My Most Honest Blog Post Yet.
Since I started creating my dream business and posting about what I’m doing on social media, I’ve had many new and old friends tell me that they think what I’m doing is amazing.
What you can’t see on the outside, is that since I have started I have wanted to quit about, oh, 50 times..
I created this blog to be a space where I am share everything that I’m learning as I build the business and life of my dreams. It’s definitely not easy, but if you follow people like Marie Forleo, Gabrielle Bernstein, Tara Stiles and Kris Carr, you know that it took them years to get to where they are at now. All of those ladies are in their 30’s and 40’s now. They’ve all inspired me deeply, but I’m learning things now at my early stage that I wish someone had told me about!
It’s easy for a veteran to say, “Yea, I did ABC when I was first starting out. Then two years later it blossomed into XYZ,” but what does that actually look like in real life? Welcome to my life.
Why I share my story
My intention with my blog is to share my journey as openly and authentically as possible, with the hopes that when you see what really goes into bringing your vision out into the world, it will give you the courage to start and keep going when it gets tough.
I want there to be a record of everything that I did to get to here and over the next 5 years as I keep building. So that if you come back to read this in a few years, and you see I have a bagillion Facebook followers and a best-selling book, you can’t say, “Oh she just got lucky. I could never do it.”
I want you to be able to dig back through my blog, and see my early, typo-filled blog posts and realize that we all start from square one. :)
So here goes:
I’ve grown SO much even in the last 12 months, I don’t even feel like the same person. The heart and soul behind what I do is the same, but I coughed up and cried out layers upon layers of limiting beliefs, fearful thoughts, ego-based thinking that I didn’t even know I had. I’m far from perfect, and I know this is just the beginning, but I want you to be able to see what goes into building your dreams.
Over the last 12 months, I’ve sifted and detoxed out so much personal shit. It was not pretty. I want you to know that this will happen when you go for your dreams and even though parts of the journey will feel really shitty, it is worth it. It’s worth it because there is no feeling in the world like knowing that you are living your dreams.
Going for your dreams forces you to have faith in your abilities and in the universe to it through. You develop conviction.
You know you cannot fail because you are doing what you came to earth to do.
I am living my purpose now and because of that, I have faith that my life is going to exceed my wildest dreams.
I’m finally disentangled enough from my personal gunk that I can write about it and over the next few blogs, I’m going to give you the ins and outs of what really was going on in my head and life as I built up this blog to a community of almost 2000 subscribers. There are many many layers to building your dreams. It’s not just what I do on the outside.
There is a lot of inner work that you can’t see and this is what I’m able to help my coaching clients now. You need a solid foundation to create your dreams in the outside world: emotional, financial, mental and spiritual. Without this foundation, I crumbled.
What you need to know about going for your dreams
For months, I thought I was working with my business building blocks. I did a little bit of that - enrolling in online courses and hiring my first coach - but now I can see, what I was actually doing was working with my emotional and spiritual building blocks.
These hidden building blocks are invisible. No one is going to be like, “Congrats! You healed your relationship with money! Congrats! You forgave your parents! ” But these intangible shifts are the foundation to anything you do out in the 3D world.
I wish someone had told me this when I started! Seriously, I spoke with over a dozen healers, coaches, therapists, doctors, and entrepreneurs trying to understand what the hell was going on with me!
I was in this terrible, volatile emotional state and I didn’t understand why I felt so shitty. Isn’t it supposed to feel good to go after your dreams? All of these entrepreneurs and bloggers that I followed seemed to have it all put together.
Why was I struggling so damn hard?
What really happened while I was posting (or not) on social media...
In the fall of 2014, my anxiety was gaining momentum. I’d launched my blog that summer and up until then, I was riding a wave of excitement. By the fall, however, I was feeling the pressure. I needed to either figure out how to make money or I need to get a soul-sucking full time job (My worst nightmare at that time.)
I constantly felt this huge burden hanging over me and it made it so hard to get work done. Every morning, I would wake up with this intense fear in my heart.
As soon I was conscious, even before I opened my eyes, I would be thinking about my business. One particular morning, I couldn’t take it anymore. I literally could not get out of bed. I laid in bed for two hours, my mind agonizing with tormenting, fearful thoughts.
My chest felt someone had stabbed daggers into it.
I kept saying to myself, "I don't know how I'm going to survive..."
I couldn’t take it anymore!
The only thing I could manage to do was write a desperate plea in one of my private Facebook groups where I felt safe to share this. The ladies wrote back with some encouraging words, but it didn’t help. I needed help! I finally got up and told my parents something along the lines of “I’m really stressed and I don’t know what to do.”
My poor parents, they didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t expect them to understand exactly what I was going through as I tried to start my business. They’d worked in jobs their whole lives, and in their minds, I should just get a job. At least then I would be something productive, as opposed to torturing myself ‘trying to start a business,’ sitting at home on my computer. I couldn’t explain to them that
“No! This is my dream! I need to try to build it now! I’m don’t know how to be an entrepreneur but I’m trying to learn!”
Regardless of my stubbornness around getting a job, I couldn't deny that I needed help. I’d never suffered from anxiety attacks my entire life, so I couldn’t understand why they were happening to me now. I was building towards my dream!
I was creating a business that would help thousands of people around the world! Why did I feel so crappy? Why couldn’t I get anything done!? My parents eventually connected me with another life coach (so for a time, I had two coaches) and I went to go see her.
As the months inched forward from that point, I started to notice a pattern. I would be super depressed and stuck for 1-2 weeks and then I would be okay and production for 1-2 weeks.
Up and down I went. During my up days, I would set these fantastical goals for myself and start working towards them. I’d make a little progress and then inevitably, I’d hit a down day and the whole plan would fall apart. I would beat myself up for not being able to stay on track.
I couldn’t figure out what was going on with me. I was terrified and desperate. For the first time in my life, I understood the phrase “paralyzed by fear.” I went on a blitz trying to figure it why this fear was taking me over and what to do about it:
- I discovered my Terror Barrier.
- I talked to my Inner Child.
- I cleared my limiting beliefs about money.
- I cleared more limiting beliefs about myself.
- I had my chakras cleared.
- I had my energy cleared.
- I did reiki.
- I tapped.
- I got filled with love and light.
- I journaled.
- I countless books tryings to understand my fear.
Still, the bouts of anxiety kept coming back. I’d have a few good days, and then a few bad days.
I kept beating myself up for not being able to get things done. My Birthday Bash hangout was originally supposed to be a series of 5 online workshops. All that I could manage to do though was my Birthday Bash.
I needed a miracle.
Throughout this time, the only thing that seemed to quench my fear attacks was meditation. In desperation, I started to work through the A Course In Miracles workbook. I’d bought A Course In Miracles months ago, but never read it because the language was religious-sounding and hard to understand. ACIM is published by an organization called Foundation For Inner Peace. I desperately needed inner peace, so what the heck, I dove in. The workbook section of ACIM is like a spiritual psychotherapy curriculum with daily meditation exercises and mantras to help you change your thinking from fear to back to love. I was delighted to discover that the words in ACIM actually made me feel better.
I plowed through the workbook, sometimes doing more than one day’s exercises at a time until I landed on one workbook exercise where the assignment on this was to do a 5 minute meditation every hour. At this point, I was in such an anxious bind that I was SO excited to do a 5 minute meditation every hour.
For several days, I actually lived my life just for the hourly 5 minute meditation. I would force myself to sit down and do a little work for 55 minutes, just so I could go back to my 5 minute meditation.
After about a month of doing daily ACIM workbook exercises, I was feeling much better and stopped doing the workbook. (Hint…mistake!)
The anxiety attacks started to be less severe. I wasn’t crying in bed anymore. When I did cry, I didn’t go that negative spiral. I could get myself out of bed faster. I should shift my thinking back to positive thoughts a little easier.
Whenever I did feel the fear, I now had some tools to deal with it and multiple different perspectives from different self-help gurus. All of this helped, but I was still angry and disappointed with myself. How come I’ve done all this stuff (healing, reading, meditating, etc.) and I’m still not productive?!
Sure, I’ve got all these new perspectives, why do I still feel crappy and afraid half the time?!
During one of my anxious days, I wrote in another one of my private FB communities and finally received an answer that hit home. It was from a lovely and kind-hearted Australian lady. She told me that even though I didn’t feel like I was making progress, everything I’d done was helping me to heal.
Little by little I was chipping a way at the emotional and energetic gunk from my life and healing it.
That was why the anxiety attacks were less and less severe. I WAS making progress!
It was as though starting my own business and attempting to create my own dream was psychological and spiritual bootcamp. It made me confront EVERYTHING from my childhood, from old programming and old paradigms, in a very short period of time.
(In Part 2 of this post , I’m going to share what exactly what the 7 major mindset shifts I made to dismantle my fear and build solid foundation for my dreams.)
You and I are like Da Vinci.
I love the story of how Leonardo Da Vinci viewed his sculptures. His response when someone would complement his work was that the marble sculpture was already there, his job was just to whittle away the excess. You and I are like Da Vinci. Our dreams are the sculptures. They already exist. Our job is to whittle away all of the fear-based and ego-based thinking so that prevent us from seeing it.
As I write this, I feel incredibly clear, grateful and at peace with myself. I am no longer constantly muddled, confused or anxious. I don’t wake up with anxiety attacks anymore. I know it’s not going to be smooth sailing forever, but when you know how to access that state of inner knowing, then you will always be okay.
I’m grateful I went through all of this, because now I am committed more than ever to creating my business and life from the inside out.
I want everything that shows up on this blog or on my social media to be extension of my heart - not some facade to “market” myself. My job is to guide you, equip you and coach you along the way. But you have be the one to take the leap.
I am committed to showing you how to clear all of the mental clutter that stops you from achieving your dreams. When the mental and emotional clutter is gone, the actions are easy to take. Yes, fears will come up because they are natural part of growth, but you’ll know what to do with the fear.
I know that I will go back to feeling muddled if I do not stay aligned with my heart. I tired dozens of healing techniques and every helped, but if I were to give you one simple process to help your achieve your dreams, I would say, become aware of your ego/fear-based thinking and realign your thoughts with love. This doesn’t happen overnight. It is a constant practice my hope is that my little corner of the Internet will be your guide back to the light.
I dove right into my dreams, and all the energetic shit that would hold anyone back from going for they dreams came up in a short period of time.
Does this mean that it won’t come up for me again? Of course not! But now I know how to deal with it. Now I have accessed a state of inner peace that I’ve never had before.
The big shift that's led me Home.
My final big shift that has happened in the last few weeks.
I have a renewed commitment to keep my own mind free of all mental clutter and ego-based thinking so that I can really help you create your dreams and dream lifestyle from a soul-inspired place. I also signed up for training and certification with New York time best-selling author, motivational speaker and life coach, Gabrielle Bernstein in NYC in June.
For the record, you need a certification to fulfill your mission in the world. Life cred and authenticity trumps a piece of paper any day. I enrolled in this training because I was deeply inspired and as fate would have it, in a few weeks, I will have completed her Level One training! I’m so stoked for it because I know that will help me to grow into an even better coach, leader, teacher, healer, friend, and person.
Get ready for awesomesness. :)
(If you are interested in coaching privately with me, or just want to know coaching could help you to find your passion and launch your most inspired career, you are welcome to fill out a discovery coaching application and we’ll set up a time to chat for complimentary discovery call.
My prices will likely be adjusted after my training so contact me now to get my best rates.)
I share my journey with you in the hopes that you will be inspired to find that thing that you MUST do in life. If you've been taking tons of action in the world, spinning your wheels but not getting where you want to go, there is a good chance that you need to take that deep dive within yourself and heal old wounds.
People who go for their dreams aren’t just “braver.”
They have picked up the chisel and started to whittle away at the limiting beliefs and fears.
They have slain their own dragons and I know you've got it you too.
All My Love,
Anita xx
