You know, sometimes your life just goes off the rails. You move into something you’re passionate about, you find your spark, you are forced to really buckle down on something for a bit and you lose the person you were before, for a short while. I have noticed this kind of thing play out a few times in my life:
-During a breakup with an ex-boyfriend
-During my master’s program
-After my mom died
-When I took a big corporate gig
-When I was pregnant with my twins
I found myself in a “twist” in the plot of my life; a nice little curve ball that I wasn’t expecting. We become a chameleon for a bit, adapting to our situation and, I believe, just trying to survive until we can get back to who we are, what we love to do, the relationships we let slip on the priorities list.
Have you been here?
Welcome to my life since March 25, 2013. I let absolutely everything go for the last 2 years to create something out of a business that I believe God opened a one-way door into. I was at the point where my only choice was yes. When I say I let everything go, I mean it. Friends, family, health (outside of my oils, thank God), faith, my hobbies, the things I love to do, my obligations, even my kids…it was a life fire sale. “Everything must go!” I spent all hours on work. Building, striving, struggling, winning, losing, growing, learning, teaching, creating, thinking, dreaming…
All of those things were the opportunity cost of my work hours. I gave it all up willingly for a short term to earn the freedom to have all the time I want for those things in the future and you know what? I LOVED it. I found my passion wasn’t just in creating, it was in teaching women leadership. I wouldn’t have ever learned that without the work. Two years and I just knew this whole thing would work. I don’t know how, I just did. It was supernatural. There was a peace in me about saying to Michael, “just give me two years.” I knew it would be a 2-year process. Supernatural. I knew we were going to see massive success. Supernatural. I knew it would set our family up for a completely different normal when we came out of the other end. Supernatural. I am keeping good on my promise. God is keeping good on his promise. I like to think we’re high-fiving on this one.
This is the first time I’m consciously making the effort to take a giant step back from something that is going so right. You guys, it is going so right. Sometimes I just stare at Michael in disbelief at how right it is. At the same time, if I want all to be right in the world again, it’s time to scale back on work and focus on the things I made a complete mess of in the process of building a business…or four. The biggest mess? Me. I made a complete cluster out of myself. It’s time to fix me.
This weekend I posted this instagram and it sparked this post.
I figured many of you can relate to those seasons in life where things just change for a little bit and you have to get back to that person that you are in your core. It’s a season, and you know what? I think seasons are awesome. We always come out changed. We have learned something new. We have new wisdom. We’re better for them. Even the really shitty stuff. The stuff that you think is going to break you. You’re better for it. You have to be thankful for it. By far the hardest thing I’ve learned through a season is being thankful through grief, but I am because I’m better for it. The broken parts of my heart heal but they leave a permanent mark. You know, it’s the scars that remind me of the bliss; the normal, average, everyday bliss. It’s time to snuggle up into that bliss of completely normal. It’s time to have a Saturday where I’m bored. It’s time to get back to me.
Tell me about the seasons in your life in the comments.
My “lane” as my husband likes to call it, is hospitality. My degree is in psychology. My friends have been calling me “Julie the love boat cruise director” since college years. I think I should have been an event planner. So how in the world did i end up in corporate america for 25 years? Put simply, a paycheck with no joy. I had been a square peg trying to fit into a round hole for most of my adult life. My gifts are in helping people and gathering people. In July last year, I quit! It’s time to be the wife and mom I want to be. It’s time to live in my lane. Better late than never! I am so glad that season is over and I’m pursuing my passions.
When I started out on this journey I promised myself and my husband that I would take one day a week at a minimum to have a normal life. We set aside our Sundays as family time and a day where unless it is a true issue that must be addressed immediately I would not do any business. This has been a huge help to me. I give my self a day to recharge, reflect and take time to just simply be with my family. I’m still in a busy season of learning and growing in my life, but taking just even that one day to unwind has made such a difference. I’m able to be a mom to my kids and a wife to my husband without driving them crazy and it gives us that time to be a family and just do normal things like watching a movie and chowing down on fruit salad.
In December 2013, Nick and I moved into an unfinished house and I became a Lemon Dropper!!! Nick would work about 10-11 hours of construction, come home exhausted and then work on our house. It was like the black hole….every time he finished one thing, we realized there was another to add to the list. We couldn’t buy the house until he finished it for us, so it was constantly hanging over our heads. He ended up pretty much burnt out and within a few days (in August 2014) we decided to pack up, forget the house and move to another city. During this time, I was working hard to grow my oils business. For four months, we lived with Nick’s parents trying to figure out what to do, where to live, etc. All of a sudden, we figured out that we just needed to get away from everything…stop trying to figure it all out. So, we bought tickets to South America and came here in December 2014. We have spent countless hours talking about our plans, goals and dreams so that we can go home with a new, fresh direction together. We are leaving to go back to the USA this Friday (in four days). This past 15 months has been hard! I feel exhausted. But, it gave us time to see what we DON’T want and what we DO want. So, on Friday, we are moving back home. Even though it was a tough season of trying to figure out where we want to live and what we want to do…we have survived and we are more confident about where we are headed this year!!!
I have had many seasons. I got married and had a baby young. I watched as my husband could never be the man I needed him to be. I watched our marriage fall apart. I met, or more specifically remet, a boy. We fell in love and got married. We had two babies. It’s been amazing. My mom passed away this past August. That’s a season that I am still in.
The one I’m in now, though, I never saw coming. I didn’t plan on “selling” anything. I didn’t plan to love it – and coaching and leading a team – so much. I’m now contemplating big life changes that, let’s be honest, I’ve already made a decision on. I’m just trying to get up the courage to take the leap. I don’t want to lose myself.
Thanks for your post. Sometimes I feel like we’re “sistahs from another mistah”. You have spelled out perfectly how I am feeling now. It is like looking at what I might post in two years. So I’m taking the leap. I don’t know if I’ll come out the same or completely changed, but here goes nothing, right?
I’ve had many seasons too and I’m in one now. I got married in October 2014 to a wonderful man who I’m lucky to call my best friend. Around the same time I stumbled upon the oils and became a Lemon Dropper. Before this “new” season, I would say I was in a long “tornado” season that was never ending. I was just adapting to situations and making the best out of everything that was thrown in my path. I realize that during that “tornado” season I managed to lose grip of everything that made me…me. Since getting married, I’ve been on a quest to get my life back and start the decluttering process. There is a reason for everything and I am thankful to be here and be a part of something so wonderful. I love your blog and there is always something that I can relate to. You are an amazing person Lindsay!
I lost myself (what little of it I had at that point) when my first marriage fell apart and my life drastically changed. But God was faithful to walk me through a restorative and soul-building season in Arizona. When I became a wife again, then a mother – two things I had prayed and dreamed about for years – I let ME fade away as I tried to adapt to those new roles. Especially when I entered into the role of being a Mother. I forgot how to balance. When my daughter was seven weeks young, I moved thousands of miles away from where God had rebuilt my soul…I left my TRIBE. That is still very painful, over two years later. Not only the significant losses I can see, but I also lost sight of some very specific aspects of my core in the process.
One day I woke up and I had no idea who I was anymore, or where “I” had gone. But there are lessons in all of it. Sometimes, we walk through these seasons to find parts of us that we didn’t know were even there. And when we re-discover ourselves with the new knowledge, it’s amazing to see how all the pieces fit. I have scars from those seasons. But the scars remind me that I survived, and remind me HOW I came through. They remind me that my life is REAL and that I’m ALIVE. Even the scars no one else can see. They remind me of the fire that is still burning in my heart. And that fire is fueling me through a season of healing and rediscovery.
It’s funny that I’m reading this tonight because I just had these thoughts myself. I spent the first half of my 20s as newlywed who worked 2-3 jobs, and tried to take care of my appearance by working out, getting my hair done, wearing makeup etc. but ate crap! then at 25 I became a mama and immediately quit my jobs to stay home. I started taking good care of myself by eating well, but I let myself go – hobbies, friends, passions. I live in sweatpants, haven’t had my hair done or bought makeup since 2008, never buy clothes, and 3 babies and 5 years later I woke up and realized I’d completely lost myself in motherhood as I adjusted to how my world had been changed by these small humans. I never read or write. I sold my instruments. I have no hobbies. Just the constant cycle of laundry, dishes, diapers, snacks, bedtime, and repeat. I decided enough is enough, and even though I feel horrendously guilty, I signed up for yoga, started buying myself a few new outfits, and I may even get my hair done. Oh, and I joined this fabulous group called the Lemon Droppers. 🙂
April 2014 my family and I moved from AZ to CT. Everything was really so wonderful in AZ. My husband and I had jobs we felt successful with, our boys (3 & 5) had a friends and a preschool they loved (and so did we). But in Oct of 2013, God starting tugging on my husband’s heart. Maybe he wanted us to be some where else, out of our “comfort”. We heard this often from different people and in different places and though, surely this is divine intervention. So, my husband accepted a new position and we moved. Having grown up in NY, it was like “coming home”.
But alas, what awaited us was surely a growing a stretching time. New jobs were NOT at all what we thought. Community that we once loved and thrived in, was gone and much, much harder to come by in our new home. And all the while trying to love each other and our children well.
It’s almost been a year and well.. we’re still learning and growing. We’re still feeling the stretch and even though we know this is where He would have us… I regularly miss my old life in AZ. I know that there will be a day I will look back and say, “wow, we learned a lot and grew a lot in that season” but right now… it feels mostly like survival. Figuring out who I am, who my family is, in the midst of massive change.
Hi Lindsay,
this season i want to learn how to make a flyer like the one you posted that says bliss. I would google, but i don’t know what it’s called – writing words in photoshop with original photo, but reducing the opacity. Please help. would you help me find a tutorial.
Thanks,
Sandy