Find Your Moon
Growing up in Israel—often described as the world’s chaos centre—in a complicated (likely neurodiverse) home, and as an undiagnosed neurodivergent girl (in my days, boys got diagnosed, girls got depressed), chaos was my life experience.
I recently listened to a “Brains On” podcast with my daughter about ADHD. They used the metaphor of music to explain what an ADHD brain would sound like. For me, I would use a visual metaphor: picture it as a graffiti wall with lots of layers, one on top of another, while news clips, animations and drama movies are being projected on it.
Learning how to live, breathe and manage chaos meant survival to me. So from an early age, I used everything I had in me to make sense of the world. I was a strong-willed, shy girl, with a pencil in one hand and a book in another.
Interactions with people felt overwhelming, so I became a facilitator, a leader. Now I had a role. If I called the shots, life felt a little bit less chaotic.
In high school, while being curious and studious, my ability to focus and memorise information was limited. I used my art skills to doodle the class notes. My mom, a teacher herself, taught me how to create mind maps. I found that drawing the content of the test helped me understand it, and if I understood it, I didn’t need to remember it.
Later, I made the visual notes into my profession, from being a graphic designer and illustrator to a graphic recorder. People paid me to organise their chaos and make it clear, beautiful and memorable.
When I needed an escape from the world, I had books. Reading transported me to a world with a beginning, a middle and an end. It gave my senses the much-needed rest.
But chaos was always there, like my shadow. Familiar and overwhelming. I met people who didn’t have chaos as their shadow. People with inner order—people who can focus on what they want and keep the kitchen clean while cooking. For a long time, they looked like supreme beings to me. Only living closely with them revealed that they had their own challenges (OCD, for example, or a strict inner critic).
Through life, years of therapy and working with coaching clients, I have learnt that no one escapes life challenges. If it’s not one challenge, it would be another. And what seems great on the outside might be very different on the inside. Working as a coach, a facilitator or a communication consultant, while the hats I wear are different, I realised that one of my superpowers is being unafraid of people’s chaos. I’m not only unafraid of chaos, but I admit, there is a part of me that can’t wait to get my hands on it and sort it out.
As a coach, my job is not to sort my clients’ chaos—but to be by their side while they make sense of it. Holding a mirror so that they can draw up their map and find their power to navigate. And, while I love that “Super Sorter” part of me and appreciate the great work we've done together over the years, in my coaching work, I need it to take a back seat.
But how do you do that? Is it possible to shift and flex how you've been doing something for many years? Something that you got really good at but is just not helpful in a new role, life stage, or relationship?
For a long time, I tried to push aside “Super Sorter” only to discover it snapped back in when I didn’t notice. I tried shame, guilt, and brute force. But by trying to harm it, I was hurting myself. My stress and anxiety levels went up.
I would love to write that I found the solution, but the truth is I’m still finding it. Taking a year break from work and letting myself focus on self-care and my creative expression made a huge difference. I was taught self-compassion by great teachers: motherhood and loss.
Recently, I explored my relationship with chaos with my supervisor, who invited me to write a poem about it. Here it is:
The stars are messy too,
in the night sky.
But the moon,
she doesn’t mind
While writing this poem, I was imagining meeting a new client, the wish to take all of her mess and chaos and make it into order. To fix this for her. And while observing the part of me that was ready to launch in, I was holding the hand of another part that felt very small and overwhelmed. She wanted to hide from the complexity of thoughts, ideas and emotions. I could feel the tension in my body. My jaw clenched, my belly tight.
Once the poem was on the paper, I felt the shift. I could breathe freely again. I could see myself with those twins, Super Sorter, who wants to put all chaos into order, and the little one who wants to hide from it all. I could see the three of us standing under a clear night sky, looking up. I could feel the sense of wonder and terror, exactly the way I used to feel it as a young child who could hardly bring herself to look at the night sky. When I looked at the stars, my small earthly being would disappear between the Milky Way and Orion’s belt, between planets and supernovas, black holes and white giants.
Now, I can feel their wonder and terror. I hold their hands tight. I feel myself being the moon. Suspended in space, surrounded by millions of stars, enjoying the beautiful, endless complexity with no need to understand it. I am it.
Now that it’s not either sort the mess or hide away, who will I find in me next? The possibilities are endless! An astronomer, exploring distant galaxies from afar? Or the mystic that can see the future between the rising of Venus and the setting of Mars? Or a seafarer who knows how to find her way through storms guided by the north star?
I don’t need to know right now.
I trust that there’s another poem that will guide me through when the time is right.
As we stand on the threshold of 2026, if you happen to meet my old friend chaos, know that you are not alone. You might want to resist the urge to set up new yearly goals and quickly tidy up the learning from the past year. Instead, join me in slowing down and finding a place in you that can be okay with not knowing.
Anchor yourself in the beauty of the complex system we are a part of and find trust in the deep wisdom of being you.
I’m grateful to all the clients who chose to work with me this year. I cherish our journeys. You helped me grow, and I hope you found what you needed.
May 2026 hold you gently. May your stars shine brightly, may you find your way in the sea of life, no matter the weather inside and out.
Happy holidays!