Fall Down 8 Times and Get Up 9…

This week, I made it my mission to get this video to you with the help of my gorgeous tech support Kari at Studiobarncreative.com.

It was filmed at an event in 2015, but it has taken me a while to share it with you here.

>> VIEW THE VIDEO HERE <<

It wasn’t easy to get on a stage to share this part of my story, but it was a necessary process. Owning our story is a part of activating our soul medicine in the world. Being able to share our trials and tribulations without hiding out behind the busy work of business is an important part of creating the know-like and trust factor that is essential for any business.

The thing is, people don’t trust stoic leadership anymore.

They want to understand your struggles, your challenges, and your breakthroughs. People aren’t interested in the masks unless they are shown what’s on the other side.

I’ve never made a secret of the fact that I have stumbled and fallen so many times on my journey as a single parent and as Chieftess of Sacred Women’s Business Coaching.

My coaching practice was first seeded in a Centrelink queue in 2005. I couldn’t believe I was staring down the barrel of single parenthood and signing up for welfare payments. It wasn’t part of my life goals that’s for sure. The most distressing thing about that time was that I couldn’t think of a single person I could turn to who understood what it felt like to be me. I felt so alone in my struggle to express my unique life-purpose. All I wanted was for someone to actually see my potential and support me to reach for it. I had so much to give yet I was exhausted by the demands of day-to-day life. How on earth I was meant to grow my dreams into reality was a complete mystery.

Little did I know that upon becoming a single mother, my sons and I had also entered a painful cycle of housing instability. For 9 years I struggled to find us a stable place to live. 9 times in 9 years, we were made to move out of an unstable rental situation as one by one, the houses we were renting were sold on us, or the landlords decided to move in, or the circumstances changed. One year just a few short weeks before Christmas, the landlord decided he’d like to move back into his home. I had already booked tickets to visit family in Perth at Christmas. So my sons and I were forced to pack all our worldly possessions into suitcases and put our furniture into a storage shed without knowing where we would be living after our trip to Perth.

The rental market was completely saturated when we returned. We were forced to holiday let a temporary unit at a phenomenal price, whilst applying for one rental after another, only to be rejected. I remember sobbing as one real estate agent told me that a rental place I had applied for had been granted to a ‘respectable family’, as though somehow a single-parent family like mine was not respectable enough to be granted a home. I watched my dream fading and falling further and further away.

What I didn’t know at the time was that I was being shaped. Every experience I was going through was building my muscles of resilience. These muscles helped me to create a life and business that I love with all my heart.

Being in a business and being of service requires a type of gumption that adverse circumstances can help to build and nurture. I believe, as humans, we never tire of rags to riches stories because they carry the strong archetypal urge in all of us to prevail beyond the ridiculous challenges of life. The fact that we survive some of these rites of passage at all is a pure miracle.

After falling down 8 times and getting back up 9 times, I was finally able to buy the 9^th house we had lived in. My coaching practice had grown enough to finally give me the abundance and freedom I had craved and even though it is a modest home, it is a palace to me.

I won’t lie, over the years I have been consumed with mother guilt about my children being unsettled by so many moves. I couldn’t hide my exhaustion and mini breakdowns over the stress of moving so many times. Plus, single parenting comes with a whole new category of guilt that is hard to understand unless you’ve been there.

You can imagine how proud I was when I went Facebook stalking my son’s profile to find that he had written as his intro, fall down 8 times and get back up 9.

You can probably also imagine how hard it was to hold the tears back when he recently leaned across the café table when we were having lunch at Ikea and said, ‘it’s been good for me to have you as my mum, being in a single parent household has made me really independent and resilient.’ It made the past decade of trials and tribulations feel as though it was all meant to be this way.

I am honoured to share this journey of life and business with you. I would love to hear all your stories and support you too.

Please come and share here
>> VIEW THE VIDEO HERE <<

PS:  I am over the moon to say that I did eventually find a myriad of kick-ass amazing women to be my mentors. One of my recent mentors and friends, Melyssa Griffin, has grown her business to seven-figures and is trailblazing the way with her success. Melyssa has released her free training about how to grow and monetize your blog. I can highly recommend checking Melyssa’s training out if you’re looking at growing your business via your blog: http://blogtobiztraining.com

sign up here

PPS: Earlier, I mentioned that I suffered from that universal phenomenon Mummy Guilt. Please join me and 3 other women in Melbourne in September for drinks and a low down on dealing with this epidemic. mummyguiltevent.eventbrite.com.au

GET YOUR TICKETS HERE

Have Questions About Mummy Guilt?

If you have questions about Mummy Guilt, coaching, or how to get started, I’d love to hear from you. You can contact me here.