Finding Authenticity: Two Names, One Person

On Free Ocean Spirit, creative freedom, and becoming more fully myself

Recently, I realized that I could publish under a pen name. There is nothing unusual about that; writers have been doing it forever. But the possibility landed differently for me because I immediately knew what the name would be: Free Ocean Spirit.

The words already meant something to me. The ocean has always represented freedom, space, movement, and perspective. It is somewhere I return to again and again, both literally and in my writing. So when I gave myself permission to imagine creating under that name, something opened up. I felt lighter and more playful, more willing to follow an idea simply because I wanted to see where it went.

I began creating journals, and what struck me wasn’t only how quickly the ideas came. It was how I felt while making them. The manifestation journal became real. Then the gratitude journal. Then another centred around surrender, trust and receiving. I wasn’t forcing myself through a production schedule or asking whether every idea fit neatly into my professional positioning. I wasn’t looking at each one through the eyes of an imagined audience and deciding whether it was serious enough or strategic enough. I was creating because I wanted to create, and there was a freedom in that I hadn’t realized I was missing.

A Name That Already Felt Like Mine

Free Ocean Spirit is not really a persona I invented for publishing. In many ways, it is simply another expression of who I already am. The name gives a home to the part of me that loves the ocean, photography, meditation, journals, reflection, and the quieter practices that have been part of my life for years.

What surprised me was the amount of energy that came with giving that part of my work its own space. Ideas that had been sitting in the background suddenly felt easier to act on. One journal led naturally to another thought, which led to another possibility. I wasn’t abandoning structure or becoming less interested in quality. I was simply giving myself more room.

And that is where the whole thing becomes slightly ironic.

Part of the reason for using a pen name is that, somewhere along the way, these different parts of my work began to seem as though they should live separately. There is Myriam Gareau, with almost twenty years in professional services and risk, now working as a coach and meditation teacher and writing about judgment, decision-making, pressure, performance, awareness and clarity. And then there is Free Ocean Spirit, creating journals around gratitude, surrender, reflection and trust.

Except they are not actually two different people.

The Same Person Was There All Along

I still love thinking about judgment and decision-making. I am fascinated by what happens to capable people under pressure, why we can know what to do and still struggle to do it, and the internal patterns that influence choices long before we are consciously aware of them.

I also still have the part of my mind shaped by almost twenty years in professional services and risk. That experience taught me to ask questions, examine assumptions, notice what others may not be seeing, and remain steady when things are complicated. I value that part of myself. I worked hard to become her, and I have no desire to distance myself from her now.

But the woman who thinks about decision quality is also the woman who photographs the ocean. The former risk professional is also the meditation teacher. The person who can spend hours examining the nuances of judgment is also the person who loves gratitude practices and journals and reflection. One does not make the other less credible.

That seems obvious when I write it down. Apparently, however, I needed two names to notice it.

The Parts We Edit Out

I’ve been thinking lately about how easily we begin editing ourselves before anyone else has asked us to.

We become aware of what is rewarded in a particular environment. We learn how to present ourselves. We notice which parts of us fit easily and which ones seem to require explanation. Over time, some of those decisions become automatic. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Context matters, and discernment matters. We do not bring every part of ourselves into every room.

But there is a difference between discernment and performance.

I don’t mean performance in the sense of doing excellent work. I care enormously about the quality of what I do. I mean the quieter kind of performance that happens when I begin constructing a version of myself around the anticipated approval of other people. Will they think this is credible? Will this make sense to them? Does this fit the person they expect me to be?

There is nothing wrong with considering how our choices affect other people. Other people’s perspectives matter. Feedback matters. Relationships matter. But considering someone’s perspective is not the same thing as handing them authorship over our choices.

I’m becoming more interested in noticing that difference.

Choosing or Performing

Creating under Free Ocean Spirit brought that distinction into focus because the decision felt unusually uncomplicated. I liked the name. I liked what it represented. I wanted to create under it. So I did.

There wasn’t a rebellion behind it. It wasn’t a statement against corporate life or professionalism, and it wasn’t an announcement that I had finally discovered some hidden “real me.” That would be too simplistic. My professional life is part of me too.

What felt different was that I wasn’t particularly interested in proving anything.

I was choosing.

When I look at some of the decisions that have felt heavier in my life, there has often been another layer attached to them: how I would be perceived, whether someone would approve, whether I was disappointing someone, whether I was meeting an expectation that may or may not even have been spoken aloud. Sometimes those considerations are important. Sometimes they are simply noise. Discernment is knowing the difference.

Two Names, One Person

So now I have two names attached to different parts of my work. Myriam Gareau is the name under which I write Reflections, my books and the work I am developing around clarity, decision-making, awareness and performance. Free Ocean Spirit gives me another creative space, a home for the journals and whatever else may emerge there.

And yet I don’t see them as competing identities. If anything, the existence of both has made me more aware that I never really needed to divide myself so neatly in the first place.

Perhaps authenticity is less about finding one perfect version of ourselves and more about noticing where we have unnecessarily narrowed ourselves. There are parts of me that are analytical and precise. There are parts that are reflective. There are parts that love meditation and the ocean. There are parts that enjoy building something practical and useful, and there are parts that simply want to create because creating feels good.

They don’t need to be compressed into one perfectly positioned identity, but neither do they need to pretend they belong to different people.

Lately, I have been carrying one question with me: Am I choosing this, or am I performing it? Not because adapting to context is wrong, and not because I suddenly don’t care what other people think. I do. I simply want more of my decisions to actually belong to me.

Free Ocean Spirit may become a large publishing project or remain a smaller creative part of my work. I don’t know yet, and I don’t particularly need to know.

What matters right now is that it feels like mine.

And perhaps the funniest part of having two names is realizing that I was the same person all along.

A New Book Is Coming

I’m also getting ready to share something I’ve been working on for a long time. The Clarity Mindset is coming at the end of October. The book explores many of the questions that have shaped my work: why intelligent, capable people can know what to do and still struggle to do it; how pressure, nervous-system patterns, and old internal scripts influence our choices; and how we return to clarity and our own judgment.

As a pre-launch companion, I created The 10-Minute Shift, a short practice for those moments when you’re doing too much and need to regain some space and perspective. When you opt in, you can also receive an advanced copy of the book.

If You’d Like to Go Deeper

The Free Clarity Toolkit offers six practical tools for overthinking, perfectionism, boundaries, capacity, urgency and stress. Joining also brings you The Clarity Brief, my Wednesday note.

Inner Child Freedom is available with a free companion workbook, and Holistic Vagus Nerve Reset is available with the Gratitude and Breath Reset companion practice.

Written by Myriam Gareau / Free Ocean Spirit