Mud, Sweat & Fear: The Journey to Braveheart
/This piece was written and published on Medium originally. Link here: Mud, Sweat & Fear: The Journey to Braveheart
I’m going to get even more real right now. Mostly because this is my recent past and very present, day by day state of affairs.
Online Snapshots versus Reality
I must say, I love all those stories of the successful turning around from nothing to lots. If you are coming here for that, you will be disappointed, there are loads of those all over the internet. This is me, right in the middle of the muddy, messy part of my life, of having my own business and not being successful, yet.
Right, let’s start with some facts: hardly any clients, few and far between, in debt, getting government support to help pay rent, because being homeless, or like I put it last year, living without paying rent for the whole of 2018, almost broke me physically and psychologically, again.
It’s really hard to share this bit of right now. I feel like a failure on a regular basis. Fear comes and visits all the time. The shame is insidious and shows up in so many expected and unexpected areas of living this way.
I had a really good and promising beginning of the year, which really made me have a taste of what it is to start having a little bit more success and able to pay for things. And then in June, everything dried out. Fear set camp and I got to know it very well. I have been facing fear quite a few times since changing my whole life around in 2016. From 2017, fear showed up regularly. So when it showed up again this June, quite fierce and screaming and shouting all sorts of not so lovely messages, I knew that I needed to stay present.
Staying Present: Shaking Fear’s Hand
Since 2017 and putting myself so so out of my comfort zone, I have been facing fear on a regular basis, again and again. Blow after blow, I stretch out of my comfort zone and fear comes. I keep growing out of that comfort zone, stretch by stretch, little by little, step by step. I start learning that fear comes and goes and once we both understand that that step out of that comfort zone actually didn’t kill us, fear retreats and I learn about what is possible.
I had a moment of understanding at some point that I could tell that fear was here to keep me small. You see, fear helped me loads when I was little, adolescent and pretty much up to very recently, in keeping me safe. If I am fearful, I only take small calculated steps, I stay out of sight and out of danger, I stay in that neatly designed comfort zone. If I step even one step out of the comfort zone, fear roars and I go back to my place.
Fear is available 24/7…If I Choose It
Let’s come back to June. With all this practice at facing fear, I felt it coming and I finally got to understand how it is here to protect me. I can see this clearly. I end up having a conversation with it during some quiet time. I tell fear I understand what they are doing, how they have been such a great protector for so long, and how grateful I am for that.
I tell fear that I want to try something different now. That I want to be bold, courageous, audacious, brave, fearless, expanded.
Fear never really goes away, but once I was able to see more deeply why they keep showing up, then I can tell that every time I feel fear it is because I am coming out of another area of comfort and that maybe, maybe this actually shows me I am on the right track.
Fear never really shows up on his own.
I am very familiar with overwhelm and anxiety. There was a moment when my helpless little girl, the one who has been so scared for so much of her life and just wants to be taken care of, showed up. In this moment, I feel lost. I am crying, I don’t see a way out. I don’t want to contact anyone and burden them with all these uncontrollable emotions. The more I close myself in, the more I contract, the more painful it is.
Eventually, a voice tells me to just reach out to someone. I reach out to a couple of friends asking if they had a moment to chat on the phone because I am not ok. I reach out to my therapist, who at this point I can’t afford, and she offers a free appointment the next Monday. As I reach out to these people, I find that this halts the whirlwind process and I find a place to anchor some hope. From here, I am able to start stepping out of my helpless child self and into my adult self. In this adult part of me, I have a lot more answers and things start to calm down enough. Answers and clarity are able to come back.
Liar, liar
I go to this helpless space when I start telling lies to myself. The lies are all about the failure, the shame, on how I don’t have money, and how will I do this or that, what others must think, I must hide and not show my face. It can be endless. All of these are in the future or in the past, a future that has not yet happened or a past that I am no longer in and therefore, I call them lies.
Review the Absolute Truths
When I anchor myself in the present, I bring myself to my absolute truths. I have money in my wallet, therefore I have money. I have a nice safe place to stay, therefore I am not homeless. I have an incredible awareness of myself and my emotions and therefore I am resilient and very successful in this area of my life. I know how to ask for help and this makes me vulnerable and brave, more success. The list goes on.
My inner guidance, in these moments of so much uncertainty as I am going through still now, says: focus on one step at a time, one day at a time. That is all you have to do, nothing else, for now.
This guidance has come back again and again, it has reminded me of staying connected to my present truths and not go back to any lies from either the past or the future because that is not where I am right now.
Beware of Hazards in the Road: Detour as Needed
In a world full of stories of overcoming hardship and encountering success, I bring you the now, that bit in the middle. The messy, ugly, tearful, and also the courageous, expanding and peppered with lots of inspired moments.
In the courageous, expanded and inspired part of my present life. This complete unknown has also brought about change. An attitude of: ‘Well, what I have been doing is not working out. Fuck it, I might as well go big and make some radical changes’.
Don’t Be Afraid to Change What Isn’t Working
I changed the title of what I do from Intuitive Guide to Self Empowerment Coach. I changed the front page of my website and am slowly building a different energy in my business, a much bigger energy, because that is where I want to be. I have increased my fees but still have available a few lower tiers because if you really really want to work with me and you can’t afford the most expensive fee, you will have three other lower ones that you may be able to afford. Out of this moment of uncertainty, I have come up with a Standing Guided Meditation that will also be available for sale in different price brackets; I have come up with a couple more ideas that feel really exciting and one of them I am hoping to offer as a free sample very soon. I am finally speaking out my opinions and theories in a way I have not done before and there is more to come. This post is definitely me going: ‘Fuck it, I’m just going to do this, I’m so tired of hiding and I want to show my reality right now. Enough of waiting for success to arrive in order to share my voice and be heard’.
I’m Stronger Than I Thought: You Are Too
I think I have shared in a previous post, how I have been tracking my moods. Mostly because I became tired of constantly living navigating big ups and downs and long downs. I only started doing this since mid April and at the last couple of months, I started noticing, that even though I am in another really challenging part of my path, that I somehow have felt mostly good and ok. That even in days where I was facing fear, I somehow felt so present in what was happening that it did not feel like a bad day. Hope was still present, a dash of optimism was still there.
There are a whole lot of factors that contribute to me feeling more stable and not going so deeply into the lows. When I do visit them, I find myself coming out of them much quicker because I am more aware and I do not fight them as much as I did before.
And this, this new found resilience, this deeper trusting in the big picture, staying present instead of going into the lies of the past and the future. This is after all, a success story, maybe not in the way you and I would have expected.
My business and money, are only a couple of aspects of my life. They are indeed big ones. And yes, I dream of the time when I don’t have to worry about these any more. I dream of a time when I have so much space within me and ease in my life that I can expand even more, impact even more lives and reach the dreams I still feel unattainable at the moment.
Let’s come back to this moment, where there is so much uncertainty. I truly do not know where the next bit of money is going to come from and when. This moment when I trust that by taking one step at a time, that by following my inner guidance and taking action bit by bit, that I am coming closer to those big dreams of the life I want for myself. It’s uncomfortable isn’t it, can you feel it? Well, this is it. I’m going to stay right here, feeling the discomfort, continuing to take inspired steps, trusting and hoping and becoming very familiar with the unknown.
You!
Hello you! Thank you for making it all the way here. I really hope that what I have shared with you has helped you in any way. I get these big callings to share my story and process for a reason. Actually, maybe more than one reason.
Just like you, I deeply want to be heard, I deeply want to be seen, I deeply want to help other women understand themselves better, I deeply want to see and hear you because I know how life changing these two simple things can be. I offer others what I want for myself.
Tell Me Your Story: Connection is a Two-Way Street
Send me a message: telling me in what way my writing and sharing has had an impact in your life (if it did); sharing your story of messy, muddy, middle of it all that either happened or is still happening and how you have either overcome it or are coping with it.
Thank YOU for being here. And thank ME for showing up to be seen, even in the messy bits.
With Love,
Pelagia
Self Empowerment Coach
I’m a Self Empowerment Coach with a mission to Bring the Feminine into Every Day Life and Supporting Women to Change the World. Check what I offer here: www.pelagiapais.com
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