I thought I was so brave and at peace leaving Richard at college yesterday. Not a tear! Yet I found it hit me today. I wasn’t as balanced or as “together” as usual. While at yoga we did a heart opening exercise and I cried uncontrollably. I guess I needed to actually face letting go. It was THEN that I found peace, inside and out. 

I know he is exactly where he needs to be and is very responsible and capable of making good decisions. I also know, from my first son, that they transform & return as beautiful, colorful and individual butterflies!!

Nameste!

Bag Up Failure and Throw It Away

-Darcy Volden Hoag  (Secrets of Her Success)

So today… this is a really important post. If not for anyone else but for me. I have made it my life to understand success so that I may pass those teachings on to others. All I want for any of you is to clear whatever it is in the way holding you back from being who you really are… being fully self-expressed and creating the dreams you desire so you can go PLAY!

And…today was a HUGE clearing for me that I wanted to share so that you can apply this in your own life and business.

12 years and 5 days ago a little baby boy named Landen showed up in my life. He became the catalyst for me to start my very first business and ignited my passion for helping women start and grow their businesses.

My very first business, which was an online business, was extremely successful. As a matter of fact it grossed over $80,000 by it’s 2nd year. It was even featured on the former Rosie O’Donnell show and I helped to get members of that business products featured on Oprah even. I was written about in all kinds of books and magazines for my pioneering efforts in helping women and mom entrepreneurs. I felt on top of the world! And I knew without a doubt I was well on my way.

Then one day in 2003 it all came crashing down. I won’t go into all the details and story but the short of it is the business fell apart in an instant. I lost literally everything including my home. Me and my little guy had to move in with my mother and I had to go on food stamps. But who cares about me… the impact on those that were involved with me was truly the greater tragedy. People who trusted me felt betrayed and let down. People who earned money from me I could not pay. People were hurt and I was the cause. Carrying the burden of that made me want to crawl up in a hole and croak. My only intention since the inception of that business was to help people … and in the end it appeared all I did was hurt people.

In time I did what most people try and do… picked myself up, dusted myself off and hopped back on the horse. ‘Cause isn’t that what you’re supposed to do? Right? But, for the past 7 years any time I’d even think about being successful or earning money I’d shudder. “How dare you?… All those people you impacted… Shame on you. You just go about helping others be successful.. but you must repent the rest of your life for your wrongs.” – Now of course, I didn’t realize I was telling myself that. I just kept wondering why I couldn’t seem to get out of my own way and make a living yet I could help others make lots of money.

Then came the big aha! I started Lynn Scheurell’s Create Your Quantum Leap Course (which is nothing short of phenomenal btw!) two months ago and one day in class Lynn said this: “You cannot punish your way to success.”.   HELLOOO!!

That was exactly what I was doing… punishing myself.  Repeatedly…brutally…. relentlessly.

In the course of quantum leaping what I learned is that each day is the chance to create yourself newly.  I realized that in order for me to create newly what I had to do was literally start clearing.  Clearing all the dead weight, baggage, stale yucky past energy, attachments that no longer served me for my best and highest good.   I literally went through everything… clothes, boxes of old stuff, anything and everything that wasn’t representative of who I REALLY am and where I’m going… anything that would hold me back or hold me down.

BUT… one thing I couldn’t bring myself  to throw away was a box from that old failed business of mine.  It was full of papers, receipts, checks, ledgers, etc… I drug that box around with me for 7 years like a self-imposed shackle.  Even recently I moved and there was that box.   Just last week I went in the garage to go clear out more stuff and there was that dang box staring right at me.  That box and I had quite the conversation.  It told me it was time to let it go.  I said, “No… that would be wrong.”   The energy that radiated off that box was so haunting and ugly… yep… just downright icky.  Again, that box said louder, “It’s time to let me go.”… and again, I said louder, “No! That would be wrong!”.

THEN… an amazing thing happened.  In my course with Lynn, I realized that I could not launch this web site and expect to soar if I insisted on keeping one foot in a shackle… if I kept insisting that I punish myself.   Lynn said, “It’s time to  forgive yourself.”

So today I did just that.  I bagged up that “failure” and hauled it down to the dumpster.

NOW… here’s what’s funny.  As I lugged that bagged up box down to the dumpster I asked God to show me a sign.   I got all the way down to the dumpster and the dumpster was GONE!  I stood there… “Maybe this is a sign that I”m not supposed to throw it away?!”…. “Maybe I should just leave it on the ground and walk away?!” … “Maybe today is not the day to do this?!”…

THEN... up pulls a truck with the dumpster.   Booop…. Boooop….Boooop…. it goes as he backs up the truck.  BANG as it hits the ground.  BOOM BOOM as the other end hits the ground.   I could feel the ground shake and hear the echo of the boom resonate across the parking lot.   The man hops out of the truck and says, “Can I help you with that?”. I said, “Yep, you sure can.  Can you take this big  bag of crap from my past and toss it away forever?”.  He grabbed it out of my hands and with a gigantic hurl he tossed it into the big compactor.   My eyes watered up and I felt my breath leave me.  As I started to walk away I looked back… I waved goodbye and the trash man looked to me and waved his hand goodbye back to me.”   BIG HUGE DEEP BREATH.

I thought I would cry when I walked back home in release of the emotions but surprisingly an amazing feeling came over me.  Do you know the feeling of tingles like when you fall in love… when you feel breathless… or like the feeling you get when a  new love calls you and your phone rings for the first time?”  That was the feeling I got.

Aaaaahhh life is good.  So here is the moral of this story.

Bag up whatever past failure or failures you may have experienced… whatever it is that shackles your foot or your feet … it’s time for you to forgive yourself.  Put it in the proverbial bag and throw it all away.  It’s time to remove the energy it has tethered to you (or you to it)… it no longer serves you.   It’s time for you to create newly… free and clear of any dead, stale, old, icky energy or thought that no longer serves your new best and highest good.

This is your NEW TIME right now.  Clear the lane for take off and ditch any baggage that keeps you too heavy to soar.   It’s your time to soar now.

Remember:  You cannot punish yourself to success.

Wherever You Are, Be There by Jim Rohn

One of the major reasons why we fail to find happiness or to create a unique lifestyle is because we have not yet mastered the art of being.

While we are at home, our thoughts are still absorbed with solving the challenges we face at the office. And when we are at the office we find ourselves worrying about problems at home.

We go through the day without really listening to what others are saying to us. We may be hearing the words, but we aren’t absorbing the message.

As we go through the day we find ourselves focusing on past experiences or future possibilities. We are so involved in yesterday and tomorrow that we never even notice that today is slipping by.

We go through the day rather than getting something from the day. We are everywhere at any given moment in time except living in that moment in time.

Lifestyle is learning to be wherever you are. It is developing a unique focus on the current moment, and drawing from it all of the substance and wealth of experience and emotions that it has to offer. Lifestyle is taking time to watch a sunset. Lifestyle is listening to silence. Lifestyle is capturing each moment so that it becomes a new part of what we are and of what we are in the process of becoming. Lifestyle is not something we do; it is something we experience. And until we learn to be there, we will never master the art of living well.

Every time I throw my boomerangs I get better at throwing and they come back stronger each and every time! I didn’t think it was possible, but I love my boys more each and every day!