As I continued to play with opening and closing my channel, I offered free readings to friends. The image of a calendar continued to return right above my eyes, ensuring that I scheduled in a reading every other day. As I began to reach the end of my list of close friends that I trusted in sharing these messages with, the anxiety began to build again, the pressure engulfing my heart.
“This is your work,” I heard one day while playing on the floor with my youngest daughter as my thoughts drifted to whom to do another reading with. “This is what you’re meant to do.”
No, I replied in my head, my breath more shallow as I tried focusing on the colorful ball that I was rolling.
“Do you remember what job you asked for?” the calming voice continued. Then, in my own voice as if it had been recorded, the requirements for the job of my dreams that I had previously asked the universe for listed itself again.
“A job where I can:
1. Work for myself
2. Set my own schedule so I can be with my girls
3. Fill my soul
4. And, support others.”
“Check, check, check, check…” the soft calming presence continued, as check marks appeared next to this list.
“Oh shit,” I muttered, giving up on playing all together. Is this really what I am meant to do? I wondered, my mind trying to interject with the jobs I had imagined doing, all of which capitalized on my background in retail.
But I don’t know what I’m doing, I argued back into the silence, my daughter now occupied by another toy.
“You don’t need to,” the voice returned in a murmur, barely audible above my pounding heart.
Days later, my life coach, Maura Moynihan, sent out an email about a spiritual mastermind she was launching specifically for women in business. It was as though my whole body was floating as I read the description.
“Yes, yes, yes,” chanted above my ears.
No, no, no, my mind argued back, you do not even have a business!
And yet once again my fingers typed faster than I could stop them in a reply to Maura: “Yes, I’m interested. Please sign me up for a discovery call.”
Although I had marked my calendar with the call, I tried to pretend it wasn’t happening. Anytime I would let my mind focus on it, I would scroll through to the option to cancel the call, my mind telling me that I had no business even considering a program about owning a business.
And yet, I kept the date and on the call I shared out loud for the first time that I was sensing that I was meant to launch a business.
“Great,” Maura replied. “Your next step is to do five readings with strangers in exchange for testimonials for your website.”
My website? my brain shouted. I have to make a website? The reality of actually starting a business kicking in just as she got to the cost of the course.
“It’s $15,000,” she shared, as my breath stayed in my throat a bit too long to reply. “It’s not meant to be a comfortable number,” she continued. “It’s meant to be here to stretch your trust in yourself.”
Finally able to speak again I mumbled, “Okay, I’ll talk to my husband,” before getting off.
Yeah, there’s no way I’m doing that, my mind decided instantly, relieved that it was over. However, I did the homework assignment, and reached out to five women I didn’t know through another group that Maura was leading and exchanged readings for beautiful testimonials describing the impact I had made in just one hour.
Maybe this really is a business? I finally let myself realize as the strong tug to talk to my husband about the course came in at my heart.
As we set out on our favorite walk in Manhattan Beach, I mentally went through countless ways of bringing it up to him and finally just ripped off the band aid. “I feel like I am meant to launch a business and want to do Maura’s course to support me but it’s $15,000.”
It was a lot to digest in one run-on sentence and he laughed and changed the subject, thinking that I was joking.
“No, I’m serious,” my inner knowing pulling hard.
“There’s no way that we can spend that money on something that doesn’t even exist yet,” he continued, his stride getting harder to keep up with.
“I know it’s a lot,” I replied, his words hitting deep as he echoed the exact same thing my mind had been telling me. “I just can’t explain it but I feel like I have to do it.”
“Well, you can use your Bora Bora fund,” he said, challenging me with his gaze.
My chest deflated as I imagined the money I had been saving for nearly five years disappearing. Money that I had carefully put away for our ten year anniversary trip which was less than a year away. My mind shouted not to do it, and reminded me I still was $5,000 short of the cost of the mastermind. Yet, the pulling forward within me steadfastly held strong as I quietly but confidently asserted, “Okay fine. I’ll take the money from the trip fund and borrow the rest from our joint account and pay it back.”
His eyes went wide, his mouth slightly opened before he could find the words to say, “You’re going to be bummed if we don’t take that trip.”
“I think I’ll make more money than that next year,” I whispered, the sound of the ocean crashing in the background. Even without any clarity on how that could possibly be true, my inner knowing tugged me to trust that it was all possible.
Although my husband’s aggravation was clear for the rest of the day–and in all honesty for nearly nine months after spending the anniversary trip money that I had refused to use on anything else–as I called Maura to say YES to trusting in the unknown and trusting in myself, I felt free.
To be continued next week, sign up for my newsletter to get it first!
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