“Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.” – Denis Waitley
You guys – I feel this one in my soul. I’ve continued to step into the discomfort of growth & change AND the more you do it the easier it gets. Not easier in the sense that you always get it right, just that you start to recognize that you can and will continue to fail forward. It will be messy and confusing but that’s ok. I’ll take messy, uncomfortable, and complicated any day over standing still. But it hasn’t always been this way for me.
There were years of struggle, living within the confines of what people would think, unattainably striving for perfection, overthinking every single next move, & second guessing myself. Deciding to walk away from a career I loved to be a stay at home mom, realizing that might not have been the best choice for me, finding the balance I’d been looking for on a very unconventional path, watching my marriage fall apart, having no clue what next step to take, moving back home, losing two of my best friends in 6 months, years of coping using alcohol, retail therapy, and perfection seeking, and keeping it all together as a single mom.
It all came crashing to a halt on New Years Eve 4 years ago with a frightening panic attack (that felt a whole lot like a heart attack). Everything came into perspective that night as I called my parents at 1am to come sit with kids so I could go to the ER. The weight of it all finally was too much and I cracked. I asked for help. I slowed down. I did the hard work. I turned to meditation. I embraced the mess.
So here I am. Wearing my HOT SOUTHERN MESS badge loud and proud. Proud that I’m stepping out with this space and being authentic AND real AND vulnerable in all that I do.
