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You Had It Right All Along
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my 27+ years as an artist, creator and business owner, it’s that there was never anything wrong with me or my work. It was always valuable and perfect for the right people—there was just different levels of me allowing myself to know that.
When I didn’t allow myself to know that, I would temporarily follow the ways and guidelines of people and systems that didn’t really match who I was. I’d lose myself in believing someone else had my right answers or knew the way for me.
I can’t tell you how many times I thought something I created was a flop, trash, unwanted, or unloved—only to later have that same thing be someone’s absolute treasure, or my biggest success! Only to later have tons of people love that same thing I had thought was a flop. And it wasn’t because it was “before its time” or because I hadn’t yet believed in it or myself even. It was always just me refusing to allow myself to access that view of myself and my work. The view where it was valuable already, I wouldn’t have created it unless I felt that in the first place. So that knowing of its value always existed.
But why would we refuse to allow ourselves access to this view of ourselves and our work? That doesn’t make sense right? Well, we do it for many reasons, but for me, most of them came down to this: It simply felt safer to be unappreciated than to be appreciated.
Wait… What?!
What do you mean, Sunni? Why would anybody not want to be appreciated or think like that at all?!
Well, you don’t think it—you feel it, subconsciously. Because there are fears that you have about that success or success in a particular realm that you haven’t fully made peace with yet.
Fears in the back of your mind like:
Then people will expect more from me, and I will be responsible for more, and they might copy or steal my work more, or there might be more complainers, more hagglers, more naysayers there might be more neediness near to me, or around me, more things might go wrong, there might be more things to juggle, and I might be overwhelmed by all of it. I might lose myself and my way of life as I know it, and I might change my mind!? And it might feel like too much to hold, and with more people there might be more people who get disappointed in me, and mad at me, and criticize me because I’ve seen that with growth comes more voices, and with more voices comes more potential pains as well as potential joys.
And you see how very successful people in businesses in the world are treated sometimes, both the light sides of that and the dark sides of that. You don’t want to think about that dark side of that, you don’t want to see that, that success could be a threat. You want to see and believe that success will just be golden, and it will just solve everything, but part of you sees the potential downsides, and despite you telling it, “it’ll be fine. It’ll be fine. We’ll be fine. I can handle it.” It doesn’t quite believe you.
So What Do We Do About This?
How to soothe this part of yourself that is NOT on board with that success? Because we all know that internal agreement with your goals—energetic cohesion—is what creates the smoothest and fastest forward momentum.
I wish I could tell you there’s a shortcut. And actually, there is a shortcut!—but it’s not one most people like or are willing to take.
The Shortcut is: Meet the fears NOW.
Walk yourself through them, now. Let yourself know what you’ll do in each scenario. Remind yourself who you are despite the potential pains. Show yourself how you’ll come through it. Remind yourself that you’ve always been okay, despite past hurts, failures, criticisms, disappointments, or losses. Show your mind, let it really see, how you’re always okay.
The Long Cut is: Keep pushing forward while half of you is dead against it…
and the other half of you is rushing forward at high speed, trying to escape the dead against it part, until those things actually happen in real life in real time, and then you meet them, you respond in kind, and you see “hey, I can make it through this, I can continue to thrive and be okay and still love myself and life anyway, even though these things happen”.
Now that is the route that most people take! Most people who don’t give up on their visions, that is, and it is longer because you’re trying to move forward and stay back at the same time, which tears you apart inside, versus just meeting the fears up front and moving forward with less fear and resistance.
But here’s the great news: either way you win! So long as you don’t give up on yourself, long cut, short cut, doesn’t matter—you’re on your way—because that is WHO YOU ARE.
You wouldn’t be reading this if that’s not who you are. You already know you’re different. You already know you’re in this life for better things. You already know you didn’t come here to play by the norm rules in the norm ways. You already know you’re not going to settle on your heart and soul’s desires.
You may talk a good game about quitting sometimes, but in truth, you know you never will because this is just who you are.
It’s the game you came to play, the life you came to lead, the adventure you came to taste, and you are doing it.
Your life is a testament to this in all kinds of ways, and you are just now wanting to really take that to the next level, not the result, I mean yes, of course you want the results, but what you want more than the results is to know your power to do freaking amazing things in the world and in your life. Game changing things, world altering things, and that is all about trust in yourself and in life/god/universe at a whole other level.
Keep honoring who you are. Meet the fears. Transform them back into your power to do it your way.
That is what all my work is about because that’s what I constantly need reminder of myself, and I just want to help myself and you enjoy the work and enjoy your life, and enjoy the process of the continual creation of your dreams for yourself in life. Helping you alchemize your pains into joys.
The shortcut is seeing how you’ve already met countless challenges and you’ve transformed them into those greatest joys. Write those down. Show yourself the ways, remind your scared-self what you’re made of, and give your scared-self whatever care and support they need to help them feel safe and heard and loved because that’s all they need.
They want to be on your side, and they are on your side, and they believe that you NOT moving forward the way that you want to is actually the most supportive thing that they can do for you (with all the fears that they’re holding, with what they’re currently believing), they do believe that they’re supporting you that way, so just remind yourself that though this scared part of you has always been there…
so has your visionary expanded self who knows what they’re doing, and knows their direction, and is not afraid to move on the call of their soul, win or lose.
All this to say what I always say, and I’ve been saying in this particular space for 16 years, which is: stay with yourself.
If you get turned around by voices that are not your own, no problem. It happens to all of us. Just return to yourself and carry on. Your most authentic life and expression is worth everything to you, obviously. The way you live is proof enough of it.
You’re already there. You’re doing it. You’re living it now. You’re just taking it all to the next natural level, at the pace and in the way that works exactly right for you, and you’re doing amazing.
And as always, if you’d like support creating a life and business you love that feels more and more like YOU just being YOU, you can explore all of my work right here.
Big love sweet pea’s,
xo,
