It was a box. A plain one. Designed to hold paper and yet it contained everything I’d worked on for the previous two years–Chakra launches, workshops, course developments, some successes and all my failures. Everything broken down into one, tiny box that shouldn’t have been able to hold the expansiveness of my dreams.
And it still hurts some days, that letting go even though I knew it was the right thing to do. Because sometimes that’s what happens with dreams. We take the path and walk the journey and try this newness until we realize, not that it is hard, but that it’s taking us places we don’t really want to go.
That’s what happened to me just over 8 months ago when I looked at my then business, the World Tree Institute:
I loved it and I loved my business partners and we grew our little tree, adding 3000% membership to our tribe, doubling our annual income, speaking at workshops across the nation, and creating an international clientele!!! And just as we were hitting true momentum, I discovered something that made my stomach churn and my heart flatline…
This wasn’t what I wanted after all.
Because what I missed… what my soul song called for… were writers.
Writers were the reason I first turned to coaching as a passion.
I’d watched us struggle with being seen and being vulnerable. Watched us hide from our greatness because we couldn’t handle one more rejection. Watched our manuscripts–beautiful words and truths–die in the junk drawer called someday because it was easier to believe this one “wasn’t the one” than to go through one more critique or revision.
And I knew we needed something more than another craft book.
But somehow, I’d taken a different path. A thousand smaller choices that led from my true north, one degree at a time. Not that they were bad choices or wrong choices. And not that I didn’t appreciate what I learned from the World Tree, because I did and I do!!!
They were simply choices that ultimately took me where I didn’t intend to go.
We all make those kinds of choices. We all end up places we don’t like—whether a career we didn’t intend or a writing book we don’t actually enjoy—and are faced with a decision.
Stay the same (aka unhappy) or figure out what to adjust and how to let go.
It’s about having the courage to correct course and realign to our greatest desires.
Because great artists aren’t the ones who always take the right path. Great artists are the ones who are willing to try, to adjust and to embrace the possibilities in every adventure.
So try. And if you discover your soul song has dimmed, take courage (borrow some of mine if you need it) and let go of the path you’re on so you can discover the path to where you really want to be.
Months ago, I looked at that plain old box with tears in my eyes and pains in my heart, knowing it was time to listen to my soul song.
Today, I’ve let go of the past so I can rewrite my future, bringing every lesson learned in writing, business, marketing, branding, growing and tribe-building to the writers I love.
How about you? What path is calling? And will you choose the courage to take it?
It’s never too late to create a life and writing career you love.
Loves & hugs,
