Welcome!

Who am I? What is this space about?

The short version: I am a college dropout who loves to read science and philosophy, lives for deep conversations and good memes and ‘90s sitcoms and understanding why things are the way they are. I’m a coach and creator who built a successful business online, but now has a complicated relationship to the internet. Three years ago I left everything familiar behind to travel the world on a 40 ft sailboat, where I live an often uncomfortable but deeply rewarding life in lockstep with the earth.

For those interested in the longer story, allow me to (re)introduce myself.

Over the last decade or two, I have evolved in and out of a multitude of roles and spaces, including:

Photographer, from weddings, portraits and natural landscapes to Olympians and NYT bestselling authors.

Fitness & wellness professional, embarking on a journey from a decade-long pack-a-day smoker and partier to the Head Coach at a large local athletic facility, and sharing my journey on a blog and instagram account that quickly garnered a following.

Body image, food freedom & confidence coach, helping active women accept their bodies as-is in all stages and phases, heal their relationship with food, stop dieting, nourish their hunger in every sense, and soften the inner criticism both inside the gym and out. This is the season in which my podcast was born and the topic on which many of my public speaking engagements and interviews were focused.

Mindset and life coach. As my own personal inner work deepened, a complex neuromuscular injury ended my fitness career in one afternoon in 2018. Fully committed to my own healing and spiritual journey, my public facing work followed along suit and I developed my signature coaching program She Thrives Academy, where I worked intimately with women of all backgrounds, teaching them the inner work to help them feel better in their bodies and lives, connect with their own desires and intuition, and accept themselves mind, body, and soul.

Sailor, vagabond, video creator. In the fall of 2020 my husband and I sold our home and just about every single thing we owned and moved aboard a sailboat, opting out of comfort and the illusion of security in favor of adventure, challenge, and a simpler life, far away from capitalist empty promises and conventional cultural pursuits. With no prior experience to speak of, we sailed out of Seattle and turned left, and plan to continue traveling indefinitely as we document our life aboard with weekly videos on YouTube.

Phew.

And now?

I no longer have my house, 90% of my belongings, the business I spent a decade building, or any of the titles that I wore in my previous life. I am afloat in my tiny home with my husband and two dogs, traveling by the wind to new places, always a stranger, always discovering, always remembering.

What is this space about?

Since pushing off from these shores, my newsletter has become the space where I create, reflect, and share more personally and freely — not as the coach or teacher (though you can still find this perspective on my podcast), but rather as a human, figuring it out as I go, stumbling, learning, and sharing.

What is this space about? It’s an amalgam of all I enjoy thinking about deeply: mindfulness, consciousness and non-duality, the influence of culture and technology on our relationship to ourselves, our forgotten place within and as nature, and navigating both the internal world and outer world, alike.

There are 3 different options for you, as a reader here.

Free subscriber. You will receive about 1-2 newsletters a month. And you are fully and immeasurably welcome here, so please come, settle in, and enjoy this space.

Paid subscriber. You will receive anywhere from 2 to 4 newsletters a month, have full access to all archives in one place, be able to leave comments on all of my posts, get access to my more personal essays and updates, and generally feel pretttty good about yourself being an active supporter of work you value.

Founding member. Substack offers the option for anyone who would like to give more than the currently set amounts — should you choose this, you become a “founding member”, and in my eyes, a total BAMF for whom I’m eternally grateful. I don’t know what perks you get just yet, but there will be perks here. ☺️

If you would like access to all paid subscriber features but cannot afford the $5/month fee, please email me at hello@taylorgage.com and I will grant you a subscription, no questions asked.

xo

Taylor