Last year I was laid off from a company for which I had worked almost twelve years. I had been given a few months notice, but was still largely in denial for what it would really mean for my life once it happened. I was given a severance and cut loose in July 2007.

Now since I had been working towards becoming a Spiritual Life Coach since June 2004, that was my plan. I thought I would just launch a website, take a few months to attract enough client to support me and I would be off and running. After all, I knew other people who had businesses that operated off solely "word of mouth" marketing...and I knew I had a solid product and service.

I also had a few clients to start with and fully expected things to grow from there.

But here's an interesting thing I was overlooking. I had beliefs that had not fully been surfaced regarding money and my career. I had beliefs that told me I could make a lot of money if I worked hard...but only if that "job" was something that I really "had to work at."

Working in the corporate world is that way for me. Sure, I can do it and I can be successful at it, but it doesn't come easily to me. It's "work."

Whereas, something like writing or coaching or teaching...those things come easily to me. They don't feel like work to me...so my belief system hasn't equated that with making money.

In the last year, I used my newfound excess of time as wisely as I could. I completed my Spiritual Life Coaching certification. I was Board Certified by the AADP and I even finished a book that I had been working on for a couple of years, which I am now shopping to a Literary Agent.

But the increase in clients...the success I had envisioned never transpired. Every month, I lost money. I couldn't face that this was happening to me. I couldn't face that while I knew how to BE a good Spiritual Life Coach, I didn't know how to market.

I finally admitted that to myself and prayed about that. I found a partner who knows about that and found that my wife knows far more about that than I do. But the problem I still had is that I felt inadequate because I didn't know how to do these things for myself. I felt inadequate because I felt like I was supposed to know how to do everything. I felt inadequate because I had gone from making a very good living to depending on my wife to go out into the world and make a living.

All of it was a huge blow to my ego.

My saving grace was being able to sit down with my clients every week and help them to see more of their truth. And the more of it that they were able to see, the more courage I witnessed them displaying, the more I was able to look within and be honest with myself.

So this blog post is sort of a coming out party. I have always been as emotionally honest in my posts as I could be...but I have also always felt that I had to put forth the persona that I had everything under control. I know now that by doing that I am not only being less than honest with myself. I am being less than honest with you...and with God.

So I am admitting that I don't know exactly what I'm doing. I am admitting that I need help. I need help in marketing my services. I need help in figuring out how to pay my self-employment taxes...which after looking at an H&R Block site, that may not be a big deal...but I still need someone who I can talk about that with.

I need to help myself by practicing envisioning my ideal outcome and meditating on that. I need to ask my clients to recommend my services to others and be willing for help to show up in unexpected forms...meaning being open to God showing up in my life in unexpected ways.

I also know that unless I am able to attract about 10 clients a week pretty soon...I am going to have to get a corporate job again and even doing that has been difficult as I feel somewhat that I am swimming against the flow of life.

I know in my heart that my purpose in life is to help others find their way home to the Peace, Love and Joy that resides within them.

But I also need help to find my place in the world, so God...this is my request and I am putting this out there with no real idea as to what will happen from this.

And releasing control...is...a big step for me.

Namaste,

Jeff

Quite often in our childhood years, we encounter situations that lead us to form the perception that who we are simply isn't acceptable to our caretakers.

We spend most of our lives "trying to fit in," so that we will be accepted by others. But as soon as we decide that who we are...is not enough...we start to lose ourselves. We lose the uniqueness that we know ourselves to be. We start thinking that others wouldn't accept us if they knew the person we really were.

And yet here is something that is really interesting. When we are not being authentic, others feel it. They may not be conscious of it, but they feel it nonetheless. This phenomena happens because whether we realize it or not, we are all connected.

And because they feel it, intuitively they know when someone is not being authentic. How can they accept someone they've never met? How can they love someone they don't know exists?

I faced this dilemma most of my life. I felt like as a child that every time I tried to be the joyous person that I truly was...and expressing that, I received a rebuke. As an adult, I now know that my parents simply didn't know how to handle that joy...because as a child their own joy had been squelched. They had been taught that it was not socially acceptable to express it.

I know now that my parents didn't know how to accept me and/or encourage my unique talents because their unique talents had never received that appreciation and support. They could only give me what they had and so they just did the best they could.

So what they taught me...was how to fit in. They wanted to fit in with others and so that is all they had to model for me on my journey as an apprentice adult. My parents taught me to care about what other people thought of me...and they unconsciously modeled it to the point where it was obvious that they worried enough about what other people thought that they never believed in their own unique talents and abilities.

In seeing these talents within my parents, I even suggested that they do that for a living and their response was something along the lines of, "oh, no one would actually pay me for doing that."

I know I unconsciously modeled their behavior and adopted their beliefs. So while I knew I was an outgoing, sensitive and funny child; I also developed a perception that it wasn't either safe or acceptable to be who I really was.

Everyone in my formative years seemed to require something different from me. What I felt was that I became a chameleon. I learned how to fit in with just about any type of person or group. I learned how to mirror back to the people I was with my own twist on what they were saying and doing. But again, in doing so...I lost my sense of individuality. I lost any genuine expression of my being.

I remember times where my father would make fun of me for expressing my emotions. Because I did not live in the same house as my father and because I idealized him, I desperately wanted his approval. In learning that it was not acceptable to express my emotions with and in hearing the same message from my mother, I accepted that men do not express their emotions.

There are many repercussions to bottling up one's emotions. I have experienced many symptoms in my life. I have had issues with various addictions; food, alcohol and sexual. I did not know that what I was doing was coping. I did not understand that both the problem and the solution lay within me. I believed that the world was dictating the circumstances to which I was simply reacting.

I have also had a string of health related issues in adulthood. I have experienced depression. I have experienced loss of loved ones, jobs and divorce.

In many ways, I felt somewhat like Job. I felt like everything in my life was stripped away from me until it was just me...and God.

And in finally surrendering all that I am and all that I am not to God, I felt peace and acceptance.

I found that many of my "problems" were borne out of a core belief that somehow I was not acceptable to God...because as a child, my parents were my representational models of God. 

I feel like I developed a perception that since they didn't accept me, God didn't either.

But when I close my eyes, focus on my breathing and connect to God, I find only peace and acceptance. I find that the more I practice feeling this feeling, the more I feel it throughout the rest of my day.

I practice accepting myself. I am learning to appreciate my own talents and I believe that I can make a living at what comes naturally to me...writing, teaching and coaching.

In looking back at my adult life, I can see elements of each of these in the jobs I liked the most.

I can remember brief times in my life where I was happy just being me...the real me. These were the time where I was able to express myself from my heart, when I was able to be compassionate for another, when I was able to help someone believe in themselves when they had given up and when I was simply in front of a group of people helping them to see life in a new perspective.

Today, I am stringing together more and more of those moments to create a life where I feel completely at peace to just be...me.

What aspects of your life-- your personality, your career, your relationships, etc...would you change if you felt comfortable to be who you really are?

What stops you from being your real Self?

Namaste

Jeff

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