Reading is dreaming with eyes open
I’ve always wanted to start my own thing //
Its been a blessing and a curse. Several years ago I started a clothing line turning men’s dress shirts into women’s dresses. It was so much fun and exciting and ended quickly when fear & doubt went ahead and took over. Started working full time, got certificates in things I didn’t care about and did the 9-6. It was normal and that felt like an odd relief, but I knew I needed more. So I went back to sewing, spent my days creating, experienced the high highs and low lows of entrepreneurship until those deep rooted beliefs of unworthiness overwhelmed me, and I quit again.
Major blocks //
At around that time I'd fallen in love with yoga and found a yoga teacher training that would fit my schedule perfectly in the city I was moving to. It was everything I needed right then and I completely stalled. There was a big fat invisible wall standing between me and this exciting prospect. I felt stuck and scared and stayed in my comfort zone. The deadline for the application was July something. The night before this date, I hadn’t even started applying. I was run by the very quiet, very powerful voice in my head saying crap like “This’ll get you nowhere”. “What’s the point”. “There’s no way you can do this”. "Stay complacent, its less scary".
My friend had sent me a book - You Are a Badass: How to stop doubting your greatness and start living an awesome life. Why not – I felt the block, I wanted to move beyond it and had no idea how to. This title seemed about right, so I opened it.
It broke down exactly everything I’d been dealing with, without realizing it. Jen Sincero, the author, allows the reader to look fear, be OK with it and keep moving forward. She introduced me to the idea of living in faith instead of letting fear and doubt take over. It’s a major challenge, considering I have ALWAYS lived like this. But she gives exercises towards taking steps out of our comfort zone, inspires us to visualize us living our absolute best life, and makes us laugh along the way.
Empowered //
I put the book down, got to my computer, felt this new sense of empowerment and filled out the application. It was an excitement I hadn’t felt in a long time. For the first time ever, I consciously allowed faith to drown out the fear. The yoga teacher training changed my life, and that book is the reason I took the first step.
Help yourself //
I’ve since become a “self care junkie”, reading or listening to books that empower, excite, teach. In the scary, sometimes lonely, sometimes overwhelming world of starting a business, these books helped me shift my perspective.
Run, don’t walk to the thing that makes your heart beat faster. Let that excitement take over, make the choice to move forward, say hi to fear, feel that discomfort and just do it. If it feels right, its not meant to be easy. Its meant to happen.
xx, LrM
