How Healing Led Me From Bankruptcy to 6-Figures

This week, I’m in total prep mode for a free offering from my heart to yours that will be announced next week. It’s been a flurry of calls, preparation, writing and dreaming as I get this offering ready to send to all of you.

I’m so excited to invite you into a practice I created that literally changed the trajectory of my life. As I’ve been mulling over the hows and whens, I spent a few sleepless nights this week tossing and turning over something I have been avoiding speaking publicly about for 4 years…

And I realized, for me to fully introduce the offering and have it create the impact for each of you that I KNOW it can, I need to reveal a little bit more about my story of how I got where I am today- running a business I love, in an amazing relationship and surrounded by people who inspire me every day.

You see- it wasn’t always this way. In fact, I used to live in a complete scarcity mindset where on one hand, I thought the world owed me everything I wanted, and on another, I felt I deserved nothing.  So today, I open up about a HUGE blockage I had in my soul to living the Unbridled Life I dreamed of, and what ignoring this block around abundance ultimately cost me.

The free program that I will announce next week is what saved me and showed me there is another way, and that by working through this block- that almost all of us have to some extent- life truly can be Unbridled.

HERE IS MY STORY OF HOW HEALING LED ME FROM BANKRUPTCY TO 6-FIGURES IN 15 MONTHS:

“I can’t believe this is happening…. how did I get to this point? I thought I had it all figured out. I thought I would be ok. I thought I made all the right decisions and knew what was best for me…. This is going to destroy me.”

I still remember muttering those words to the lawyer on a day I will always remember as my personal B-Day: St. Patrick’s Day 2010. I was sitting in his office, surrounded by years of my financial statements, boxes of files dating back to college, and an envelope of cash from my parents- the first time they had EVER given me money for anything- to pay him.

I WAS MONTHS AWAY FROM TURNING 30 YEARS OLD, AND MY LIFE HAD FALLEN APART.

You see, at this point I was 18 months out of my corporate finance job, and I thought I had done everything in my power to make my first business- Rockstar Yoga- a success. But the truth was, it was an utter failure. I had done all of the trainings, studied with the best, travelled the world to become a healer, lived in Bali and healed my body of most of it’s chronic pain.

But the reality was, no one would hire me. I had private clients but I couldn’t get any traction. When I auditioned to be on staff at spas and studios, I was told various versions of: too little experience, not enough of a ‘brand’ or the best was when I was told I didn’t have the ‘body type’ that a certain popular yoga studio wanted for it’s teachers & healers (yes: true story).

This was heart-breaking at the time for me.

After almost 10 years in various internships & jobs in finance, I had grown accustomed to a life of leisure, fun, travel, a healthy bank account and being able to pay off any debt I took on within a month or two. I was used to working in an environment where $25,000 bonuses were thrown around just for showing up everyday, and raises and promotions came every 6 months. It was unhealthy in many ways, which is a big reason I left in the first place, but I thought that was how the Universe worked- you show up, you get paid, life is easy.

{HAVE I EVER TOLD YOU THE UNIVERSE HAS A GREAT SENSE OF HUMOR IN HOW IT OFFERS US INITIATIONS INTO LIFE?}

I had given up everything to make my dream of becoming a healer a reality- left a very cushy 6-figure salary with expense account and benefits, gave up a beautiful apartment in one of the most desirable neighborhoods in San Francisco, downgraded my car, gave away most of my belongings, moved on from a whole group of friends who didn’t understand why I left all of that to follow my passion. By the time I found myself in the lawyers office on B-Day, I was living in a teeny tiny in-law apartment by the beach that didn’t even fit a real bed or have it’s own entrance from the owners.

I HAD SACRIFICED EVERYTHING. AND FAILED.

The consequence being that I had accumulated debt in the spirit of ‘investing in my real life education’ but reality had set in that it was insurmountable in the circumstances I was in. The stress had me crippled in pain again. I had never missed a bill or even been late on any payment (and I still never have) but finally one month, I had to get real with myself about if I could pull it off ‘just one more month, then another, then another.’

I couldn’t.

We were in a major recession in this country. I begged for my old job back at one of the firms, but there were none for the taking- most of my former colleagues had been laid off. I was ordering large pizzas for the week just to eat ‘affordably’ and skipping my beloved yoga classes because I could no longer pay for them- which hurt my teachers, but I didn’t have the heart to tell them the reason.

Ultimately, I had sunk deeply into a scarcity mentality (though I didn’t know that is what it is called at the time).

FINALLY ONE NIGHT, DEFEATED, I COMPLETELY LOST FAITH IN MYSELF AND LOVE FOR THE WORLD AROUND ME.

And so on that morning a few days later, as I sat in the lawyers office, I signed the papers to declare bankruptcy, close down my business, and pay with cash that my mom had to send me because I couldn’t even afford to pay for the bankruptcy fees myself.

With pen in hand, my shaking was almost uncontrollable. But as I signed the last ‘k’ of my name, I felt a rush of faith, love and energy straight into my heart. I breathed a deep sigh of relief. Even though I knew the next few months would be brutal going through the process, I also knew that by making this decision, I was taking back control of my life and making the choice to live another way- even if I didn’t yet know what that other way was.

The next few months WERE brutal, don’t get me wrong. Bankruptcy is in NO way a quick fix, way out or a giving up. It sucks. It’s hard. It hurt on every level of my being deep into the core of my soul. It was having to come face to face with some really dark shadows, every decision I had made in my adult life, and admitting that my ‘dream’ did not come true- yet.

But it was also strangely some of the best months I’ve ever had. For the first time in my life, I deeply understood vulnerability. Amazing teachers appeared who wanted to help me. A Goddess and her mantras appeared that changed my life. I learned what ‘scarcity mentality’ means, and how I had become trapped in it. And I began to experience great gratitude for everything that had happened- even though it had been hard, even though I experienced shame, and even though it broke my heart.

{THROUGH THIS PROCESS, I REALIZED THIS: WHEN I LEFT CORPORATE, I ALSO UNCONSCIOUSLY LEFT BEHIND THE BELIEF THAT I DESERVED TO HAVE A GOOD LIFE.}

By quitting my job, somewhere in my soul I created a 3-pronged red-hot blockage around the concept of abundance: On one hand, I equated having abundance with being evil like the corporations I had left. On another, all I had ever known had proved to me that the world owed me just for showing up, and this time that failed. And on the third, I somehow created the belief that to be a healer and help people, I had to sacrifice my own needs because I didn’t deserve to have a good life myself.

HEFTY BURDENS TO BEAR. BUT AFTER SUCH A ROUGH FALL, THERE WAS ONLY ONE WAY TO GO: UP.

So I found a new horse, got back in the saddle, started to walk down a new road and vowed to:

1) Do things differently

2) Learn everything I could about the energy of how money exchange really works, not just what the finance world I came from says

3) Help others avoid making the same mistakes when they were ready to follow their dreams and

4) Take what I learned along the way to help others get out of scarcity mentality and into living from a place of abundance.

I put everything I had into keeping these vows, and within 15 months of B-day at the lawyers office, my second business hit 6-figures and has continued to do so every year since.

HOW DID I DO IT?

I took on four (yes, 4!) bridge jobs and worked my healing practice in my free hours in the beginning- sometimes as late as 10 or 11pm at night to give healing sessions.

I learned to ask for help when I needed it- and fully receive it.

I applied for scholarships with teachers who didn’t offer them but I knew I needed to work with- and won them.

I got vulnerable with my friends and told them the truth.

I cut out any expense I didn’t need, rsvp’ed ‘No’ to several weddings and events I just couldn’t afford to travel to.

I started listening to my heart, not the experts, on what I needed to do to grow & flourish.

I took bold risks when my heart told me an investment in something was what was needed to reach my next steps. And I paid Cash- always– trusting the money would come back to me {it has}.

I learned how to market my business and value myself and my work.

I started a blog to write about my experiences.

I learned the difference between intuition and fear– and how to make decisions and moves in the world based on this.

I learned that no matter what you want to manifest, create, bring in or start in your life, if you don’t deal with your blockages first and consistently do so along the way, shit can seriously hit the fan- and fast.

I did shamanic journeys, sweat lodges, ceremonies to heal this wound. I learned to be a Spiritual Warrior and get real about the blocks I had around abundance: work, relationships, money and love.

I learned to Celebrate what happened as the biggest blessing of my life, and treat it as such.

I released my ‘story’ and in the process, I found my voice. I learned who I truly am and learned to operate from a whole new perspective of abundance, not scarcity.

And most importantly, I dove deep into the ancient spiritual teachings around energy exchange, while Divine Guidance led me to a certain Goddess and her mantras {who you will meet next week}.

I began to fuse all of these things into a simple practice that transformed my life and taught me that the true meaning of Abundance has nothing to do with money or things, but has everything to do with service and love.

Hold on to your hats, we are going to journey to a field you quite possibly have only dreamed of.