When Life Gives you Lemons....

I’m going to take a moment to be really vulnerable here.  Without going into detail, I recently had my life go in a very different direction from what I planned and it had a big knock on effect.  I very much felt like life had given me lemons. So I had to make decisions on what to do. The changes in my life were necessary but they were difficult, and it left me feeling like I was a fraud to be honest. Running a healing and coaching business which is about helping people move forwards, when I felt completely derailed, was playing into every one of my insecurities. 

So I took a bit of time out. I gave myself permission just to focus on me, to rebuild and figure out what life now looked like for me. That's why my socials have been quiet. I needed to spend some time working on myself, processing and reframing things.  I went inward and looked at what led me into my situation and where I needed to heal.

An important step for me was realising that I had the strength and the tools to get through these changes and come out better for it. That going through unexpected life changes didn't in any way make me a fraud. I focus on navigating what is and making the most of a situation.  I do find it frustrating that in the spiritual community there is so much language which essentially tells us all to look on the bright side and everything is wonderful. It’s normal to find things difficult and sometimes the best option for someone can be incredibly painful, yet like a forest fire it clears the way for new growth because of the destruction - think of the tower card in tarot or the goddess Kali. In many ways it is the pain of the lesson that makes it so valuable as we truly have to weigh up what we want and what is right for us.

To work through these changes, do the reflection needed and process the pain during this time my approach has been a mix of practical steps and holistic ones.  

Permission to slow down.  I couldn’t authentically show up for my clients when I was struggling myself. Giving myself the time and space to feel my feelings and connect really deeply with myself was vital. I knew that if I didn’t do this now then those feelings would become trapped and harder to deal with later.

Reaching out to Friends. I am lucky to be surrounded by wonderful people, friends who gave me their time, shared jokes with me and listened when I needed it. There are some people in my life who have a wonderful joyful outlook in life and it was such a pleasure to spend time with them.  I went for a few sessions of therapy myself to give myself the space to talk and to process.  

Doing my own healing.  I knew that I was burned out and carrying lots of heavy energy from my experience.  So I went for Egyptian healing from others who trained with me and I have a reciprocal relationship with.  These healings gave me permission to put down my load and give me the space and energy to think and feel clearly.

Feeling my feelings. I gave myself the time, space and permission to feel how I was feeling. I let go of judgement and connected in with my body. There were lots of tears and some screams, then came laughter and joy as well. 

Not giving up hope.  Sometimes when life goes tits up it’s easy to give into despair, to gaze inwardly and wonder what is wrong with us.  Instead I resolved to take what has happened and learn lessons from it. To know that I could learn and trust in myself not to repeat the mistakes I made. 

I let go of the dream. In some ways the biggest challenge I had was releasing the dream of the life I wanted.  I freely admit I can be prone to daydreaming and had a vision of the life I wanted, yet I had to face up to the fact my reality wasn’t aligned to my dream. In fact my reality was in danger of taking me in the opposite direction away from my dream.  One of the hardest parts about the change was shifting my dream and really looking at the different parts of it to see if that aligned with who I want to be and letting go of the things that didn’t. When life changes we can be left not only mourning the loss of what we had but of the hopes of the future.  

Healing and moving on is a process. I’m feeling more myself than I have in a while and am looking to the future.  Life gave me lemons and I had a choice.  I have chosen to make lemonade. If you’re currently sitting staring at your own basket of lemons and want to learn how to make lemonade then book in for a free call consultation.