Seven questions to create clarity

When I shifted my focus to specifically help women have more satisfying romantic relationships, I did a bunch of free sessions with friends. One of them recently reached out to me to share her story about how she is now dating the love of her life thanks to our conversation. 

Her words deeply moved me, and I was so happy to be a part of her process to help her get clarity about exactly what she’s was looking for. She realized that it was more important for her man to have a great heart, not necessarily great abs. She went from feelings  incapable of loving to embracing a man and his life entirely. And all because we got her a little clarity.

So how exactly did she do it, you may be asking yourself. How did she make that big of a shift in just four months? First, she opened herself and gave herself the space to reflect on what she really wanted, and then she committed to it. 

I recently heard in an in an interview with Alison Armstrong that you know when someone is committed when they have a plan B. Someone that wants something so badly, they make sure they have more than one way to get their goal. I really love this idea, and it works in so many ways. But before we get to committing, let’s find out what we are committing to, shall we?

I have seven questions that I will ask just about every client. I’ve found that these questions give you the space and reflection you need to really see yourself so you can find what’s you really want. Grab a journal, write down these questions and give yourself at least half an hour to explore.

1. What goal am I trying to achieve?
2. Why is this important to me?
3. What does it mean if I achieve it?
4. What will my life look like if I achieve my goal?
5. How will I feel when I achieve it?
6. What is at stake if I don’t achieve it? 
7. What is one small step I can take right now to move in the direction of my goal? (Go with your gut, whatever the first answer is, go with it)

These questions get to the heart of your motivations, which is really what drives your actions.  Once you see your answers, you can reflect if that is truly what you want, and if you are taking actions that line up with the result you desire. 

It’s a refining process. Ask the questions, reflect, then check in if it is really true, refine some more.  When you feel a sense of completion or satisfaction, you have found your clarity.

This is different for everyone. In the interview with Alison Armstrong she was talking about women committed to pleasure in the bedroom. Your clarity could be about the type of relationship you want to be in. Or it could be about the impact you want to make in the world. The process is the same for any of your desires.

The next step is to commit 110%. You must go all in. Go so far into “all in” that you will get it no matter what, no matter how many plans you must execute, no matter how long it takes. Have you ever felt that committed before? 

I encourage you you to share your answers with another person that you trust. Maybe you go through the questions together. There isn’t power in being witnessed by another and speaking your desires out loud. It gives new energy and a deeper commitment. 

If you’d like me to witness your commitment, I’m here for you. Reply to this email and share with me what you are committed to,  if you would like to go through the questions with me in a complimentary 30 minute session, I’d love to offer you that gift.

And if you are a single woman desiring to go even deeper in this process to find a relationship that deeply satisfies you, then I have a special gift for you. Go here to get started with my man Magnet Bootcamp very which is a completely free way to go deeper into your desires so you can get the relationship you want.  Click here to sign up and join me: 

https://sarahcurnoles.lpages.co/wildly-attractive

Lots of love
Sarah

Jealousy is up for interpretation

A preface to all my readers: I know that a number of you are happily partnered. The next few weeks are going to be about dating, so it might seem like it doesn’t apply to you. I encourage you to keep reading with a curious mind, because these concepts are useful in other parts of your life. Still with me? Onward.
 
I used to live a personal reoccurring nightmare at these free outdoor concert in Baltimore. Everywhere I looked I could only see couples. Every single cute man was already taken.
 
I would stand in line, and the couple in front of me would be holding hands and sharing giddy excitement. I would go get a beer and look to my right to see a couple cozying up to each other thinking no one else would notice. And then when the music would start, happy couples would sing lyrics to each other or sway together with the rhythm of the music.
 
Dammit. Were there no single men that enjoyed live music?! What was the deal??
 
I remember one time I felt like I had enough. I started walking towards the exit when I watched a drunk woman and her friend trying to “talk” their way into VIP. I paused to watch with amusement and noticed another guy and his friend doing the same thing. So, I struck up a conversation. To my surprise, we had a lot in common.
 
Since then, I have been seeing things with new eyes. I noticed that the emotion I felt when I observed the happy couples was jealousy. And I believe that jealousy is merely a signal to something that we are truly desiring but don’t yet have for ourselves.
 
We often interpret jealousy as a negative emotion. I see it as a clue. So instead of letting it take me down into a dark and angry place, I chose to send some happiness towards the couple and silently thank them for showing me something that I want.
 
This little mind trick is a subtle way that I shifted my thinking away from “All the good guys are taken” to clarifying my desires. I look more closely at the couple that I’m envious of and I wonder why I feel envious. What do they have that I am longing for?
 
I’ll be honest, this was really hard to shift at first. It took time and practice, and a lot of messing up. But making this shift from the inside and then working out has made a huge difference. And that’s what I’m all about.
 
I’m not really interested in merely giving tips and hacks to life. I am about getting deep, looking at the roots and making shifts at that level so that the changes that are useful stick. That’s why I created my new course that I am really stoked about.
 
Wildly Attractive is not just dating tips and how to understand men advice. It’s about creating lasting change to help you master dating so you attract the right man into your life and you can spot him a mile away. This course not only helps women to understand men better so they have an advantage in the dating world, but they also will learn more about themselves so they are showing up as their best version. 

Here's some feedback I received recently: "You need to know that my conversation with you is what made this guy happen...I needed to voice what it was I was looking for, and what I needed for myself, and you gave me a platform to do that. Thanks for your questions and for what you're doing.”
 
If you’re dating and you want to get on the list to hear about when the course is launching, you can sign up here.
 
If you’re partnered but you have a friend that would love some dating guidance, send her my way! A friend of my friend is a friend of mine.
 
As always, I'm here to help you make shifts so you can light up from the inside and shine outward. We're in this together. Thanks for your support, and your encouraging words. 
 
Big hugs, 
Sarah

PS. I'm only going to be offering some special bonuses for Early Birds who sign up on the email list before Friday February 9. If you want to be in on it, sign up here: https://sarahcurnoles.lpages.co/wildly-attractive

Let me show you what a date with me is like...

A few years ago, I went out with a guy I met at work. He checked all the boxes. Handsome? Check. Smart? Check? Passionate about something in his life? Check. The list goes on, and I thought I hit the jackpot.
 
After two or three dates, my brain drifted from the present moment and flash forwards to the future. Planning future dates about how much fun we can have together and the places we can visit. I imagine him meeting my family and friends, and I imagine how well he’d fit in. While my imagination was running wild, back in the present moment I sensed him starting to pull away. I was sensing that he has doubts. So, I doubled down, and tried to invest more by showing him the best that I got. I show him how fun, sexy, and accomplished I am. I tried to invite him to a cool event in the city that I thought he’d be interested in, and he doesn’t even reply. So, I tried harder. I would send a funny text with a photo. I get into panic mode because I was thinking that no one else in the world could possibly check all the boxes in the way that he does. The harder I tried, the more he pulled away.
 
I can laugh about my mistakes now, but at the time I really thought that was how it worked. If I tried harder, he would recognize my effort and reward me by bringing me more into his world.
 
I was suffering from a severe case of Scarcity Thinking. And up until very recently, I didn’t even know that it was possible to have Scarcity Thinking in relationships because I thought it only applied to money troubles. But no, this sneaky saboteur pops up in all kinds of areas in our life.
 
In our love life, scarcity thinking shrinks the entire world of 7 billion people to just what is immediately in front of you and makes us think this is our only option. With the guy I was dating, instead of seeing all the possibilities I convinced myself that there is only one. I invested completely in this one option, put all my hopes and dreams there, and struggled desperately to ensure a payoff that never came.
 
Scarcity feels grabby and desperate. It feels panicked. It’s a ticking time bomb, with a deadline and pressure. And to me, it feels like a heavy sinking anchor that is pulling me down deep into dark murky waters. It is very different from when a happy couple in a healthy relationship says to each other “Sure there are millions of possibilities, but I choose you as the one I want to spend time with.” Even though they are choosing one person, they are recognizing all the possibilities of what could be.
 
The opposite of scarcity is abundance, where we see all the possibilities. Abundance feels open and free. It is light and buoyant, like expansive calm ocean and blue skies with a bright sun. When we are in abundance in relationship to love we are actually putting our own needs first and focusing on getting our needs met. It is looking at the relationship through the lens of “I know what I need, and can I find that here? Because if I can’t find it here, there are plenty of other options.”
 
In my experience, changing thinking into abundance starts first with gratitude. When I feel like I need to get out of scarcity, I pause to take a moment to reflect on what I have to be grateful for. Scarcity and gratitude cannot exist in the same thought, and usually gratitude wins out.
 
It may be as simple as being grateful for my friends and family who love me for me. It may be recognizing that there is a whole lot of sunshine outside, and wow it feels good. My challenge to you is to catch your scarcity thinking when it happens (in any context), and think of three things that you have a lot of that you can be grateful for – and it can be any three things! It can be feeling grateful for a lot of blue because you own a lot of blue clothing and it makes you feel good! You can be grateful for a lot of cold wind because then you get to wear your favorite sweater and scarf.
 
For me today, I am grateful for Amazon Music because I have so much music at my fingertips to match my mood. I am grateful for old friends that pop up in random bars that I didn’t expect to see. And I am grateful for the fleece blanket currently keeping my cozy as I type.
 
Your turn. What are three things you are grateful for? Comment and tell me. And after you write them down, notice if you feel any different.

My Manifesto- A Work In Progress!

Anyone that knows me knows that I have a big vision for myself. I want to make a huge impact in this world, and I want to help by empowering other to light up from the inside out so they can go do the work that they are on the planet to do. 

I wanted to share with you the Manifesto I have been working on to guide me and my business as I move forward. These are the truths that I believe and guide me as I move forward.

I hope that they resonate with you on some level, and inspire you to create your own personal manifesto. It felt really good to put this down on paper. You can read it here or watch the video if you want to see me reading it. 

Mind you, it's not all pretty yet. My graphic designer doesn't even know that I was working on this. And words are probably going to change a lot, but I wanted to show you this part of my process so you can see where I am, right now.

Speaking of where I am right now... I am also in the middle of creating my next course, which will be for single women that want to be better at dating. It's called Wildly Attractive, and if that speaks to you (or someone you know) you can go here and get more info.

Enjoy the video of me reading my new manifesto, or you can enjoy reading the linked document. I'd love to hear your thoughts and reactions, so please hit reply and tell me your big takeaways!

Also, if you know someone that may be inspired by this, would you please forward this and encourage them to sign up to join the mailing list at www.sarahmcurnoles.com?

Many thanks and lots of love,
Sarah

Will You Join Me in Conversation?

There are parts of the conversation about #metoo and consent that are making us turn against each other. We're debating who is at fault, what the definitions are, and other convoluted questions. 

But someone once said "The quality of your life is determined by the quality of questions that you ask." (I'm probably paraphrasing, but you get the idea). And I think we need to ask better questions. 

So right now my questions are all about how can we use #metoo to BE better? 

Something is getting lost in the fast-paced and ever-changing culture that we live in. We are losing our connection with our true inner self, and we are replacing that connection with lots of things that seem to create connection. 

We read books by people like Brene Brown and we think we know what it takes to be vulnerable. We do self-help books and we think we are evolving. We follow Deepak Chopra and meditate every day and think we're spiritual. We're taking the right actions but we're not connecting it to ourselves and our heart and soul. 

What is becoming clear to me that was highlighted in this most recent story dealing with an anonymous woman and Aziz Ansari is that we have stopped listening to ourselves. So no wonder no one is hearing us when we think we are communicating a clear no. We're not even clear with ourself, how the hell is anyone else going to listen?

I was listening to an interview with RuPaul and Oprah yesterday, and I remembered the ending if every single episode of RuPaul's drag race: "If you can't love yourself, how the hell are you gonna love anybody else?" In the interview he stressed how important it is to KNOW yourself. I have to agree 100%. I think there is a breakdown between the self and our outward behaviors.

In this video, I share some thoughts and some ways we can start to connect our thoughts and behaviors. This is just the beginning of an ongoing and evolving conversation. Watch the video here. 

This is just the beginning of the conversation. 

I think the bottom line right now is that we women need to find a new strength deep inside. We need to be strong enough to prepare before entering into a sexual relationship, and we need to practice being clear with our no. We need to be stronger than the women that came before us. 

I believe that strength comes from inside, developing a strong foundation of trust within ourself, and a strong connection to yourself. A connection to your complete self, which includes your good and your bad sides, and knowing yourself inside and out. 

My thoughts and feelings continue to evolve on this subject and I know I'm not alone. I'm open to hearing you. What do you think the affect of #metoo is on dating right now? Hit reply or share in the comments of this post on Facebook. 

The Scary In-Between

Last month I talked about the process of change, and now I'm going to go a bit out of order so I can address some common concerns that come up when you are approaching change. I felt compelled to write about this specific part of change - what happens between deciding to change and actually changing - because we are in the season of resolutions. Not to mention that "change" was THE word on everyone's lips at the Golden Globes. 

I don't know about you, but I find it exhilarating to set a new goal and create a plan for how I want to achieve that goal. It's the fun part for me. I get all excited about what my future will be - I buy organization supplies and the outfits to look the part, I plan time in my calendar to take action, I journal and dream about the new me. I dreamily ask myself what are all the ways my life will be better?

And then it hits me. I will ACTUALLY have to change from the comfortable version where I am right now, and do some stuff that is really new and uncomfortable to get where I want to be. Uh oh, this is reality kicking in. 

I recently connected with someone who found herself in this exact place, and I wanted to share her story. You can watch the video here.

We all know that change isn't easy. I wrote in my blog about Phase Three of change that "this is harder than I thought it would be. And that's ok." We already expect things to be hard when we're changing, so wouldn't that make it easier since we know what to expect?

I wish it was that simple. But, no. Anytime you are adjusting to anew normal, there is going to be a period where things are incredibly uncomfortable.

When I work with my clients, I notice a pattern that we all tend to make change harder on ourselves. We get stuck between the inhale and the exhale. It's like we are holding onto that inhale forever because we are afraid it's the only inhale we will ever have. If we let it go, then what happens? We spin all these stories that other people will think less of us for letting go of our last inhale, that it means something about who we are as a person if we exhale. 

See how silly this is? Just exhale. Let it go. Fall into the change, move to the next step. But holding onto the inhale you are literally stopping the process of change, and turning yourself blue in the process.

We all get afraid. The choice we have is how we deal with the fear. We can chose to recognize that it is there, and say we are moving forward anywhere. Or we can hold our breath and wait for it to go away on its own (spoiler alert: you're going to suffocate before that happens). You can choose your response. 

Next blog, I'm going to talk about how to lay the groundwork for change and the process for creating a vision. Yes, this is backwards chronologically, but I really wanted to get honest about this scary part. 

If this is what you're going through, I have your back. You're not alone. I encourage you to forward this to a friend that might be going through something similar if they are facing the fear of change. Tell them you have their back, and that it's ok to exhale. 

With love,
Sarah

Are You Ready, Butterfly?

Well, my friends, we have come to the final phase of the Change Cycle. Phase Four, the end of the journey. And to be completely transparent with you, I am pretty uncomfortable with Phase Four.  I know one of my patterns is to quit during the trials of Phase Three and then I go back to Phase One. I assume I failed, and I decide that Phase Four won't come for me. But what I've learned is that the process is more complicated than that.

So, what exactly is Phase Four, you may be asking. Phase Four is the butterfly phase- the butterfly emerges from its cocoon as a completely transformed being and goes about living its new life with wings.

Reaching Phase Four feels like you have been biking straight uphill over rocks, unpaved roads, and paths that you had to make up along the way, and you finally reach the top of the mountain. From the top, you get the most amazing view, the kind that makes a person think "Wow, it was all worth it." And then the fun really begins, because you get to coast on your bike downhill. It's smooth sailing! Phase Four is all about enjoying the fruits of your labor. 

In other words, Phase Four is about being the butterfly. There's no forcing. Just being. I want to take a moment, and let that sink in for myself. Because I don't know about you, but I have a hard time remembering a time where I just let myself BE. 

This is why Phase Four is really uncomfortable for me. Even when I do reach it, I have a hard time slowing down my pace enough to appreciate how far I've come and stopping the hard work. 

While I am looking forward to finding Phase Four in my own process, I hope that I will recognize when I reach it so I can actually pause and enjoy.  

Here's the tricky part about the change cycle- there is no timeline. The Phases can be unequal in length, arrive without warning, and even bleed into each other. Each Phase eventually ends, but the transition to the next is unclear. There really isn't an "arrival" point when you are finally "there." As a fantastic friend and coach Terri Hofstetter pointed out to me, no one goes through the phases in a linear way. We tend to bounce back and forth between some of the phases because we are refining the process. Sometimes I am in Phase Three and the dream I am working towards is not what I want anymore, so I go back to Phase One. Or sometimes a person is working in Phase Three and they need to go back to Phase Two to clarify their dreams. If you find this happenning, don't judge yourself. It's all a part of the process. 

Even as I wrote this article I was judging my past and my own processes. I was telling myself that I am really bad at "being" in Phase Four, I never let myself just enjoy. I was re-reading what I wrote just before sending it and saw how harsh I was being with myself. I had to pause, and bring in some compassion for my own process. 

What's even trickier, is that each person has a certain Phase that is really comfortable and really uncomfortable. For me, I like Phases Two and Three, and really don't enjoy Phase Four. So I naturally avoid Phase Four and try to hang out in Phases Two and Three as much as possible. Ask yourself if any description of these phases felt really familiar or comfortable for you? More than likely, that's your favorite and you also tend to hang out there. 

Each part of the process is absolutely necessary in order to grow because each part has a purpose in revealing more of who we want to be. And even at the end of Phase Four, the butterfly must die because nothing lives forever. The cycle will begin again. In one person's life, there are countless cycles that will begin over and over again, continually. 

And that's ok. That's life. 

It's probably no coincidence that I am writing this right before the New Year, the time that we humans have decided is the time we wipe the slate clean and get to start anew. It's a time that we set aside for reflection and purposeful planning of what we want to do, be, and achieve. You don't have to force yourself to be in a certain part of the cycle just because it's that time in the calendar. 

Where are you right now in the Change Cycle? What do you need to feel supported with where you are? If you feel compelled to share your responses with someone, I encourage you to do it. Support from another person is a wonderful gift. And if I can be of service, please feel free to reach out to me. 

Please share this email with someone you think might benefit from hearing about the change cycle. Thank you for sharing, because sharing is caring!

And thank you for being with me this past year. It's been a wild one, to say the least. Thank you for reading my words, for sending me notes of encouragement or for sharing your lives with me. Your presence has been a wonderful gift to me, whether you know it or not. And I want to thank you for that. 

Warm wishes and big hugs,
Sarah

It's Time to Bust Out of That Cocoon, Butterfly

I've been writing about the process of change lately, and I am so glad that it is helping some of you. I love hearing from my readers what was useful or insightful. Keep it coming.

And a huge thank you goes to those of you that are sharing this with your friends. What a beautiful way to open up to a deeper a conversation.

Today I am talking about Phase Three of the change cycle. If you missed Phase One or Phase Two you can read it on my blog here.  

In Phase Three, the butterfly is struggling to break out of the cocoon. And let me tell you, it ain't easy. Did you know that if you try to help a butterfly out of its cocoon it will die? (I heard it’s the same with baby chicks breaking out of their shell.) The struggle may be hard, but it's absolutely necessary because that is how we get stronger to live the life that we have been preparing for as we went through Phases One and Two. In order to get to the next level in life, you are going to need new strength.  

Martha Beck, the amazing coach who taught me this cycle, assigned a motto to Phase Three that goes "This is harder than I thought it would be, and that's ok." That has become a bit of mantra for me, because it has certainly been harder than I thought, and I have to remind myself that it's ok for it to be hard.

I thought that the rough trip I had in Phase One, where I was crying all the time, was the hard part. I thought that was the big test. And I thought that after all that plus the dreaming, I could just put my head down and do my work. I thought that if I worked hard enough, then the benefits would start coming my way.

Phase Three has been personally challenging. It's where I am currently. literally building my life from the ground up. I am deciding where I want to live, how I want to live, how I want to make money, what people I want in my life, and more.

These are really big questions, and I don’t know why I thought it would all be so easy but I did. I thought that if I just did the work, and took the steps that I thought made sense, that the wonderful life I was dreaming of would just unfold in front of me like a beautiful gift. (Check in: Am I the only one that thinks it’s supposed to just be easy after a certain amount of work?) 

Spoiler alert. Nothing unfolded. Not yet, at least. It's been extremely hard to face so many choices. And to a certain degree, I am aware how much my privilege is showing because I do have certain opportunities available and I expected it to be easy on a certain level. I’m still working really hard to learn how to do my business and make an impact. I once heard that to get a rocket ship into orbit, it burns a majority of its fuel in the takeoff and then it can coast. I feel like I'm burning a lot of fuel, and just hoping I get into orbit so I can coast. 

In the past, this is when I quit. I thought it was too hard, and that the process wasn't working. I judged myself and the process. If you are in the middle of Phase Three and it feels hard and too long, I ask you to look at it again. I’m not going to tell you to quit or to stick with it, because you are the only person that can do that. What I do know is that I'm not giving up, despite the challenges. I'm going forward. I know now that I gave up too soon in the past, I just need to keep putting in the work, fighting the battles, and eventually I will get to Phase Four. If I quit now, I would go back into Phase One, and this is what I have done for most of my adult life. I deprived myself of fighting the rest of the hard battles to get all my strength. Plus, Phase Four is yet to come! I know now that Phase Four will eventually come, if I am willing to keep working and keep moving forward.

Don't let others dictate your process. Don't judge yourself for being in a certain phase, or for it taking longer than you thought. The struggle is real, because the struggle is what gives you your strength to keep going. You're going to need that strength later on. 

And now it’s your turn. Can you remember a time in your life where you felt like you were getting tested and sent into battle time and time again? How did you respond? Would you do anything differently knowing that it is just a part of the process? Reply to this email, I would love to hear your thoughts.

I hope you will share this with someone that you think needs to hear some encouragement or reassurance that they are exactly where they need to be. 

As always, I love hearing your thoughts and comments. Keep going, Butterfly. 

With love,
Sarah

So, you've been through hell? Here's what's next.

Don't worry, it really does get better from here on out.

Last week, I wrote about the first part of the change cycle, which is all about the caterpillar going into its cocoon and dissolving into caterpillar soup. It's the first part of the process before it can become a butterfly. If you missed it, you can read it here. 

I shared the story about how I was on a road trip and sobbing in my car. Through the support of my coach buddies, I was able to get through the process fairly quickly. I think it helped that I was alone on a trip that was totally self-driven (ha! Pun not intended), I was able to give myself all the space and time I needed to fully fall apart and move through the phase. 

And that's exactly what I did. I fell apart at the seams. It felt like my life was crashing around me, like some kind of Biblical movie starring Charlton Heston. In my mind's eye, beautiful marble buildings I had built in my mind that had significance crumbled to dust, and there I was standing in the middle. Nothing was recognizable anymore. 

When I leaned into the complete collapse, I was able to relax a little bit. It was happening, there was no need to resist it. I could just let it be this thing. And somehow I satisfied a craving inside of me that I didn't even know was there. It let me move through this part pretty quickly. 

It let me move onto the next phase, which Martha Beck calls "dreaming and scheming." In this phase, a person begins to have vivid dreams (daytime and nighttime) about what they want their life to look like. It is no longer about what once was, it is about creating the new, and all options are on the table. 

This part of the phase feels like new openness. It is like constant inspiration. Ideas come flooding into your mind, heart, and soul and it feels life-giving. Especially after feeling like hopeless goo for so long, it is completely renewing energy. 

For me, this part of the process didn't really happen until the last three days of my trip. This was completely the opposite from my plan, and it made me feel disappointed that I couldn't take advantage of all the traveling I had done. This wasn't the way I had planned it.

When I set out on the trip, one of my secret intentions was to look around the country for a place I might like to live. I imagined myself on this trip getting to know towns and people to see if anything fit for me. I wanted to see if I could find my next move.

The change cycle had completely different plans. Everywhere I went felt unwelcoming and cold. No matter what great company I had, I felt disconnected. I wasn't able to think about moving and evaluating places. All I could do was focus on making it through one hour at a time. 

But this feeling didn't last forever. When I was in Asheville, North Carolina, I was welcomed into a friend's home to stay with her family. For the first time, inklings of curiosity about this place and this life creeped into my thoughts. What would it be like to live in Asheville? Could I be happy here?

This was the beginning of the transition out of Phase 1 and into Phase 2. I was no longer hopeless, without a light at the end of the tunnel. That speck of light was showing and growing a little bit more each day. 

This feeling of starting to think of the future expanded once I got home. I looked at my closet and none of my clothes seemed like "me" anymore. Too much black and grey. I still owned too much stuff that I never used or needed. I overhauled everything and got rid of even more boxes of stuff (even though I thought I had already done this.)

I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to stay at a house of a friend who had moved out but wasn't selling just yet. It was amazing to stay in an almost completely empty house and get to dream about how I wanted to fill my life. What did I want my next chapter to be? What do I want to fill blank rooms and walls?

It was like going through a detox. Everything gets evaluated and assessed compared to this new version of who I wanted to be. It feels like life is a big clean piece of white paper and I can design all the things I could ever want. Normally, white paper makes me freeze in terror because there are too many options. But in this part of the change cycle, it's exciting because there are no answers just yet, just possibilities. 

Just like that empty house, I had been cleaned out and left standing. Preparing for the right owner, but not rushing the process. The time of possibilities is incredibly fertile. Hope breeds. 

Nothing new can start without a vision. You can't rush out of phase one because it's painful. And you can't skip phase two because it seems airy-fairy. Creating that vision and dreaming about possibilities is incredibly powerful. 

What did it feel like the last time you gave yourself time to dream? To create a vision for yourself and your life? What did you create. Let me know in the comments or reply to this email. I'm looking forward to hearing from you. 

If It Feels Like You're Going Through Hell...

Everything they say about change is true. It's hard. It's also true that it's always darkest before the dawn. But how many times in our lives do we see the darkness and we say to ourselves "It's too dark. I can't handle it, I'm turning back instead of going forward."

What if I told you that the darkness is just a part of the process? It is merely step one in a four step change process, and it WILL get better because that is just the way the process goes.

When I learned that, it took so much pressure off. But I had to identify that was where I was. And prior to identifying it was just plain hell. 

When I quit my job last fall, I went on a cross country road trip by myself. About a week and a half into the trip, I found myself in San Francisco feeling absolutely miserable. What's a word for worse than miserable? Because that's how I felt. 

I was sleeping poorly, and I was feeling uncomfortable for the last few days. I wasn't comfortable in my own skin, so how could I expect to feel comfortable in these new and strange places? 

It was a Sunday morning, and I had a call scheduled that day with my accountability group from my coach training program. I remember it was raining that morning, and I walked to get a cup of coffee and barely noticed the dampness all around me. I was in such a fog, like the Bay area fog had gotten into my soul. I sat in my car and called into the group call, and as our grounding meditation started, I just started crying.

When the meditation wrapped up, I spoke up. I asked for help because I had been crying the whole time. I shared how I had been feeling for the last week and a half. I felt like I didn't fit anywhere. I was feeling so alone, and anytime I tried to call a friend I just got their voicemail and they didn't call back. Even spending time with a friend in California felt empty. I wasn't connecting to anything or anyone, as much as I tried. 

The more I talked, the more I realized that loneliness wasn't the problem. The problem was that I was starting the change cycle.

Change works in a cycle, and it has four distinct phases. The fantastic Martha Beck teaches it using the analogy of a caterpillar turning into a butterfly.

Imagine a caterpillar, living a great life. He has his friends, his routine, and all the leaves he could want to eat. And then, one day something inside him calls him to change. He is inspired. It is time. So he goes and makes a cocoon, and starts the process. 

And the wildest thing happens. When a caterpillar enters his cocoon, he completely dissolves. His has to let go of all his old molecules and change into something else. This is phase one of the process, and I like to call this phase "caterpillar soup." 

This phase is MESSY! All the old ways have to dissolve and it feels like your entire life is just goo. It is unrecognizable. It feels awful, and your emotions are a wild mess. It feels like it is the darkest, most hopeless time, and it seems like it will never, ever end. 

This phase is all about dismantling of what once was. It feels like the world is falling apart, because it is. Because it is a death of the old ways. You are literally mourning an old part of your life that will no longer serve you, and it cannot come along on the next part of the journey. You must mourn and let go of the old ways before you move on to the next step. Where you are going, the old stuff cannot come along. This is the part of the journey when it can help to say that you are clearing space for new things to come into your life. 

This can be incredibly hard, because often we are thrown into the first phase without our own conscious choice. A relationship ends, we get fired, we move. For me, I had quit my job and chose to go out on the road and started the change cycle on my own. But that didn't make it any easier. It's also hard to let go of things that seemed to be working.

But here is the important part that I had to realize. My old life didn't fit me anymore. Just like an old pair of shoes, I had outgrown my old life. It was too small, too tight, too constricting and rubbing in all the wrong places and giving me blisters. I didn't want to squish myself to fit into that life anymore, and it had to go. 

And just like letting go of old shoes, there is a sad part to it because they have good memories and at least I knew what I could expect. I tried to make them fit for too long, and would compensate by wearing bandaids to prevent the blisters. But at a certain point, it just has to go. 

Change can feel really rough. I know it is really unpleasant, and scary to step into something completely unknown. For me, it was comforting to know that it was just a part of the process. And if it is a part of the process that means there will be more to it! This is not the end, it is only the beginning.

This is part one of a series I am going to write about change. I want to know from you a story about a time you felt like you were going through hell. Maybe you are going through it right now! Tell me how it felt, what was your experience? What did you do to help yourself get through? 

Until next time, keep breathing. Know that if it feels like hell, it won't always feel that way. 

Lots of love.