Rightsizing Your Life
to find the shape of your soul
I planted two bare feet on the ground and pulled. The hydrangea bush came out with one last snap—the bare, spidery-long roots popping from the soil so fast I nearly fell back on my butt.
I had been at it for hours, removing bush after bush of the watery blue blooms.
It wasn’t that the plants weren’t healthy. Oh, they were.
It wasn’t that they weren’t beautiful—I’m sure someone else would have loved them.
It was simply that they weren’t right for the space, for my space, for what it was I was here to create.
I inherited what is now my garden. Its predecessors had spent countless hours creating what must have been an utter masterpiece when they first put it in twenty years ago. But by the time I bought my house, all the grounds had fallen into disarray. It had been years since anyone had cared for the diversely planted forest beds and so, in the interim, the blue hydrangeas had simply taken over.
It took me a whole year before I started pulling them. I just felt so guilty.
Who was I to decide what should grow here? I didn’t have anything against blue hydrangeas, per se. They were clearly happy where they were and they were objectively nice-looking…
But then I had a realization.
Things in our lives don’t have to be bad in order to shift them.
We don’t have to get to the point where something is absolutely untenable to make a change.
Life isn’t always requiring us to toss everything in a dump heap and light it on fire when something isn’t working…it’s simply nudging us to take an honesty inventory of what we actually want to cultivate with our time here on this planet, and rightsizing our life accordingly.
So I started pulling the hydrangeas. The work was much harder than I thought, but in the end, I had one perfectly proportioned bush left and a whole swath of space for other things—the plants, and projects, I was truly excited about…
A bluebell meadow, a border of trilliums, a nursery to raise endangered goldenseal and ginseng.
And something else, even more important, happened—I suddenly had space for the unfolding of my own life.
What if the changes we’re longing for aren’t about deciding whether something is good or bad—but about finally seeing the right shape it’s meant to take in our lives?
This is exactly what my new podcast is about. If you’ve been feeling the need for a change, to invite more creative energy, clarity, and potential into your world—try on the specific magic of rightsizing your life. Press play below to tune into:
How rightsizing isn’t about minimalism or upgrading—it’s calibrating your life to fit your soul because the right container allows you to be your full self.
Why more doesn’t always equal expansion. The life-giving relationship between limits, coherence, and creativity.
Not all exhaustion is resistance…sometimes it’s information. How our nervous system will show us when something needs to be rightsized in our lives.
A practical rightsizing inventory. Questions to help you assess your home, schedule, relationships, and creative life through the lens of what truly sustains you.
Why the goal isn’t comfort—it’s aliveness. What becomes possible when your life finally fits.
This podcast was a deeply personal one for me because, for the past few months, I’ve been in a process of literally rightsizing everything in my life—relationships, finances, my garden, my house, my work schedule…
And it’s been liberating.
Among the biggest changes I’ve made has been letting go of the too-big containers of Instagram and Facebook and officially rightsizing where my precious attention and creativity go by moving this newsletter to Substack.
It has been one of the most freeing choices I’ve made in a long time and I’m so grateful for everyone who has come along on this journey with me.
Because here’s the thing…
When you actually listen to the voice within you that is asking you quietly to recalibrate your life to what is right for you—you end up creating a container that holds the very thing you came here to experience…your own soul’s unfolding.
To finding the right containers for our souls' width,
Asia
P.S. I’m curious…what are you ready to rightsize in your life? Let me know in our lovely new comment section below.
Dear Asia and your lovely team,
I smiled as you began digging out the old long rooted hydrangea that had been happily taking up space, beautiful but someone else's dream.
And as it happens,I have been walking step for step along side you since January, it seems.
A few weeks ago, I decided to delete my long time poetry blog thecourseofourseason.com and delete my Bluesky account on July 1. Both had become cumbersome, from a dream I had in another place and time.
Its time to start anew.
I have plans for new poetry, a renewal of once loved craft and a choice to spend my time without the aid of artificial intelligence as much as I'm able in this world.
I look forward to seeing where our paths lead as we free ourselves from hydrangeas of old dreams.
Blessings to you and your team
Kathleen Everett
Thank you Asia 🙏 I'm looking forward to listening to your newest podcast later on! I think it's a very brave decision of you to let go of those two "social" containers. How funny I was just reading in your book yesterday about growing an audience in chapter Drop Dosages 🙂 I have such contradicting feelings about social media and ... hello I'm not alone in this. I deleted the apps a few weeks ago and oh how quickly so much shifted energetically. I don't know how you do it, touching and feeling into the synchronicity in themes appearing in my life. Like you say, there's no need for a good or a bad side. Sometimes the shoe just doesn't fit anymore. Rightsizing for me personally also meant to call in the flower essences again.
For the hydrangeas you pulled up I will be planting three in my front yard this weekend 😊