I guess you could say this is a post I've put off writing. I've been very honest about my past history with clinical depression and generalized anxiety. You know that I have attempted suicide four times in my life. But I've never spoken about what it was like to come out of adolescent depression. Mostly because it was a jarring experience that I held a lot of shame around.
But before we dive into that, you need to understand the beginnings. I had a hard time trusting other people and was holding up the weight of my childhood sexual abuse--a secret no one knew about. I had horrific anxiety and believe that people were inherently selfish and horrible. I longed for the day I would die so I could have a "do-over."While some people planned their graduation, I planned my funeral because I was convinced that I would not live past the age of 21 (I am 25 now and very happy).
Because I was so certain that my life would be short, I didn't give a fuck about anything or anyone. I barely left my room and rarely ever attended school. But I did manage to make it to therapy and with time and treatment, it did get better. But what truly helped was being able to leave my childhood home when I went to college in Ithaca, NY. I got into health and fitness and found that I actually really enjoyed my studies.
But I felt behind. Years of depression and isolation left me feeling like I had been robbed of my adolescence and lost the ability to develop crucial social skills. In many ways, I was thriving, but I was also painfully aware that I was awkward and didn't make friends easily. It often felt like I was saying the wrong things and didn't know how to properly socialize. I also had a terrible habit of pushing people away because I hadn't healed my story that said people suck. It almost felt like I was a 14-year-old surrounded by 20-year-olds, gasping, and struggling to understand what the hell people were talking about.
As the years passed, I grew more resentful. I was angry that depression had taken so much for me and had left me as the weird, awkward 20 something-year-old who clearly spent most of her life in her room. I longed for the experiences I saw in movies. While in high school, my schoolmates would have been going to parties and going on dates and experiencing all of the joys of teenhood, I was locked away in my bedroom.
I had never had a boyfriend. I hadn't had my first kiss (willingly). I hadn't been on a date. No one had ever invited me to a party, and I didn't have any friends. Mostly I had the sense that people pitied me. This is a story that took me a long time to correct. This idea that I was socially behind and therefore always at a disadvantage. Working through the belief that I had been robbed of normal childhood is also something I am actively working on.
This is usually the part of my post where I tell you something inspiring that I have learned. I could do that, but that's not what I feel called to do. This is just a story that I felt called to share with you. And if any of this resonated with you, please know that there is nothing wrong with you for feeling this way.
Much Love, Always,
Shar
Monday, June 22, 2020
Monday, June 15, 2020
Your Dreams Require Your Commitment
Hello, My Beautiful Queen,
Today I want to open up to you and tell you that this past month has been difficult. I came closer to giving up this month than I have in my entire journey since founding QLQ. It felt like nothing was working and I was heartbroken and felt so sad and abandoned. I could still hear the Universe speaking to me, but I wasn't willing to listen.. But I am feeling back into my energy and am reconnected to my intuition and spirit guides.
In the personal development world, there's this narrative that seems to say, there was this one time I wanted to give up, but I didn't and then everything fell into place and I lived happily ever after. Girl, I don't think so. We're going to disrupt that.
What I've found is that there are many times where you will want to give up. Many times when the manifestation doesn't happen as quickly as you would like and you're left feeling sad and uncomfortable. As I phrased it in my Instagram post today, sometimes it will feel like the Universe has disappointed you.
For me, this was especially potent as the Trump administration reversed health protection for Transgender people. Watching the Trump administration reaction to the Black Lives Matter movement. To just some of the gross violations of human rights. And of course, these are not new things. But just seeing at all happen did leave me questioning if the Universe actually cared at all.
At the same time, I was lost in my own sadness and disappointment. I felt like things weren't happening as quickly as I wanted them to. And I thought yeah I was miserable in my old life, but at least I had a steady paycheck. At least that was familiar and laid out for me. Every day I knew what I had to. Even though it was devoid of passion and it felt like I was selling my time for a shitty rate, it was something I could predict and control.
But of course, control is an illusion as is all of life. No matter how much I was tempted to quit, I knew that I stood strong in my decision to pursue my dreams. I stood strong in my faith that I was exactly where I needed to be and that I had what it took to stand in the storm and still be light. Of course, lots of things fell into place after that. But most importantly, I reclaimed my certainty.
Yet this wasn't the first time I was tempted to quit. Anytime I would launch a course and it didn't perform in the way that I wanted. When my social media following didn't grow as quickly as I wanted it to. When I didn't feel like I had the right to call myself a coach because I hadn't worked one-on-one with anyone. In all of those moments, it would have been easy to give up.
But I have faith and certainty in myself. I am unwavering in my belief that the Universe is always fully supporting me even when I do not understand. I remain connected to who I am and why I do what I do.
The thing is success comes in the little things you do every day. It comes from your ability to show up and never give up. And if you don't feel grounded in yourself, full of faith in your ability and fully connected to the Universe and your divine power, you're going to struggle with that. It will always be tempting to give up, so you have to have the tenacity to never give up.
Trust me, I know that's hard to do right now. 2020 has given us all a beating in the name of awakening. This is a time where most people feel the most lost, uncertain, and disconnected. Maybe you were even thinking that you were ready to start that business and then 2020 happened. Maybe you took that as a sign of the Universe confirming that this was not meant for you.
But I don't believe that. This is your time to rise from the ashes and forge ahead with the creation of the life you wanted. Everything that no longer works if falling away and it is time to reconnect with divinity and to our power as extensions of the Universe. To our divine ability to reshape our own realities and reclaim the certainty in ourselves that was conditioned into silence.
And so, my intuition has guided me to reopen Connected for the first time in several months. This is a four-week course where we strengthen your connection with the Universe and bring you back home to yourself. This is a course where you truly learn how to harness your power to co-create and manifest the life you were always meant to be. More than anything Connected is about helping you understand what it means to say that you are the Universe. And what it means to believe it.
Because when you are fully connected in all realms of yourself and your divine power, the temptation to quit becomes nothing but an illusion. It is that clarity and tenacity that will move you forward as you manifest everything that you desire and then some.
If you are ready to reclaim your power, reconnect to the Universe, and understand what it means to be divinely guided, then Connected is ready and available for you. The link to secure your spot is below.
I'm ready to reconnect
Much Love, Always,
Shar
Today I want to open up to you and tell you that this past month has been difficult. I came closer to giving up this month than I have in my entire journey since founding QLQ. It felt like nothing was working and I was heartbroken and felt so sad and abandoned. I could still hear the Universe speaking to me, but I wasn't willing to listen.. But I am feeling back into my energy and am reconnected to my intuition and spirit guides.
In the personal development world, there's this narrative that seems to say, there was this one time I wanted to give up, but I didn't and then everything fell into place and I lived happily ever after. Girl, I don't think so. We're going to disrupt that.
What I've found is that there are many times where you will want to give up. Many times when the manifestation doesn't happen as quickly as you would like and you're left feeling sad and uncomfortable. As I phrased it in my Instagram post today, sometimes it will feel like the Universe has disappointed you.
For me, this was especially potent as the Trump administration reversed health protection for Transgender people. Watching the Trump administration reaction to the Black Lives Matter movement. To just some of the gross violations of human rights. And of course, these are not new things. But just seeing at all happen did leave me questioning if the Universe actually cared at all.
At the same time, I was lost in my own sadness and disappointment. I felt like things weren't happening as quickly as I wanted them to. And I thought yeah I was miserable in my old life, but at least I had a steady paycheck. At least that was familiar and laid out for me. Every day I knew what I had to. Even though it was devoid of passion and it felt like I was selling my time for a shitty rate, it was something I could predict and control.
But of course, control is an illusion as is all of life. No matter how much I was tempted to quit, I knew that I stood strong in my decision to pursue my dreams. I stood strong in my faith that I was exactly where I needed to be and that I had what it took to stand in the storm and still be light. Of course, lots of things fell into place after that. But most importantly, I reclaimed my certainty.
Yet this wasn't the first time I was tempted to quit. Anytime I would launch a course and it didn't perform in the way that I wanted. When my social media following didn't grow as quickly as I wanted it to. When I didn't feel like I had the right to call myself a coach because I hadn't worked one-on-one with anyone. In all of those moments, it would have been easy to give up.
But I have faith and certainty in myself. I am unwavering in my belief that the Universe is always fully supporting me even when I do not understand. I remain connected to who I am and why I do what I do.
The thing is success comes in the little things you do every day. It comes from your ability to show up and never give up. And if you don't feel grounded in yourself, full of faith in your ability and fully connected to the Universe and your divine power, you're going to struggle with that. It will always be tempting to give up, so you have to have the tenacity to never give up.
Trust me, I know that's hard to do right now. 2020 has given us all a beating in the name of awakening. This is a time where most people feel the most lost, uncertain, and disconnected. Maybe you were even thinking that you were ready to start that business and then 2020 happened. Maybe you took that as a sign of the Universe confirming that this was not meant for you.
But I don't believe that. This is your time to rise from the ashes and forge ahead with the creation of the life you wanted. Everything that no longer works if falling away and it is time to reconnect with divinity and to our power as extensions of the Universe. To our divine ability to reshape our own realities and reclaim the certainty in ourselves that was conditioned into silence.
And so, my intuition has guided me to reopen Connected for the first time in several months. This is a four-week course where we strengthen your connection with the Universe and bring you back home to yourself. This is a course where you truly learn how to harness your power to co-create and manifest the life you were always meant to be. More than anything Connected is about helping you understand what it means to say that you are the Universe. And what it means to believe it.
Because when you are fully connected in all realms of yourself and your divine power, the temptation to quit becomes nothing but an illusion. It is that clarity and tenacity that will move you forward as you manifest everything that you desire and then some.
If you are ready to reclaim your power, reconnect to the Universe, and understand what it means to be divinely guided, then Connected is ready and available for you. The link to secure your spot is below.
I'm ready to reconnect
Much Love, Always,
Shar
Friday, June 12, 2020
You Are an Alchemist and Your Gift Is Needed
Hello My Beautiful Queen,
Happy Friday. It has been a while since I have last posted on here. I took some time to be with my family and also some time to focus on racial injustice in America, systemic racism, police brutality none of this stuff is new and has always been a problem in America and a reality for the Black community and POC) and ways to be a better ally. Black lives matter and it is important for us to continue to fight for justice. Until there is justice, there cannot be peace. This looks different for everyone, but for me this has meant questioning the media more deeply, continuing to confront my own implicit biases (yes, I am a woman of color, but I was raised in a white supremacist society and like all people, there is some degree of bias that exists within me), and learn more about what it means to defund the police. Racism in America is not new. America was built on racism and continues to run on it.
This has been a time for shadow work for me. As a lightworker, it is my job to also confront the shadow and bring the shadow into the light. You all know that something I struggled with for a long time is my empath ability. Many people in this space identify as empaths, which for me means a strong sense of other people's emotions and energy.
Many empaths also struggle with setting energetic boundaries and distinguishing between what belongs to them and what does not belong to them. I will hold my hands up and say that I hated my empath abilities. I hated that I could feel the energies of other people so clearly and I hated that I was "too sensitive." So the way I learned to cope was to completely cut off all of my empathic abilities. I can admit that the natural response that I am actively correcting is apathy. I have been unlearning the instinctive desire to just cut myself off from everything that is draining my empathic abilities.
But my love, emotions serve a purpose, and sometimes apathy is not the answer. And it most certainly not the answer when it comes to injustice. My fellow empaths, something I have realized is that the gift of being an empath is two-fold. One is your ability to pick up on energies, but two is your role as an alchemist.
You as an empath have the ability to not only tune into energy, but to feel that energy and transform it into something else. I am still navigating what this means as well and how to actively use this gift the way it was intended to be used.
But I wanted to disrupt the narrative you might have heard your whole life. The one that says empaths are just too sensitive and all you need to do is protect your energy. Absolutely you must protect your energy. Absolutely you must be able to distinguish what belongs to you and what does not. Absolutely you must have boundaries. But that doesn't mean that you get to cut yourself off from the world and ignore what is in front of you because it's "too much" for your energy. Rest and recover your energy. Give yourself the love and grace that you need. But then get back out there, confront your shadow and your biases and do your part. Whatever that means to you.
To end this post, my love, you are not too sensitive. You are an empath and an alchemist. It is time you learn to balance both of these energies within you. And as you support others, remember to support yourself. Burnout and shame help no one.
Much Love, Always,
Shar
Happy Friday. It has been a while since I have last posted on here. I took some time to be with my family and also some time to focus on racial injustice in America, systemic racism, police brutality none of this stuff is new and has always been a problem in America and a reality for the Black community and POC) and ways to be a better ally. Black lives matter and it is important for us to continue to fight for justice. Until there is justice, there cannot be peace. This looks different for everyone, but for me this has meant questioning the media more deeply, continuing to confront my own implicit biases (yes, I am a woman of color, but I was raised in a white supremacist society and like all people, there is some degree of bias that exists within me), and learn more about what it means to defund the police. Racism in America is not new. America was built on racism and continues to run on it.
This has been a time for shadow work for me. As a lightworker, it is my job to also confront the shadow and bring the shadow into the light. You all know that something I struggled with for a long time is my empath ability. Many people in this space identify as empaths, which for me means a strong sense of other people's emotions and energy.
Many empaths also struggle with setting energetic boundaries and distinguishing between what belongs to them and what does not belong to them. I will hold my hands up and say that I hated my empath abilities. I hated that I could feel the energies of other people so clearly and I hated that I was "too sensitive." So the way I learned to cope was to completely cut off all of my empathic abilities. I can admit that the natural response that I am actively correcting is apathy. I have been unlearning the instinctive desire to just cut myself off from everything that is draining my empathic abilities.
But my love, emotions serve a purpose, and sometimes apathy is not the answer. And it most certainly not the answer when it comes to injustice. My fellow empaths, something I have realized is that the gift of being an empath is two-fold. One is your ability to pick up on energies, but two is your role as an alchemist.
You as an empath have the ability to not only tune into energy, but to feel that energy and transform it into something else. I am still navigating what this means as well and how to actively use this gift the way it was intended to be used.
But I wanted to disrupt the narrative you might have heard your whole life. The one that says empaths are just too sensitive and all you need to do is protect your energy. Absolutely you must protect your energy. Absolutely you must be able to distinguish what belongs to you and what does not. Absolutely you must have boundaries. But that doesn't mean that you get to cut yourself off from the world and ignore what is in front of you because it's "too much" for your energy. Rest and recover your energy. Give yourself the love and grace that you need. But then get back out there, confront your shadow and your biases and do your part. Whatever that means to you.
To end this post, my love, you are not too sensitive. You are an empath and an alchemist. It is time you learn to balance both of these energies within you. And as you support others, remember to support yourself. Burnout and shame help no one.
Much Love, Always,
Shar
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