Today marks a beautiful achievement.  A project I worked on last summer has finally come to life… and it’s life size alright! Beyond just the project itself, God worked His power and changed my course. The photo I chose is an older one but for me it symbolizes victory, openness and receiving everything that God has for us. Here goes…

Ever gotten just plain stuck…almost paralyzed in fear over what seems to be the simplest of things? You aren’t alone.

The Catalyst

Saturday June 30th 2018, I came into my office to catch up on work and focus on ONE project… a truck and trailer wrap for a client. It was due to them that Monday.  This was a type of design work we don’t do a lot of BUT I knew [in my head] our capabilities and that we could accomplish the goals, The client had faith in us and knew that we understood the vision… all I had to do was create what was in my head and theirs.

This was going to be an amazing project when it got finished and I knew I could do it yet there was so much fear of not getting all the pieces just right. I’m sure the fact that it was going to be printed HUMUNGOUS and driving around town had nothing to do with it. 😉

I sat there going over what I should do, what I could do and trying to break things down. My colleague whom I had consulted with made this work seem so easy and had complete confidence in me and in Blu Dove. He assured me that whatever wasn’t quite right he could adjust. I had tremendous support and guidance from him.

… yet, I froze… completely froze.

So much that I sat on the floor of my office with my laptop in front of me…doing nothing.

So what do I do… I asked God what to do. I felt so lost.

It was 7:50 PM and I had hardly done what I had come to the office to accomplish and I needed to get headed home. Then I picked up my phone and texted my friend Jen Zöe, she runs Zenerjen.org (no this is not a paid endorsement) and IS amazing at helping people see inside themselves on a deep level; making me think.

Anyway my message to her was simply “I need a breakthrough. I’m tired of fears in my life” Her response was “Yes. Tell me more.”

So I explain and share the following:

I’ve put off finishing up a big project out of fear. I’ve done parts of it and it’s going good except creating a couple of the pieces is really paralyzing me. and it’s due Monday to the printer. Im afraid of getting it wrong; of wasting time if I messed something up; I’ve been utterly paralyzed since I got to the office today. I’m tired of being afraid. It’s like there’s this little line of code in my head that isn’t right but I can’t seem to find it to fix it so the paralyzing fear is gone.  Near the end of every project I have to really push to actually finish. It’s why your project took way too long; it’s why every project takes long. It’s worse on the more complex projects like the one I’m working on now. Then in the process of trying to simplify I sometimes overcomplicate, then have to back up and break things down to pieces. Some people do drugs or alcohol; I do Facebook, chocolate and movies to escape….There you have it.

[so needless to say I was eating more chocolate and spending time on Facebook b/c I just can’t cope / zone out.]

I told her that what I thought I needed was to come down and spend some time with her so I could get to the bottom of this. I was done with feeling the way I was feeling.

An Awakening

Jen’s pretty busy, always traveling or booked for sessions. However she happened to have Sunday July 8th open. It was now or never and I accepted her generous offer, drove down on a Saturday evening and got a night’s rest.

Maverick and Jen Zöe

7:00 am we got started and we worked until 3 or 4 that day. She made sure to assure me that I was in a safe space to express what I needed. We covered A LOT of ground which I won’t go into completely here. Suffice it to say she helped guide me onto the path of a new chapter; of looking at things differently than I had; she turned quite a bit of things upside down and helped me open up my mind, taking a step into change and growth.

At one point I had the opportunity to work with one of the beautiful horses on the farm (whom she incorporates into her coaching & healing). His name was Maverick and what we did that day had a profound impact on how I now approach things.

Maverick was needing to be walked up and down the driveway because his feet were healing. He was the perfect match because what we were doing really wasn’t that hard per se but for me and him, it was challenging. He needed to keep walking. I needed to not give up when it got hard. At one point I was tired, hot and he wasn’t budging. Jen was coaching me on what I needed to do, I was following her directions and there we stood. She asked me “do you want me to take him? are you ok?” … At that very moment I made a different choice … another day I would have let the tired and hot get to me and said “yes” but that day I said “yes I’m ok. no I can do this and I will do this.”

By golly! We finished our walk and I felt hugely accomplished. I felt like “hey! I can handle this big horse and I can keep going with the task even though no one was budging I had an eye on where we needed to go so there’s no reason I can’t tackle this project too. There’s no reason for me to not keep going”

Before I left the Zenerjen farm, Jen “prescribed” a book list for me to continue on my journey and said we could check in so I wouldn’t lose my momentum. The first book on the list was “The Big Leap” by Gay Hendricks and it took me about 3 months to get through it all because I decided to journal my way through every piece.

This is one powerful book!

Talk about profound! It opened my eyes and peeled back more layers into a lot of the “why” I do what I do and why it was that I found myself at a place where I was afraid to complete the task I was to complete.

In the book Gay Hendricks talks about how we all have Upper Limits – it’s basically like a ceiling that we’ve imposed or has been imposed upon us that we have to break through to get to our Genius level. There are all kinds of ways we sabotage ourselves, upper limiting our success. One of those ways I sabotage is a breach of agreement. For me when I read that section it was a huge aha for why I take so long on some projects! I got it… one reason I was so fearful when working on the completion of that particular vehicle wrap project [and so many others] was that finishing meant keeping that agreement and keeping that agreement meant success in a new area and success meant happiness and for some silly reason I had been programmed at some point that expanding into happiness was somehow unsafe or uncomfortable. Wow! HUGE!

Completion

The actual installation of the wrap for the trailer was delayed and finally February 20, 2019 it was getting done! I stopped by the shop and got to see the graphics getting printed, Garrick showed me the trailer ready for installation and I was on my way. Fast forward to today. I finally got to see photos of the finished trailer and it is gorgeous! For our client it’s a huge milestone [which makes it even more rewarding] and for me it was a reminder of the journey I started last summer, how far I’ve come and the awareness it brought.

Since then I’ve continued my growth and I’ve continued to uncover more layers. I’m interacting more with my own horses too (more on that in another post), I’m finishing more tasks and keeping better agreements. It’s amazing what awareness brings!

So you see… every single moment matters. Every twist and turn. From that one paralyzing moment of fear I had 2 choices… to stay frozen or to find a way out. I chose the latter, reaching out for help and now I’m on a completely different path.

To my friend Jen from Zenerjen – I will forever be grateful God placed you in my life, for your listening to me that day, welcoming me with open arms and helping guide this change….I love you!