On Not Feeling Like Yourself and Letting Go of Who You Used to Be

 Hello My Beautiful Queen, 

A huge theme in my life at the moment is energetic boundaries and manipulation. As a young child living at home, I truly believed that I was just too sensitive. Surely the anxiety and depression I felt was a product of myself and my own inability to handle life. Now as an adult living at home, I understand that some of this truly was my environment. 

Now this blog post isn't about blame. I'm not here to blame anyone, but I am here to process what is on my mind. I spoke with my coach recently about the pressure to present myself as perfect. Not in a way where I would ever lie or manipulate my story to make it "better or more successful" but in a way that there is a pressure to always have the lesson and the takeaway. 

For me, it is more important to share my raw moments with you. To let it be okay that sometimes life is hard, and sometimes we don't know what to do, and we don't show up as our best selves and we don't always see the lesson.

If we're going to be super raw right now, for a lot of this year, I felt either like shit or just disconnected from myself. Which doesn't mean that there weren't good moments, or times when I felt confident and fantastic. Just that there were also challenges. Most of the time, I just didn't feel like myself. And reflecting on the end of the year, I have realized that a lot of this was coming from having expectations for who I was. But the thing is, we are human. And so we evolve. You are never the same exact version of yourself, and just as comparing yourself to others can be unhealthy, comparing yourself to previous versions of you, is also unhealthy. A lesson I am carrying forward with me is that when it comes to your own evolution, it doesn't matter who you were before because that person does not exist anymore. What matters is who you are now and how you choose to treat yourself in this moment. 

I often tell my clients that no amount of inner work will ever make it so you never experience darkness in your life. The darkness is part of your expansion. But you can learn to witness yourself and learn what it means to support yourself through the darkness. You can learn that being in the dark doesn't make you the dark.

On Being a "Late Bloomer": I've never had a relationship and how I discovered I was actually demiromantic

 

Hello My Beautiful Queen,

Wow, I cannot believe that the last time I published a post on this website was in April. In many ways I transitioned to posting and communicating with my audience on Instagram, but I have written several drafts of posts that have just not seen the light of day on this website. 

I have had a lot of thoughts. I one hundred percent am still a coach and absolutely love helping people work through their blocks. But this year was also about recognizing and making time for the things that I love outside of this space. And for 2022, I want to bring you into more aspects of my life and talk about things that may not fit into my "niche"

Obviously, there is a lot for us to catch up on. But rather than looking back, let's move forward and I will fill you in throughout. 

I turned 27 this fall, and while I have spoken about this on the podcast, I want to write a separate post just going over everything I have learned about myself. I have never been in a relationship or a situationship or anything like that. I am completely fine with this, but it's other people who seem to have a problem with this.

If you are in the same boat as me, then you know exactly the reaction I am talking about. The shock, the "it will happen for you," (first of all, who said I was looking) the "oh my gosh, really??" And if the person really has minimal control of their reaction, the why? Why have you not been in a relationship? 

It's fucking exhausting, but it's those kind of reactions that make you hyper aware of the fact that people find this unusual and are insinuating that something is wrong with you (whether they are aware of this or not).

Now, here's the thing. Almost a decade of these reactions (because yes, this does start when you are a teenager), you do start to feel like you are behind. To be very blunt with you, I even started to feel like I wasn't a "real" adult because I had not hit this major milestone. For a lot of people, that can put pressure on you to actively look for a relationship or rush into a relationship that perhaps you didn't actually want just so you could check it off as something you have done.

Some insight for you, I have never wanted a relationship. The idea of it didn't excite me, I didn't understand the point of relationships and some part of me truly believed that people just got into relationships because that's what was expected of them. Because surely, no one actually wanted to be in a relationship?

LOL, you'll see where this is going. I have always enjoyed casually dating. I like my own company and am easily overwhelmed when I am around others for too long. I like to flirt, I love dates and I love getting to know new people. My college friends told me I was a fuckboy for this. People who have been jaded before will perhaps claim that you have commitment issues, or you just have to open your heart/drop your guard or find the right person. 

But like, I just did not want a relationship. I wasn't looking because I didn't want it. I spent so much of my adult life believing that something was wrong with me because I wasn't seriously interested in dating anyone. And through conversations with others, had come to believe that this made me a terrible person.

Until this year, where I realized I was demiromantic. I had seen a bunch of aromantic tiktokers, related to so much of their content and did some research. It was a relief. I wasn't a fuckboy, I didn't have commitment issues, I wasn't just a bitch *insert eyeroll*

    Me when I realized people genuinely desire relationships and don't just feel pressure to be in one

I'm demiromantic. When reflecting on all of my past dating experience, I realized that what I felt for others was sexual attraction. And sexual attraction is not romantic attraction. I feel the same way about dates as I do hanging out with a new friend. I have only ever had a crush on one person who I knew for years before I ever felt something romantic towards him. 

Not every person who is in the same boat as I am is demiromantic. And maybe you do really want a relationship. That is valid and okay. But ultimately, what this taught me was don't let other people's ignorance and past trauma define you. Sometimes people don't know what the fuck they are talking about and ultimately, you are the only one who can know yourself.

Let's Catch Up and Where I've Been

Hello My Beautiful Queen,

Wow, I can't believe it has been over a month since I last posted on here. Honestly, Y'all know I hangout on my IG the most often (@quarter.life.queens) if you want to catch up and see what I have been up to when I'm not posting on the blog.

But my love, let's catch up. I have been super busy at work with advising for the summer session picking up, also working with some amazing clients on their own soul expansion journey, and my sims youtube channel. LOL so that's a thing. I actually really love the sims and about a year ago, I started a channel. I have not admitted that to anyone in the QLQ world just because I don't see that as relevant to the work I do as an intuitive guide.

Yet in recent times, I feel like I just want to blog you know? I want to let you know what's up and what I am doing in my life as a person. I got my COVID Vaccine last week in preparation for my future plans and have just been saving for my travel. Obviously your girl isn't traveling at the moment, but when it opens, I do intend to go. I also got my TSA Pre-Check because let me tell you, I am usually traveling with more than one computer, and that will really come in handy.

I've been home for a while and like a lot of people, I just want to go out and explore my life and just live. I have always loved travel and the last time I traveled internationally was in 2017 when I took an awesome last minute trip to Japan with my best friend. There's not much else I can say there outside of I'm just ready.

My life has also become completely sedentary. Outside of the 30-45 minutes in my day where I take time to workout, your girl does not leave the couch. I have been feeling the health effects of that. And without going into the details, because honestly I just don't want to contribute to diet culture, I am on my own health journey. I just want to feel reconnected with my hunger cues and that I am eating nourishing food and not just oreos because it's the easiest thing to grab in between meetings.

There's a lot more, but I will save that for another post.

Much Love Always,

Sharlene

How I Overcame the Fear of Social Media

Everything is love

This is what I had to say to myself every time I posted anything

When I first decided that QLQ was more than a blog, I knew I had to join social media

Let me rephrase that. I knew that I wanted to join social media and make a connection with my audience. But I was freaking terrified

To me social media felt like one giant popularity contest where the prettiest and most charismatic won

And I for sure knew that wasn’t me (thankfully I worked on my confidence and self-belief)

But I joined anyway. I was terrified. I loved posting, but I would run away as soon as I did because I genuinely believed that people were awful and would make me feel bad about myself

I loved social media, but I was mostly afraid of it. Not because social media is necessarily scary, but because it mirrored back to me a lot of my unhealed wounds

As an entrepreneur, I knew social media was going to be part of my business model. As a soul expansion coach, I understood that social media would also be part of my healing. I just had to find away to overcome my fear

In this week’s episode of the QLQ podcast I am talking all about how I did it and my top tips for new entrepreneurs who are dealing with the fear of social media

Much Love Always,

Shar

Let's Talk About Self-Sabotage

The most frustrating part of the personal growth journey

Is recognizing that you are the one in your own way and not having a damn clue why you’re sabotaging yourself

You see your success
You see what you could have
You understand what you should be doing
But for whatever reason, you’re just not letting yourself have it

This was such a painful story for me anytime I reached a new level
I knew exactly what I wanted and I knew the steps I had to take to move in that direction
But then I just wouldn’t

Market my products? No way. Even if people would ask about them I would get a lump in my throat
Go live. Yeah I could do that. Great idea. Then I would never ever go live
Ask to be a guest on podcasts? Beautiful idea. I’ll do that eventually...but look this other thing needs my attention right now

The truth is I was scared shitless. And I was so angry because I knew that I was the one in my own way. I knew part of that was fear. But no matter how much I journaled and meditated and tapped and learned, I still found myself reluctant to create the kind of success that I wanted

Because success scared me!

So after YEARS of grinding away at this, I hired someone to help me. I realized that I was simply too close to my own behaviors and patterns to truly observe them in a way that would create transformation

My only wish is that I had hired someone sooner

The money will come back. Whether you invest in a book, a course, a retreat or a coach. But your time will never come back

How much longer are you willing to be frustrated, stressed out and lost in comparison? How much longer do you want to say why not me?

This is the question I asked myself whenever I felt called to invest but ego tried to convince me to sit in fear

I reminded myself of what I had to gain. Then I made the conscious choice to choose my present and future, not my past

Start somewhere and remember how much value there is in doing it with support

The #1 Thing Any Spiritual Entrepreneur needs to Know

The most important lesson I have ever learned on my journey is to seek support BEFORE I felt like I “needed it”

The thing is, like a lot of people, I was used to my pain

I thought that’s just how things were and subconsciously I never gave myself permission to seek support unless it was at excruciating levels of discomfort

Otherwise I was just complaining for no reason

Sure the pain sucked, but I was used to it and I didn’t feel like I had the right to seek support unless I was desperate or about to break

But waiting until you hit rock bottom before you seek support not only isn’t healthy or helpful

It is also a form of self-sabotage

So the form of self-love I taught myself and now support my clients in, is acknowledging that you do not have to sit with discomfort and pain simply because you are used to it or it could be worse

If it is within your ability to seek support, whether that be from a coach, a book, a podcast, a therapist or just a friend who really can hold space for you, then please give yourself permission to access that support NOW

BEFORE you feel like you need it

Because odds are, society has taught you to believe that you only need it when you can no longer tolerate that pain anymore

But why should you have to suffer immensely before you’re allowed to seek help? You shouldn’t

Find the support that you are able to access from where you are, and make it okay to seek it

There is No Such Thing as The Right Decision

 

Hello My Beautiful Queen,

Welcome to the third week of January. Not that time really matters here, but you get the point. I have been deep in my own spiritual journey which is to say that I hit my upper limit and I am digging through the dredges of my shadow. Because the thing about choosing to be the creator of your reality is also acknowledging that you must take responsibility for your own internal world and how your subconscious mind may be influencing your external one. For example, if your desire and intention is to build a youtube channel, but subconsciously you don't believe that you are the kind of person that people gravitate towards, then you are going to encounter some issues in your reality.

The same is true if you do not trust your decisions. Queen, building anything will require you to make decisions. Manifestation requires you to make decisions about what you want. But if deep down you believe that you do not know how to support yourself or you doubt that you know what you want, then you are going to struggle with it in your reality because this is what you believe. If you don't believe you can make decisions that support you, then you will struggle because you will doubt every decision that you make and whether or no they are truly supporting you in getting closer to your dreams.

The thing is that you are never going to know if the decisions that you make are the right ones. You are not going to know if it is moving you closer to your goals. You are not going to know what the outcome is. But I can for sure tell you that if you do not make any decision at all, then you will stay exactly where you are. So many people get caught in this story of I don't know where to start.

In my journey I have studied countless entrepreneurs and had the opportunity to interview many of them on my podcast. Let me tell you that no one knew where to start, they just started. Part of that is developing your connection with your intuition and yourself. Having that faith that you are supported in your journey and that you will always make the best decisions you can with the information that you have. The other part of that is just curiosity and determination to make it happen.

You are not going to know where your decisions will lead you. But you must be willing to start somewhere. You must move in faith that what you want is meant for you and you have everything you need to make it happen if you can just convince yourself to start. And if you have no freaking idea how to develop that kind of self-belief, I recommend that you start with a coach or some kind of guide.

If you don't start you are pandering to your ego and allowing decision paralysis to completely destroy your dreams. Queen, your dreams don't deserve that. When we refuse to start it can be easy to justify why we don't. We say things like I don't have the money (you can start a business for free. If it's product based, then you can build an audience and a brand identity for free to get started), or that we don't know where to start. But in my experience as a coach and in my own life, fear is the root of this hesitation, no matter what story it is telling you. 

So you have to ask yourself, what is this really about? What am I afraid of? What do I not want to have confirmed (that is a huge one). Take a moment and ask yourself what is one thing I can do right now to get started?

Much Love Always,

Shar

On Feeling Like You Don't Belong

 

Hello My Beautiful Queen,

This weekend I posted something about it being darkest in the dark on IG.  If you are not new to the QLQ world then you will know that as part of soul expansion, you will encounter challenges and difficulties in your life. Situations that will leave you breathless, overwhelmed and with no idea about how to move forward. I teach manifestation, but allow me to remind you that manifestation cannot explain everything. Take it from me, please do not shame yourself or blame yourself for what happens in your life by believing that you have manifested every single experience. Not everything that happens in your life is about what you did or some limiting belief.

For example, you could be trying to grow a youtube channel right now, and maybe you are finding it hard. Please know that while you may have some subconscious resistance, it could just be hard right now. You are building the foundation. Or if you run a service based business and someone has just said no to what you offer. It can be so tempting to think that your energy was off, or you just weren't aligned or maybe you didn't sell well. Otherwise it would have manifested for you, right? Wrong. Sometimes it is about the other person and their circumstances and like it or not, we cannot impose our will on others. The right people will always find you and while you might think they are the right person, maybe the timing is wrong. In manifestation, your only job is to know what you want and stay open to receiving it. Which also means staying open to the possibility that it will come to you some other way that you just do not see yet.

The point is that sometimes on our journeys to birth our dreams into reality, we are not always going to know what to do. Nor will we have constant confirmation that following our intuition and doing the inner healing and using the strategy is going to work. In fact, sometimes it is going to feel like it is doing anything but working. Most often when we are in our demon time (to quote Beyonce here) and we are comparing ourselves to everyone else in the space and feeling like we don't belong. Especially if you are a woman of color in a space that is dominated by white women.

In those moments, it can be so easy to just want to give up. To feel like nothing we want is ever going to happen as quickly as we would like or as easily as it happens for our white peers. To be raw and honest and so vulnerable with you, I studied racism, classism and sexism in K-12 education in America. And girl, how could I not feel this way when I have been taught like so many others that I am just innately inadequate? Give yourself some grace, love, there is some deep shit for you to unpack and heal that will just take a bit more time. Comparison is the thief of joy. In those moments when I feel like I have to work 10 times as hard as any white woman just to be noticed, I remind myself to look inward. I remind myself that part of my healing is to remove the conditioning and training that has led me to believe that my life does not get to be easy.

I also remind myself that my only regret would be to give up. It's okay if you have to detach from the outcome. It is okay if you need to stop thinking about your manifestations and goals for a while. In fact, it is often encouraged because when we are so desperate for the result, we send out mixed signals about what we want (based on what we are focusing on), which then slows down our manifestations. Sometimes the best thing to do is just to stop thinking about it. Which doesn't mean that you have given up, only that you are surrendering the desperate need to control. I remind myself that if a gave up, a year from now I would regret all of the progress I could have made in that time.

Sometimes your journey just requires faith. Faith and surrender and the knowing that no matter how hard and impossible it feels right now, you WILL get there. In the meantime, I encourage you to find a community and sisterhood of people who will help you know that your success is inevitable. A community can be as small as one other person who is cheering you on and guiding you on your path. Whoever that is, I encourage you to stay open to receiving them.

Much Love, Always,

Shar

When Do You Know That You Are Your Best Self?

Hello Queen,

I recorded a podcast episode recently about how being your best self is a choice that you make everyday. In today’s post, I want to go a little bit deeper.

If you are also on a spiritual expansion journey (which let’s face it. You are reading this blog post, so you are), then you will know the yo-yo frustration. The frustration of achieving your dreams, but then not being able to replicate the same result. Of feeling like your best-self and like nothing can stop you, then feeling like shit and doubting if you even know how the fuck to build a thriving business. Of feeling fearless, then only feeling doubt.

The fear of success is very real for me, as much as I wish it wasn’t. So I am all too familiar with that yo-yo. But as I moved through my journey, I found an odd kind of duality.

Like I was able to completely access my inner goddess, but also felt incredibly human. Like I was powerful and strong and exactly where I needed to be but also feeling frustrated with where I am not. It’s a bizarre gray area, but now that I am in it, I feel like this is a higher expression of myself. Because I preach to you all that even the absolute best version of you who has everything they want still has their doubts, fears and off days. They are not where they are because they don’t have any limiting beliefs, they are where they are because they don’t have limiting beliefs around what they currently have.

There is a version of you out there making 6 figures who is doubting that she can make a million. There is a version of you out there, in her dream body, wondering if she really has what it takes to do a triathlon or run a marathon. There is a version of you out there making millions of dollars wondering if she is really capable of running that real estate empire, or launching a new brand, or whatever it is. It doesn’t matter. The point is that we are always striving towards something.

I teach so much more about this in Connected, but what I will say is that your desires are part  of your expansion and what you must overcome to manifest those desires into your reality is how you will come to know yourself better and love yourself on a deeper level. You are the universe and your desire in this human incarnation is still to expand. Just to expand on a soul level. 

So, yes. I am in this gray area. Not exactly half-risen, but more content in my duality. More aware that as human beings we embody both essences. Maybe instead of spending so much energy trying to banish all of our limiting beliefs, we can focus on our expansion and allow ourselves to become more comfortable with the discomfort.

Much Love, Always,

Shar