Well, it’s been one week since I said farewell (for now) to the corporate world and started my journey into entrepreneurship. I add (for now) because I am learning to let go of extremes/ultimatums and am actively working on shifting my mindset from black and white to one of more fluidity and living in the gray (i.e: uncomfortable) zone. In this one week of entrepreneurship I have already learned the importance of being flexible and letting go of rigidness and expectation to actually allow for the authentic unfolding of a vision to occur (and also because quite honestly I have never created my own schedule before…...lots of growing pains). Plus, a part of my own personal vision and passion is to add healing to the corporate world so saying saranara forever / fuck you corporate world isn’t really appropriate.
This idea though of expectation is one that has been front and center as I venture down this new road and the reason is because I have found myself frequently falling into its quiet, but very powerful trap. Expectation can be tricky and it can be sneaky. It shows up in unexpected (you see what I did there?) ways and often the only way that you realize you have fallen victim to it is when it has not been met and you are in the throws of disappointment and/or anger.
In the physical realm this has shown up with the expectation of myself to just naturally “know” how to be an entrepreneur. Having never been one before in my life and only functioned within pre-existing structures, I have naturally expected myself to just know how to build my own schedule for the entire day despite having never done that in my life. You see where this is going right? Yes, breakdowns and meltdowns. While I know I was meant to be an entrepreneur there is still a natural Unfolding that must occur; there is a process; it is a sacred journey which much of the time is out of our control so I capitalize the ‘U’ in Unfolding to emphasize this importance.
In the emotional and creative realm this has also shown up in a big way. As I work through my desires, visions and the impact that I want to have, I find it is easy to slip into a place of survival, comparison and ego. It’s easy to want to create from a place of “does this look good?” and “will I look good doing this?” rather than from a place of authenticity, vulnerability, and service. It’s easy to slip into the world of expectation because honestly it’s where many of us live from, myself included.
Expectation is a mind based reality. It is a masculine energy often defined by rigidness and a harsh black and white / right vs. wrong mentality. When we live from expectations, we often live in disappointment…..disappointment in ourselves and most definitely in others. We begin to see the world as “what is going wrong?” vs. “what is going right?” and “what am I grateful for?”. When we live in this reality we spiral; we experience more anxiety; we don’t feel fulfilled; we are disconnected from ourselves and from others and more than anything we live from fear instead of from love.
As I go through this journey and am able to catch myself in this trap, the word “intention” continuously pops into my mind. When I am in my head and on a spiral of fear based thoughts circling around “how am I going to do this?” “what will people think of me?” “Am I good enough to do this?” “DOES THIS LOOK GOOD???” I come back to this word. I breathe and I take that sacred pause. I come back into the body. I put my hand over my heart and I ask the questions: What is my intention? What am I committed to? How can I be of service? How can I move more towards love? This is where the magic happens. This is where the Unfolding occurs and where a business can be an extension of our soul’s mission and not turn into another “job.”
This is not just a one time occurance, sometimes I must do this hourly and I realize more than ever that this is not just for the entrepreneurial journey but for the journey of life. Why? Because when we can learn to live from intention we can really free up the stress in our lives that we create for ourselves. We can loosen the grip that we *think* we have. We can let go of many of the things that seem to trigger us. We can actually begin to scratch that annoying itch of discontentment that so many of us feel because when we come from intention our lives start to become a lot more fulfilling.
Finally, we can be more present right here, right now with ourselves and the people in our lives which is really the only place that life is happening.