AKA. HOW I GOT DE-RAILED ON “BOOKCATION”
As many of you know, I’ve been out in LA for the past couple weeks on a “bookcation”. I’ve been absolutely determined to remove myself from any distractions and finish my first REAL book (“Juicespiration”, is technically my first book but it’s only available as an e-book so I’m saying it’s half-real, haha) . I was beyond excited to win a publishing package with a Hay House and Balboa Press and absolutely over joyed to finally share my story and the tools I’ve learned over the years with all of you.
Unfortunately, once I got out here, life just kept on creeping up in my way. Don’t you hate it when that happens? I’m a very sensitive person when it comes to certain things having the ability to de-rail me. I had three different levels and different situations of just being taken completely off my game mentally while being out here and I was angry with myself about it!
I had a disagreement with some of my close girlfriends one weekend which had me all sorts of out of whack. I’m not the kind of girl who regularly engages in drama with her friends, if you couldn’t of guessed, I hate fighting. I can’t remember the last time before this incident that I was actually in a fight with any of my girlfriends. Needless to say, it’s all I could think about and zero book writing got done for a few days as a result.
Just as I was cooling off from that, my boyfriend flipped out on me about something trivial. He decided he needed to take the holiday weekend to himself and not answer any phone calls while I was a disaster about everything in LA and then sent me a lovely break up email on Tuesday afternoon. Real classy, right? At this point, I was less sad (since I spent all weekend crying and NOT writing my book) but more flabbergasted that an almost 30 year old man thought it was appropriate to send an email to end a relationship of almost a year. The blessing of having people handle things so terribly is that it certainly helps you see their true colors and heal faster than you might otherwise.
Sandwiched right in there, I got an even bigger blow. Someone I’m very close to was having serious health issues and was going to be rushed into emergency surgery. This one really made my heart hurt. I could barely think about the two former situations other than the fact that I was dealing with such a traumatic event in my life with out some of the people I counted on most for support. I’ve been so blessed so far in my life that I haven’t had to face the mortality of ones I love too often. My grandma had thyroid cancer when I was in college and that was really my first major brush with disease affecting someone so close to me. (Grandma is all good now BTW and I’m so grateful everyday for her presence in my life, she’s one of my favorite people in the world and gives the best advice.) So I have to be honest, I’m really not doing well with the whole situation. I’ve been having random public outbursts of crying and have some amazing friends on text-support for me at all times. I’m praying, meditating and journaling. Just writing this right now feels very therapeutic and this whole ordeal has taught me some really important lessons.
I’m not a machine, I’m human.
While crying on and off and feeling sick to my stomach, I kept on beating myself up about not making better progress on the book. I was so angry that I was letting these situations take me down and I got frustrated with my tools. I was meditating and doing yoga and I still couldn’t ‘un-funk’ myself. And then it finally hit me, like a loving voice whispering into my ear,” it’s okay to just take care of you right now, that’s your only job”. So I stopped trying so hard to make myself calm enough to get work done and started doing things that made me just feel better! I took a long walk in the California sunshine and listened to music that made me happy, I watched documentaries about GMOs and other food issues (this is my favorite chill-out activity, I know I’m a dork), I let myself hang out in a bubble bath and most importantly, I let myself sleep as much as I needed. All that stress, sadness and anger takes such a toll on our internal environment and it can make us beyond exhausted, I know for me at least, that’s always the case. I realized that right now, this was what I had to focus on so that I could return to my book (and my life!) as a whole, functional human being when the time was right.
Trust your tools.
Through all the different hurdles that came up for me on this trip, I brought it to my meditation pillow. I have a daily practice that includes saying gratitude when I wake up in the morning, doing my ACIM (A Course in Miracles) lesson of the day and then I do a kundalini meditation. I typically do a manifesting meditation but I switched it to a meditation for irrationality, and added both a “willing to see love” and “manifesting love” guided meditation from Gabby Bernstein when things to a turn for the worse with my now ex-boyfriend. I also practiced a kundalini kriya (which is a 30-45 minute yoga sequence) daily. Needless to say, some days it still didn’t really help, I’d feel my emotions well up during my kriya and even though my meditations were helpful in changing my state for the hour after, I would fall back into my thinking patterns all too soon and be down the rabbit hole again. I did it for three days straight despite not seeing any tremendous results, I kept the faith and I didn’t know what else to try and then a miracle happened on the fourth morning. I woke up and all of a sudden I felt a profound sense of clarity after my morning routine. My circumstances hadn’t changed, but the way I looked at it did. I felt an overwhelming trust that everything is happening for a reason and that it was for the greater good. I started focusing on my loved one’s health crisis in a very practical way of steps I had to take (switching flights, arranging my schedule) so that I could be with them. I spent time on the phone with them, seeing how they were handling it, instead of worrying about how I was and just realizing that the other two situations weren’t anything to garner my attention right now. My girlfriends and I will smooth it over soon enough and put it behind us and my ex, well who needs someone in your life that doesn’t want you in theirs and would treat you like that? I focused on what was important and all of sudden I was able to start writing again, I was able to function again. I learned to trust my tools, it may have taken a little while for me to see the effects but I certainly wouldn’t have made it to the other side without them. Plus, who knows how much worse those first couple days would have been with out them!
I get by with a little help from my friends…and family.
I feel so tremendously grateful for the support I have amongst my friends and family. I tend to try to keep things to myself and handle them on my own as much as possible before reaching out to too many people. I always feel like people have enough of their own stuff going on and I don’t want to burden them but I realized this past week, that sometimes we need to lean on those around us. Nothing was more comforting than having someone who just listened and helped me gain clarity on the situation. I finally got to the point where I just let myself come completely clean and ask for the support I needed at the time. So often, we keep everything swirling in our heads and try to put on a good face when the best thing for us can really be lifting the veil, being vulnerable and asking for someone to take the time to listen. I’m also a big believer in journaling which can be a tremendous tool in helping us gain clarity and unload emotional thoughts. When it’s too late to call, grab the journal!
I love my work.
Every step of the way, I never missed a client meeting or a breakthrough session. In fact, the time I had with the lovely ladies I coach was the highlight of my darkest days. Speaking to them, hearing their successes and helping them tackle new challenges was like bright rays of sun in my otherwise grey sky. I felt so happy, so energized and so at peace when working with them. I always knew that I loved coaching, ever since I’ve started, it’s brought me more joy and pleasure than anything I’ve experienced to watch the people I work with get healthy, lose weight, make positive changes in their life and just become those happy, glowing people we’re all meant to be with my help. However, this trip really solidified it. I don’t think any of my clients realized how much they were helping me (although they may now if they read this – love you guys!) but just by having the responsibility to show up for them in a big way got me back on my game. I stand in so much gratitude right now for what I do, the people I get to work with and all the people that I’ll work with in the future. There is nothing more beautiful than supporting someone who is ready to make massive changes in their life and creating a healthy lifestyle that makes them incredibly happy together. They inspire me everyday and really inject so much joy in my life!
The book will get done when it’s supposed to.
I believe in divine timing, everything happens in it’s own time. I also believe in productivity, goals and timelines and sometimes the two really butt heads. This whole bookcation was a tremendous example of that. Luckily, I have a very loving editor whose also my girlfriend and she reminded me that it’s more important to write a really great book than to “just get it done” and to be more patient with myself. So the book may not have gotten finished this week but the book that it has evolved into, is leagues better than the one I had planned on finishing. I revamped it mid-vaca to be more of guide in the vein of the work I do with my clients, which I’m super excited about and it’s also going to have some pretty kick ass tips for dealing with a broken heart and crisis while staying on track! All of which never would have happened without me having to fall of track, bring myself back into the game and learn a little bit more about myself along the way.