My Personal Development Sea Change

I lay on the floor, cheek pressed to the scratchy wool carpet, ears glued to the voice coming from my phone and fighting the urge to get up and do something.

But that still small voice soothed my guilt, my need for action, and I found my finger tap tap tapping to the next youtube video.

The business I’d been working for some months was not going well. I dedicated myself to the grind, and still nothing. Torn from my reunited love of Hawaii, living in California, working a failing business that was supposed to bring me great wealth and not doing the thing I most loved – writing – I was flawlessly miserable.

Misery often invites the greatest opportunity for growth. 

At the time, Abraham Hicks was rather new to me, and I gulped their wisdom like a drowning man for air. My life felt in shambles, and I sought salve for my exhausted self. I routinely spent an hour or two each day listening to their wisdom, soaking it in, but this day was different.

My mind said, You should work. And my spirit said, Action in that business, at this point, will be detrimental. 

Somehow I knew staying on that floor held the key to shifting my life. So I challenged myself to be there for hours, listening and listening and listening. Letting the tears come, although not many because I had not yet broken the dam on undesirable emotions, and combating the guilt.

“This is doing something”, I said. “This is tending to my spirit. This is looking for alignment.” I reasoned, I cajoled aloud, and bit by bit I began to believe the truth of those words.

That day is burned in my memory because it was the first day I said, My spirit matters, my joy matters, and I’m going to take the time to tend to it. 

It was the first day I consciously combatted the fearful burning thoughts of, If don’t do something, I will most likely die. And transmuted them into the knowledge that, If I DO something right now, it will not move me forward. At best, that effort will produce stasis, at worst, a backslide. 

For seven hours I laid on the floor listening to recording after recording, proving to myself, that my alignment matters, that my joy matters, that how I feel matters. 

It was an act of bravery to simply be there, open and receiving. It required courage to say no to the collective voice which taunts, You dummy, success is only found through doing.

In that journey, I discovered success is mostly found through being – the doing happens as a result. 

Over the years I’ve collected modalities, tools, and instruments to bring myself into alignment, to be able to hear that still small voice – tools to help me follow that light, regardless of circumstance and society’s rules. 

Methods that have allowed me to be brave in the face of fear.

But not every tool is meant for every stage. You don’t stick a three year old on a table saw, just as you wouldn’t give an experienced carpenter a toy hammer and some plastic nails.

There are tools perfect for every stage, which is why I created The Brave Archetype Quiz. 

The Brave Quiz highlights where you’re at now, and specifically what you might work on to bring greater alignment, courage, and bravery to your every day.

Growth can sometimes feel so damn heavy, and it doesn’t have to be. I wanted this to be fun, and it is.

The archetypes are not to put you in a box. Your Brave Archetype is meant to meet you where you’re at and give you at least one nugget of wisdom that will enliven and strengthen you to move forward. 

If you receive a single morsel of truth that brings awareness or helps you to move forward in the 25 pages of your archetype booklet (half of them are pictures, never fear non-readers) then I have succeeded.

I’ve tested it and tweaked it extensively, and while it is far from the Holy Grail of personality type tests, the feedback I’ve gotten is that it’s stunningly accurate, and exquisitely created. True story.

So I invite you to play with it, find your brave, and take action on the suggestions specific to you.

Today, I don’t have to spend 7 hours on the floor to get myself in alignment. Most of the time 7 minutes will do, but if it will not (and I now know when it will not) I listen and without guilt, do whatever it takes to bring my joy to the surface.

Love and truth,