People find me when they’re ready to end one chapter and begin a brand new one. I just had a cancellation for my trip to Los Angeles and have space January 28 to 30th for a whole-day intensive. If you’re looking for a guide to massive transformation in your leadership charisma and/or sensual magnetism, I might just be yo’ lady.
Three-step release and refresh
Set boundaries that allow you to move on from the losses
Make a symbolic change you couldn’t have made before
Activate the waterfall of epic changes
If you have experienced a major loss in your life in 2023, that loss can easily stagnate. It’s all too easy to slip into interpreting a loss as a defeat. Then it spirals into a story that leaves you depressed, anxious, not sleeping, stress eating, or not eating enough nourishing food. These stories make making change even harder the next time.
Here’s the key point, those stories aren’t even true. As soon as you can manage it…
Break the stagnation by making a symbolic move forward.
Certain things make me feel like a new woman – dying my hair or a drastic haircut. Lord knows I’ve done this a dozen or more times. Each one represents a new version of me that’s being born.
For the more dramatic moments, moving to a new house certainly unsticks your energy but only rarely is necessary. For a smaller refresh that doesn’t require packing any boxes – painting the walls, hanging new art, or rearranging the furniture will get the job done. Make a space for you to do what matters to you.
If it’s a change to your company, cleaning up your finances, or filing taxes makes the year click over into a new gear. The most classic example would be a rebrand. It’s the business equivalent of moving to a new house. It says “Things are different here.”
A smaller version would be getting business cards or updating your LinkedIn with a new title that’s more reflective of what you’re about to do in 2024.
The point is – find something that touches something deep in you. Find something that expresses the new vibe. Most importantly, do something you could not have done before. This will be meaningful.
Fuel the change
To do something you couldn’t have done before you’ll have to be willing to free up some new energy to fuel the change. This means setting boundaries.
I removed the distractions that were preventing me from making my symbolic and necessary changes. It was excruciating to do so because it meant having uncomfortable conversations with my friends and family.
By setting properly calibrated boundaries we acknowledge that what was lost is indeed good and gone. There is no substitute: only this will allow us to move forward.
When we fail to set boundaries, we are still living in la-la land. We are perhaps pretending that our fantasy of the other person is real, that they will change, or that waiting another day will mean somehow we will magically get okay with their behavior.
These strategies might feel like kindness, but they are not. They are trauma responses.
It sounds cold and it felt cold, but we have to set boundaries that acknowledge what was lost for the sake of our sanity. If you went through this in 2023 or are knowing it’s coming up for 2024 I send you a huge violet blankie of love.
It sucks.
Here’s what's on the other side, though.
These are the fruits of making such a hard decision – you get your energy, flow, and clarity back.
After I had some hard conversations and adjusted some boundaries I had the mental, emotional, and physical strength to tear down all my sound equipment, sweep, dust, move furniture, and figure out a new scheme of how to put it all back together. For a technical setup with a couple hundred feet of cables and twelve hardware components, this was no small production.
I invite you into my new studio.
I woke up full of energy and excitement to finish plugging in all the wires and doing the troubleshooting to get it up and running in the new configuration. I didn’t have the energy or clarity to do it before, but now look – it’s already done.
Whether you believe that symbolic gestures are worth the trouble or not, even just reminding yourself that you possess the strength to make changes in your life will begin to unstick what’s stuck.
Activate the waterfall of epic
ch-ch-changes
In the process of making my symbolic change, I unexpectedly found my driver’s license, a pair of headphones, my Madrid and San Francisco transit cards, two debit cards, a $100 greenback, and some Guatemalan and Egyptian cash. Yahtzee.
You never can tell what secondary effects will unexpectedly happen when you get unstuck. The point is to start the waterfall of productive change so you can move back into flow and ease.
What you need is often at arm’s reach, but you just don’t know how to let it in.
I thought I had lost all this for nine freaking months, but it found me when I honored myself and released what was already gone. I had opened that drawer dozens of times but didn’t see what was right in front of me. How often has that happened to you?
Let yourself go over the edge of the waterfall of change so you can reactive your vibrancy. Whatever losses you experienced in 2023 will suck way less after you surrender to the reality that things will never go back to the way they were, and that’s great news. If you have to break down in the middle of whatever symbolic change you’re making and cry – let yourself.
It will feel good to get the dregs of grief out. When you’re ready, wipe those away and smile. You’ll start to shine again soon enough.
I’m headed to Alaska in January to do a week-long 1:1 retreat with a client under the Northern Lights. What is your epic journey?