[SPOILER ALERT: This is a story about how you will always TAKE YOURSELF WITH YOU even when your circumstances change.]
Most of you know that before I entered the online space of coaching (what I call mentoring), I was not just a therapist in a traditional practice but I was also a business coach for therapists guiding them to build profitable private practices.
One of my former clients, we will call him Jake, just reached out to me this month after not working together for many years and WOW his example was just TOO GOOD not to share.
Jake is smart, savvy, skilled and motivated. He is at the top of his game in the therapy world.
When he and I first engaged about 7 years ago he was wanting to go from solo-therapy-practice to having clinician employees so he could make more impact and earn more money.
I taught him the strategies and skills needed to do that and he has — his business generates over a $1million annually now and “basically runs itself” according to Jake.
AMAZING! So what is the problem?
And why would he be reaching out to me when his business is a smashing success?!
Although it would SEEM that since he is at the top of his game professionally and has everything and more that he wanted in just a few years that Jake would be thrilled.
But instead, Jake is worried.
He acknowledges his accomplishments but is anxious about where online therapy might be going, how AI might impact his business, what could change in the Google analytics to negatively impact his business, and how his success might be in jeopardy for the future.
Can you relate to Jake?
I know that my former self was a lot like Jake.
I remember when I used to charge $5 for a therapy session. You read that right…$5! I was new back then and needed to get my licensure hours so used a kind colleague’s office FOR FREE on the weekends as I scraped together a client here and there.
I was paying more for babysitting than I was getting paid for my therapy services…and half the time people didn’t even show up.
I worried A LOT about money and my husband worked 2 jobs at one point to make ends meet. I would stress out looking at my check register (do people have those anymore?!) and studiously keep track to the last penny for fear of not having enough for groceries (we did our fair share of eating Ramen and lots of beans back in those days).
My fees went up to $25 and hour and when I hit $65 per hour I thought, “WHAT EVER WILL I DO WITH ALL OF THIS MONEY?!”
But here is the thing that most of you have experienced…even though you start earning more money that PATTERN OF WORRY and FRETTING about the future stay with you no matter how many more zeros you have in your bank account.
Those patterns are vibrations in the field of your life and they color EVERYTHING around you.
So even though you have a nicer office or home or can pay for a vacation rather than camping (we camped for the first 10 years of marriage which was super fun and what we could afford)…you take your ENERGETIC SIGNAL WITH YOU wherever you go.
And your CIRCUMSTANCES do not change your ENERGETIC SIGNAL.
So maybe you are no longer worrying about if you can pay for groceries but you are worrying about your kid making it into the college that they want or your connection with your spouse after your kids have launched or if you are “enough” now that you are middle aged and not as needed professionally or in your family as you once were.
I bet you have friends who you watch wring their hands with worry about their finances, relationship or life when OBJECTIVELY you can see that they have nothing to fret about…your friends are simply LIVING OUT THEIR OWN PATTERN.
There are two parts of shifting out of your old pattern that are critical if you care to begin to own your life and not live on repeat emotionally and energetically.
Number 1: Simply identify that the fear, worry, and pulling-the-future-into-this-moment-in-order-to-try-to-figure-it-out is a pattern that you use because you have convinced yourself that it is useful, productive and keeps your safe.
It only keeps you in a PREDICTABLE STATE of fear and worry.
And that predictability might well feel safer to you than the uncommon sensations of pleasure, relaxation, joy and ease. Honestly…it often does. Most of us are not conditioned to pleasure so it can feel EXCRUCIATING. Most of my clients need to titrate into feeling more pleasure in their lives and in their bodies.
Number 2: Adopt the belief that you create your reality and are therefore in charge of EVERYTHING.
That is a big one, I know. Most of my clients think that they PARTIALLY create their reality…like if they work hard or if they slack off then YES they are creating THAT.
But the worry about AI and how it will impact their business?! No…THAT is not in their control.
Not from my perspective. From my perspective, you get to choose HOW you want to be with EVERYTHING that comes into your world and HOW you choose to be with it will determine your experience of it and will also determine what kind of POWER it has in your life.
Additionally, WHAT you believe about LIFE in general colors everything about it.
Do you believe that you have to “fight for what is yours” or the adage “no pain, no gain”?
Whatever you believe WILL BE TRUE FOR YOU in your life because you will weave it into the ENERGETIC SIGNAL in your life to make it even more true.
Just like Jake, I took my anxiety about money when I was earning $5 an hour with me when I was make $250 an hour and beyond!
Even though my circumstances shifted, my energetic signal was as strong as ever because I had been CONDITIONING IT for all of those years while I was “trying to make ends meet”.
It was not until I really started to grow in my capacity to feel ease and pleasure IN MY BODY that I untangled from that old conditioning — and no, THAT is not mindset work…that work is in the BODY, in the senses.
I believe that life does not have to be a big struggle.
I believe that pleasure, joy and delight are here for us EVERYWHERE.
I believe that I can trust life to deliver up to me exactly what I need every single day…and I do my best not to judge any of it as “good” or “bad”…it just is.
And so far, it is working out pretty darn well.
Thanks for reading this far. It is a long one today!
If you can relate to this post, comment below!
In solidarity with you for a new reality for living,…
