Ten Highs and Lows of 2015 for Sacred Women’s Business {Lean In}

Sacred Women’s Business is reflecting on a huge year of quantum leaps, challenges, ups, downs and round-abouts. Grab a cuppa, beloved, for this is going to be a long one.

It’s been exactly ten years since my life imploded. Exactly ten years ago I found myself on Christmas Day in the middle of a major life crisis. My 12 year relationship had broken down and I became a single parent of my two boys who were three and five at the time. I was utterly terrified, vulnerable and completely unsure of what my future held. Literally overnight, I went from having a life that looked enviable on the surface – two gorgeous, healthy sons, two beautiful houses, two cars and two university degrees. Suddenly, I was lining up in a Centrelink (welfare) queue wondering how I could rebuild my life with my heart in a million broken pieces, feeling like a heavy, dead weight in the centre of my chest. I felt completely disoriented and was badly in need of a mentor or guide who could show me out of the dark night of the soul I was experiencing. There was no one in sight for many moons until I met my yoga teacher. I chose to get through it for my sons. I hate to think what may have been if I hadn’t been a mother with so much to live for.

I made a pact at that time that if I was to ever recover and get back on my feet again, that I would become a worthy mentor to other women who needed me.

It took many years before my situation improved enough to create Sacred Women’s Business and honour the vow I made. Soon after my break-up (or breakdown as it could be referred to), my beloved poppa committed suicide at the age of 85 because he didn’t want to be a burden in his old age. I had not been to see him during my visit to Perth because I’d been so ashamed of my relationship break up and I didn’t want to worry him with the state I was in. To this day, I would give anything to share my experience with Poppa as I’m sure he would have been the first one to understand having been married 3 times himself! Not long after, my friends and I were on a camping trip during which we lost my friend’s three-year-old child to a fatal brown snakebite. It was a devastating and utterly tragic experience not least because I felt I had inadequate resources to properly care for my grieving friend.

Before Sacred Women’s Business was formed, my sons and I first had to solve a housing dilemma. We had to face the unsettling experience of having to move 9 times in 9 years as one by one, each rental property we were in was suddenly sold. Mortgage brokers would not lend to a single parent with dependents on a part-time wage. I stuck steadfast to my belief that my sons should not be in full time childcare but the price we paid was the uncertainty of our basic living arrangements. I faced some of the most mind-blowingly painful truths about how deeply entrenched and alive inequality for women especially mothers truly is in Australia. Especially as I watched my ex-partner choose his working hours and go on to proudly announce that he was purchasing multiple properties and going on holidays to exotic islands while the boys and I lived close to the breadline. Don’t get me wrong, I say that without bitterness or blame as I would have chosen to enjoy those things too if I’d had the choice. It’s just that it’s a stark reality that women are taken for granted in a role that has intangible and priceless benefits for the future as they raise the next generation. It involves many thousands of hours of unpaid, domestic labour for women who are rarely acknowledged for it. It’s why the AusMumpreneur award meant so much to me, because it was specifically aimed at mothers.

Whilst the level of inequality I was suddenly privy to everywhere shocked me, it certainly put a fire in my belly about how passionately I desired to help women to become the leading ladies of their lives, to make a stand for financial empowerment, success and feminine leadership. To help restore the balance for a better world, I am committed to each and every woman and conscious man who turns up to be coached.

There have been many challenges since I started Sacred Women’s Business three years ago. 2015 has been a stellar year of highlights and lows but absolutely 100% worth every step that has bought me here.

I have six momentous reasons to celebrate 2015.

1. 1. ‘Healing the Heart of Your Business – sustainable success for heart-centred women’ was published. This has been such a thrill – to see it showing up in so many parts of the world, to read the positive reviews on Amazon and to have a warm feeling that my dream to plant and send love letters everywhere is being fulfilled. I am beyond stoked that it was listed as one of the top ten most inspiring books in the Aspire Magazine for December. You can pick up your copy here. While you’re there, check out the beautiful new home Sarah Magdalena Love has created for us!
      

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   2. We were shortlisted in 2 categories of the St George Bank 2015 AusMumpreneur Awards– for service business and emerging business. We took third place in the service business category. I am unashamedly proud and so immensely grateful to my friend Kerry Spina who nominated my business for this award. I’m beyond excited to be one of the Ausmumpreneur coaches and mentors for 2016 and can’t wait to support the many thousands of mothers who understand the highs and lows of building and running a business alongside motherhood.
      

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   3. Clients grew wings and flew. Sacred Womens Business coached some of the bravest, most inspirational, extraordinary people I could have ever dreamed in to my fold. I saw Rest Revolution Specialists launch their websites, ex-police sergeants step into entrepreneurship, doctors create signature systems that will change postnatal care for women, horsegirls start movements and give a voice to rural women, voice healers find their unique expression in business, coaches become great leaders and fill their practices, healers revolutionise health care, yoga teachers create passive income and lawyers becoming green revolutionaries. I have been humbled to tears by the brave quantum leaps I have seen my beloved clients making. I have been awe-inspired by the progress I have witnessed and the dragons that have been slayed. Love has conquered fear over and over again. It has lead to a magical experience where Sacred Womens Business holds a power and magic all of its own for transformation to occur.
      

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   4. Witnessing the power of prayer. Anyone who has stepped into my business for coaching has become a part of my prayer practice and I have seen the power that prayers hold to create miracles and magic in my client’s lives and businesses. I truly believe it’s what sets Sacred Womens Business coaching programs apart from others out there. You get prayed for and the prayers work! Prayers worked in my own business to achieve the dreams I had set also. My coaching packages sold out. I had waiting lists for coaching at various points of the year and the luxury of choosing to coach clients who were a perfect match for the services I offer. It has made 2016 a no-brainer in terms of business structure. I will have a limited number of 10 coaching packages available in 2016 and these will all be by application only. I’m looking forward to the year ahead, because I am choosing to work with people who are ready and willing to answer the call on their lives. If you’re hearing the call and want to make this your year to reach for the stars in your service-based business or you would like to work on discovering your soul purpose, you can apply right here: https://lisafitzpatrick.com.au/womens-life-coaching/
      

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1. I spoke to thousands of people – from a stage, in my workshops and via my writing. For many years as a therapist I felt frustrated that my services were only reaching one person at a time. It’s been a long held dream to keep reaching out for more opportunities to touch larger groups of people. I have been over the moon to speak to several hundred people from a stage this year at a number of different events and I have also been over the moon that my book has clearly magnetised opportunities to speak to many without the slightly gruelling asana focus that underpinned my previous yoga-therapy business. Despite the practice, it doesn’t mean that my nerves have gotten any better, but I am better at managing them. I am still suffering from the scourge of anxiety and the sheer terror of public exposure and visibility when I speak. But I am committed to being true to my values and this means stepping up and having a say when I am given the opportunity. I believe in the message Sacred Women’s Business has for women and this gives me the guts to overcome fear.
   https://lisafitzpatrick.com.au/workshops-speakings-lisa-fitzpatrick/

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2. I returned to my therapy roots. After a couple of years of solely teaching and coaching, my therapy registration was at threat of becoming stale and redundant. I made a decision to maintain my registration and to take on some therapy clients through a very progressive not-for-profit organisation. It wasn’t an easy decision but it turned out well. Best. Decision. Ever. I am beyond excited that they have recognised the need to build coaching into their healthcare practices and in January 2016 I have been asked to consult regarding life coaching assessment tools. It is a dream to be able to support positive change towards more holistic health care. I have so enjoyed having client contact as a therapist and balancing this with my coaching clients. It feels like a winning combination which I plan to continue with in 2016.
   

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Thank you with every cell in my being for your part in helping to make this year one of the most satisfying, fulfilling, exciting, exhilarating and inspiring years of my life.

I wish you the most joyful holy-day time.

The path of creating your business and a life less ordinary is sometimes lonely and difficult. Having you for company has made everything seem more worthwhile, more cheerful, brighter, happier and much richer.

My prayer for you this year and always is to be able to stretch and reach for your highest potential. I will always be committed to holding you in the highest vision for your life and my prayers will always be ones that ask for all the support and guidance you require to make your dreams a reality in 2016.

There have been so many lessons, highs and lows – I have shared them all with you in the article below.

I appreciate you with my whole heart and I look forward to celebrating all of who you came here to be in the years ahead.

TEN HIGHS AND LOWS OF 2015

#1. You can’t help being you – in fact it’s all you can be
This year I decided to be all that I am. I used to think I would be able to cure my depression and my insecurities. I struggle with issues that I often think I should have well and truly moved on from– insecurities, fears, anxiety, cyclic depression and feelings of overwhelm. As long as I’m working on improving these issues and doing what it takes to be of service and helpful to others, everything is going to be just fine. The journey to self-love is a life-long one for most of us here. This year has been a huge one for me, also in my acceptance that depression is also going to be a lifelong journey for me to dance with. I am no longer working to cure it as part of the idealised youthful notion I had that yoga, meditation, diet and supplementation would remedy me permanently. I am no longer resisting the fact that every remedy under the sun may never completely take it away. I’m doing more of what I know works and less of what doesn’t. I have made a commitment to live no matter what, which is breaking the wave of several generations of suicides on my poppa’s side. And I figure that by the time I am a hundred, I’ll have mastered a sweet combination of the best life-giving tools.

However, I am who I am. This year, I’ve made a decision to be myself in my business. My word for the year was leadership and I feel I’ve honoured this word.

Being yourself comes with some side effects – it draws the right people to you and repels the ones who don’t fit. Sometimes I’m wayyyy too soft on my clients and sometimes I make such a fierce feminine stance that I probably scare some clients away too. The fact is, I am deeply grateful to live in a modern world where the old rules of being stuffy and stiff with professionalism have been replaced with much more casual, truthful and personable ways of connecting. In the words of Oscar Wilde, ‘be yourself as everyone else is taken.’ I’ve taken this to heart and I believe it works to create a sustainable business because there are no energy-draining pretences.

#2. Not everyone will like you – stay true to your values
In the world of coaching, there is truth to the fact that sometimes you won’t like your coach. Especially if they’re holding you accountable to things you are resisting like crazy. Sometimes you’ll want to drop out of coaching programs because they’re too damn confronting for the safe but quietly desperate space you’re currently in. I know because I’ve done it myself. A coach is not there to be a friend. A coach is there to hold you in the highest vision for your life and to not take the B.S. excuses we can all make sometimes which keep us from being all that we have the potential to be.

Knowing your values helps you to make a stand in the shit-storm that sometimes comes from creating change.

This year I learnt that some people are simply too afraid of change and would prefer to be in the safety of their status quo – and that’s ok, I understand. They are not ready for coaching.

Some people are just plain mean – they choose the path of hater, critic, naysayer. Some people simply don’t understand that you are doing your absolute best to contribute to the well-being of others. Or they’re threatened by your success. Or they just don’t get your desire to be true to your calling. This is where knowing your values can help make the difference between being paralysed by someone’s criticism and continuing to give your gifts anyway. Holding the values of kindness, generosity, support, spiritual leadership, love, fun, humour, healing and embodiment or whatever emotions you desire to experience on a regular basis – your values underpin your decision-making and help you to decide how to respond to the naysayers. Values help you steer the direction of your business – usually in a direction away from those who don’t share them. The simple fact is, there may not be room in your car for certain people and you might be traveling in a different direction. Try to not let the hurtful things they say get to you and keep steadfast and true to your values.

#3. Soul purpose success does not mean that pigs will fly
Just because you have found your soul purpose and you’re completely committed to it, it does not mean that life will magically become easier and without challenges. I speak a lot about this in my book ‘Healing the Heart of Your Business.’ Business is a spiritual path and the obstacles are like stepping-stones to the greatest version of you. Stay the course and do not believe in the fairy tales that are being touted everywhere about overnight success and marketing miracles and the myth of a perfect life. Soul purpose success takes time, commitment, energy and focus. It is sustainable when placed on slow cook and when it accepts plenty of imperfections. Done is better than perfect. Delayed gratification and plenty of hard work are still good old fashioned necessities for a lot of the highs and so-called ‘good luck’ you experience in business.

#4. Magic and money miracles are available at any moment
Contrary to what I’ve just said in #3, there can be a miracle in any situation. It was an absolute miracle that I managed to get my home loan on the strength of my business growing and giving me so much to be thankful for. This really was like seeing pigs fly. It was a miracle that my dream to see my book published actually happened. It was magical that I managed to get through the years of utter hard slog as a single parent to raise my sons into two fine young men. For these things to happen, I needed to be prepared to meet benevolence halfway by putting in the work.

It was a miracle to have some five-figure months this year and to celebrate some money milestones. It was magical to see that the goal I set for my annual income was reached almost to down to the last few dollars.

This year I saw magic and miracles in so many areas of my life that I had previously seen as insurmountable challenges. My gratitude practice has helped me reframe so many things. And in the words of my dear friend Leigh O’Malley, it’s all working for us, not against us.

#5. Things take time
In the world of instant gratification and fast food and convenience options, the fact that we need to cultivate patience while some of the seeds we have sown grow roots and shoot is a foreign concept to some of the new gen. The truth is, that some things take time and can’t be rushed. The creative process, writing a book, creating a website, creating a business – these things take time and need your faith and patience more than you can predict sometimes. However, you have been given the exact length of time you need to live your soul purpose – nothing more and nothing less. This year, think about your 10 year plan rather than just your 12 month plan. Now breathe into the spaciousness you create for yourself when you realise that a 10 year plan gives you plenty of time for feminine spontaneity, fun, playtime and frivolity. Now breathe out and luxuriate in the relief you feel knowing you have plenty of time to do your life’s work. In fact, you have exactly the right amount of minutes.

#6. Opportunities come from being present.
Someone asked me how I managed to get the speaking opportunities that came my way this year. The truth is, I didn’t know how to answer them as I hadn’t signed up for any speakers’ registers or officially promoted this part of my business. I believe the opportunities came from friends and associates and being at the right place at the right time. I believe that most opportunities come from being present. Being present means stopping for long enough to actually see the opportunities, which are all around us at any one moment in time.

Being present is one of the greatest gifts you can give your clients and your business. Being present means showing up with all of your attention to the moment at hand. It means being so fully embodied that you become a powerhouse of magnetic energy. While most people are scattered and far from fully showing up, you are the one to remember because you are the one who truly listens. You are the one who listens, who shows up and pours all of you into what you do. This is an unmistakable quality that most opportunity magnets have. I’m so excited to share more about the secrets of charismatic embodied feminine leadership in 2016.

#7. Forgiveness is the cornerstone of taking responsibility
Over the past decade I have betrayed myself many times. When my relationship broke down a decade ago and I became a single parent, I made a promise to myself not to place blame at anyone else’s feet for the breakdown. However, in the years that ensued, so many things that I hoped and prayed for didn’t eventuate.

I didn’t meet the love of my life (I believe he’s still out there)

I didn’t partner up again and have the support I craved that a long-term intimate relationship brings (although I did get very lucky to have the most amazing partner for 6 years who needed to fly the coop in order to have his own family. He still shows my sons a healthy male role model and came to my youngest son’s graduation from primary school in December because he knew how much it meant to my son. I am so blessed my sons still have this man in their lives).

I didn’t make enough money teaching yoga and doing therapy to support my sons adequately. I did need to go on to study coaching to live into my potential to provide adequately for my sons.

I didn’t shake my depression and anxiety about co-parenting being fraught with unpredictable challenges.

The truth is, I have had a really hard time forgiving those who have let me down, the system for not supporting mothers adequately to do the most important job in the world. I have on too many occasions blamed my ex, my circumstances, my depression, the government and various other factors for my feelings of disempowerment and my struggles to balance the need to earn money and be the man of the house as well as the mother and home-maker. Anyone who has ever attempted to do it will understand. Those who sit in criticism and judgement of single parents doing their best to support their children, I pray that you never ever have to experience the hardship that it brings. I ask that you do something the Native American Indian’s advise – walk in someone’s moccasins for 100 days before you attempt to judge them. I’m eternally grateful for the resourcefulness that single parenting has taught me, for the business it has inspired me to create in Sacred Women’s Business and for the sheer resilience I have developed from all the challenges.

To take full responsibility for my results and my reality has required radical forgiveness. Reclaiming my power to choose a magical, productive and exciting life has required me to step up and to minimise the finger pointing at factors beyond my control. I’m a work in progress. We are all works in progress. Full stop and amen!

#8. The knight is not coming to rescue you
The love of my life never came to rescue me from the perils of single parenthood.

So I had to make a decision to make career choices that worked for me and my sons, buy my home solo, to live my fullest life and to create a family unit without seeing a one parent home as deficient as I did so often in the early days. That’s not to say that life hasn’t been intensely lonely at times, or that the craving to find my equal has ever subsided. It just means that I have chosen to make the absolute best of my situation. I have taken my boys to have holidays in Cambodia, to Bali, Japan and on cruise ships to show them how the rest of the world lives. I have saved like a mo-fo to make those holidays happen even when things were tight. We have made the most of our housing crisis by renting a series of interesting homes – a dome shaped house, a tree-house style of beach-house in the rainforest, an old stain-glass windowed haunted mansion, a rambling timber farmhouse on 100 acres in the country and a heritage style cottage. We have been homeless and forced to rent a tiny unit for months on end while we searched for a place to live. I have spent many sleepless nights worrying about our housing situation but in reflection, the house I have now bought is the perfect blend of all the best features of every home I have ever lived in. It was a miracle that bought my mortgage broker into my life and her name lives up to her legendary talent – Dawn Courage. This past year has represented a dream come true to be a home-owner again after such a long road. I will never take this good fortune for granted and I am beyond grateful that Sacred Women’s Business made this happen.

Perhaps the knight is not coming to rescue you, but don’t worry, you’re perfectly capable of doing it all by yourself!

#9 Keep your eyes on the prize.
Too many people focus on their present circumstances and keep getting present circumstances. What we focus on expands. Keep your eyes on the very things you wish to create and they will materialise. Focus on present circumstances and you’ll get more of the same. It’s simple but complex in execution, the mind will always attempt to put up an argument about why it can’t be so. Keep your eye on the prize and know what your dream is so that you know what you’re heading towards.

#10 Love over fear always.
Whenever I made a decision based on fear, I lost money or lost momentum, or felt stretched, or felt reactive.

Whenever I made a decision based on love, I created space, I gained momentum, I felt uplifted and I felt empowered.

Fear ruled over me many times and I especially succumbed to it right before I stepped onto some of those stages to speak to big audiences. I’m proud that it didn’t stop me and that love reigned its cloaks around me to take risks and step into visibility no matter what. There have been so many fear-storms this year, but I’ve consciously chosen love over fear to keep me honest, humble and true to the work I was made to do. It’s the least any of us can do, to choose love over fear.

The best question to ask when you’re making a decision is

‘what would love do? ‘

Bonus #11 Gratitude rules
2015 would not have been at all fun without you. I’m so glad you were born!

Sacred Women’s Business is especially grateful to the following people –

Kari Turbeville – my faithful, sweet, generous, talented and awesome website guru and technical assistant. We have journeyed together for over 2 years now. I love your work, I love you as a person and a fellow adventurer and I can’t believe we’ve never met in person. I can’t believe my luck to have found you. I hope one day to hug you in person. Check out Kari’s awesome work, which includes small business website design and maintenance, here: StudioBarnCreative.com

Sylvie Blair – from Bookpod. Sylvie was responsible for the internal layout and design of my book and for uploading it to the ether where it could be distributed to the plethora of bookstores it is currently being sold through. www.bookpod.com.au

Alex Mitchell – my book coach. For making me bag the snake when it threatened to escape. www.authorsupportservices.com.

My sisters, Gen and Ange – for being the most inspiring biological sisters I could have ever hoped to call in to this incarnation. Flanking me on either side. Helping me through my anxiety attack in the ladies room at the AusMumpreneur awards. Helping me through the cyclic depression that waxes and wanes. I don’t know what I’d do without you both.

My soul sisters Leigh and Karen – for being my forcefield of support, also flanking me left and right, for being my ObeWanKenobes. I couldn’t ever thank you enough for all that you mean to me.

My parents Billie and Derrick – for flying over from Perth at various times to cover me while I flew to various parts of the universe for teaching gigs or business adventures. For being such a huge support.

My long-time Scarborough High friends Beenie, Jen and Sime – we are so blessed to be on the East Coast together and I am so grateful to have you as my cherished confidantes. How on earth we survived those reckless teenage years I will never know.

My housecleaner – Anna – I love you and my clean house is worth all the gold in China.

My book-keeper – Inanna – thank you for showing me the magic of numbers. Tracking works.

Where-ever you are, please know that I have your back.

What-ever your challenge may be, please know that better times lie ahead.

And I will continue to pray for you in 2016 – that’s a promise! 

One of my tips for 2016

is to get yourself some of Leonie’s cool resources too. If you’re looking for a planner which has the
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If you’d prefer a swathe of incredible business resources, dance on over to my affiliate
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