Zoe Graman - Revealing the True Self Within

Michelangelo once said: “The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work. It is already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.” 

Our journeys of self-discovery, of healing, can be seen in much the same light. We hold the answers within ourselves – our true self, our true nature, is already complete within, we just need to find the tools to help us let go of that which masks who we truly are.

For many of us, we spend much of our lives attempting to create outcomes; trying to get others to like us, trying to create an image that we think will lead to happiness and inclusivity, trying to fit in with peers and society at large.

We work for the “yes’s”.

Yes, your grades are good enough therefore you are good enough to be in this college.

Yes, you have a degree and are therefore good enough to work at this company for whatever we are willing to offer.

Yes, you make enough money and have good enough credit and, therefore, are good enough to be lent money to buy a house.

Yes, you were enough to receive this “yes”, but you are not enough yet to get the next “yes”.

What if we are already enough for all of the “yes’s”?

What if we held all the answers that we will ever need in life and, what if, it has never even been about the yes’s, the outcomes, but instead about chipping away at the superfluous materials and how we go about it?

What if it is about engaging in a delicate dance of grounding into the inner truth that we hold in the lightest embraces while dancing a tango of wild abandon with the outcomes, the attachments, the superfluous masks that we wear that we create and accept from others that makes it harder and harder to keep that light touch on our true inner being?

What if it is about letting the rock tell you which tool to use to reveal its inner truth instead of making the strikes against the rock that the sculptor thinks will create the sculpture that they think the rock should take the form of?

How many beautiful works of sculpture would exist if the sculptor spent their time looking for a stone that was already shaped in the image that they had in mind to sculpt?

How many exist now because there were sculptors who saw what was inside of the stone and were then willing to do the work to set it free?

The lack of satisfaction that comes from getting the house, getting the job, from doing…doing...doing in order to achieve our answer, our happiness, is because we are chasing an answer that can’t be chased. It’s already here – in the journey; in the knowing.

In the rock.

Inside each of us.

Zoe Graman, a Psychic and Intuitive coach based in Portland, Oregon, has danced with these ideas of remembering our true selves and has, like the rest of us, experienced the struggles of living in alignment with who we are at our essence versus being who we think we should be in order to get the outcome that we hoped for and had been taught to want.

In early life, Zoe, due to frequent moves, was often forced to navigate new schools, new people and the oft-dreaded new lunchrooms. With each stop Zoe was presented with the challenge to learn the new “ways” of her peers. What groups act which way? Who eats lunch with who? Where does the new girl fit it in?

Sometimes we believe we fit in best by becoming who we think others would like for us to be; how society tells us to be; how the media and numerous other sources program us to think we should be.

Instead of chipping away at the superfluous rock that surrounds our true selves then, we become like a conglomerate rock: taking on personality traits that we feel others will prefer, trying to get our bodies to fit an “ideal” that doesn’t exist and solidifying it all in the glue of societal norms. These additional bits of rocks, shell and hardened sand make it harder to recall the sculpture that is inside, the true self and the answer to our “why”.

But the true self, the “why”, is still there and tends to show in life, even if subtly. It is the first halting steps in the dance between unveiling the true sculpture within us and sculpting ourselves as we think we should be – the former being the true inner form and the latter holding a hint of the truth but mostly formed by external pressures.

As Zoe began her adult life still sculpting her life in a form that she felt was how she was supposed to look, how she was supposed to act and working towards outcomes that she had been told she should want, while trying to fit into the norms that she felt she should conform to, she began a career, after completing her college degree, in Human Resources working for a couple of start-up tech companies.

These jobs offered Zoe some insight into what she did and didn’t like about her career and, ultimately, offered her a new path, one that she jumped into wholeheartedly when the circumstance for change she had been calling into her life happened in the form of being part of a company-wide layoff.

Sometimes we are able to reconnect to our true pictures through personal practices and journeys.

Sometimes we are able to chip away at some of the unneeded weight we carry by communing with nature, by dancing, singing, or writing. 

Sometimes we need help.

Guidance.

Prior to the lay-offs from her Human Resources job, Zoe began an early morning practice of self-care in the form of mediation, yoga and listening to podcasts about spiritualism – tools that she would continue to learn to wield as she began learning a new way to sculpt her life. Additionally, Zoe learned about coaching and an alternative way to run a business and to be of service to others when the company she had been working for brought in a coach to help the executives create a different culture utilizing tools that he had learned from business and through his own spiritual journey.

The executives may not have utilized the knowledge that this coach had but Zoe did. Through numerous conversations with the executive coach Zoe’s inner purpose began to become more in focus as their conversations revealed to her a way that she could help others in a positive and nurturing way that often felt impossible in her current line of work.

Though scary, the lay-off was the first step in creating space in Zoe’s life to allow her the opportunity to pursue work more in-line with what she wanted to do, what she was meant to do.

Letting go of an apartment she loved.

Moving back in with her family.

Starting and completing her coaching training.

Starting and completing her coursework in psychic school.

By listening to her intuition and discerning the path that was most in-line with her inner-truth, Zoe began chipping away more and more of the superfluous parts of self that she had collected and claimed throughout her life.

Each sculpture requires different tools to set it free. Some require large portions to be chiseled off with abandon while others require a more delicate and thoughtful touch.

Through her training to become a coach as well as her training to use her intuitive gifts, Zoe began seeing and embracing herself for who she truly is and from her experiences over this transitional time in her life she embraced the desire to start her own business to help others find connection to their true selves.

Starting her business during the height of the COVID pandemic was both difficult to navigate and held many possibilities to help others as many had new found time to be introspective and wonder what else life might hold if we learned more about who we are. The physical separation from one another created the need to feel close in other ways and Zoe’s business began helping fill the void for others as she offered first her coaching skills then her psychic/intuitive readings.

Along with finding support from her mentors, friends and through therapy, Zoe has also discovered a form of self-discovery and healing from an unexpected source – entrepreneurship.

“(My) business is an extension of me, or is an expression of me…So all of the ways that I’m afraid to take up space, am afraid of being seen, or am afraid of being invalidated or judged by people…being afraid to talk about myself of promote myself…all of my stuff comes up in my business for me to look at and clear and heal and it’s really powerful and challenging.”

From the experience of finding that there are no one-size-fits-all answers to starting and maintaining a business, Zoe created an offering for fellow entrepreneurs called Emergence that creates a space for Zoe and her clients to work intuitively to explore what is most in alignment with each individual’s true self and how that extends to their business. Placing the personal journey of the individual first, and honoring the special differences in all of us, Emergence offers validation to what each business owner knows and believes in themselves, and the methods that are true and right for them, but that they may sometimes lose sight of as they navigate all of the nuances and pressures of starting a business and sharing their work with the world.

Along with the Emergence program, Zoe also offers intuitive readings as one-offs and in packages of 3 or 6 sessions, as well as a 1-on-1 coaching program called Becoming, where Zoe works with clients to help them learn to connect to and trust their intuition, and step into the power of who they really are, trusting that what they hold inside is worthy of being shown to the world.

As a Psychic and Intuitive coach, and now teacher with The Clairity School, Zoe doesn’t tell her clients what the future holds, but reminds them of what they already know, pointing them back to their truth, and offering resources that allow them to keep chipping away at that rock – doing the real work that comes when one already knows (or has been reminded of) the answer. Zoe is able to offer this support, this guidance, to others because she has been doing it for herself for many years now and has learned from her journey the importance of finding the right tools, the right knowledge and the right way of being that has helped enable her to let go of the pictures that she had about herself and see the truth of who she is and what she is meant to do in this lifetime.

And she does it out of love. Love for others. Love for life. Love for seeing others find themselves just as Zoe has found herself.

As someone who has been fortunate to work with Zoe and experience the healing and validation first hand that her gifts can provide, I’m hoping that, when not nurturing herself spending time with her friends, family and dogs, that Zoe will continue to offer her gifts to others so that they to can begin the beautiful process of trusting their intuition and remembering their true essence. I’m grateful to you and for you, Zoe.

(To learn more about Zoe and her work, or to connect with her around her offerings please visit her website at: www.zoegraman.com or connect with her on Instagram at: @zoegraman)