was about awakening, 2019 was about accepting that change would come. There was no dramatic ending, yet I could feel a chapter turning.
I started to release parts of my work and ways of thinking that no longer felt right. The insights from the year before began to settle deep within me. I still did not know what was on the other side, but I knew I could not keep everything the same.
Some doors closed quietly. One stood slightly open, inviting me forward.
Reflections on Awakening & Release
These two years were the mountain and the doorway. The climb woke me up to my own patterns. The threshold showed me that letting go is as much an act of creation as starting something new.
They also taught me that stillness can be powerful, even for someone who once lived in constant motion. These seasons became the unseen foundation of Soaperoni, holding lessons I still lean on whenever the path ahead feels uncertain. Transformation rarely happens all at once. It begins quietly, often in moments we overlook until much later.
These lessons remind me that transformation is rarely a single leap. It is a series of steps, pauses, and quiet recognitions that shape the path in ways we only understand when we look back.
Next in the Journey
In Part 2: Pivot & Craft (2020–2022) I will share the years when life rearranged itself and the first scents of a new craft began to fill my days.
