This week I share the details behind the fifth and sixth of the seven turning points during which my upcoming book from Hay House/Balboa Press, Choose Your Energy: Change Your Life, gained significant manifestation momentum. To refresh your memory, here’s a summary of the seven turning points.
The first was enrolling in a life coaching certification program offered by the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching (iPEC) in September 2010. The second was launching my first blog in October 2010. The third was beginning to write my clients’ stories of transformation in August 2011. The fourth was enrolling in Christine Kloser’s 2012 Transformational Author Experience in May 2012. The fifth was a combination writing retreat and vacation in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the South Jersey Shore in July 2012. The sixth was finding New Dawn Center for Spiritual Living in Aurora, Colorado, in November 2012. The seventh was a three-week writing retreat in January 2013, during which I completed the manuscript.
The common denominator was a process of baby steps through which I embraced and transformed fear so that I might step further into my calling to foster hope and personal transcendence through the power of unconditional self-love.
Turning Point 5
One of the bonuses offered with the platinum level group coaching upgrade to Christine’s transformational author program was a mid-July 2012 three-day seminar in my birthplace of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The first day was a private networking session with Christine and twenty-five other platinum participants. It was an opportunity to discuss our books, receive coaching, and encourage each other forward on our individual paths to publishing. The second and third days involved joining a few hundred participants for a two-day immersion with renowned marketing and PR guru Steve Harrison on the ins and outs of publicity.
I wrestled with whether to purchase the platinum option. The cost was $697 plus travel, meals, and lodging. Well worth the price but still a substantial sum. I could minimize additional out-of-pocket expenses by covering the airfare and hotel with credit card points.
While I was weighing the pros and cons of participating, my dear friend and former colleague Anna Pettit suggested I arrive ten days early to enjoy an extended visit with her family and other former consulting colleagues from the Philly area. With the July 31 book proposal deadline just weeks away, a Philadelphia getaway would offer me the opportunity to focus on writing during the day and restore my soul by socializing with old friends in the evening. It was very tempting. When Anna sweetened the offer to include whisking me away for a weekend in my idea of paradise (the South Jersey Shore), I enrolled in the platinum program happily.
As we so often do, after making my decision, I continued to wrestle a bit with whether I had invested my assets wisely. Every time the doubt surfaced, I would stop, breathe, close my eyes, recenter, assess the energy underneath my decision (love) and the energy underneath my doubt (fear), clear myself, recommit, and keep moving forward.
In the months leading up to the Philly trip, the Universe sent two additional confirmations that I had made the optimal decision. The first came in the form of a two-hundred-dollar rebate on the enrollment fee when I won a drawing on one of the group coaching calls. Ta-da! The second was a call from my son and his fiancé, letting me know they would be joining me for the weekend at the South Jersey Shore, including a return visit to the Wildwood boardwalk.
The trip was heavenly. I spent a week with Anna and Jim at their home in Villanova, Pennsylvania. There I found myself nestled among the many landmarks of my childhood and early career:
- two miles from Bryn Mawr Hospital, where I was born
- fifteen miles from Media, where I grew up
- four miles from St. Davids, where I attended college at Eastern University
- eighteen miles from Centre City Philadelphia, where I spent the first seventeen years of my consulting career
- one hundred miles from Cape May, New Jersey, where I spent many idyllic days with my beloved nan in her tiny home on Maryland Avenue, just two blocks from the beach
The combination of a change of scenery, writing isolation by day, and reconnection with lifelong friends at night provided the perfect fuel to help my words flow forth effortlessly. Many evenings, after returning from a night of fun with friends, energized and inspired, I would begin writing again at Anna’s dining room table until the wee hours of the following morning. At which time I would go to sleep for six to eight hours, wake naturally, and begin again.
As the writing/reveling/writing/sleeping pattern continued at the Shore, I not only made substantial progress on the book proposal but also conceptualized, completed, and scheduled twenty additional blog posts I would release over the next ten weeks. My proposal was quickly becoming a book, and having launched a new weekly blog campaign in mid-June (Declare Your Independence from Stress), I was firmly established in blogging one or more times a week. There was no longer any question: I am an author! I publish!
In the company of my friends, I had the opportunity to visit nan’s grave and marvel at the miraculous expansion and rehabilitation a couple from Princeton, New Jersey, had wrought with nan’s itty-bitty bungalow. My friends and I delighted in the easy camaraderie of lifelong companions who enjoy an unbreakable bond. We have certainly had our share of disagreements through the years. Some originated in my tendency to become bossy and driven under pressure. Others in Anna’s habit of throwing whipped cream at me during seventeen consecutive company Christmas parties (which, it just occurred to me, may have been her antidote to my propensity for intensity). Nevertheless, our connection runs so clear and deep that we never stay angry with or abandon each other. We always find a way to forgive and forget any relationship missteps and make our way back to the playful and supportive intimacy we treasure.
So what was the significance of this particular turning point? With publication of a book looming, my visibility and vulnerability would be raised considerably. I might be criticized, rejected, or worst of all, ignored. Still stinging from recent censure by a friend, without knowing it, through my trip to Philadelphia and the South Jersey Shore, I had chosen the perfect remedy to any fear of rejection. I fed my sense of belonging by reconnecting with my roots. I reminded myself of this profound truth: no matter what fear-based lies and illusions I may be choosing to believe at any given time, we are all always essentially one. Whether my book sells twenty or two million copies, is a commercial success or only an important milestone on my personal journey, I am known and loved by myself, my Divine Source, my family, my friends, and my Philly tribe.
Turning Point 6
During my own personal Journey to Wholeness, I discovered, one at a time, the four inner senses and their roles in fostering the life of flow I sought (chapter 5). By late Fall 2012, feeding my inner senses of creativity, vitality, and spirituality was a firmly established way of life—a healthy new habit. My sense of belonging still required more attention. With the dramatic changes in my interests and values, some of my existing relationships had become even stronger. Others had begun to dissolve naturally. Participation in my two existing spiritual communities (Prairie Unitarian Universalist Church in Parker, Colorado, and Unity of Littleton in Littleton, Colorado) continued to provide substantial support to my personal Journey to Wholeness. After many months of introspection, renewal, and growth, I found myself seeking additional alliances that would resonate to my new core beliefs, provide opportunities for me to be of service, and support me in my lifelong journey to even greater wholeness. In the idiom of the day, I needed to find more “peeps.”
In early November 2012, I was blessed with the discovery of an additional spiritual community: New Dawn Center for Spiritual Living in Aurora, Colorado. From the first visit, I knew I had found a source of fulfilling personal relationships and a spiritual home. A group of people with whom I could share my gifts and who would help fill my desire for companionship and continued mutual growth.
The pace and ease of my writing took huge leaps forward when New Dawn licensed practitioners began supporting me weekly with affirmative prayer. Without their friendship and encouragement, I might have finished this book eventually, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as smooth, quick, or comprehensive. I am forever grateful. The day I found New Dawn was indeed a new dawn in the birthing of this book.
Choose Your Energy: Change Your Life! 