Are You Flowing In the River or Clinging To The Shore?

Is it harder to sit still than it is to move?

Last April, I found myself sitting on an airplane next to my mom headed for Jamaica. It was a normal spring day and I was a mess. 

On the outside, I looked like I had it all together. On the inside, I was a wreck. 

For one I hadn't flown in yearssssss. For another, I had never been to Jamaica. And lastly, I was heading there for a meditation retreat and really had no idea what that meant. 

And did I mention, my mom was tagging along as well? 

I was in a funk in my life and I very badly wanted out of it. My credit cards were maxed out thanks to a huge investment in a business coach. Worthy and helpful, but it also came with some unexpected mothering and disharmony around my relationship with Raymond. 

That's a story for another day. 

So I spent thousands of dollars on a business coach and reorganized my business model. I now had structure to my business,
       was finally signing up clients and
                  making money in the process.
The latter seemed so allusive with my old model. 

So then why was I still in a funk. 

Because I didn't want to be doing what I was doing. 

There I said it. 

I wanted to be doing more but the HOW stopped me in my tracks. I didn't have the financial freedom to take a pause in work to figure it out. Remember those maxed out credit cards? 

So here I was flying down to a Jamaica (adding more to my credit cards) in a full on panic as the words of a previous retreat go-er rang in my ear, "just surrender Jennifer".

NO my ego proclaimed. She hated that word. 

While there I received a lot of "downloads" as the spiritual coaches call it. Basically, it was God. And He was giving me a solid talking to. 

He told me what He wanted me to do when I returned home. 

But when I came home something weird happened. I kept getting more clients, more of the same organizing clients though. I was confused because I thought we (as in He and I) were doing more and bigger when we got home. 

But the dangle of the carrot (also known as money) was very tempting and I said yes. 

My practice was full within a few weeks of returning and I was flowing with life like never before. 

It was a beautiful feeling. That flow. Until I realized I didn't pass the test. 

Those clients were a test from God and I flunked. He gave me the bad news on a random day in the middle of July. 

While sitting across the table from a client all the while enjoying my sandwich, she broke the news. "I'm no longer interested in working with you, this service is overpriced for what I receive."

Starting a business. By yourself. Based on a service that only you provide. Is really scary and hard. It's like wearing your heart on your sleeve. 

And those words were like a dagger through my sleeve. 

Over the course of the next few months, most of my business had dried up. Clients weren't renewing and I had zero leads in the sales funnel. 

This spiral took me roughly 10 months to shake, or rather it just ran it's course. Either way, the bottom had been found. 

So why this long story about flunking God's test? I went from flowing with my life (albeit the wrong one) to floating and clinging. Desperately. 

To anything and anyone and any glimmer of money that showed up. 

It s.u.c.k.e.d. 

Click to watch the video below where I dive into the difference between floating and flowing.