Depending on your mind and how it works will depend on how you responded to this question for sure. The fact is we all need to get down and dirty as it’s part of the process. Can we re-frame it to something more?
What do I mean by getting down and dirty?
Over 25 years ago I started on a journey of self discovery and getting to know who I am. Sounds cliche and a bit lala but it’s a fact. The system that educates us formally teaches us about subjects and not about being human, how to process our emotions and frankly the crazy thing called life. Many say that school days were their best ever and they’d go back in a beat. I personally wouldn’t do that and I’m going to share why.
School for me was pretty crappy. I didn’t fit in, I am a creative and back then pretty much the same as now creativity was not championed. In fact not one education system globally puts the arts at the top of any curriculum even toady. It’s all about the academics. Whilst I see the value of basics like literacy and numeracy, much of the rest is a matter of personal interest. Right now my daughter is 7 and her life is all about cupcakes, unicorns and rainbows as Princess Poppy would say in Trolls. I encourage her to be in that place. I tell her it’s no problem if she isn’t great at the academic, nor was I. I say all I expect is she tries her best and that’s good enough. I also tell her things her teachers don’t thank me for, like spell check and calculators that mean you don’t have to remember some things as maybe she wants to fill her head with other stuff.
Back to the point, so school for me was a chore. It was a time when I just wanted out and I have no clue who I was or what I wanted to be. At about 23 I was given a copy of “The Celestine prophecy” and it changed my worldview. For years I had hidden my intuition, my knowing and these visions I got and now I knew it had weight. There really was something to this and I totally wasn’t going mad. Simultaneously because of my past programming I also was just embarking on a career in finance that was not my vibe at all but in wanting to “fit in” I was doing what would please others and what I perceived would take me far in the world. For the next 14 or so years I went on a journey that lead me down all sorts of paths including a breakdown/breakthrough at 29. Going to a place of being unable to talk because you are so broken teaches you a lot about life and how you are playing that game.
The growth journey – The process, the beauty is in the process.
Becoming who I am today has been a journey. One that I know will still continue. Along the way I have laughed, cried, been overwhelmed with joy and sadness. I have fallen forward…..a lot! I have made money, lost money. I have started making a new human, I have lost that human and then I grew one to full term. I have learned many ways that things don’t work and many ways that they do. I’m grateful for it all. I would go and do it all again and I’m sure the outcome would be the same as it was my path to take.
Living by design and strategy
Several years ago I met a wonderful lady at an event I was speaking at. She said she loved my talk but she could see pain in my eyes. I cried when she said this. I was full of pain. My heart was hurting and I had tried to heal it with my head. In the weeks and months that followed she helped me feel safe. She helped me start to heal my broken heart. She helped me believe in me and she showed me a whole new way of being. She taught me how to heal with my body and she introduced me to the Gene Keys. A new bible for my life that would change everything. This amazing woman is now one of my business partners and more than than she’s my soul tribe. Tracy helped me to feel and heal in a way I never knew was possible I’d done all the mindset work, NLP, CBT, hypnotherapy. I’d spent tens of thousands on coaches and not much really changed. You name it I tried it, it was like living the never ending day of repeat. And then boom, shifts started to happen, the time started to fly in a wonderful way and I really felt like a whole new me. I am a whole new me. The game changer was a simple process I’d never known about and honestly was too impatient to do before. It proves everything comes when it’s ready.
The Art of Contemplation
Getting to know the work of Richard Rudd and learning the art of contemplation has transformed how I show up in life. I totally embraced the Gene Keys and began the journey of truly understanding why I’m here and what my vibe here is, Reading the first line of my main key 43 made me cry happy tears.
“You are the original creative rebel, you did not come here to fit in, you came to break the status quo!”
For years I was told, you just don’t fit in. My response was always, I don;t want to. The fact is it hit me in the heart everytime someone said it as I just wanted to be me and that seemed so very hard. Knowing my keys and then later adding in my human design made all the difference. I learned about living by my strategy and authority. I learned about what I am here to be and well now I am part of things I couldn;t have imagined. When you truly allow synchronicity to lead and you know what the feelings in your body are really telling you everything changes. I had to learn how to feel, how to process my emotions. I learned that reacting was one of my biggest shadows to overcome. I had spent years reacting and it getting me in hot water over and over again. Now on the odd occasion I do still react. The difference is now that I no longer go and drag everyone else I can into it. I Know it’s happening, I pause, I feel and I go and contemplate. Understanding and allowing you time to know how you feel is a game changer. I didn’t know how I felt and I never allowed me the time to find out what it was. I was always on to the next thing.
Falling forward
Falling forward is my way of talking about what you might call mistakes, failure, it all really means the same yet falling forward has a different energy to it. As everything is energy I choose my words wisely now and understand the impact that they have on everything. Falling forward also brought me to the amazing company I am a partner in. Rise and Shine Empowerment was born because of much falling forward by all of us who are the leadership team. We have all had our own “battles” with life in one way or another. Yet we are a powerful and dynamic team! The most amazing team I have ever been part of. The reason for that is we don’t berate each other for failing, we champion and hold a space. We are creating the most amazing company, a pioneering company that is going to revolutionize the self development world because of all of the falling forward we have experienced. I’ve come home. I’ve found my soul tribe.
The “Clare” way of doing it.
It hit me a few weeks ago that I have in many ways been a pioneer of a new way of doing things, I had some great financial success in my early years followed by a period of financial scarcity. The career success I had was good and the personal being me journey was a huge learning curve as I tried to fit the very round me into a very square shaped hole and it simply didn’t fit at all. I then fell hard with finances, and my career went a tad stagnant for a while. My personal growth went to a place I couldn’t even imagine and started to rise. Now I look back and connect those dots knowing that I did it a new way. I gained the knowledge, wisdom and insight I needed from experience to become the Clare I am today. She’s still got much to learn and I can’t wait. I get so excited and inspired by new things. Tracy re-coined the acronym for FEAR. We say Feel Energy And Respond in Love. It’s a much more wonderful feeling that feeling the fear and doing it anyway for sure.
Now when I guide the people I work with I do it from a totally different energy. I get to know by feeling into who they are and reading the charts that tell me more than any mindset course could have ever done. I have accepted with open arms my new role of helping people rise in love and thrive. At Rise and Shine we have a vision to change 1 million lives by 2025 with our amazing community and with the unique and pioneering group and 121 support we have created. It’s a huge task that we are loving creating into reality.
So in conclusion, never dismiss the power of the journey, it holds more golden nuggets than you could ever imagine. When you add them all together then your golden light shines brightly.
Namaste.
Clare
P.S Need a push to get you living your best life? I got you.
