"You're on the Verge of a Miracle" - A Journey with Fear and Hope

August 28th:

Yesterday wasn’t a good day.

I was feeling niggly feelings of despair starting to take residence in my chest, like an unwelcome squatter. It had been growing over the past week or so, but yesterday was the worst.

Today I’m sitting on my mostly clean deck, enjoying the sun and chewing Dr. Pepper Hubba Bubba gum, feeling a lot better than I did yesterday.

Way back in high school I had a good friend whose advice to all of us young angsty girls, was if you chew grape Bubble Yum, you will fall in love. I chewed a lot of Bubble Yum. (Clearly I’ve been a dreamer for a long time…)

Yum!

Yum!

Obviously, it didn’t work. I didn’t marry the love of my life until I was the ripe old age of 32. As an adult with a fully formed brain I know how ludicrous the correlation between grape gum and falling in love it, but I still associate that sugar-filled gum with good, anticipatory feelings. (Don’t worry, I don’t chew it all the time…)

The reason for the recent niggly feeling of anxiety that has been creeping in the same part of my head that my fierce determination usually resides, is because I started to question this whole idea of self-employment. I knew going into this journey it was going to be hard work. I’ve learned that self-employment isn’t for the faint of heart. The truth is that the first eight months were actually pretty easy for me. Opportunities came fairly easily. It’s not feeling as easy right now, and that’s making me question things.

Summer is just slow. I realize that organizations and businesses just don’t plan for workshops and trainings in the summer. It’s like the part of the brain that wants to learn simply slows or shuts off in the summer for most people. When I think about it, I realize that it’s actually a really good thing that happens. Summer is the season for as much FUN and PLAY as possible.

Now that fall is nearly here, realistically it’s going to take time to get things rolling again.

Still, it’s hard. We can know that there is a realistic reason why something is the way it is, yet it can still eat away at our self-confidence if we let it.

Last night and today I got several good pep talks from some of key supporters. I’m feeling much better, more hopeful.

I feel like it is important to share my struggles with self-doubt. There can be a perception that some people have it all together, and nothing bad ever happens, and we are always emoting 100% confidence.

Well that’s simply not true. We all have times of questioning things—those moments of self-doubt. I’m realizing that it’s so important that I persevere through it, since everything in my being is still saying YES! I still feel lit up about what I’m doing and dreaming about doing, so it’s time to dig in and make it happen.

I have a Truthbomb deck by Danielle Laporte (author of The Desire Map). This afternoon I decided that I would try a little writing project and pull a card out of the deck. I said to myself that I would write about whatever card I got. I gave myself no opportunity to put it back and take a new one.

This is what I got… “You’re on the verge of a miracle.”

I found a blog post by Danielle Laporte says about this truthbomb. She says, “A Course In Miracles defines a miracle as “a shift in perception.” I love that, because that definition covers a lot of bases.”

A shift in perception. Nice.

 

September 28th (exactly one month after I started this post):

Well…I wasn’t able to finish this post for a month, because I couldn't find the time to finish it. It's felt so refreshing to have just the right amount of busyness in my life and business, especially after such a slow season. I feel so much better than I did when I started this post.

Since then I have facilitated a five-day facilitator training with a group of amazing people, and I have another one coming up next week. I'm working on an Appreciative Inquiry project. I have three or four new small projects and some potential contracts in the works. AND as an amazing bonus, I got to hear Brene Brown speak live in Seattle.

This is the best picture I got of Brene Brown that night. I chose to put my phone away and just listen. It really is her...I promise.

This is the best picture I got of Brene Brown that night. I chose to put my phone away and just listen. It really is her...I promise.

Interestingly enough, the tagline of her new book Rising Strong is, "The Reckoning, The Rumble, The Revolution. If we are enough, often enough we fall. This is a book about what it takes to get back up." I'm loving her book right now. So fitting for how I've been feeling. 

I feel expansive.

I still have anxiety about self-employment- keeping busy and having enough to pay the bills, but I’m honouring my core desired feeling of abundance.

There is enough. I know that I’m following the path that I want to be on. A path that very clearly has my name on it.

I am trusting.

I believe that good things are in store for me and my family, because...well, it just plain feels right.

 

In the wise words of Brene Brown, “I am enough.”

As I was writing this, I took a little facebook break…and came across this quote by Parker J. Palmer. He is someone I deeply admire and his writings have profoundly affected me. This quote pretty much sums up my emotional journey over the past couple months. I got a little weepy reading it. 

We have places of fear inside us, but we have other places as well – places with names like trust and hope and faith and joy. We can choose to lead and to live from one of those places, to stand on ground that is not riddled with the fault lines of fear. To move towards others from a place of promise instead of anxiety. As we stand in one of those places, fear may remain close at hand and our spirits may still tremble. But we now stand on ground that that will support us, ground from which we can lead others toward a more trustworthy, more hopeful, more faithful way of being in the world.
— Parker J Palmer

So…“You’re on the verge of a miracle.”

Heck, yes I am. 

 

(AND...I bet you can be too!)