I’m slowly emerging from a deep healing portal. It’s been about a month since I was guided to take a break and focus only on myself and my own healing. Initially it was meant to be for two weeks which ended up being a full month. It felt scary and a little selfish even. Can I do that? Can I actually take this time to focus on me and my healing? How decadent! At the same time, it feels totally reasonable now. If I want to hold space for other women again, if I want to help them move through their own healing portals, it’s only natural to first do that for myself.
Am I completely “healed”? Have I resolved all of my problems? No! It’s an ongoing process. But in order to move forward, I needed to take this time to figure out how to do this. To go first, so I can guide others through this.
I am also not saying that to heal from anything you have to take a month off, or fly to Bali, or give up gluten, or anything else. It is possible to do this while you are living your life. It is also easier to do this with someone else holding space for you. It was my path to do this by myself. I now realize that this was for me to begin to trust myself again. To find myself again. Not to fear my own body, or my emotions, not running away from them. Because you can’t! You can’t run away from anxiety, or any other emotions (as much as you want to).
So, every time anxiety came, instead of running away from it or trying to get rid of it (which I was trying to do for two years), I listened, I breathed through it, I talked with it, I’ve been discovering what is underneath the anxiety – all the fears, all the anger, all the grief, sadness, shame. All that I pushed down over the years. All the things I didn’t want to deal with or didn’t know how. I’ve been working through all of it.
Even now writing about it, I can feel anxiety rising again in my body. Because it’s scary for the mind. It’s scary to share this. It’s scary to talk about it. But I know that there is no other way for me. No more hiding!
I can’t hide anymore. I can’t push things down anymore. I can’t sweep things under the carpet. I can’t be quiet anymore. Otherwise, I would burst, or go crazy, or die. It’s so strong. And so scary. But this is why I came here. This is why I am here. Or at least it’s part of it. To share my struggles. To share how I resolved them. How I moved through them. And guide others to do the same. Because the only way out is through!
My anxiety started two years ago. For a while before it started, I felt that I’m supposed to change, that something is supposed to change. I didn’t fully understand what it meant exactly. But I was scared to change anything, even though things were not really working. Not in my business, not in my personal life, not within myself. I wasn’t happy. I thought I was living my purpose. I thought I had finally found it, after years of searching. But as much as I thought that having a business where I helped women to heal was my purpose. It wasn’t the whole truth. It wasn’t meant to be my whole life, my whole focus. I did not put myself first. My business was all I focused on. And I didn’t understand why I wasn’t happy, why I didn’t feel fulfilled. And why was I not making enough money. That was all it came down to in the end, how I can make money from my business. The joy of helping others, and the feeling of fulfilment I had in the beginning went out of the window. I wasn’t living. I was barely surviving. I burned out completely. Mentally, physically, emotionally. I had to give up. I had to take a break. I had to get a job to survive. This is when the anxiety came.
It came out of nowhere and it hit me like a wall of bricks. I experienced anxiety before but this was something else. It had seemingly no reason to be there. In the past it was related to a health scare. Over time I uncovered that it was rooted in my feelings of failure. I felt like such a failure that I could not continue with my business anymore. That I had to take a break from my business. That I didn’t have the energy, the strength, or the courage to do anything about it at the time. I thought that I tried everything and there was no more to give, to do.
I gave up and found a job, which sounded good at first, but ended up being a nightmare for me. I worked for a book publisher as a book editor. I was in charge of a small imprint that focused on spiritual and self-development books (my background is in linguistics and literature). It sounded great at first. Unfortunately, the only things my employer cared about was to make money. They didn’t care about me, the books, or the readers. And yes, the irony is not lost on me. That this job mirrored what I was going through in my business before. Additionally, I realized that I don’t particularly enjoy editing books written or translated by other people, as interesting, inspiring, or helpful they might be. That I much prefer to read books just for fun, and to write my own texts. I lasted almost two years though, because I didn’t know what else to do. The feelings of failure were eating me up as much as I tried to work through them. I also tried to look for other jobs while I was there. But A few months ago, I finally knew that the only way is to go back to working for myself, to go back to helping people directly, and not to hide behind other people’s books. It wasn’t easy for me, because it felt so scary. It was so painful, but I knew there is no other way.
So, I left and I was going to go straight back into my business. That was where the Universe and my inner voice were guiding me. I thought I was ready. I was excited at first. But it wasn’t flowing. I could not create anything. I didn’t feel good about promoting my services.
After a couple of weeks, I realized that I was not ready.
Although I had done a lot of work on myself over the last two years, I haven’t done any work around my business and making money from my services. I hadn’t worked through all the feelings of failure (which were much deeper than my business). I hadn’t worked through the resistance I felt against going into some of the things, because it felt too painful. I hadn’t worked through the shame I felt that I quit, that I could not fulfil my purpose. I had to work through the feelings of not being good enough (my life-long topic). I had to work through the comparisons with others, with other coaches that I follow, and even some of my friends that do similar work. I hadn’t worked through so many things before that I needed to work through.
This is what I had to do for myself and for my business.
If I want to help others, I have help myself first.
This is my path. This is my mission, to go through these transformative healing portals. To try out what is working and what isn’t and share it with others. To help others walk through them. And this is not my first rodeo. I’ve done it many times before.
This is not to say that I am done after a month. This is ongoing work. I am working on myself every day still.
You might be wondering how I’ve done it.
I’ve used the tools I know and use with clients, including EFT, inner voice work, past life healing, and somatic practices, such a shaking. I journaled a lot. I cried a lot. I took a lot of deep breaths. I’ve spoken with friends about what I’m going through. Some of them held space for me when I needed. Some of the steps I had to do on my own. When anxiety came, I did not try to get rid of it. I felt it, I listened to it, I breathed through it. I saw, felt and worked through many things that were hiding underneath the anxiety.
It does not matter if you are starting with your business for the first time, you are starting over in life for the second or even tenth time, if you are changing direction, or you are reinventing yourself or your business (or both) completely. There will be resistance, because change is scary for the mind. It does not feel safe.
If you are not happy where you are, you can change it, as scary it can feel.
There is always a way out. A way through. You are the only one who can walk this path. But you don’t have to do it alone. You can get someone to help you.
I am slowly starting to open spots for clients now. If you feel called to get support or guidance from someone who has walked this path before you, please do reach out. I would love to support you.
I am sending you so much love, and thank you for reading all the way to the end!
