I was going through a period where it felt like I’d lost so much of what I’d worked towards for years. Outwardly, nothing was really wrong, but it felt like a sudden (and massive) dip in confidence was blocking almost everything I was working towards from flowing to me.
(The aforementioned perfectionism was impacting on me again here, by tricking my mind into thinking I’d block myself because of the mere fact that I didn’t feel confident—a sure-fire way to dampen your confidence even more.)
I did some reflection on the differences between ‘now’ and ‘then’; ‘now’ obviously referring to how I felt in the present moment and had been feeling for a while, and ‘then’ how I’d felt (and what I’d allowed myself to receive) in the times when I’d felt more in flow. I noticed three things …
Firstly, I was viewing the past with this beautiful thing called hindsight, and it was only with hindsight that I could tell myself everything had been completely rosy ‘then’. Back then, I’d still had to call on my resilience, find strength when things seemed less than easy, and put myself forwards when I didn’t know what the outcome would be. I was comparing two different periods of my life, but conveniently forgetting that while I’d changed and grown in the interim, I had still created that past version, dreamed and set goals and worked towards them (or something better). I’d done it before, and I could do it again.
Secondly, much of my future tripping about how things would never get better was conjecture. I was guessing how things would turn out, while I was planning my very own pity party. Boring. Unhelpful. Also just plain silly.
Thirdly, so much of my outer ‘success’ (and I define that in terms of how I was feeling within myself and my work, as well as opportunities, visibility, client/workshop attendee numbers, income etc.) had come as a direct result of my inner power. I could see that, years after first truly experiencing this, I was trying to go about things the wrong way.
If I wanted anything to change—and I did—I had to become powerful again, or rather reclaim my power, from the inside first.
I had to let go of self-limiting, victim-based stories, and reprogram my thoughts to support my future self, and my future vision.
What was my next step? Well, like so many make-up products claim to do (and which some do really well—hello illuminator!), I had to let myself glow from the inside out. What does that mean? I had to first radiate that which I wished to call in. I had to radiate my own inner power from the inside out (instead of seeking external validation and thinking it could come from the outside in), no matter what storm I was weathering, no matter what shade of blue (or grey) the sky was.
I could do this by trusting myself and where I was, by trusting I was supported, and by trusting that everything I needed was already within.
This wasn’t about denying pain or hard times, but about staying powerful through them, because of them, in spite of them, no matter what.
We all go through this from time to time. I find it often comes up when we’re stretching, outgrowing the space we’ve created, the platform we’ve built for ourselves, when we’re being called to go to the next level of our lives. This is your power calling you back to yourself.
It doesn’t need to be frightening; it’s you, after all. It’s the next, bigger version of your life, whispering your name from the other side of the door you’re yet to walk through.
Initially, I found myself blustering my way through this phase of uplevelling, even though (on some level) I’d done this many times before, in many different stages of my life and business. But this time it felt bigger. Or perhaps it always feels bigger in the moment; then the mountain recedes to a molehill, as we find our path weaving ahead.
In hindsight, I can see that I resisted this uplevelling for one main reason: I felt that I didn’t know how to do it. Ha! What’s comical is that we actually always know how to uplevel; we just resist it because of what the uplevelling will mean in our lives.
If you’re feeling this resistance too (which can camouflage itself as fear, a sense of stuckness, doubt, overwhelm, limiting beliefs that you know you’ve worked to clear before, or any number of inner blocks that you could’ve sworn you’d dealt with already) do this: instead of digging deeper into the problem to find more of the problem (which can sometimes leave you feeling as though you’re just digging into sameness), dig deep into your self-enquiry. Do this to find the healing you need most at that time. Surrender to how you’re feeling. Focus on the healing and not the problem. The solution—the uplevelling you need most—will appear for you when the time is right.
That’s when we realise we’ve come up against those inner blocks again to catapult us higher than we’ve been before. It’s when we realise that it doesn’t matter if we’re feeling fear or stuckness; we can sit in this space, surrender to the unknown and still have dreams that fit us like a glove (but also offer us lots of room to stretch, grow and be pulled towards where we truly need to go).
For me, the healing wasn’t about doing anything external, like finding new tasks to tick off, creating new goals to reach, or new heights to climb. It was about climbing that inner mountain of self-doubt, the one that tries to block you from what’s next, for the pure and simple fact that you fear the unknown. At such a time, I like to remind myself that I’ve done this before and I can do it again.
When enquiring with compassion, you don’t berate or punish yourself for not being ‘there yet’; you don’t wonder why you find yourself in a spot you may have been familiar with just months or years before; and you don’t look around and wonder why it seems as though everyone around you is managing so much better than you.
Enquiring with compassion is about gently and kindly asking yourself what you need most right now, in this moment. It’s about trusting the timing of what you’re creating or releasing. The creativity process is not linear and neither is the process of shedding a skin from your past self.
We have many iterations of ourselves to live and embody in this life; it makes sense that we should uplevel for each new version of ourselves.
Why do we think this needs to be a linear, perfect, easy and simple process? And why do we think we deserve the roadmap, before we even know the destination of our journey?
Remember that you’ve done this before, and you can do this again.
You’ve already uplevelled, because you’re here. You’ve already let go, because you’re here. You’ve already worked towards your dreams, set goals, honoured your intentions and followed your heart, because you’re here.
So on some level, you’ve done this before. But have you done this every single day, all the time? Probably not, because you’re human. But still, you’re here.
On the way to our next vision, we’re allowed to have fear; but let’s also have joy and lightness and ease. We’re allowed to see our shadows (in fact, I believe we must), but let’s make more space for our light.
Don’t be scared of how you’ll manage a current or even a future challenge. Trust yourself that you’ll make it through, because you’ve done this before, and you can do it again.
If you want the relationship, the job, the raise, the promotion, the love, the abundance, the opportunity, the expansion, the momentum ... you have to believe it first. Only then, can you call it (or something better) into your life.
You have to know you’re worthy of holding what you’re calling in. You have to know you’re allowed to receive it. Because it’s you—not anyone else—who gives yourself permission to receive.
You might know that I tout the phrase ‘or something better’ often. So when I say you have to believe it first, I don’t mean you have to know the outcome of what you’re calling into your life. You don’t have to know how it’ll happen, or when. But if you want to call something into your life, you have to believe you are worthy of receiving it first. You have to trust there’s space within you to receive it, and hold it.
You have to believe you can hold it, and that you’re worthy of holding it. Otherwise you may call it in and let it slip between your fingers, before you can even say ‘self-sabotage’ to yourself.
Sit with this idea for a moment. Place your hands on your heart, and say to yourself: ‘I allow myself to receive. What I desire comes from within first.’
You are always expanding, even when you feel stuck. Hmm, scrap that—especially when you feel stuck. The stuckness is the sense of you pushing out the walls of what’s possible for you, because expansion doesn’t always have to feel like ease for it to be creating more space in your life.
There’ll be another expansion and evolution of you. There’ll be another time when you know you’re ready for what’s next. There’ll be another time when you know you’re done with what is ‘now’, even though you have no idea what’s coming next.
So let yourself make space now, however you need to, to receive (in) what you’re radiating (out).
We can’t control the timing of what we’re working towards, but we can always stay in our power with how we approach our dreams, goals and actions.
By trusting that our vision can play out in multiple ways, most of which can’t be directly controlled by us, we can allow ourselves the freedom that trust brings.
We can ground our energy down, and deep. Simultaneously, we can hold the space for now, and for new beginnings.
We can call on our resilience, our inner and higher support systems, and trust that we can land with grace, in spite of not knowing the outcome (yet).