What I Learned From Erasing Time From My Day

Hello Queen,

Happy Tuesday and New Years Eve!. This week I am honoring myself by doing what it is that I truly want to do. And that does mean that I want to spend a few days on my own. Admittedly there is some shame around this as I do love my family, and I feel like electing not to spend a few days with them during the holiday season somehow negates my love for them.

The mind is a funny thing. I know that consciously choosing myself for an amount of time does not mean that I love my family any less. It doesn't make me cold, it just means that I needed some time to care for myself. This is especially important as an empath.

And I am sharing this with you all as a preface to this blog post, because I know that we all don't come from 100 percent loving, caring homes. For some of us, coming home also means leaving home. It means taking the stress with the love. And for those of us who feel obligated to return home for the holidays, I want to remind you that it is okay to choose yourself. Even as your ego throws shame at you.

But that is not what today's post is about. Today's post is about what I am doing in the time I have gifted myself. In summary, I am engaging in a lot of practices and just experimenting with releasing any resistance that may still be present as I enter this next decade. I know that the version of me who enters 2020 steps it up and really provides for her queens. So, I am stepping up in preparation for that.

15 Journal Prompts to make 2020 your best year yet

You already know that your girl does everything from a place of flow. So, all I have been doing is following my intuitive nudges. And one of those nudges was to block time. See, I already believe that time is an illusion. Everything is happening all at once and your perception of time is how much you are allowing or constricting your natural flow of abundance.

I took it one step further. I said if time is an illusion, then I am going to block anything that tells me the time. All clocks, all watches, the time on my tv. Everything I whited out and purposely ignored what I could not white out. This is what I learned from my practice.

Measuring time provides a sense of control. A way to control both your external reality, and also yourself. What I found was that when I blocked time, I also had to surrender to myself.

From the moment I woke up on Saturday, my instinct was to look at the time to determine whether or not that was a good time to wake up. Before this, I didn't realize how much I checked the clock to determine whether or not I was tired. That was abundantly clear to me when I woke up naturally on Saturday and checked to see whether or not I had 8 hours of sleep and could wake up, or whether I should make myself go back to sleep, because it was "too early." Like girl. I wasn't tired and I was checking to see whether or not I was allowed to be tired. I had to surrender to my own natural clock.

Then every task after that illuminated to me how much I relied on time. Before this experiment I would eat at noon just because it was noon, and not because I was actually hungry. This practice in surrender forced me to eat intuitively and realize, I'm usually not that hungry!

If I was working on something, I couldn't say to myself I'll do this for a few hours, because I had no idea of measuring how much time had passed. So I had to trust myself to stop when I was tired of working on something. I thought I was really good at flow before I realized just how much I forced myself to do because I set some arbitrary measure of time.

I am still working on processing all of this, but one thing is for sure. The lessons I have learned from this experiment will stay with me. Because what I learned for sure is how to listen to myself when it comes to moving through my day. Not listening to the clock.

This was truly an eye opening experience that brought me a lot closer to my true self. If you choose to do it (it was incredible, and trippy, and wonderful and anxiety inducing all at once), tag me on Instagram as I would love to celebrate you and hear your experience! My handle is @quarter.life.queens

That's all I have for you today, queens!

Much Love, Always,

Shar

The One Belief That Completely Blocks Your Flow of Abundance

Hello My Beautiful Queen,

I imagine that I am posting this sometime around the new year! So happy almost new decade. I hope you have been working on yourself in preparation for the new decade, because, queen, it is going to be amazing. I know I have been holding onto quite a bit of resistance, and the past few days alone have been so eye opening. Which is what I want to talk to you about.

Resistance can often be found in thoughts and vibration that do not align with your divine truth. The worst something you think or believe feels, the further it is from the truth. I want to be honest with you all and say that a belief I have been holding onto is that life is hard for me. I fully believed that other people could have very easy lives, but when it came to things I wanted, I felt like they were going to be difficult for me.

That came from my childhood. My mom was a single mom of three kids who worked for minimum wage. It seemed like her mantra was that's just the way life is, or life isn't easy. So of course, I picked that up. But there were other things to, hearing that the sacrifice I would have to make to live is to work. That I couldn't have everything I wanted. That I wasn't just allowed to be free all of the time and my freedom would come only after work, on the weekends and when I retired. Even child me was like, the fuck? Little me was also very sassy and confidently said just because that's how your life is, doesn't mean that's how my life is going to be.

What fucking sense does that make? That is not an equal vibrational exchange, and in the words of Ariana Grande, "Ain't got enough money to pay me respect." By which I mean there is not enough money in this world to make me work 45+ years in exchange or 15 years of mediocre freedom. Your girl woke up and she is not available for that kind of exchange anymore. And if you are reading this queen, then neither are you.

But I digress. Because even though young me was very aware that I could choose a different kind of life, I moved through my life and was conditioned. A belief is a thought you think over and over again. Combine a decade and a half of hearing life is hard and requires sacrifice, plus a very efficient brain looking for evidence to back that belief, and you have a version of yourself that believes life is difficult.

But my queen, I am here to shake you the fuck out of that belief because it is not serving you! I know you are sitting here with a list of a million things proving how your life is difficult or has been difficult. I know, because I did the same thing. But holding onto this belief DOES NOT HELP YOU. It just doesn't. What you believe and expect creates the reality around you. Your past does not inform your future! It doesn't unless you choose to believe that it does. And why the heck would you choose to believe that? That's like shooting yourself in the foot.

If you expect things to be difficult, if you expect things to fall through, if you expect bad things to happen, then they will! Simply because your brain is now looking for it. And what you seek you shall find.

I want you to sit and ask yourself how does it feel to believe that life is hard for you? Does it feel good? Does it feel light? Does it fill you with joy and peace? No? Then it is not true! It is not in vibrational alignment with your highest truth and it does not serve your greatest good to hold onto the belief. Furthermore, it is not even your belief. This is your conditioning passed on by others and their own limiting beliefs. Don't let people shit in your vibrational space. No bueno.

Yes, I am aware that I am very passionate about this, but its because I know just how much harm this belief can have. From making it so you struggle with your bills, to being unable to call in what you desire, to creating shitty experiences, to loosing opportunities. It's hard pill to swallow, but when you believe that life is hard, you only make life hard for yourself. You cut off your flow to abundance because you literally create resistance in everything you try to create or call in.

I could go on about this forever, but I'm going to stop here and leave with you this question. Holding on to the belief that life is difficult for you is self-sabotage in its highest forms. But you simply would not hold onto a belief if it did not serve you in some way. When I first encountered this belief,  realized that the way this belief served me was by providing a sense of accomplishment and strength by overcoming obstacles. At the time, I was not aware enough to realize that I was the one putting the obstacles in my way in the first place. Because I create my own reality. In order to release this belief, I had to address the real issue. Removing the ties between my worthiness and my ability to overcome.

So, the question I leave you with is this. How does holding on to the belief that life is difficult serving you?

Much Love, Always,

Shar

Play In The Energy of Your Manifestations

Hello My Beautiful Queen!

Happy Friday. I have to say that this is also an amazing Friday because it is the last day before our winter break. This means that I get a full 2 weeks of paid time off to play in the energy of success. What does that mean for me? It means going all in with Quarter-Life Queens and feeling out what it would be like to work full time as a coach and the founder of this amazing brand. It's also a time for me to dive deep into my spiritual practice.

Speaking of feelings, I want to talk to you about manifestation today, because I know so many of us are calling in nothing less than greatness and magic for 2020. The new year symbolizes a new beginning and a chance for you to choose again. I encourage you to make 2020 the year you choose yourself. If not now, then when.

In preparation for that, I have been focusing on my evolution and really listening to what my higher self has to say. And it is clear to me that it is time to expand my consciousness and strengthen my faith. I would love if you would join me on my journey.

Something that I am calling in for the end of 2020 is a massive celebration and spiritual retreat with my soul friends. I imagine something in a fancy (but rustic) resort with music and dancing and games. I imagine stargazing, and sitting by a bonfire, and dancing through gardens without a care in the world. Essentially, I want an epic retreat full of so much love, gratitude and just absolute joy.

Now remember, Queen, it's not about the thing you are manifesting, it is about the feeling it gives you. Like if I gave you a plane ticket to Fiji right now but told you you could never use it, that ticket immediately loses all of its value. Simply because it no longer grants you the experience and the ability to enjoy it.

So, what's the fastest way to manifest right now? It's to play in the feelings of having your manifestation right now. PS Queen, that is also how you detach from the outcome. Ask yourself how it feels to have what you want. Connect into those feelings, then ask yourself what makes you feel that way right now, then go do it!

Of course, I'm going to tell you how I am currently doing this, but you do what feels good to you. This is is just some guidance, if you will.

Okay, so you know your girl is on a beach, having a good time with her friends just laughing and loving. The version of me who is on this trip feels confident, sexy, grateful, powerful, connected and full of love. The best thing I can do for myself is give myself permission to feel those things right now.

I am doing that by dancing to what I consider to be beachy music. I've been listening to ocean sounds and sitting in the sun. I've been visualizing and dancing around my apartment imagining that I am already at the parties. I've been taking warm baths and wearing silky bathrobes. I've been talking to more people and looking for reasons to celebrate.

Your brain thinks in images ;) give it something to picture

And what you will notice is that none of this things require money. None of these things require me to do things that are not yet aligned with my reality. In fact, they are all really small steps, but they bring the exact same feelings. I can't emphasize this enough, but give yourself permission to have fun! To just enjoy the feelings and the activities that evoke the emotions within you. Don't approach this as if it is some sort of ritual to bring your manifestations with you. What you are practicing is detachment and fun.

When you give yourself permission to have fun with the feelings, what you communicate with your vibration is that you believe the thing you desire is already yours. And so, the Univese will respond.

So, for the last week and a half of 2019, I challenge all of you to go out there and enjoy yourselves. Give yourself permission to have fun.

What are you calling in 2020?

PS Queen, I am providing you with a free coaching call! Make sure to reserve your spot before the new year.

Much Love, Always,

Best,

Sharlene

Fear or Intuition?

Hello My beautiful queen!

The first thing I want to tell you is that life is always happening for you. I can’t promise you that the decisions you make will always work out in the ways that you can expect. But I can say that the decisions you make are part of your journey and can only bring your closer to the fulfillment of your desires—even if it is not clear to you how it is doing so.

I mean, I made the decision to go to grad school and collect 100,000 dollars in debt. I made the decision to renew my lease in my old apartment with no promise of a job. And well, if you’ve been around for a while, you will know that those decisions lead to my accounts falling into collections, and being locked into a lease for an apartment that I could no longer afford. But this is also the birthplace of quarter-life queens. It is the true birth place of my personal growth, spiritual development and decision to live the life that I wanted to live. I’m going to suggest here that you go read the post about intuition before you continue with this post because it’s going to help you begin to have that mindset shift around making the “wrong decision”.  Spoiler alert, I don’t believe you can be burned by your intuition.

So, in the last post, I spoke to you about the decision I made in my life to quit my job and go all in with Quarter-Life Queens. It was a scary decision, and anytime you are making a scary, life altering decision that doesn’t make sense to the people around you, your ego will scream at you. In those times it can be so easy to beat yourself up and to believe the stories of your ego. It can be easy to believe that you are ruining your life and can’t be trusted to make your own decisions. If you want to know the way I know a decision is the “right” one, I encourage you to read that post.

But in this post, I’m going to explain how I distinguish between fear and intuition. If you’ve been in the QLQ space for any amount of time, then this answer won’t surprise you. I trust my emotional responses. I believe emotions serve as your guidance system. If something doesn’t feel good, it either isn’t meant for you, it isn’t the truth, or you haven’t grown into it yet. I’m going to share with you how I know the difference.

1. Where is the fear response coming from?
When you are at the precipice of a decision, it can be easy to conflate the fear you are feeling with the decision you are making. It’s important to slow down here and examine what the fear is truly a response to. The decision or the story about what the decision means?

When I decided to quit my job, I had a lot of fear. And earlier version of me believed that the fear meant I shouldn’t quit. It meant that it was the wrong thing to do because it didn’t feel good.

Thankfully, I have come far along enough in my journey to recognize the truth. The fear was not coming from the decision, it was coming from the story around the decision.

IE, when I said, I’m quitting my job, I didn’t have a fear response to that. But almost at the same time I thought that, stories were triggered.

The story that said I have bills to pay
The story that said I was being irresponsible
The story that said I would never succeed and I was being stupid
The story that said I would regret this

The fear was linked to these stories. The fear and painful response was not linked to the decision, but rather to the beliefs I had around what it meant to make this kind of decision. When I sat down and really got present, I realized that when I thought “I’m quitting my job, 2020 is the year I work for no one but myself,” at worse my emotional response was neutrality. And at best it was soaring joy at the thought of finally being able to live the freedom life at least in some ways.

2. Admittedly, this isn’t a step. This is more of a footnote that I have to emphasize here. I spent a long time wavering in decisions and not doing things because I convinced myself I wasn’t ready. That it wasn’t meant for me because it didn’t feel good. I was out here trying to live my best life and be my best self. To me that meant being able to do whatever I wanted and not engaging in anything I didn’t want to. But the truth is, anything new that expands your comfort zone isn’t going to feel good.

Again, it is your fear based response to doing that thing that is leading you to that place. It is not the action itself, but rather the story you have around it.

I used to be terrified of going live in my business. Of course, I wasn’t afraid of actually hitting the live button. I was afraid that I would fumble over my words or go blank. I was afraid that I would accidentally say something offensive that I didn’t mean. But even deeper than that, I was afraid of judgment and exclusion. My story was that one live and having just one person dislike me would lead to the complete downfall of my business and therefore the utter destruction of my dreams.

Is this really what would happen? Of course not, but fear is a funny thing. I used the negative feelings I had around this action stop me from doing it. Simply because I had not yet learned to distinguish between bad feelings around doing the thing, and bad feelings around what it means to do the thing.

It took me years of practice to get to the point where I could distinguish the difference, so I say to you, have patience. The action and the story around the action can be so intertwined. Your fear instinct can kick in even before you hear the story. It takes practice and patience. The best thing you can do for yourself is begin to create a safe space for your emotions to tell you their stories. The safer you make the space, the more your emotions will speak to you and the better you will be at distinguishing between your fear and intuition.

I personally use guided meditation to put myself in a visual trance. I believe guided meditation is one of the easiest ways to begin carving out safe mental space for self-expression. Find whatever works for you. I started with Jason Stephenson on YouTube, but now I have my own meditation that I use (coming soon ;) ). But girl, find what feels good and just commit to making space for your whole self.

Much Love, Always,

Shar

How Do You Know It's the Right Decision?

Hello My Beautiful Queens,

Happy! Before we jump into today’s post, I want to hop in to let you know that I now have created space for all of my beautiful queens who wish to work with me. I’ve been feeling such a deep call to connect with all of my amazing queens on a more individual level. So, I am holding space for anyone who feels the call to have a 15-20 minute free coaching call with me. You can sign up, here.

Also, we are on day 2 of the Reclaim Your Reality Challenge! Five days of free coaching where I walk you through my step by step process for transformation. I am live everyday at 7 PM EST, so don't forget to hop over to the QLQ Instagram (@quarter.life.queens) to check it out.

As we transition out of 2019, I have been thinking more and more about spirituality. It feels like as I settled into my “traditional” adult life, I moved further and further away from my spiritual truth and connection. I still had my ties and belief in manifestation, but I moved away from it as I worked to be okay.

Along the way I came to understand and love myself more than I ever thought possible. I grounded into my truth, my source connection and my purpose. As I result, emotional alignment and certainty in myself became like second nature to me. But most powerfully, I stopped being afraid that anything had the power to tear me down. Before, I would go around with walls around my heart because I was afraid that if I felt too much, I would lose myself. I felt like I was a balloon being grounded by a pebble—one strong gust of a wind and I would suddenly be lost and disconnected.

From my time trying to make the “traditional” route (9-5, pay bills, only take vacation if you need it, struggle is normal, you can’t have what you want, be realistic kind of life), I learned a lot about myself. And through that, I learned how to come back home to myself, no matter what the situation.

But if I am being honest, a lot of my emotional and spiritual strength came from fighting the resistance within myself. It came from looking for ways to stay grounded and connected and loved even though I was not living in my truth. I am grateful for this part of my journey and all it has taught me, but if you read my last post, you will know that I am closing the chapter on “traditional” life. I am turning in my resignation at my job—scary decision here.

As I do so, I am re-potting my roots in the manifestation realm. I have been feeling the call for some time to reconnect to source and to abundance. As I move into a completely unfamiliar chapter in my life, I am deep diving into spiritual work. I will share more with you along the way, but I want to leave you with this.

Sometime taking a risk can feel like jumping into scarcity. It can feel like abandoning all the comfort we have known and intentionally choosing struggle. When you jump away from the status quo, your ego will start screaming at you a variety of things: something along the lines of you’re an idiot, or you’re irresponsible, or you’ll never have what you want, or that things won’t work out, or that you’ve just completely ruined your life.

This is not you. This is simply your ego having a bit of a panic because it perceives that you have put yourself in danger. The danger is not real. And the simplest way you can know this for sure, is to listen to your ego’s story and tune into how it feels. When it starts playing that story to you, how do you feel?

I’ll bet that it feels shitty. I personally always feel a tightness in my chest and a lump in my throat. That is my signal that ego is not speaking the truth. If those stories don’t feel good to you, that’s your emotional response detecting a lie.

Trust the part of you that made this life changing decision because you made it from a place of alignment. You made the decision because it is what felt good to you. It is a decision from your higher self, guiding you to your truth. How do I know this? Because it felt good to make the decision.
Sure, fear might have come up, but if you pay attention, you will notice that the fear does not come up when it comes from the actual decision. The fear comes up when it comes to the stories you have around the decision. And that is how you know you are on the right path.

I get that might be a bit hard to grasp, so in the next part of this post, I will share with you all how you can distinguish between fear and your higher self. How can you truly know that you are making the right decision?

Make sure you stay tuned. Until then.

Much Love, Always,

Shar

On Stepping Into the Unknown

Hello my beautiful queen.

Happy Tuesday! Honest check in with how I am feeling. I just made the decision to quit my job and girl it was scary AF. But what I realized was that I've been saying I would do this for a long time. And each time I was waiting because it wasn’t the right time. Girl, it’s never going to be the right time.

I will always have bills. I will always need a place to live. I will always have responsibilities. And I realized that If I waited for a day where these things would not be as big of a barrier, I would be waiting forever. There was a day where I was walking to work. And time just flashed. I imagined that I was still walking down this path, and the stores had changed but nothing else had. I was no longer 25, I was 28, then 30, then 35 and then I was dead. And all I could see was me walking down this same path, watching the stores change around me and promising myself that I would change my reality once I had enough money to free fall. Less than 10 seconds had passed but everything changed.

I almost cried when I came back to myself. I knew that the Universe was showing me what my life would look like if I didn’t make the change. It was a powerful reminder that there is never a right time, but that this was my path. That I was meant to forge forward with this in spite of the fear.
Jump and the net will appear and all that.

I’m not saying that you have to quit your job, as you can find happiness exactly where you are at if you give yourself permission to have it. But I can be open with you all and say that I tried for years to be happy with where I was at, but when it came to work, I just couldn’t find it. I would wake up every day angry and annoyed no matter how much I worked on my mindset. I knew that something had to change. I would either need to have a shift in my mindset, or I would need to let go of my job. I tried to shift my mindset around this, but I couldn’t. And I now know it’s because it wasn’t meant for me, not because I didn’t have the willpower to change my mindset.

I believe in my emotional guidance system and I knew that staying where I was and trying to convince myself that I was happy was not working for me. And so, I jumped.

The fear has not magically disappeared. But I can say with confidence that what I feel the most is peace with my decision. I have faith that things will work out, but to the version of me that feels the fear I would say:

It’s okay that you’re afraid. This is something you’ve never done and you’re going against the status quo. I believe everything will work out beautifully, but my love, even if it doesn’t, you will be okay. I know deep in my soul, that my greatest regret will not be doing this and failing. It would be not taking the risk at all and dying with the dream in my heart. So, bad decision or amazing decision, I won’t know until I jump. But at least I will know that no matter what happens on the other side, I fucking went for it. And that will bring me more peace than I can know.

So, to all of my beautiful queens, I am going to leave you with this reminder. The greatest way you can take your power away is by believing you have no power at all. It took me almost two years to make this decision, so have patience with your journey. But I want to leave you with this question.

Where are you allowing life to happen to you? Where are you denying yourself?

Much Love, Always,
Shar

Behind the Quarter-Life Queens Scene

Hello My Beautiful Queen,

So many exciting things are happening in the QLQ space. And it is no coincidence that as I work on myself and expanding my consciousness, QLQ grows with me.

You'll hear more about this soon, but for today, I want to share with you about a lesson I have been learning for over four months. And the beautiful things about lessons is that you learn about them exactly as you are meant to learn them. And they don't always require your conscious attention to unfold. What a beautiful moment of awareness this was.

I need to share with you how self-sabotage has showed up in my life. I think so many of us hear this term and think of the major ways we self-sabotage. While it is true that there are obvious ways we self-sabotage, more often we do so in subtle ways. I want to share this with you as an example of what this can look like and what I do to over come this behavior.

I have mentioned several times to you all that I have been focusing a lot of attention on social media. At the time, I thought I was focusing on social media because I genuinely loved and enjoyed the platform. Prior to starting QLQ, I wasn't really on social media. Sure, I had accounts, but I wasn't active and I used it more so as a means of distraction. A way to fill my moments of boredom.

But when I started QLQ I learned to love social media because it was a way for me to easily communicate with my queens who are in this space. As I have shared, healing is cyclical and stories exist on multiple layers. I have trained myself to view the experience of healing the same thing as a way for me to understand myself on an even deeper level--as opposed to believing that the universe is delivering the same lesson because I haven't learned it yet. My Universe does not engage in testing, nor does it question my worthiness or my ability to learn. It is simply an opportunity for me to learn more about myself. But I digress.

On the surface, I convinced myself that I was vibing so hard with social media because I liked having that open communication with my queens. But that didn't explain why I was throwing myself into it. It didn't explain the level of obsession I was developing with it.

My queen, you already know that I don't believe in hiding my missteps. I threw myself into social media and completely ignored all other aspects of my business. Developing courses, creating content for the blog, talking with my queens on the email list. All of it just fell to the side while I focused on social media. I learned that this was self-sabotage. And it was self-sabotage because I wasn't focusing on the mission of QLQ and I wasn't paying attention to how to grow it in the ways that I want it to grow.

If I am being completely honest with myself, I was once again chasing clout. The little girl in me who craved validation and wanted to be popular had taken over in this area of my life, but I didn't recognize her. Because this time she was partnered with my limiting belief that only the most popular, charismatic people can run a business. She loved social media because she could track how many people loved her via the level of engagement on the posts and the number of followers on the account.

And as the weeks passed, and the numbers did not change, I allowed myself to become obsessed with the numbers and how to increase them. Not because I believed it would make my business better or increase my ability to sell, but because it would make me feel more worthy.

This is not a new limiting belief. It is not something that I am unfamiliar with. It's that same story in a new area of my life. The wonderful thing is that I know this story and it's roots, so I can work through it.

I share this with you to let you know that it is okay if you stumble. It's okay if old patterns take over and it takes a while for you to catch on. You have the power to rewrite your stories and to change your patterns. Healing is cyclical and everything is designed to serve your growth.

I also share to let you know that self-sabotage is not always obvious. Sometimes it appears in your life disguised as something else. The deeper your go with your practice and the more you commit to understanding your self, the easier it will get for you to notice your patterns and the habits of your ego. The easier it will get to correct and flow through your life.

I have been doing personal development work for 8 years, and I still have moments like this. But now i get excited when things like this happen, because now I understand myself in a way that I previously did not.

If you're curious about how else self-sabotage can show up in your life, I recorded an entire podcast episode about self-sabotage in my own life. The link is below.

Much Love, Always,

Shar

Give Yourself Permission to Figure it out

It's okay if you don't have everything figured out right now.

We can spend so much time feeling like we're falling behind or that we are inadequate for not knowing exactly what we want and exactly how to get it. This is something that used to really bother me.

I felt like I needed to know what career I wanted

I needed to know who and when I would marry

I needed to know if I wanted kids

I needed to know where I wanted to live for the rest of my life

And it just felt so inauthentic. Because I'm all about flow. I never liked being told what to do. I never liked people setting expectations for me. I knew even from the youngest age that it was all bullshit. Hell, I don't even like my alarm telling me what time I need to wake up. I'll wake up when I'm good and ready. And I was here to explore my life and my journey and just to enjoy it. I was here to explore what it meant to be me.

But sitting here, I once again feel this pressure. But this time in my business. Making the decision that where you are now is not where you want to be is scary. I will never deny that, and I am so proud of you for making that decision. Making the decision that you are an entrepreneur and you want to own an empire is fucking terrifying. 

Once I seriously decided, my brain scrambled and all of my feelings of unworthiness came up. I felt the need to gather all of the information I could get my hands on to learn how to build a business and how to be an effective coach. And I quickly learned that no amount of information or knowledge was going to make up for my feelings of inadequacy. It was not that I did not know enough. It was that I didn't feel like I was enough. I learned that if I wanted to build a business that has always existed in my heart, I had to heal. I had to be okay with not knowing it all and be willing to figure it out.

In my business, the first thing I had to learn to be okay with figuring out is my niche. I had to be okay with allowing myself to figure out who my ideal audience is. I had to be okay with learning to understand her and myself. If I could tell you anything, it would be to follow your flow of inspiration. It is okay if in the beginning, your content feels all over the place. You are still finding yourself, your voice and your niche. Trust that what you feel called to speak about is what you are meant to share.

As you get into the flow of creating content, you will notice a theme begin to unfold. You will notice what lights you up to talk about. And this, my love, is how you find your niche. This is how you come into yourself in your business.

As women especially, the business space can feel incredibly intimidating.

Because it felt like everyone else already knew that. And comparison truly is the thief of joy. Here's the thing, Queen. No one knows what the fuck they are doing. No one!! We decided to come to earth to explore our humanness and learn what it feels like to figure it out. It's all a game rigged to help us explore ourselves on the deepest level through our experiences.

You are behind on nothing. Your path is unfolding in exactly the way that it is meant to. Everything happens for you.

Creating Healthy Relationships with your mentors

Hello my Beautiful Queen,

Today I want to talk to you about something that I have recently learned in my own journey. I am a big believer in finding and learning from the people who inspire you. I hold the belief that the universe is always guiding you to where you want to go. And that the universe works through people. If you declare a desire, the universe will guide you to the resource or person that answers your question or brings you closer to your goal. I believe that the universe has also brought you here for a reason. Something I have learned is that it is so important to find the people who inspire you and light the way. But I have also learned that it's okay if you don't agree with your mentor on everything.

Throughout my journey, I have been in two camps about this. A very early version of me who felt that if my mentor held even one stance that I didn't agree with, they were not the mentor for me.

I mean there were times where I would read books and really be vibing with the message. Then the person would something I thought was fucking stupid or toxic and I would stop reading the book and discredit everything else in the book that I loved so much. Talk about having your guard up and using judgment as a defense mechanism. I quickly learned that this way of being only harmed me, so I let that version of myself go very quickly.

Then there was a slightly older version of me who really worked on understanding what it meant to be her best self and looked at everyone else for clues. And that version of me was disconnected from herself and her truth. She felt that if she didn't agree with something her mentor was saying, she was not aware enough. That it was her own fault that she didn't agree and she should work harder to adopt that belief. She so desperately wanted to feel good enough. She wanted to get to the point where the life she knew she was meant to live was her reality. She understood that success leaves clues so she looked for mentors. But she didn't understand how to set boundaries and that it was okay to hold beliefs that differed from the successful people she admired.

Thankfully I have allowed myself to outgrow both of these versions of myself. My truth now is that it is okay if you don't agree with everything your mentor says or believes in. Some of my favorite mentors hold and teach beliefs that I think are absolute bullshit--like obstacles are tests from the universe. The Universe is not testing you. But that never discredits all of the things they do teach that I love and resonate with and am so happy they stand for. I can learn from them and take their advice without becoming them. That is truly the beauty of personal growth.

Just because you don't agree with something someone says, doesn't mean you have absolutely nothing you can learn from them. Likewise, just because someone you love and admire and believes something that you don't, doesn't mean that you are wrong for not holding that belief. You can stand in your truth and they can stand in their truth and still learn from each other. 

This is the balance I have learned in my own personal growth journey. Take what works and leave what doesn't.

I also don't believe in hiding what has worked for me and who my mentors are. I have been in the personal development world for almost a decade, and I am sharing with you the MOST transformative resources I have used in my journey. Grab your copy of the tools for transformation below.

A note for the queen who is still seeking validation

Hello My Queen,

So, I have reached the point in my life where I can view my triggers as blessings. Why? Because my ultimate outcome is to understand myself on as many levels as possible. Triggers, like emotions, are doorways to understanding for me. Like girl, I even had a dream last night that I was in an interview and someone asked what is something you wished you had learned in college? And I said, I wish I had developed a better sense of self. Dream me was getting real deep. Of course, this is a reflection of my desire to reconnect with me and create a me that is entirely my own. But I digress.

I was watching IG stories, and I don't even know what it was, but something triggered me. I think it was an old high school friend attacking someone else and expressing her discontent with the world. And a message came to me. That message was a lesson I learned fairly recently. The need to be right is the root of so much misery and loathing. Now my queen, you know I can only speak to my own experience. Within me, I had to recognize that my need to be right was coming from something so much deeper that had been left unhealed.

I had a worthiness issue. And so I always wanted to be right. Being right was my form of validation. I was so disconnected from myself that some part of me subconsciously sought out more disconnect. Real vulnerability, I thought everyone was stupid but only because I wanted to keep them away. I used judgement as a way to guard my heart because that version of me believed she was alone. I feel like I should say I am ashamed of this. But that would involve judgement of myself and the coping mechanisms I used for survival. I am forgiving myself, so I will say I'm not happy about this, but it was part of my story, so it served it's purpose in who I am now. 

I sought out being right because I wanted to feel good about myself. In my mind, being right meant being good enough. Being smart enough. Being aware enough. The kicker is that I wasn't aware at all because I wasn't aware of myself.

When I truly started my spiritual journey, I took a hard look at my life and what was not serving me. I looked inward and saw that all wanting to be right did for me was make me feel angry and alone.

So I went back. I did the work to correct my worthiness issue. I Identified when I most wanted to be right and how I was feeling in that moment. No surprise that I found pain, fear of vulnerability and a deep feeling of not belonging.

Then I slowly worked to change it. I walked myself through journal prompts designed to begin the process of reconnecting with myself. ALL layers of me.

Now I know within myself that we all live in our own versions of reality influenced by our pasts, our beliefs, our upbringing and our selves.

Releasing the need to be right was one of the many beautiful gifts I gave myself in my journey. Because releasing the need to be right gave me the freedom to just be my self. And to know that being myself is enough. Once I released the desire to be right, I also released the need to be validated.

I must tell you queen, that it was NOT an overnight journey. I started this process in 2017 and only TRULY learned it in the summer of 2019. Healing is cyclical and those stories can exist in so many different layers. I share this with you because I don't want you to read this and think I had this realization, worked through it and never dealt with it again. I don't want you to believe that healing is instantaneous and there is something wrong with you if you don't transform immediately. Healing is a journey. Coming home to yourself is a process. 

Much Love, Always,

Shar

How to Speed Up Your Manifestations: A lesson from my Birthday

Hello My Beautiful Queen,

Happy Monday! It was my birthday last week, and I am still cruising the high of what was an amazing day. I went into the day with no expectations other than to enjoy the pleasure of being alive and making it to my 25th birthday. I was just overcome with a sense of peace and remembering 16 year old me who was convinced that she would not live past 18. So, on this day I was just full of gratitude.

My best friend was visiting and I was happy to spend time with her. My boss gave me the day off, so I just took the time to connect into what it feels like to set my own schedule when money is not a concern. I took the day to tap into what the freedom life really feels like for me.

And my queen. The abundance did not stop. There was an abundance of beauty, free gifts from stores, my best friend gifting me a ton, including a nose ring. Lots of happy birthdays and well wishes. Amazing conversations with amazing people just seemingly out of the blue. Gorgeous weather, huge sales and discounts. My love, the abundance just keep flowing. It felt like every 10 minutes there was a new gift or sign from the universe.

I just allowed myself to enjoy it. I don't know, I was just at peace. I feel like so many of us (including me) are trained to wait for the other shoe to drop. We believe that when good things happen to us, something bad will happen to ruin that. And I just decided to let this belief go. It doesn't serve me and rehearsing tragedy only trains my brain to look for it and leads to suffering twice.

But I just had no expectations for the day. Just an innate knowing that it would be a beautiful day and I could just flow into what felt good. There was no resistance.

I am sharing with you because I want to share the lessons I have learned from this day. There does not need to be a delay in manifestation. The universe can work as quickly as you allow it to work. On this day I truly learned that the things I desire can honestly manifest in seconds. They can manifest before I even fully express the desire for it. I learned that manifestations are delayed only by your internal resistance and belief that it should be hard. The belief that manifesting a million dollars, or a thriving business, or a loving audience, or the love of your life is somehow more difficult than manifesting seeing butterflies, or free cleansing solution, or a free meal, or a free facial, or hell even a penny.

And it is not. The universe can bring you whatever you desire as quickly as you allow it to do so. To the Universe, bringing you a million dollars is no different than bringing you a free facial. It is you belief that it is difficult and that you are not worthy that causes the delay. Once you release the resistance, magic can happen faster than you can even process.

Now, releasing resistance can be a beautiful part of your journey. The choice is yours. You can choose to see an obstacle or a test. Or you can choose to see a doorway into better understanding yourself. I will always believe that the first step in transformation is self awareness. To get to this point in my life, I asked myself a lot of questions. And I have put together a PDF of guided journal prompts to help fast track your transformation. It's called align with your best self, and you can grab your free copy below :)

Send me my free copy!

Finding Inner Peace While Manifesting Your Dream Life

Hello Queen,

Today I want to talk to you more about the biggest pit fall people face when starting the manifestation journey. I know that I definitely fell into this trap, and in true QLQ fashion, I want to share with you more about what happened and what I learned. I shared what happened on the QLQ IG page, and now I want to share with you the most important thing I have learned.

Turning your attention to your darker emotions and beliefs does not give them power. It gives you power to reclaim your life, embrace the fullness of your human experience and remove your emotions from the drivers seat. With this realization I was able to establish a partnership with them. One where I called the shots and fully embraced my emotions as doorways to self awareness. Love, connection and growth. (Of course I’ll share with you how I did so soon 😘) But first, I have to tell you...

Doing the inner work does not mean you will eliminate all you do not like about your human experience.

You will not rid yourself of fear

Of sadness

Of doubt

Of insecurity

Of anger

Of jealousy

And the point isn’t that you get rid of them, but I understand how we are lead to believe this. For so much of our lives we are shamed for feeling and expressing our emotions. Taught that our emotions are weakness. So when we feel them, we are ashamed. And if we are on the path to create our best realities, we are afraid. Because we believe that feeling anything but happiness means that we are doing it wrong. This is a false belief and one that can lead to so much self-sabotage and unnecessary chaos. Holding the belief that I wasn't allowed to feel anything but happiness, gratitude and positivity if I wanted to live my best life was my biggest pitfall. And it is a trap that so many of us fall into.

This was further perpetuated when I entered the personal growth world and saw how many people preached positivity and high vibration. Now, let me make it clear that I don’t disagree. You create your reality and if you want a beautiful reality you must be willing to choose and believe in beautiful things.

But you don’t have to sacrifice your emotions and the complexity of your humanity to do so. In fact, I think trying to eliminate the more difficult part of your humanity is a form of self-sabotage 🤷🏽‍♀️

So, instead,  I want to re-frame with you and disrupt the narrative that you will ever reach a point where the only thing you will feel is happiness, gratitude and confidence. My queen, that is not the end goal. I have been in the personal development world for eight years and I have grown so much. I love my self on a level that I never could have imagined I could reach. I am confident in myself, my desires, my faith and my ability to create a beautiful reality and help others do the same. I feel happy, peaceful, aligned and connected with the infinite abundance of the world.

And I have days where I feel so insecure I can't even look at people. I have days where I am overcome with a deep sadness and severe doubt in my abilities. I have days where I am angry and resentful and so desperately wish to have everything I desire.

I still hear the voice of my inner critic saying I'm not good enough. That i'm being foolish. That I don't deserve what I want. The voice that says no one likes you and people are judging you. I feel the full spectrum of my emotions and I have not eliminated that voice within me.

And that's the secret. No one ever completely gets rid of this voice. No one ever completely turns of their feelings. Even your favorite coaches and mentors have difficult days, yet they continue to live their best life. Your humanity is not a hindrance to your success. You don't need to run from or hide from your emotions and the full range of your darkness. It's okay if you still have hard days. It's okay if you still feel insecure. These things can exist in the same space as your joy and love and gratitude and beautiful life.

I don't think we ever reach a point where we can silence those voices or rid ourselves of the emotions that hurt the most. But I know that we can reach a point where we no longer believe they say anything about our character. I do believe we can reach a point where we can accept them as part of our experience and leverage them to deepen our connection. And I believe we can reach a point where they no longer prevent us from pursuing what we truly desire.

And I know this is true because this is the point that I have reached in my life. No longer running from my emotions or fearing a drop in a vibration. Secure in the fact that I am always whole and loved even when I am in turmoil. And this is truly the root of the peace, security and happiness I now define as my emotional home. I want to share with you exactly how I did this and how I was able to cultivate a meaningful partnership with all aspects of myself. I will be sharing this with my QLQ email community. Join the community for your access to this information.

For now, I want to leave you with this, Queen. You are a beautifully complex being. Your emotions are here to serve you and that inner critic can serve as a doorway for growth as she speaks from your deepest pain. You can reach a point of balance and wholeness with all of you. Yes, it is important to mindfully choose the things that bring you happiness and peace, but always know that making that choice does not mean you numb and shun all else.

Much Love, Always,

Shar

Understanding the CHAOS before the Up Level

Good Morning my Beautiful Queen,

Happy Tuesday and welcome back to another episode of Shar's selfish time. At the moment, I am feeling so much more drawn to my social media accounts, which means that I have been posting less on here. That is okay! If you're ever wondering where I'm at or where I am posting, hop on over to the QLQ IG account, because that's where you will find me sharing what is on my heart.

But I love all of my queens and I just want to catch you up on what's been going on. Number one is that I am stepping into the best version of myself and going through my third or fourth up level of the year. The growth is real and beautiful and I am so fucking grateful to see the progress I am making in all levels of my life. Of course, I'm going to be honest with you. I find that right before the up level comes the storm.

I consider this storm to be a combination of a couple of things. One I think ego realizes that everything is about to change and tries to keep you safe by deterring you from the change you are seeking out and actively creating. Two, I think your higher self nudges you to grow by removing all that does not serve you and making you a bit uncomfortable to ground you into your decisions. And three, I think your ego, higher self and subconscious mind come together and actively create space for what you are calling in by removing all that no longer aligns with this new version of me.

In my most recent up level this has come up in the form of my relationship with money. To be honest and open, the next version of me is very financially sound and has an incredibly healthy relationship with money. That is not my current reality, but step one is always recognition and accountability. Knowing that my current reality is in my control and having a clear vision for my future makes it so much easier for me to work through and heal my relationship with money so I can step into that version of myself.

And of course, I experience a bit of chaos. But the beautiful thing is that after you have been doing this work for a while you reach a point where you are confident navigating the chaos and okay with not being okay. Because in the end, you know that you will always come back home to yourself and have so much faith in your own strength and ability.

So, I am going to leave you with this question. Where can you be more intentional?

Much Love, Always,

Shar

How to Release Subconscious Resistance and Clear your manifestation Blocks

Good Morning my beautiful Queen,

A happy Friday to you all. Can you believe that we are in the final quarter of 2019? It's absolutely amazing.

Today I want to talk to you about internal resistance and how this can manifest in your external reality. More specifically I want to talk about what happens when you declare a desire and the other parts of you don't agree.

It;s no secret that there are multiple realms of self. You are a human with a lot of complexity. Part of that complexity is your ego, your intuition, your subconscious mind, your conscious mind and your higher self. And getting all of these aspects of your self in harmony can take some serious work. These aspects of self clashing, can also be a source of resistance both in your internal world and your external reality.

If you are reading this, you are also a queen on the path to better herself, her life and live the life you know you are meant to live. I honor you here. I learned from one of my mentors, Lauren Eliz Love, that your values and your beliefs and desires can clash. And when they clash, you'll encounter resistance.

In my own life I have found this to be true. You encounter resistance in a multitude of ways including self-sabotaging behavior. And of course, I'm going to provide you with a real world example. Okay.

Over the summer, I realized that I was really lacking confidence in myself and my ability. In a lot of ways, I was outwardly confident. But internally I questioned if I was worthy, why I was on earth and if I even deserved what I wanted (love and connection with others, a successful business and a rich network of people who inspired me). I had a serious confidence issue, but I didn't understand why.

Then I was on the bus to New York City because I was attending a networking event. And networking events is where I feel my most insecure. In that moment something came to me. I set the intention to be confident that night and to be willing to talk to others and shine my light. Then a little voice asked, what does being confident mean?

The first thing that came to me was that confidence means not caring what other people think. And that immediately felt gross. And it felt gross because one of my core values is compassion, which includes caring about what other people think. Of course I didn't feel confident! It wasn't safe for me to be so because subconsciously I had adapted the belief that being confident meant I had to be cold and had to stop caring about others. When it comes down to it, if your mind perceives that something you desire is in conflict with your values and your subconscious mind, then you are going to self-sabotage and create resistance.

I had to redefine confidence in a way that aligned with my values. I also had to rewrite the story of my subconscious mind that said being confident meant being cold. If you are encountering resistance in one of your manifestations, I want you to take yourself through the following exercise.

1. Write down what you desire
2. list everything that comes up for you when you think about that desire. What does what you want feel like? What do you believe it will take for you to get what you desire?
3. Reflect: Does what you think it will take to get you what you want conflict with any of your values? For example if my goal is to get into a fitness routine, but I think I will have to give up self-care time to do so, I would be more reluctant to get into a fitness routine.

I've shared with you how this has worked for me. I would love to see you sharing your breakthroughs or you doing this exercise. Just tag @quarter.life.queens and I will see it!

And if you want to learn more about how to use manifestation and self-awareness to redesign your life, then please join us in the QLQ email community.

Much Love, Always,

Shar

An Honest Post on a "Failed" Project: Why You Can't Do All the Things

Hello Queen,

Happy Monday and welcome to the first week in September. As I write this post I am working on taking control back from my shadow self. For me, shadow is shame. It's a difficult thing to work through but there are a lot of beautiful lessons and reminders I can take away from this, and I am choosing to focus on that.

So, today on the QLQ IG, released a post about how there is no one magical ingredient to your success. All of this was written with the intent to remind you that you are the key to your success and you don't need to show up in all of the places and do all the things to succeed. I do encourage you to read the post as it will help make this post a lot clearer.

But today I want to share with you how I really learned this. Now, your girl has a 8 life path number. That means a lot of things, but in this context, it's a reminder that your girl can be stubborn and can be the kind of person who needs to live it in order to learn.

I heard a lot from my mentors that I shouldn't try to do all the things. Throwing spaghetti at the wall is not how you grow a business. But again, your girl is stubborn. But beyond that, I also held a limiting belief that said I wasn't enough and in order to be enough I had to learn just one more thing. What this resulted in was me trying all the things and always believing that it was because I wasn't doing this one thing, that I wasn't succeeding. Obviously this is self-sabotaging behavior and I have healed through most of that--remember healing is a journey.

But this most recently presented itself in my life in the form of a Facebook group. I heard that if you wanted to succeed, you needed to have a FB group. That it was a great way to build community. That facebook now prefers group and that it is a good way to grow your email list. Now, don't get me wrong. All of these things are true, but I didn't stop to ask myself if this was something that I really wanted to do.

Yes, I wanted a space where all my queens could connect and where I could have conversations with you all in real time. I was also craving community and this seemed like a wonderful way to do it. But when it really came down to it, I truly saw this as another way I could grow QLQ and nurture you all. In reality, I was satisfied with chatting with you all on Instagram (you are always free to DM me on there or reply to my stories or posts). And when I sat with myself, dropped the shame and really questioned it, I realized that I had no desire to moderate or run a group. I could create community in other ways. I was just starting a group because it felt like something I had to do.

And that's not to say that I will never grow a group, or that you can't join the group if you wanted to connect with each other. Just that currently, this isn't a priority for me, and I am learning to allow that to be okay.

I learned through my own experiences that you can't do all the things. This is still a hard pill to swallow, but I am learning to accept it. And I share this with you as a reminder that you are not missing anything to be successful. You are the magical key to your success. Transform yourself and you will transform your life.

Much Love, Always,

Shar

Changing your life and mindset when you cannot afford to invest

Hello Queen,

It's been a while because I have been so in love with talking to my queens on Instagram and Facebook. But I am back with an elaboration on a post I wrote earlier. Today we are going to dive into one of my triggers and how you can still transform when you do not have the funds to invest.

One of my triggers is when people say things like, how can you expect to transform when you’re not willing to pay?

And girl, I fucking flew off the handle when I read this. But again, I believe that triggers are blessings and this one reminded me that I need to heal around money and I needed to stand stronger in my message about transformation. 

This is bullshit. You absolutely can transform without paying anything. Now, wait, before you pull out your pitchforks, I want to explain. There was a time in my life where I could not even afford to eat, yet I wanted to transform so badly. And there were amazing people out there who put out free content that changed my entire life. The podcasts, the blog posts, the IG stories, the lives, the challenges and journaling prompts. I would even go to Barnes and Nobles to read the books that I wanted to read in the store because I couldn’t afford to buy them and my library didn’t have them (and if they did, there was a long list of people in front of me waiting to read the book). 

All of it helped me transform when I literally did not have money. These people were committed to helping their clients at every level and I felt that. So, when I did transform and my income increased as a result, guess what? I went and I bought their products because I was obsessed with them and there was still transformation that needed to happen. Because they helped me transform, I knew that I could trust them to help me again. And I was more than willing to pay for their products and services. 

Now, the free content will help you create those first transformations that you desire. You absolutely can create transformation from free content. It’s a matter of who committed you are to transforming. Lean into them and learn as much as you can. Do the work. 

But you won’t make it all the way to where you want to go without investing in yourself. Now that, I know. That high level transformation content you are looking for will cost money. And you are worth the investment. When you invest in your transformation, you let the universe and your subconscious mind know that you are fucking serious. And that decision is everything. 

Transformation can happen at every level. Don’t discredit the free, but don’t dismiss the high value product. I believe I should be able to help my queen at every level. As such, I created the QLQ email community for the woman who knows that she is meant for more and is determined to change her life. This is completely free because I believe transformation can happen at every level. Sign up here.

How to Practice Forgiveness

Hello My Beautiful Queens,

Today I want to talk about forgiveness and healing. More specifically how I practice this in my own life and how I work through something I still hold tense feelings for.

At the end of the day, I had to choose which pain I would accept. The pain of holding on to old wounds, or the pain of healing? I chose the latter. But, forgiveness can be a complicated thing. Especially if the person you are forgiving has caused you deep pain or violated your basic human rights. What I want to say to you is that forgiveness is not about the other person. It’s about letting go of anger and resentment within yourself so that you can create space for abundance. 

You are a woman on a mission to live your best life and part of that is walking forward with a clear head and a clear heart. And yes, part of that does mean forgiveness and healing old wounds. And honestly, our subconscious mind can also hold so much pain and resentment towards ourselves. In your forgiveness practice, don’t forget to forgive yourself. My most recent QLQ IG post and this QLQ blog post goes more in depth with my story and why I think this is so important. But for now, I want to share with you how I forgive even my most painful experiences. I must disclose that I believe healing is cyclical. Forgiving something or someone or yourself once does not mean that it’s the end of it. Sometimes it is, but I often find that the pain of healing comes up again. It’s the same story and the same pain, but disguised as something else. 

In those moments I like to practice patience. I sit with my emotions and call conference with whatever comes up. Sometimes that means imagining that I am sitting in a room with the physical manifestation of that emotion and just holding its hand as it grieves or releases itself. Self-compassion is a critical component of self-transformation. 

When it comes to healing and forgiveness there are 4 questions I ask myself:

What are the emotions or memories that cause me the most pain or create the strongest emotional response? List them out

Who is involved and how did I feel in that moment?

What do I believe this experience says about me? What is the story here?

How did the experience shape who I am today?

What is one lesson learned from this experience that I can be grateful for?

Is this lesson aligned with how I am working to become?

Then I end with a Hoʻoponopono, a Hawaiian forgiveness prayer/practice which simply goes: I am sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you. Walk that moment through each of these and repeat the mantra to yourself. There are also many playlists on Spotify that will help you do this whilst also entering a meditative state. This can be useful for allowing the release to enter the subconscious mind. 

An example in my own life was being a child who didn’t know how to deal with trauma caused by sexual abuse. I remember being sent into bootcamp at the age of like 8-10 (a police disciplinary program). I held resentment and anger in my heart because I felt like no one even bothered to try and ask what was wrong and just assumed that I was acting out. In that moment, I wrote a story that said people don’t care about you and will always prioritize their own interests over your well being. 

Does this align with the woman I want to be? No. The new story: standing strong in my story and being vulnerable with my experience is a channel for connection. When I am willing to be vulnerable, I create space for other women to feel seen and heard and be comfortable sharing their own stories. 

I’m sorry for the pain that I experienced in that moment and for not being able to better express myself. 

Please forgive me for the pain I allowed to exist for so long in my heart. 

Thank you for all those involved for helping me in the only way you knew how. Thank you for helping me become an advocate for vulnerability, understanding and self-awareness. 

I love you for being a part of my story. 

And honestly, this was only the first round. I walked this experience through this exercise several times and each time I go deeper into healing. Your first few rounds may feel shallow, but as you go through the cycle of your healing, you are able to enter a deeper level of awareness and stronger connection to yourself. Allow yourself to heal through these stories as you feel ready.

I’m not going to lie to you. Depending on the scale and level of trauma you experienced from that event, this practice can be very difficult and painful. You know yourself best and if you are working through something very traumatic, please work through this with a mental health professional. I worked with a Therapist for 10+ years before I was ever able to walk myself through this practice with my most painful experience. 

Treat yourself with kindness and patience. Doing the work can take time and healing isn’t always beautiful.