How do we honor the ego and thank the universe for its lessons?
I really want to talk tonight about this idea is that a business can only grow as quickly as the person who is running it.
So check in with yourself: what is your level of commitment to growth?
I can almost guarantee that majority of us, if not all of us, are playing small. How many of you know in your gut that you could turn it up a little bit? You could turn up the dial; just shift that needle a little bit, maybe 10 degrees. And, BOOM. You’ve opened up a whole new experience and a whole new level of service in your business.
The growth is happening now.
We don’t have to say, “I’m waiting for something to happen…”
You can start taking control of this right now. And I’m glad that you’re here to do that.
I want to share with you my mantra of the year:
How can I approach _________ from a place of love and abundance?
Because, as all of us, my ego likes to get in the way. Your ego essentially is there to protect you. There’s many different definitions of the ego, but for those of you who are into manifestation and the law of attraction, you likely already have a deep sense of understanding that we create our own realities. We have to be able to release that ego and learn how to trust a little bit more instead of overthinking and overanalyzing and getting ourselves into that state of paralysis.
I want you to know that, just like you as a business owner, I am tested daily.
In the early days of my business, I was in network marketing. I would get one no, and think it was all over. Like, “No one wants my stuff. Nobody likes me. I’m a loser.”
But I didn’t stop. I kept figuring out how to evolve past rejection.
“How do I become better?”
I really encourage you to sit with that feeling. Build that muscle, and don’t swallow your tears. You’re allowed to cry. You need to let it out.
We need to acknowledge your feelings in the present moment, and really honor why we’re being triggered.
If somebody says no to you and you get upset, consider why is that triggering you? Acknowledge those triggers when they come through, because they’re going to come. And the more quickly you grow and the more money you make, the more people you help. The more visible you become. Likely, the more things you are going to experience when you have more opportunities.
I see them as opportunities for growth.
I remember, when I was in the early days of network marketing, I had made zero in sales for like three months straight. It was not cute. It was really frustrating, because I was doing the best with the tools that I was given.
I remember going in to class one day at my acting conservatory and my classmates mocked, “Here Comes Mrs. Fitness!”
Because, back in 2012, you didn’t really post before and afters on Facebook. That was very taboo. Like Jen posted a naked picture even though she didn’t have a six pack. How dare she!
I was just like, why are you guys being dicks? Even though the guys were bullying me playfully, that was a huge trigger for me.
Go back in time and consider why those triggers are hurting you. There may be something that happened to you in second grade, and hearing similar criticism now may make you feel like that little kid again.
When you are a little kid, you are divinely infinite being. So, you’re confused when you’re approached with things that are not pure love. And on the flipside, according to psychologists, you have not cognitively developed enough yet. You have not yet learned the so-called “rules” of being a human in this society. So, it doesn’t make sense and then you become hurt. You develop this limiting belief that people are mean; don’t do something that people don’t like. or you’re going to be exiled. Right?
And, you might not be fully conscious of this… but this is something that you are vibrationally attracting.
I think it’s so beautiful to recognize that, as a child, you couldn’t understand the lesson that the universe was providing. So now, I encourage you to take your fully developed, adult brain and recognize the full perspective.
Knowing what you know now, take a moment to go back in time and possibly journal on this.
“What is triggering me? What was the specific point in my life that brought this on? What is the lesson that I need to learn from this experience so that I can grow?”
Maybe you didn’t have the tools then to reframe and to grow, so you can do it now.
Some lessons take spiritual grinding; really developing a practice and a muscle to reframe and refocus, especially when I’m approached with challenges, struggles, or people who I butt heads with. When they go low and they’ve got their ego out ready to fight, you go high.
When you go high, you can’t lose.
What would your world look like if you allowed yourself to be deterred from your mission and your purpose by all of this other noise? What would the world look like if we ALL allowed that to happen? But… what would the world look like if we all stepped out of that and took care of our own being and healed?
I truly believe there would be no conflict.
No chaos, no shit talking, and no drama. Everyone would just be abundantly supportive of each other.
Listen, I’m not perfect. I’m not trying to preach or anything, because I’m human too and I’m so on my spiritual journey right there with you. I mean seriously, there are some things that trigger me in my business. Sometimes, Hoodrat Jen comes out. For those of you who don’t know, when I was 14, I was really super into hip hop. I used to wear hoop earrings and put my “gloves on.” But, why?
Why is it important for me to be ready to fight? Like, how is that actually serving my highest purpose?
I’m sure you’ve heard the quote, “Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.” It just doesn’t work. When you’re connected in your soul and when you listen to your gut, you can get chills and think, “Yes. I create my own reality. It feels good.” But, if you go and do some shit that’s totally in conflict with that, you create that cognitive dissonance and you just feel kind of icky. You’ve got to acknowledge that.
You’ve just got to say to yourself: you have the choice. It is entirely up to you what you do with the tools that you have, with the life that you have.
You have the choice to hold on to the stinky rotting steamy dump of baggage, or you have the choice to release it and go. Does it serve your highest purpose? If it’s not, let it go.
I’m looking at you right now. You probably are that person who just HAS to figure it out or analyze it. I’m just going to go back into the past and I’m going to replay all of these things and I’m just gonna try to make sense of it. The ego wants to protect you and wants to make sense of things But, you can spend the next ten years doing that…or you can just decide that it doesn’t serve you.
Your mantra is,
“I am making a conscious choice to release any and all things that no longer serve me. Period. End of story.”
And, if things come up in the future, you’re fine with it. We’re on a forward path and we’re not looking backwards.
So, when you feel yourself being triggered, become crazy present in the now and disengage from that old story.
What I love to do is thank the universe for another beautiful opportunity to grow.
Every single time I’m slammed up against a wall. Every single time I’m struggling with something, even if it’s something as simple like I don’t know what I’m doing. Then, OK, it’s time to make my brain hurt.
You know that feeling of being in fourth grade and trying to figure out long division. You’re like, why it’s so hard? Why do I need to know this? But, you learned it. And what happened? You grew from it.
Embrace those moments of growth and thank the universe for those lessons.
This is such an amazing practice that I’ve gotten into, and it has honestly transformed my life. It has transformed the way that I approach icky situations.
I have no regrets, because I see everything as a lesson. I know exactly where I’m headed. I know my desired end result, and so does the universe. And, any little thing that might feel like a detour is honestly just the universe saying, “You’re not ready to get there yet.”
The universe will give you the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over again until you learn the lesson and change your vibration. You need to decide if you can keep ignoring the crazy pattern that just keeps popping up in your life, or you can surrender.
“I am ready to be cracked open and learn the lesson. It’s going to feel like shit, and I’m okay with that.”
Be ready to be cracked open, and don’t worry about doing the right thing. It’s not a sprint. Maybe some of you can go fast, but, you can also burn out. You’ve got to build the muscle to run the marathon and all of these little hiccups or bumps in the road become your bicep curls. You’re building the muscle to withstand the marathon, not a sprint.
There’s a beautiful lesson in just taking the next step. Stop worrying about the past and worry about how what you want is going to work. Take the next step.
When I did Spartan Race a couple of years ago, I was painfully unprepared for that experience. I live in a place where everything is flat. So, I was not prepared for the beginning of the Spartan Race, which the first mile and a half is just a straight uphill climb. My hamstrings weren’t ready for that, because I had not trained on any incline. I had some really underdeveloped muscles.
But I made the decision. I had an amazing team of people with me who were way more qualified to do that race than I was, and they assured me to just keep going. I kept saying to myself the whole race: “Take another step.” I was just looking at the ground, and all I was focused on were my feet putting in step by step and not falling on my face. About halfway through the race, I realized that the shoes that I wore were a half size too big. This was never a problem when I was teaching fitness classes, because I wasn’t really moving forward and back. My insoles were sliding around. I ended up having to stop and rip out my insoles. So, by the end of the race, I ended up with two massive, walnut-sized blisters on both of my front two toes. I felt them developing, and I was seeing stars because that shit is is painful. I remember running the last leg of the race, where it’s straight downhill. Think about when you’re downhill: all the weight in your foot is on your toes. I was convinced my new blisters were already going to burst.
I just kept thinking, “Take another step.” And through that experience of physical pain, I was able to really celebrate myself.
I made it through a place of true discomfort, and because of that, I am now stronger.
Once we go through those experiences where we have that growth, your brain changes and you’ve rewired. We don’t have to get all the signs for things to start to change. It expands, it changes shape, and it can never be the same again because you’ve grown.
Isn’t that freaking amazing?
It’s so exciting, because everything that you’ve experienced: all the shit, all the muck, all the sadness, and even all that you get to celebrate…. it is preparing you for your next-level destiny.
And this is so stinkin’ important: you HAVE to celebrate yourself.
I have too many clients and too many people in my circles who refuse to celebrate because they haven’t hit a specific goal. They didn’t make six figures or their desired rank yet; they only got one client in a program; their significant other hasn’t yet acknowledged that this is a real business. And on and on and on and on.
You hold these conditions around when you’re allowed to celebrate. We don’t want to share our vision and we don’t want to be excited about it, because we’re afraid that people are going to take that away from us.
A little kid is blowing out the candles and everyone says,
“Make a wish! But, don’t tell anyone, or else the wish won’t come true.”
That piece is also ingrained in us! Crazy, right?
We don’t want to tell people about our successes. We don’t want to share our vision, because we’re afraid that we’re going to get judged, and then it’s not going to come true.
I really want to encourage you to celebrate. What does that mean, right? When I went to Tony Robbins this summer, that was life changing for me because I had never truly learned how to celebrate my successes. I was always focused on what was coming next, and I never allowed myself to sit and say, “You’re fucking awesome.” I never experienced that before. I want to ask you right now: how are you celebrating your wins? How frequently are you celebrating your wins?
One thing that I did today which is really cool: I grabbed a piece of paper and wrote out the things that I’m excited to celebrate that I’ve done in the last two weeks. And when I’m celebrating, I get fully in my body. I literally jump up and down and I scream on top of my lungs. I want to celebrate all of the amazing things that are happening in my life! Life is freaking awesome! You get to celebrate all shit that you’re doing.
When was the last time you said to yourself, “I’m really proud of you.” ?
I’m challenging you. Put your hands over your heart and just say, “I’m proud of me. And I don’t say that enough. I am awesome.”
How does it feel to do that? Don’t wait for bigger reasons to celebrate. Every single little milestone in your business is an amazing reason to celebrate.
Big wins in your business, being alive, breathing in air, having your eyeballs seeing the world in color: all reasons to celebrate.