It’s been just over a year now since I stepped with clarity into the next phase of my life by leaving a business I came to California to create, back in 2004. I’ve told the story so many times that it may seem like “old news” to some of you, but for me, that one decision was a *huge* step. It cleared the way for so much magic that has emerged – through effort and spontaneous creativity, guided by intention and enabled by practice – over the past year.

Last week I went through the embodied steps of letting go – moving all the physical items out of the Cradle of Manifestation after acknowledging that a 1,800-square-foot facility no longer matched the life I am creating. In the process, I’ve come face-to-face with so many of my deeply held beliefs and default patterns.

I believed that being a “responsible” person – a piece of my identity I held tightly as a symbol of my worthiness to occupy space on this planet – meant putting other people’s needs ahead of my own, no matter what the cost.

In my work, this was expressed as taking full responsibility for all outcomes associated with the people I was involved with – which translated into poor delegation, inability to trust other people’s skills and ways of doing things, and the result of preferring to do everything on my own, so it would be perfect. Ultimately, I experienced exhaustion and burnout as the destination on this path.

After I crossed the hurdle of actually setting a boundary, saying “no more” to my own business (which, at the time, was the only path I felt drawn to), and risking the disappointment of other people (which, at the time, was my greatest and most paralyzing fear), the same belief expressed itself as a firm resolve in my mind to continue paying rent on my office space simply because I had signed a lease, and that was that. An agreement was an agreement, with no room for discussion. I was a person who kept my word. But living by those old rules under the new circumstance of starting a business from scratch in a new industry translated to prioritizing my landlords’ needs over my own, which I did for an entire year. I dutifully and silently wrote each check and made sure it arrived before the first of every month. For an entire year.

I was silently proving to myself my own worth as a “responsible” person (daughter, girl), but in fact I was not honoring myself or my fledgling business fully. Continue reading →