It’s been about 3 years since I had (what I now refer to as) the Great Breakdown (ummm scratch that…AWAKENING) of 2013.
People thought I was CRAZY (and I didn’t blame them.)
FLASHBACK: October 2013
I was standing in the middle of the lake that I live on now (on the paddle board I was renting at the time). One moment I was sailing along with the current, and then next thing I know, I’m down on my knees in child’s pose sobbing like a little girl.
I had officially hit my breaking point. And as much as I tried to deny it, hide it, or ignore it, I had reached that point where the pain of staying the same finally outweighed the pain of leaving behind the comfortable life I had built by design.
From the outside, I looked happy — like my life couldn’t be better.
I had everything I had worked my ass off to create: A thriving business, the freedom and money to go anywhere I wanted…whenever I wanted. I was winning awards, getting tons of recognition, was on TV every single week, and had every reason on earth to feel happy and fulfilled and content….
But I was living in a world of quiet desperation.
I felt unfulfilled. My thought-I-had-seen-the-last-of-it depression had come back in full swing. And I felt like a fraud.
You see, I still wanted to help women that struggled with self-esteem and confidence and their bodies (something I knew I too would struggle with the rest of my life)… I just wanted to do it from a different perspective. I wanted to help them go upstream and address the cause at its root.
I just didn’t know how to go about it. I mean how do you walk away from a life and a career that a lot of people would have LOVED to have? I felt selfish. I felt crazy.
And now here I was in the middle of a lake on my knees with tears flooding down my face.
Even though I didn’t have the words to say it at the time, I knew that if I didn’t leave my current way of living then…I would never leave.
So I literally just STOPPED.
People thought I was crazy. (Heck, even I felt a little crazy), but the moment on my knees was the first bout of crystal-clear clarity I’d had in a very long time.
I decided to hit the ‘off switch’ in a lot of areas of my life: my career, my steady ‘paycheck’, my daily schedule, and life as I had known it for 5 years and counting…and step into what I felt ‘called to’ step into.
But THAT wasn’t what I wanted to get away from. I wasn’t trying to get away from my business or the people in my life. It was who I was being every day in that life (that I so carefully created for myself) — I wanted to get away from HER.
I couldn’t have predicted this (and no one could have warned me), but when I got into the fitness industry, I had no idea that I was essentially getting in the business of judging myself for how I looked, how much fat I had on my body, or how well I ate that day.
The fitness industry didn’t do ‘that’ to me… I did that to me.
And I knew that if I was ever really going to truly fall in love with myself and accept myself and truly be fair to myself – – if I was ever going to ‘get right’ with my heart and my body– everything needed to change.
So like I said I just STOPPED. You can imagine the reaction from my friends and love ones right?
“What are you going to do?”
“How are you going to live?”
And a bunch of other questions I didn’t have answers to…
“I’m going to figure it out. I always have and I always will.”
But the truth was: I had no clue what I was going to do. I honestly didn’t know how I was going to “figure it out”.
But things got worse from there…
I was able to (somewhat) predict what the repercussions of my decisions would be from there on out. It’s what I didn’t know that I didn’t know that sucker-punched me across the face. Didn’t see any of this coming.
It became glaringly obvious that my entire sense of self worth was tied to anything and everything OUTSIDE of me.
I was acutely aware that my self- image was directly tied to my body, scale weight, my jean size…
But Unbeknownst to me:
✔ My self image was also directly tied to how much money I was making.
✔ My self-image was also directly tied to my perception of how much I was desired or liked by others (from how many guys asked for my number that week…. to whether or not anyone liked something I posted on Facebook.)
✔ I realized I was depending on my role in the fitness industry to “keep me fit”, and that I wasn’t even sure if I could uphold my “healthy lifestyle” if I didn’t have others’ eyes on me.
✔ My self-worth was tied to my “status”….like whether or not i was on TV or part of masterminds or exclusive programs.
And the list goes on and on and on…
So yeah maybe it was a little crazy to just stop and put an end to a very comfortable (and in most people’s definitions) successful life.. but now you can understand how to me, staying in that life would’ve been crazier. Especially after these new realizations.
FAST FORWARD: Summer 2016
Here I am nearly three years later, and not only did my world not spin off its proverbial axis, but I have a lot I want to celebrate and be proud of.
But here’s the REAL truth that no one ever told me about fear and anxiety (and overcoming them)…
There’s never going to be a ‘perfect’ time for you to make the leap — to take the plunge.
There’s never going the ‘right moment’ for you to rip off the proverbial band-aid and step into your greater future.
There’s never going to be the ‘ideal’ set of circumstances you need to make those big shifts in your life.
The truth of it all: The fears never fully go away.
They’ll always be there…because that’s what our brains are WIRED to detect and look for:
Fear. Problems. Obstacles. (We have to ‘teach it’ how to look for the love, the possibilities, the opportunities, gratitude.)
But here’s what else you can count on:
Your desires, hopes, and dreams will ALSO always be there.
Yea it’s scary to step into the unknown sometimes — to overhaul an area of your life in order to take steps towards happiness.
But you know what I say about it?
It’s scarier NOT to!
So which one are YOU going to let ‘win’?
The fear? Or the love?
For me I can honestly say that when I choose the love (Of self, of my life, of my greater future)…
I’m NEVER sorry.
When I choose the fear…
I almost ALWAYS am.
So which one are you going to choose?
I have a feeling, it’ won’t be actually be as scary as your brain is making it out to seem.
After all what’s the alternative? What would happen for you if NOTHING changed? If you stayed on the same path day after day… year after year?
Fear and anxiety (and sadness) don’t have to win. But YOU have to take the first step. It’s up to you.
