How I Got Through It! The Practices & Techniques That Kept My Chin Up Through the Depths of a Transformation

Growth can be tough!  Healing, intentionally moving toward your dreams, venturing into the unknown – well, sometimes it means our insides come out and everything changes.  I have the You are a BADASS page-a-day calendar and they also said it well: “Growth ain’t for weenies, but it’s nowhere near as painful as living the life you’re living right now if you’re not really going for it.”

I want to share what I did to cope through the time in my life when I first really started going for it. This is what got me through my transformation:

To start out, I first want to mention that while the following practices helped me, there were certainly moments along the way where I didn’t feel like I could do it.   My transformation left me feeling broken, raw, and full of self doubt on more than one occasion.  I bring this up because I think it is critical to be honest about this process. My goal is to encourage others to take the jump into their dreams and if I’m going to do that, I feel I need to talk about the reality of what that can feel like at times.

In my lowest moments, it was just a matter of getting through it. Knowing that if I let myself cry, breakdown, fall, that I would find hope and strength again, even if that moment wasn’t it.  I have a wonderful friend who always reminded me that I was allowed to be upset and fall apart.  Giving myself permission made a huge difference. It made it a passing moment instead of a constant struggle.  I would frequently play the song ‘Let Go’ by Frou Frou, just so I could hear the line “It’s alright, because there’s beauty in the breakdown.”  And eventually, the pain would start to dissolve and I would take a breathe and move forward again. It really is a beautiful thing.

As for the rest of the time, I had my practices that kept that fire going inside.  The first was that self-love became a non-negotiable for me.  The practice of self love varies for each of us but for me, this meant having a strong spiritual practice, frequent meditation, walking, taking baths, prayer, and connecting with the people I love.

The other side of self love is that I had to be patient and offer myself grace.  I like to rush things – I always think I can get from A to B quicker than everyone says it takes.  This learning process taught me that life flows much smoother when you don’t rush things that need time to grow.  Everything is beautiful in it’s time.

Books were another tool I used to keep myself going. I love learning through the experiences of others, and I have always found books as a great way to do this.  Taking time to read gave me time to reflect and also introduced new thoughts and concepts into my life. (Stay tuned- I’m putting together a reading list that helped revolutionize my thought process).

Another technique I used was to surround myself with uplifting words.  Starting a business has been challenging for me.  Creating a supportive environment has made a big difference.  It comes down to the idea that the actions we take every day, the thoughts that go through our heads, the words we use – this is what creates our world, our life.  I made sure I kept the encouraging words that I needed to hear close to me when I needed them most.  I looked at them constantly so they were the thoughts I had going through my head each day.

The last two words that were my themes from the last two years, that really pulled me through, were practice and courage.  Practice is a word I think would serve us well to use more in our vocabularies.  I was a rookie at a lot of things this last year – from skills to jobs to simply changing my thoughts and patterns – and to get better, all I had to do was practice.  As adults, we often hold ourselves to a high standard, which makes it scary and daunting to venture into the unknown. Knowing that everything new will require practice made it much easier to approach them with excitement and curiosity.  

Courage was my final big focus because it was constant in my life.  When we look around the world and look at everything that has been created, if you boiled it down, everything would come down to courage.  This was such a fuel for me. When I had a lot of doubt, I would remind myself that I could be afraid but that courage meant I still needed to move forward.  And it drove me forward.  

And that’s what kept me going!  Next time: Bringing It Together: What Toward Greater Things is Up to Now