I LOVE my job! I enjoy the freedoms of owning my own holistic life coaching practice; in balancing my needs between family and business; the flexibility of managing my own schedule; and I am blessed every day with the opportunities to dream and create! Every day, I get to dream and scheme, laugh and share, heal and help others!  I just love, love, love working with people, my clients—YOU---who have varied and interesting stories to share!

And sometimes I feel like a child with an exciting secret—I get so giddy! One of the greatest things about my job is that YOU teach me something new every single day! Sometimes I feel like I’M the one who really benefits from our sessions! I wonder if my clients really know how happy they make me, how much THEY teach ME, how much sheer delight I get from our sessions, sharing and healing and opening to each other!

Which is why I am kind of scared and kind of nervous to share the following news…

See, here’s the deal…over the past nine months, I have experienced a few major life events—my father was diagnosed and lost his battle with cancer; my daughter moved out of my house and in with her father; and I turned 40! To help me cope with these transitions, I have been seeing a therapist who has charged me with the task of completing a “life timeline.” It is not an easy exercise to do, as it has brought up all sorts of painful memories---and loads of revelations!  

These revelations are causing major energetic shifts for me! I always coach my clients to be gentle on themselves when they undergo such shifts, and I have to treat myself with my own advice. With the amount of shifts I am going through, I need time to fully integrate the changes and space to release all that I no longer wish to carry.

I am not sharing this for sympathy, or any kind of reaction, actually. I am sharing only because it helps to put into context the kinds of things I am meditating on lately…I believe that every experience I have had has prepared me for this crucial moment. I believe I chose to incarnate on this plane, I chose which path my life would take and the experiences I would have. I hold a vision that my experiences are not only for me to learn by, but for others too. I chose to incarnate an Aquarian, the water bearer---sharing information with all of humanity.  

Lately I’m being called to focus my energies on writing my book. I actually have three of them started (THREE!) and I feel compelled at this time to finish them. And so, the best thing about my job is that I get to choose how to spend my time and energies. I have given this considerable thought, but realize that life really is too short. My ideas, my story, won't help anyone if they remain in my head! I must be the Water-bearer, and pour out these stories as if they were water for the thirsty! The mantra of late is loud and clear, "WRITE THE BOOK!"

I do intend to honor my commitments of producing Tele Classes—I have quite a few already planned throughout the year—and I will continue working on my side project, Magickal Harvest, but come March 1, 2013, I will not be accepting client appointments until further notice.  

You wanna' know what else I really LOVE? I LOVE that I am the master of my own destiny! I am elated that I don’t have to do the “daily grind” of the 9-5 office life, under artificial lights, subject to quarterly reviews. I love that I can wake up one day, listen to my heart and know that I have the support of people who get it!

Because I know that while right now seems scary for me to step into, in the end, it will be so worth it!

What would you do if you knew you could not fail?

Failure, in our culture, is the ultimate curse word! To fail is to not meet up to expectations (either your own or others'). It places you lower on the rungs of the ladder to success, ostracizes you as "incapable." We think of failure as a bad thing. We think of it as the most devastating thing that we could ever endure. We think of it as an END to a dream.

…yadda, yadda, yadda…

Well, F@*$ this! I think we have the wrong mindset about “failure.” What if, instead of thinking this way, we thought of failure as an inevitable part of the process to achieving that dream? Instead of it being a matter of devastation, it was simply a wrong turn on this journey?

A few years ago I started an online business, selling vintage collectibles and antiques. I have long been a collector of unusual things that “spoke” to me. Literally, I can feel the stories of old objects and if something felt right, and I liked its story, I would keep it. One day I decided to clear the clutter from my space. Knowing that everything is energy, I felt like transferring my stuff for a different kind of energy—money.

Now, as far as the ins and outs of running an online business-- I had no clue! But I didn’t think it could be that hard. I created my website, I listed a few things at really low prices—once they flew off my shelves, I realized that just maybe the prices were a bit too low.  I bumped up the prices a bit and found they were still flying off the shelves. I began to more thoroughly research what I had and found that things I had been selling could have sold for three times that amount.

Failure? Perhaps some would see it this way. In fact, every time I recount this story, someone inevitably proclaims, “FAIL!” But I prefer to view it differently. This “failure” was really the cost of my education. I have since learned that it pays to perform due diligence and thoroughly research before listing.

In retrospect, once I decided to take action, there was no such thing as failure--only experiences, consequences and results. This is the Principle of Cause and Effect at play. Every action has a reaction. Failure is just one effect.

My point is this: if you are unsure of HOW to get there, don’t sweat it! Once you decide to take action, you have to trust that the Universe conspires to give you what you need at the moment you need it! Trusting that everything happens for a reason develops an inner spirit of un-stop-ability! Trusting in this process allows you to approach everything with a solution-oriented mindset.

Most importantly, learn from it! Don’t let it eat you! Regroup, figure out a plan B and move on! Many people take this initial unmet expectation as a cue to give up and never learn from it. This is where YOU can rise above and shine!

So what if it didn’t go as you expected it to!? So what if you did not meet your deadline, or make the money you wanted? So what, so what, so what?? Ask yourself instead, “What have I learned?” “What can I do differently?” “What is the benefit here?” And most importantly, “What has this taught me about myself?” If you view failure as a learning experience, you soon see that every failure is really a new possibility!

Have a plan, take action, be flexible and learn from it! You can label it whatever you want, but in my experience, failure is just another word for possibility. By choosing to look at it this way, I have grown tremendously! I have also learned that building possibility into my plan of action for achieving my BIG DREAM-- gets me there!