Nostalgia or Calling? Listening to the Tug Within

My 62nd birthday just passed, and my husband and I find ourselves wondering where life will take us from here.

We both have fulfilling careers. A lovely home here in Germany. A huge yard. Good friends.

Everything fits.

And yet, there’s this tug from a time past, a tug that used to make me impatient for every summer, as my family drove over the Alps into Italy to meet shoe manufacturers for my dad’s stores.

Back then, Italy was an escape. A running away from a country that had not yet grappled with the shame and the silence of its past. And so I did too. I ran toward the sun, toward a country where people, despite their own history, seemed carefree and alive.

Now, decades later, I feel the same tug, still wondering if there is something in that country that calls me.

The Soft Pull

There’s this soft ache inside me. A missing puzzle piece. A feeling that makes me restless in life, and sometimes even in work.

It’s like something calls from beyond the familiar, from a mystery I can’t quite name.

In business, it might be that sense of almost but not quite: not quite reaching the right people, not quite aligned with the work, not quite home.

That quiet unrest that says: you’re not there yet. Keep going.

The Memory

What do I remember most about those times? Why does it still move me?

There was an atmosphere of belonging, of deep connection as soon as we crossed the border. In Germany, I often felt like a stranger to myself. But once we reached the mountains, after the long drive in my dad’s softly suspended Citroën that made me carsick, my shoulders would drop, a burden I didn’t know I carried, lifted.

At the top of the Alps, I would look out — and there it was. Home.

Maybe that is what the longing is. A call to come home to something that feels true to me, just me.

“Maybe the longing is not about escape, but about coming home to something that feels true.”

Even now, I feel tears as I say that. Because there’s a part of me that still feels frozen here in this gray, rainy place, as autumn darkens and the air grows heavy.

Maybe the longing is just that, a nostalgic desire for the sun. Or maybe it’s something deeper, much deeper.

When the Tug Is Work-Related

We feel it in work too.

When everything works, yet something doesn’t sit right. When the work feels too transactional, too effortful, like pushing a boulder up the hill.

Can I live in simplicity here in Germany? Can I stay true to my spiritual practice? Can I do great work from here?

Of course. But sometimes it just feels harder in a place that stays on the cold side of emotion.

Maybe that’s what this longing really is; an invitation to soften, a desire for ease. For me it could be a longing to reconnect with my emotional, feminine self.

Is it an old fantasy or a profound invitation to evolve? I don’t know yet. It’s a question I hold in tension as a business owner: Is this just a romantic call? Or something I am truly meant to follow?

Why Disturb What Works?

Why now? Why disturb something that isn’t broken? Don’t I have everything here in Germany?

It’s the same in business.

Why take a risk when everything works? Why venture into something new, uncertain, foreign?

And yet, sometimes the call doesn’t seem to go away.

When something doesn’t feel right around work, then we can ask ourselves: “Is work mainly a means to survive or can it be a deeply spiritual practice?” How do we tell the difference between fantasy and intuition from beyond self?

“In business, it might simply be not quite reaching the right people, or feeling that something deeper is calling.”

So often, we dismiss that deeper pull as sentimental or impractical. But maybe it’s the very thing that wants to make us whole.

Listening Instead of Chasing

We all get these nudges, in work, in love, in life. Sometimes they come as a memory. Sometimes as an ache. Sometimes as a quiet knowing that won’t let us go.

And yet, we often ignore them because they feel inconvenient or illogical.

Maybe the wisdom is not to decide too soon.

Maybe the tug itself is the purpose.

Maybe we’re not meant to arrive anywhere, just to cross the threshold from familiar to unfamiliar, and let life show us something we could not have imagined.

Perhaps it starts simply. Booking a little house. Sitting in the Tuscan sun. Listening for what comes next.

It’s not about fixing anything. It’s about aligning with the flow of life. With destiny.Maybe the wisdom is not to decide too soon.

Coming Home

I return to that image of sitting on top of the Alps. After the long, bumpy drive in my father’s car. Seeing the sunlight spill over the valley. Feeling, for a moment, completely at home.

What mountains would you need to cross to see clearly again? What tug are you feeling these days?

What are you willing to listen to? What step are you willing to take towards an evolution of you, your work or your business? What needs to be in place for you to make that step?

What mountains would you need to cross to see clearly again?

Written by Christiane Witt, founder of Soul Soothing Circle, a membership space for women who feel the quiet exhaustion of holding it all together. Through the Soul Soothing System of settling the mind, simplifying life, systematizing the business, and scaling income, together with her 2 partners, she helps women reclaim spaciousness, ease, and creative flow in their work and lives.