Last month I didn’t write an article – I couldn’t. I just didn’t have it in me – I was so sad that I was struggling to do my daily Facebook posting, in my saddest moments I wondered how people do it? How do you run a business that needs your attention 157% when your outside world feels like crashing in. How do you create these life-changing Retreats or moments for people when all you want to do is run away?
You see my best friend has cancer. She was diagnosed 12 months ago, it is now in the fourth location in her body, and she can’t walk as it is in her spine. I spent time with her throughout December when she was in the hospital waiting for various equipment to be delivered so she could go home. I hold that space for her of brightness and laughter.
We talk about my stuff – frustrating teenagers, weird people wanting to organize a retreat, stories I hear and gossip from our old workplace. Only once over the 12 months have we cried together and that was just recently when we were talking about her mobility not improving from where she is now. There are times when I drive away from her that I sob the whole way home – it is, and excuse the language – f@#$%^& tough. So, how do you continue creating life changing Retreats or anything when you feel so sad?
So I have spent a week trying to decide what to write about for this article. I went back and read my past articles and those by Teresa Mason Maron to get some inspiration, but I am stuck. I even checked out my blogs to see, and again I came up dry. So I think if you are wanting some retreat tips this may not be the right article for you. It is about this journey and what I am learning.
For now, I will draw strength from her and our travels together – there was one time where we laughed the whole way to Bali before a week of amazing food, massages, and more laughter. There was a time she fell out of a display hammock almost onto the road or got clipped by a taxi, and again all we could do was laugh. There was another time we had a huge fight at a petrol station in Austria when we were headed to the airport, and she didn’t want to go home.
Thinking about these memories and what we do on holidays has helped me create two amazing Retreats for this year because I want to continue presenting a platform for women to change their lives. It has taken me longer to do it than normal, I have had more breaks and binges, watched more Netflix but it has given me the time I have needed.
This sadness has also made me dig deep into asking myself the questions,
“Who I am?”
“What am I doing here?”
“What is my destiny?”
“Am I on the right path?”
Which in turn brings up all that ‘stuff’ that you sometimes need to deal with to move forward.
This is what I have learned from this experience that may strike a chord with just one of you, so you can then know that you are not alone, the same as I need to know that I am not alone.
- It is totally ok to cry, rant and rave and get it out of your system
- Get some rest – which is not always easy, find a way that rejuvenates you so you feel like you have had some time
- Be kind to yourself, don’t beat yourself up because you have missed a deadline
- Say no, if you can’t take on another client or job – it is ok to do this you
- Your clients will understand – and If they don’t then they are not your ideal client
- Go outside, feel the earth under your feet, the air in your lungs and look around you at the beauty of the world. For me, this has helped ground me and anchor me to the moment and everything around me. It has been a saving grace in those saddest moments.
An experience like this is not easy for anyone and disrupts your whole world. Nothing will ever be the same but in amongst it all, it is for a reason. I know there are huge lessons for me that will become apparent but for now, I acknowledge the sadness and the place it holds in my life.
