When Success Becomes a Trap and You Don’t Know What’s Next with Christine Thompson (181)

Christine Thompson: The end of understanding exactly what’s about to happen is the beginning of wonder. What’s interesting is success can be just as much of a pigeonhole in a trap as we perceive or believe failure to be.

Kate Northrup: Welcome to Plenty. I have one of my dearest local Nashville friends plus one of my neighbors here on this episode today,and it’s one of the most unexpected adventures I’ve been on yet during Plenty. I’m still feeling for clumped. Christine Thompson is the author of the brand new book, Alchemy of Chaos, a radical guide for harnessing the power of the unknown. And she’s an executive adviser to CEOs, visionaries, public figures, and family offices. The client roster that Christine works with are a list of household names.

She is one of the most subtly powerful humans I have ever met. She knows how to work with energy and power in a way that most people will never understand, and she is hilarious, and magical, and fun, and wise. She and I met through our dear friend, Ruthie Lindsay, and when she started telling me about her book, I I knew that I wanted to have this conversation on Plenty, and this has been a really meaningful text companion guide for me over these last few weeks as I’m navigating my own questions, my own version of chaos, my own version of walking into the unknown, seeing what I can see in the dark. So I will just say that in this episode, we talk about the writing process and when things take so much longer than you thought they would. We talk about being the one who wrote the guide that you needed even though you didn’t need it until a few years later, and how humbling that is.

And I asked Christine, if I were her client, how would she guide me in this particular moment of navigating the unknown? I asked her a question that I still feel a little edgy about having asked out loud in this forum, but I trust you. So listen in to Christine Thompson and our exploration of alchemy of chaos. Enjoy.

Welcome to Plenty, a weekly recalibration of power, money, and safety for high capacity humans. I’m Kate Northrup, best selling author and creator of Relaxed Money, and this is where neuroscience meets ancient wisdom meets real wealth strategy. This is the sacred conversation at the intersection of money, the body, and the life you’re truly here to live. If you’re ready to reimagine what’s possible for yourself and for the world, you’re in the right place.

Let’s go.

Christine Thompson: Welcome to Plenty. Thank you.

Kate Northrup: Thank you for being here.

I’m so

Christine Thompson: grateful to be here.

Kate Northrup: What a gift. So…

But I did wanna say, and I think you know this already, but you are a very critical part of why we live in Nashville. Mhmm. Because our mutual friend, Ruthie Yes. Said to me, upon me leaving her home when she did a 7AM tea ceremony for me, which is like my favorite invitation ever. I was leaving the door, and she said, I think you need to meet my friend Christine.

And I was here for Thanksgiving visiting Nashville looking for this particular grass I had seen in my future self meditation, which is another story for another day. And then you… She introduced us, and you found time to meet with me the day after Thanksgiving, the weekend before you were moving, you know, as you

Christine Thompson: I forgot that detail. That was a very particular scene.

Kate Northrup: That was a very particular scene. And the fact that you found time, and we met at the factory, and we were sitting, and my kids were eating hot dogs. And I don’t remember exactly what was going on, but you were talking about your life and just who you were. And I remember I was, like, moved to tears, and I was like, oh, I can move here because there are… Christine is here, and there are people like Christine.

And I just knew in that moment that this was our place. And so… Yeah. Oh, thank you. Thank you.

I didn’t know that. Yeah.

Christine Thompson: That’s profound for me to hear.

: That’s really beautiful. So just know that who you

Kate Northrup: are is you are a gateway. Thank you. You know, for me, and I know thousands of others because of the work that you do, even though

so far, it’s been relatively hidden and still.

But I feel that that is changing.

Apparently. Mhmm. It’s it’s changing. So I wanna know.

Here we are. We’re a couple of weeks before the official release of your absolutely freaking brilliant book, Alchemy of Chaos, which I have read all of 381 pages of, except for Tim. Uh-huh. And by the time this episode comes out, I will have read those 10. So I wanna know, what is it like to be you right now on this particular threshold?

Oh, I

Christine Thompson: am overwhelmed in the best way. I’ve never known a positive overwhelm. Overwhelm has always felt like something that’s grinding me under. And in this particular moment, on this particular day, at this threshold, weeks from everything having this the end is the beginning, the beginning is the end moment, I am overwhelmed with dreams coming true.

Kate Northrup: Yeah. Have you ever heard that phrase, drowning in answered prayers? Yes. Yeah.

Kate Northrup: Yeah. Have you ever heard that phrase, drowning in answered prayers? Yes. Yeah.

Christine Thompson: Yes. Exactly. Yeah. A a client of mine also said something along the lines of how how grateful are we to be overwhelmed by a life that we once dreamed of.

Kate Northrup: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So Alchemy of Chaos came to you all at once Mhmm. In 2020.

Kate Northrup: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So Alchemy of Chaos came to you all at once Mhmm. In 2020.

Yes. Can you share that story Yeah. Of how it came through?

Christine Thompson: It felt like words and phrases and ideas, the… It was almost the whisper of them were dropped into my hands. And I… It felt like I was chosen. That’s a little woo, a little out there, but I believe with my whole heart and soul that I was meant to bring this into the world of form.

Yeah. And it was it was right at the onset of COVID. I had just gotten back from New York. I was visiting a client in New York. And I had gone to my favorite Italian restaurant, Via Carrata, the night before I had gotten back.

And it was right when everything was still normal, but you could feel that something big

Kate Northrup: So it’s like probably, like, what? March shift.

Christine Thompson: Twelfth. March 12. Yes.

Kate Northrup: 2020.

Christine Thompson: Yeah. I I really do think it was March 12. Yeah. Kate, how did you know that?

Kate Northrup: Because I was in New York that weekend.

Christine Thompson: Of course. You were in

Kate Northrup: New York. I remember I was with my girlfriends. We were on a girls trip, and we got there. And then by the end of it, everybody’s school had been closed the following week and we’re… The world changed Uh-huh.

Over that weekend.

Christine Thompson: Uh-huh. It’s exactly March 12. Yeah. And and it was like you could feel this energy in the air. It was this ambient awareness that everyone…

Their… Our nervous systems knew before our minds would let us believe it. Mhmm. That everything we knew was about to change quickly. Yeah.

And so I got home and I was sitting with this this energy. And it wasn’t a negative thing somehow. It… I almost felt guilty that I didn’t feel scared because I could feel that there was fear in the atmosphere, and I sat down at my desk in my office because my schedule had gotten cleared for

Kate Northrup: For

Christine Thompson: weeks, my schedule had gotten cleared for me. No travel. Every Because you

Kate Northrup: do your work largely in person?

Christine Thompson: Yes. Well, certain aspects of it. Yeah. We’re largely in person. Right.

And at the time, I was doing a lot of off sites and workshops and leading all of these conversations, and there are a lot of big things happening that spring. Like, the spring calendar was packed with travel. And

Kate Northrup: Until it wasn’t?

Christine Thompson: Until it absolutely was not, and it was just vacant. And so I sat down in my office, and I was like, what is this? What am I feeling? What is inside of me? I remember just feeling like I couldn’t get comfortable.

You know? Like, I think I talk in the… I don’t even know if I talk in the book about this, but there was a version of when I was telling the story in the book where I felt like I was eleven months pregnant.

Kate Northrup: Mhmm.

Christine Thompson: You know, when you’re just… You are at that place where you don’t know when it’s gonna happen, but you know something big is happening any moment, and it’s gonna change your life. Yeah.

Kate Northrup: That is a… I remember that so well because I gave birth to Ruby at 41 Yes. Point two weeks. And I was like Alright, girl. I was I was a hundred and ninety pounds.

And like, okay. Let’s move this one. Are But that pause.

Christine Thompson: Making That pause. Yes. Yeah. But it’s the… It’s a very particular type of pause where you know your life is changing profoundly, and you don’t know exactly when, and you don’t really have control over

Kate Northrup: Mhmm.

Christine Thompson: That part. Mhmm. That’s how it felt when I was in

Kate Northrup: my office that day. And when you wrote the quote unquote… Well, so you wrote the piece, which is in the book.

Mhmm.

And then what alchemy of chaos is, which was written through you, and then the words that became the curriculum. How soon after that did you invite your first cohort to go through this experience with you, and how did you know who to invite?

Christine Thompson: It was less than ten days Uh-huh. After the whisper of the idea was there. And I think it was another ten days after that that I was leading the first session. Wow. Which was unprecedented for me.

Okay. Because in other times of life, I needed to plan everything, something public facing. You know? Like, you need to develop the thing that you’re gonna teach. Right?

No. That is not what Alchemy of Chaos had asked me to do. Alchemy of Chaos had asked me to begin before you’re ready and send the invite even though you don’t even know what it is. And so I knew the right people to invite were people that were in it and had stakes, like high stakes around them so that the conversations would have weight to them. So leaders, thinkers, builders, activators, these kinds of people that…

It was it was an incredible array of powerful personalities and and people. And I knew that I wanted people to come into this space in the same place that I was in, which was this forced, you don’t know what’s gonna happen, and that’s by design. So in the same way that I felt alchemy of chaos was like, you don’t know what’s gonna happen, but you’re gonna do it anyway, I offered that same energy to the people that I invited, people that were open minded, people that were willing to not know… Not need to have an agenda for the next nine weeks of their life, and people that were that were good

Kate Northrup: And how many cohorts did you end up leading?

Christine Thompson: There were four cohorts total. Four?

Kate Northrup: Yes. Over twenty twenty or over a couple of years?

Christine Thompson: Over a couple of Over a couple of years. Yes. And those are the official cohorts. But then I was unofficially doing Of course. Other…

We’ll call them cohorts with different client systems and And

Kate Northrup: I’m sure that this has… This work has informed this body of work has informed every client relationship since. And so I’m particularly curious. I have found that I have needed and continued to need in a humbling way the things that I have created, but at a later date.

Christine Thompson: Yes. I

Kate Northrup: feel you. Embarrassing how much I go back, and

I’m like, I did write about that, but I just need to do that. So can you tell me how since you completed this book, which was like, when did you kind of complete it ish?

Christine Thompson: Oh gosh. Was so

Kate Northrup: many versions.

Christine Thompson: I guess the first complete… The the version… The first version that I thought was complete was in 2024. Wow. Yeah.

Kate Northrup: This has really been a journey.

Christine Thompson: It it is a That was journey

Kate Northrup: about this.

Christine Thompson: It was

Kate Northrup: Okay. Wow. I don’t know whether to feel embarrassed or Okay. So I was gonna ask a different question, but I’m gonna ask this What… Like what is that?

What do you… What is going on, and why do you think, and what has been the benefit Mhmm. Of it taking so much longer than you might have imagined? Or maybe you thought it was gonna take this long.

Christine Thompson: No. I don’t. No. Every year was me saying to myself, okay, Christine. Get your shit together.

This is the year that this needs to be published. Every year since when? Every year since I started writing it in 2020, and then I got very scared of it. Okay. I got very scared of it, put it down for a year and a half.

Okay. Mhmm. It was just… I just said it was very overwhelming. I couldn’t handle…

I didn’t feel that I was ready. Mhmm. And I wanted to be ready so but I couldn’t. I didn’t. Uh-huh.

It wasn’t there. But I wrote the first messy draft. I finished it in… What would that be? Oh, gosh.

Now I’m getting mixed up on my years. I believe it was December 2022. Okay. Yes. That is correct.

1. December, January, December 2022, early twenty twenty three. Yeah. And then it was a messy draft for a good eight months that I was scared to read.

Kate Northrup: Mhmm.

Christine Thompson: I finished it, and then I didn’t wanna read it. I carried it around in my purse, hard copy, and didn’t pull it out, Kate.

Kate Northrup: So genius.

Christine Thompson: Yeah. For eight months. For eight You

Kate Northrup: just had it in your purse?

Christine Thompson: Tucked in my purse. It took up an entire section of my

Kate Northrup: purse. As you know, this is not a short book. No. It’s a really big book. Uh-huh.

So it makes sense it took that long. Yes. With long gestation period.

Christine Thompson: Long gestation. But… I kept having this thought, like, Christine, what are you doing? You are not doing this justice because it was kind of after COVID had settled down. You know, everyone’s like, okay.

We survived the pandemic. And I like, People coulda really used this in the… In a pandemic, you know, all the waves of COVID. I feel like I missed my moment. I missed the moment for alchemy of chaos.

And then and then it was like World War three was happening, and then it was Russia and Ukraine, and and then economies were going crazy. And every time one of these things was happening on the world stage, I was like, Christine, the people should have had alchemy of chaos.

Kate Northrup: Is amazing. And yet.

Christine Thompson: Not yet. Not yet.

Kate Northrup: And turns out, we will never have a shortage of chaos. This, which

Christine Thompson: is what I write about. What is chaos? Chaos is the nonlinear void from which all possibility arises. Yeah. It is pure creative force that makes up our entire universe and our entire life experience.

It is the epitome of the unknown and the uncontrollable, but also it calls us into presence.

Kate Northrup: Mhmm. It’s the black hole.

Christine Thompson: It is the black hole.

Kate Northrup: It’s the womb. Mhmm. It’s the the darkness. Mhmm. It’s so crazy because I I brought this book with me.

So because… Due to due to the date of your book launch, and due to how much I love this book and how much I love you, I felt really committed to getting this episode out to support the launch. And I know that, like, being visible in this way is an edge for you, which we’re gonna talk about. And so I brought this giant freaking doorstop of a book, which I never carry hardcovers on an airplane ever, let alone thick ones. Right.

I brought it to Peru with me on this recent Such a complicated ten day adventure I was on, and I schlepped this thing in my bag, and I was so happy to do so. And I read it, you know, all between, you know, The US and South America and all the different cities and trains and buses and whatever. And one of the things that I heard during a ceremony in Peru, I wasn’t doing plant medicine just in case anybody was curious. I have no problem with doing plant medicine. I just wasn’t on this trip.

Because you go to Peru, everyone’s like, oh, are you doing Ayahuasca? Yeah. That’s

Christine Thompson: the assumption.

Kate Northrup: No. I was with the medicine of the mountains and, like, breath, I guess. But I heard during this incredible ceremony, we need not be afraid of the dark. And there was so much in our trip around jaguar medicine, and I don’t know if… Okay.

So that is ringing a bell. Tell me about your recognition of the jaguar.

Christine Thompson: Well, when you said jaguar, it reminded me of Black Panther. I I kind of see those as the same. Mhmm. And that you had mentioned darkness, and then I was thinking about the chapter in Darkness Yes. Where I talk about

Kate Northrup: darkness and the Black Panther. Exactly. So I had already read the in darkness chapter Yes. Before I was in Peru. And by the way, you are one of three of my friends who have done that retreat, and we’re gonna talk about that in a minute.

But it was so wild when that came to me, and and just the… How the web of life is being… Is holding us at all times. You said something before we started recording about before I told you the champ, you don’t have to know the way. The way knows the way.

Mhmm. You said something about being held and guided, but do you remember what it was?

Christine Thompson: Oh, that there is a a fundamental undercurrent of force and energy that is holding us and connecting all things. Exactly.

Kate Northrup: So we just don’t have to work so freaking hard. Yes. And that, like, we need not be afraid of the dark. I was like, how cool that I’m getting that message right now as I’m in this ceremony where we’re honoring the energy of the jaguar, which is the energy of the West, which is the energy of the setting sun and the darkness. And I was like, and I have this book with me, Alchemy of Chaos, which is literally sort of a…

It’s it’s… I wouldn’t call it a guide, but it is a companion to walk into the darkness or just to be enveloped in in in chaos. So you went on a retreat Mhmm. Last minute. Yes.

Last minute. Can you tell me about this experience, whatever feels important right now vis a vis Black Panther, Jaguar

Christine Thompson: Yes. The West.

Kate Northrup: We need not be afraid of the dark.

Christine Thompson: Darkness, chaos, the unknown. Yeah. All of it. Yes. So this was…

It’s called a darkness retreat. Yep. And Unlike Southern Oregon or something? Southern Oregon. Yep.

In the wilderness, like you’re in the mountains. You know? And I had been wanting to go for a year and a half. I was on the wait list for a long time. And then anytime there was a date that came up, it was like…

You know, it’s kinda like, here’s the date that just came up. Can you come? And I could never come. There was always something that was very important that was already planned that I couldn’t come. Yeah.

So on this day that I got this text from Scott, the the man who is amazing, who leads these retreats, He said, can you come? I know this is last minute, but you’d have to be here in… I think it was three days from then. Mhmm. And I just knew that it was time.

And so I catapulted myself into this retreat that normal me would have thought I needed a few weeks to journal about, and prepare for, and orient myself towards.

Kate Northrup: And, like, put on an autoresponder and Yes. Get get the work off your plate.

Christine Thompson: Yes. Yeah. I I remember being on the plane doing final edits. Final edits. The book, sending

Kate Northrup: into one of my development letters.

Christine Thompson: When was this, Kate? I I believe it was 2024.

Christine Thompson: When was this, Kate? I I believe it was 2024.

Kate Northrup: Yeah. Because it was before we

Christine Thompson: February 2024.

Kate Northrup: Yeah. Yes. Yes. Mhmm.

Christine Thompson: Yeah. And it was all… This retreat invites you to literally step into the impenetrable void of darkness, and you’re alone in a cave. I was there for four whole days, a little bit less. It was it was a little bit short of ninety six hours.

Kate Northrup: Was about ninety one. Three sleeps.

Christine Thompson: Or four. Four sleeps.

Kate Northrup: Uh-huh. And then whatever the time around that is. And you literally… It’s not one of those dark experiences where it’s like, oh, they turn off the lights, you can’t see anything. But then, you know, your eyes adjust and you can.

No. It’s not that. No. There’s literally no light.

Christine Thompson: There is no light. I remember how disorienting it was that there was literally no light because I would hold my hand in front of my face and shake it around, and you can’t even see a shadow of of movement. It was the darkest dark I’ve ever been in. Uh-huh. Mhmm.

Kate Northrup: And what was that like at first?

Christine Thompson: At first, I thought I was going to crawl out

Kate Northrup: of my skin and pull the escape hatch. Right. Like if you really freak out, is there like a button you can Yeah.

Christine Thompson: If you really freak out, you can walk out. Oh, you can just open the door? You can just walk out.

Kate Northrup: Yeah. Sort of like life.

Christine Thompson: Yeah. You’re not… Yeah. Yes. Sort of like life.

Kate Northrup: Okay. So you’re in there by choice. Yes. Which is beautiful, also not traumatizing. So that’s great.

Christine Thompson: No. It’s not it’s not a traumatizing thing. No. You know?

Kate Northrup: No. Which is what I’ve gathered from you and my other friends who have done this. So at first, you’re crawling out of your skin. What was going on in your mind? What was happening with your thought?

Christine Thompson: It was a ping pong ball. I felt like a… What’s that game where you pass the buttons? Not ping pong.

Kate Northrup: Ping ball. Pinball. Pinball. It…

Christine Thompson: My mind was I like the

Kate Northrup: song from Tommy in my head. You know? Yes. Yeah. Right.

Yes. Yeah. The pinball wizard.

Christine Thompson: The pinball wizard. That my mind. It was loud, and things were blinking everywhere, and random music, and thoughts, and chaos chaos in a way that I had not experienced. Because I think of myself as a pretty calm, centered Yeah. Experienced you that way.

Thank you. I appreciate that affirmation. Yeah. I was

Kate Northrup: You’re not were really fun, but also generally speaking like a

Christine Thompson: Yes.

Kate Northrup: Centered human.

Yeah.

Christine Thompson: Yeah. Which I feel that I’ve worked hard to cultivate. So I was… It… I I think in that first little bit, and again, don’t know how much

Kate Northrup: time has passed. Right.

Christine Thompson: So I don’t know how long that lasted, but I… Not only was I immersed in a pinball machine of a mind, and it was layers and layers of it, I was freaked out by the fact that that could happen to me because it it it kind of collapsed my self-concept. So I’m also having an identity crisis Uh-huh. While this is happening.

Kate Northrup: Right. So your witness self Uh-huh. Is also freaking out.

Christine Thompson: Oh, yes.

Kate Northrup: You have multiple layers of freak out.

Christine Thompson: All the layers of self were, like, very, very not okay. Yeah. Very not okay.

Kate Northrup: And then that lasts until what?

Christine Thompson: Until I catch myself thinking or… Yes. I catch my true self thinking, my mind is a circus. Oh my gosh. My mind.

My… Is going on with my mind? And in the presence of these questions, suddenly, I realized if I’m talking about my mind, if I’m thinking about the state of my mind, then my mind is separate from me. And all of a sudden, it was just very simple. Right.

Very simple in the presence of this thought. It all stopped. And it was like, you know, like, as if you are suddenly like an astronaut outside of the spaceship floating in antigravity. Just no pressure, no noise, peace, pure peace. And I had known this concept.

People have talked about this through their meditation journeys.

Kate Northrup: For sure. It’s the whole basis of the untethered soul. It’s… Which I couldn’t read because I found it too dense. But anyway Yes.

Christine Thompson: Regardless. There’s surrender experiment, though.

Kate Northrup: What we talked about.

Christine Thompson: Obsessed

Kate Northrup: with that book.

Right? Yeah.

Christine Thompson: Same. And I read that years ago. Yeah. When I was pregnant with Atlas, you know, eleven years ago, I knew this, but I didn’t know it.

Kate Northrup: It’s it’s a different thing Yes. To know. It’s like you… You know, proverbially, you just opened the door

Christine Thompson: Yes. And left

Kate Northrup: the cave even though you were still in the cave.

Christine Thompson: Still in the cave.

Kate Northrup: Just practically speaking, like, what did you what did you do in there?

Christine Thompson: Nothing. That’s the other thing, Kate. We’re doers. You know?

Kate Northrup: Sure. Totally.

Christine Thompson: And we doing? What What we doing? What are we achieving? What are we accomplishing? Stretch?

I don’t remember stretching.

Kate Northrup: Literally, like, I’m like, what would I do? I don’t know. Maybe I would do, like, a Pilates mat routine or something.

Christine Thompson: There’s… It almost feels silly to think that I could do that because I was so in a crisis of not being able to do anything. Mhmm. And it was just everything, every construct of how I had built my self -concept, my identity, and my life, and my sense of self, my sense of… I realized my sense of self was based on achievement, and movement, and progress, and thinking, and da da da da.

And you… There is nothing to do. You can you can lay on the bed. Mhmm. You can sit in the chair.

Mhmm. You can take a bath.

Kate Northrup: Oh, that’s a tub.

Christine Thompson: That’s nice. There’s a there’s a tub with salt water in this cave.

Kate Northrup: Very lovely.

Christine Thompson: It’s a it’s a luxury cave. Okay? It’s a luxury. It is in the Earth. It is made of Earth, but it is a luxury cave.

And you can eat. Uh-huh. But there’s only so much Right. That is available to eat. Right.

And I did have a journal with me. Interesting. Yes. And so I would take my pen, and I would write a line. And I would hold my finger on the page.

I would write a line, and then I would move my finger down, and I would match my pen up with my finger and write and I would write and I would write. And one of the plot twists of this experience is I got out of there so excited to read what was in this journal because insights were pouring in, especially after I got past the mind. Sure. The pen wasn’t working.

Kate Northrup: Yes. But, of course,

Christine Thompson: I had no idea. I could see little scratch marks, you know, and what a profound metaphor.

Kate Northrup: That’s good.

Christine Thompson: Isn’t that crazy? That is good.

Kate Northrup: Uh-huh. Then years go by. Mhmm. The book is gestating. It’s in your purse, whatever is happening.

And you write about… You know, and and I met you just as you were moving out from your family home, literally on the day before

Yes.

You moved, as you were reimagining Yes. Your parenting and life scenarios Yes. Going through this divorce.

Mhmm.

And so what and how were you able to use your own guidance during that disillusion of what you may have imagined Right. Your life to be like?

Christine Thompson: Absolutely. It was critical. This this book was critical in a way that I don’t even know if I have words to describe to you how my realization of the fact that this book existed. I thought it existed for all these leaders and all these people in the world and, oh my gosh, the world and chaos. No.

No. It was for me. It was for me to move through my life in a way that embodied the spirit of The Alchemist. Mhmm. Because I didn’t know that I was going to be filing for divorce.

I didn’t know this. And I was supposed to be releasing… The the book was supposed to be final about two weeks before the conversation emerged Yeah. In the midst of my relationship where I would be filing for divorce. Uh-huh.

And everything was unknown. And I just had to trust fall into life because there was no other choice. And how beautiful the choiceless choice to embrace the chaos that I had been writing about and convincing myself and convincing others that was the womb of all possibility, that was creation, that was the beginning, not the end. Yes, the end of certainty, but therefore the beginning of all possibility. And I was forced to walk that path and live the curriculum in a way that I couldn’t have manufactured.

And so it led to this version of myself that was like, oh, I am who I say I am. And you can’t imagine that to be true. I… Well, at least I couldn’t. I had to know that I know that that is true.

And the way that I received that gift was to walk through that time period of life with a lot more grace and a lot more confidence and trust than a prior version of myself that didn’t have this manuscript in my hands would have been able to.

Kate Northrup: Did you ever go back and, like, specifically reread, or did you just kind of remember little pieces of the of the body of work that you could lean on in any given moment?

Christine Thompson: Both. I I was I was doing… I was working on the edits. Okay. So I was reading parts.

Kate Northrup: Yeah.

Christine Thompson: And and I would also remember things that I had written. I’m like, how did I write that? Because I didn’t know that yet. Like, that’s how it felt. It felt like, how did I write this before?

Yeah. Because I didn’t know how to do this yet.

Kate Northrup: I think that’s incredibly common. And, you know, I think you write about Elizabeth Gilbert and Big Magic Yes. And her… The concept of genius. So talk about what that concept is for those who might not remember.

Christine Thompson: Yes. In this book, Big Magic, which I remember vividly reading, I remember where I was when I read about the concept of genius, and I remember reading about that ideas have consciousness, and that the chief investment officer and I that I was working with at the time, we had already been talking about that. So it was one of those things where I was like, wait. I thought… I kinda thought we were crazy, but now, like, I’m reading this in this book from this woman that I really respect.

So she talks about genius that I I parroted in the book that we don’t… Someone isn’t a genius. You have a genius that comes to you and graces you with its presence, and it gives you access to this realm of information and unknowns and eternity and affinity and, like, how Paulo Coelho talks about in the alchemist, the the the place with the whole soul of the world when everything is written there, and we all have access to it. But first, we have to connect to it. And so a genius is this ethereal, like, concept that comes to us to connect us to that.

Kate Northrup: Yeah. And I do believe that if you hadn’t, just just like Elizabeth talks about, if you hadn’t sat down and listened and written, it would have gone to somebody else. Yes. And interestingly enough, that same year, 2020, I first came upon Kim Krantz’s work. And her…

Whatever. I can’t remember what her deck is called, but it’s round. The the The archetype deck. The archetype deck, but then she did another one that’s the alchemy deck. I I prefer the archetype deck.

I think there’s something more satisfying about the round, the the hexagonal or octagonal, or it’s a little tricky to shuffle. But,

anyway,

I don’t know her. I know nothing about her story. Like, not a thing. But it’s like your book and her decks are cousins. And I just wonder, maybe we’ll find out at some point.

I wonder if there were two, like, twin geniuses coming through at the same time knocking on both of your doors. It’s just… It’s wild even the way the imagery. Who did the gorgeous illustrations in your book? Oh, know.

They’re breathtaking.

Christine Thompson: Maya, she’s she’s Spanish. She lives in Pamplona. Uh-huh. And she is a force.

Kate Northrup: I want… I I was reading the book wanting them printed so I can put out them on my wall. So perhaps you guys might do a limited print run just suggesting that.

Christine Thompson: She’s talked fantastic. We’ve talked about doing a deck. Great. Okay. Table book Okay.

With her art because she’s intuitive, and she’s brilliant.

Kate Northrup: Do you

Christine Thompson: need art pieces are communication devices.

Kate Northrup: Yes. They are. Did she read the chapters and then do them, or did you draw them and say, like, I want this? What happened?

Christine Thompson: She didn’t neither. Option c

Kate Northrup: is There’s always a third door.

Christine Thompson: We sat by a river in the mountains of Spain right on the border of France. Is that the Pyrenees? I think so. Perhaps. Like, kind of like the Basque region.

Okay. Might might be. Wilderness. Okay. Middle of nowhere.

There’s no one else here. And I took her through each chapter beside this river and told her the essence of it. And she took notes, and she’s very much like… She she can communicate in English. Yeah.

But definitely Spanish is her

Kate Northrup: Got it. Her language.

Christine Thompson: Okay. You know?

Kate Northrup: Do you speak Spanish?

Christine Thompson: No. Got it. But we but we communicate very well. Yeah. We we we get it done.

And so she’s taking notes on what I’m saying in Spanish. And then she sat with the essence of each chapter, and she created these arts. The… As she calls them, her draws. She created these draws, and she hand touched on a piece of paper each one of those dots.

This is not digital. She did every single one of those by hand, every single dot.

Kate Northrup: I’m just gonna inverted. Pull to one for those who are watching on YouTube or on video on Spotify because I want you to be able to see what it is that we’re talking about. So, I mean, they’re they’re absolutely stunning, and then you did all these incredibly creative things with words and and moving them around in a way that was really out of the box. And one of the things that I wanna talk about is… So I hang out with people who have made their careers as personal brands.

Christine Thompson: A lot. Lot of those.

Kate Northrup: Lot of those people, and that is not what you do. And I find it so generative and refreshing to talk shop with you Mhmm. Because you come from a completely different world Yes. Than the world that most of the authors I interview come from Yes. Which is very much about, you know, in a way, like, using themselves Mhmm.

To sell their stuff, and you have not done that. And so one of the things that’s so cool about this book is you quote… You know, you broke a

Kate Northruplot of the

rules because you haven’t like been hanging around all the people who do the things. And so I just wanna honor how beautiful that is, and it’s really… It’s fun, it’s so interesting, it’s very generative, it’s like very exciting. So I don’t know really know what I’m saying there, but it’s not really a question that was so interesting.

Christine Thompson: I’m listening to you being like, I don’t even know what rules I broke. Correct. It’s so great.

Kate Northrup: It’s like First of all, this book is like

Christine Thompson: made sense to me. Yes.

Kate Northrup: And that’s what’s so alive about it. Yeah. Because there… You were coloring outside the lines without even knowing that the lines had been there.

Christine Thompson: Kate, that is so cool. That is such an amazing reflection. I did not know that until you just told me that.

Kate Northrup: That’s so good. So I have been… I don’t know how much I wanna say because here, this is a public forum, but not… I mean, it’s not exactly like tens of thousand people of people listen, but, you know, you never know. I have been really in the question around my career.

Mhmm. And I was with a dear friend who I have known in this space for a long time. And we were actually standing at your kitchen island, and we were talking about what we do. And we came up at the same time in this industry, this industry being personal branding, personal growth, entrepreneurship, whatever. And I’m so grateful for my career and the fact that I have gotten to earn a living by being myself.

What a gift. And, also, it feels like sometimes a bit of a trap. Like, I feel a little trapped sometimes because without being public facing and, you know, using my personality that is the, you know, that is the business. And so I’ve been in this chaos Mhmm. Of asking the questions having not known any other way for the last twenty years.

And so your book has been this incredible guide, not to mention it was my companion along this medicine journey with no medicine in Peru. And I think these are the sorts of moments of chaos that you guide your clients through. And so if I were to be your client and come to you, and and I know listeners might be in any version of chaos. They might have a child who’s sick. They might be going through a divorce.

They may have just suffered a great loss in their lives. Their organization might be imploding due to AI, and the way that things are changing. Gas prices might have impacted their supply chain. I don’t know. I mean, any number of Any number of be sent to number of chaos.

Versions of chaos could ensue. And so if I were to be your client and come to you, where would we… Where might we begin with, like, what the… There’s so much I love, and there’s so much that I feel like it’s time for there to be a different way, and I don’t know how to do it any other way than the way I’ve always done it.

Christine Thompson: Juicy and brave for you to be asking these questions. I feel like I shouldn’t say that out loud.

Kate Northrup: But Why? Because the… This conversation is part of that very same business. But it’s also like this is what I do for my soul. I mean, so many friends are like, so is your prop…

You know, does your podcast

make you money? And I’m like, I don’t know.

How would I know the answer to that question?

Christine Thompson: Undetermined. But I

Kate Northrup: do know that I love it.

Yes. So that part…

Christine Thompson: Yeah. Yes. Yes. What… How do you know that it’s time?

How do I know that it’s time?

Kate Northrup: To ask a different question. That it’s time? Well, in January of this year, I could not get off the floor. Mhmm. And I was so irritated, and I didn’t want my kids to go back to school.

It’s the first time in my life that after a two and a half week break, I didn’t want my kids to go back to school. I just wanted to stay reading on my couch by the fire with my kids playing for the rest of my life. And as someone who has historically, like, I love my work, I really listened to that because that was a that was a real contrast to previous experiences. Mhmm. Yeah.

I mean, that’s just one one out of a million people.

Christine Thompson: Yes. Yes. But that that feeling of I I can feel what you’re talking about. Yeah. What’s interesting is success can be just as much of a pigeonhole and a trap as we perceive or believe failure to be.

And the success that you have had doing what you know how to do and moving through life in this way and creating and radiating in the way that you do and watching that materialize into dreams coming true and abundance and sales and connections and community and all of these things, I think this is this is something… This is a conversation that I have had with many people.

Kate Northrup: I bet you have. Yes. That’s why I asked.

Christine Thompson: I’d arrest and… But it’s… I think first acknowledging that this is a part of success that a lot of people don’t necessarily acknowledge because we live in a world that’s driving us all the time towards get to get to success.

Kate Northrup: Illusion of a linear upward trajectory, which is a lie. It is a lie.

Christine Thompson: And so when we come into relationship with that fact of the illusion of it, it’s very disconcerting because we don’t see it coming. Yeah. You know? So the first step that I always want to surface and kind of make sure that we’re all acknowledging is a lot of what the book talks about, which is the end of one way of doing something is the beginning of the new way. The end of understanding exactly what’s about to happen is the beginning of wonder.

The end of certainty is the beginning of wisdom. And so I think that just as much of how it feels to process, okay, I know that something needs to change, It doesn’t necessarily mean that everything needs to end. Right. That there’s an evolution that is asking to happen through you and through all of us, I think, especially on the threshold of a knowing that, okay, there’s something else here for me, and I don’t know what it is. And so creating a relationship, a generative, beautiful, excited relationship with not knowing what that is going to look like or what…

Not knowing what it needs to look like. So it’s almost instead of trying to drive towards a solution or an answer, it’s it’s it’s pushing away the need for a solution or an answer that I think a time period like this can be the most fruitful. But that’s not what they teach us in business school.

Kate Northrup: No. It’s not because they teach

Christine Thompson: Or in any course that

Kate Northrup: a business plan. And I’ll never forget I was at this mastermind with a bunch of people who make a… Who at the time made a lot more money than I did, and I got invited as like the little Yeah. Shrimp, whatever. I don’t know.

No one called me that.

No. And I’m sure that wasn’t true, and I’m sure the reason you were there is because there was incredible amount of power that was perceived and received from you and I. Okay. Thank you. You’re welcome.

So anyway, I’m there, and I give my presentation about what’s going on with my business, and our plans for the next year, and one of the guys in the group so… And then I shared about our revenue goals, and he said, well, between what you shared and the numbers that you have and the numbers you project and then your goal, how are you gonna fill that gap? And I said, well, that’s the margin for magic. And he just did not like that answer. But I’m reminded in what you just said, which is to not rush to fill.

Like, I just have had so many days where I just… You know, and I’ll talk to Claude about it or, you know, whatever. Like, I so desperately wanna know the plan and the path, and I’ve been hanging out in the not knowing for far longer than is comfortable. Mhmm. And when I read about the real meaning of magic in your book, in Alchemy of Chaos, and when I read the final chapter, which I will not give away because…

Please… Okay. Listen. Those who… You who are listening, do not skip buying this book.

Do not skip reading it, and do not skip reading it all the way through to the end. Because if you were to read the end first, you would rob yourself of the gift of what alchemy of chaos is. And if you were to buy it and not read it, it would be such a loss. So it’s, like, so worth every moment along the way. Every moment along the way is so delicious.

And also, it’s like such a great payoff even though that’s not the point. Yes.

But it is. It’s so nourishing. Everything

Christine Thompson: you just said, Kate, about the book is true of the unknown of life.

Kate Northrup: Here it

Christine Thompson: Yeah. Right. Right. At You wrote

Kate Northrup: this book in… It is

a

microcosm of really the secrets of the universe. Yeah. And what was so wild, Christine, is that I was reading it while receiving all of these… I don’t know if you would call them downloads. Some of them, like, people call them codes.

Whatever. Whatever. I’m just listening and synchronicity after synchronicity in Peru and on this trip and beforehand and afterwards. And then it’s… And and then you wrote about it in the book, but it’s also the wisdom being brought down by the men who live at the top of the Andes and are, you know, walking two miles and…

Two hours and then driving seven more to come down and share with us. It was just… It’s wild. So when you go all the way back and all the way through and all the way in and all the way out and all the directions that you could possibly go, you know, the truth is the truth is the truth is the truth, and everything is everything.

Christine Thompson: Absolutely. So beautifully said. And there are so many layers. I have chills. There are so many layers to what you just said because you’re talking about the book, and you’re talking about your experiences, but you’re talking about your life, and you’re answering your question about your business.

Do you see do you see what just happened?

Kate Northrup: Go back

and listen.

Christine Thompson: Well, if you are listening right now, you know what just happened. That is alchemy of chaos. What you know to be true about the book, what you just delivered to the listener when you said listen. Everything after that.

Kate Northrup: Right. Okay.

Christine Thompson: That was your answer to your question about this time period since January. I get it.

Kate Northrup: Get it. Thanks. I really love you, Christine. Thank you for your fortitude and for not giving up and for letting it take as long as it took. Because your your writing journey was the same.

It’s the same as what I just said. Exactly. Don’t skip the middle.

Christine Thompson: Don’t

Kate Northrup: don’t freaking skip the middle. This is alchemy of chaos. This is it. Yeah. Don’t rob yourself.

I think that it is obvious that I really recommend this book.

Christine told me that I am the first person to finish it in its physical

form, bound, you know, like the way you’ll get it when you order it, ideally from Barnes and Noble. But wherever you buy books is is great. But just know I think it’s important that I like to, you know, I like to break down the fourth wall and just say, for authors, just FYI in the future, like, preorder books, it really makes a big difference for for the books to get out there. And then when we order through Barnes and Noble or when we request them at our local bookstores, it actually really moves the needle. So I just want you listening to know that.

Christine.

Christine Thompson: Is there anything? I can’t believe that just happened.

Kate Northrup: You would like to say in conclusion? Or should we just say?

Christine Thompson: The beginning. The beginning. The end.

Kate Northrup: The end.

Christine Thompson: The beginning. The beginning. That was a microcosm of a microcosm of a macrocosm. Yeah. That has to be felt and witnessed and lived and experienced to be understood.

It is true of the book. It is true of your life. It is true of every question that anyone is answering and asking. And this is life. This is it.

This is it. Don’t miss it. It’s here for you. All we get to do is pay attention. Notice.

Notice what’s happening. And you will feel the magic. You will feel that undercurrent, that force field of acknowledging that everything is connected to itself and we are inherently supported especially when and even in those times where we don’t feel that, that is when you’re being asked to get to the next layer and level of yourself and of life so that you can feel that next moment of magic like what we just co experienced. And it’s nothing that can ever be planned. It has to be lived.

And that is what I believe to be the truest truth. Amen. Love you. I love you.

Kate Northrup: Folks like you who keep things moving for themselves and other people in their world can often be the bottleneck when it comes to big money decisions. They can send us into stress, old patterning, constriction, and procrastination and delay. And when we delay big money decisions, it’s expensive. Not only with our time and with our energy, but actually, literally, we lose money. But there is a beautiful, proven, solid framework for making any big money decision.

So it’s grounded in soul. It’s grounded in strategy. It’s grounded in real numbers, and it’s based in your vision and where you are going, not where you have been. It’s called the big money decision matrix and today you can download it absolutely free and run it on a big money decision you have in your life right now. Go to katenorthrup.com/matrix and download it and use it today.

The link is also in the show notes.