We all have a story, and whether we decide to share or not, our lives and the stories that come with them can help others reach their next milestone, find inspiration to overcome, and so much more. My transparency is my gift and I use it to help others know they are not alone, they can overcome, and that you have full control over your life when you focus on yourself and what matters to you most.
It was somewhere around 2015 when my husband asked me a simple, and seemingly minor question at the time. I can remember it vividly – we were sitting in the basement of our joint office space and he leaned back and said, lemme ask you something, “if you had to use one word to describe the personal brand for you, yourself as a person, what would it be?”
Almost without thinking, I replied, “growth”, my personal brand would be all about growth.
I don’t remember why he asked, but he was working on something, and at that time legacy was something that we both felt very charged with, and so we were both working to find passions and doing things that fueled our soul and left us filled with purpose.
I had started and was running some version or another of what started as a personal development blog. The goal was to share my struggles in my own life and create a community around those things. Parenting, marriage, and relationships – because I have always felt my transparency was my gift.
While I am not scared to share what I have been through if it will help or benefit others. I still struggled with actually doing it the way I really wanted to.
In part, because I was scared of what people would think of me, my thoughts, and even my actions. But I also struggled with sharing my story because so many parts of it were intermingled with the stories and lives of those I love. And their stories were/are not mine to tell.
I eventually discovered and put a name to my true greatest struggle.
While I thought it was parenting, cause I have struggled HARD there since the role began. I realized my struggle was even bigger than that. My overall struggle was imposter syndrome.
You know, the feeling like a fraud and doubting myself, my feelings, and my overall abilities.
I was defining myself by the roles I had – being a wife, being a mother, the job…
My primary parenting struggle was with my daughter. I wanted to be a different kind of mother to her. But honestly, I didn’t know how. I mothered how I was mothered and THAT was not my goal at all.
I made loose changes to some things. But I didn’t put in the intentional work to change some of the bigger things that I wish I had.
Throw in having another child, and then bringing another family member’s child into our home. I literally started drowning and didn’t know how to ask for help or catch my breath on my own.
In roughly 2018 everything came to a head for me.
Nothing could make me happy. I was very discontent in every area of my life. And I knew I needed change but I didn’t know what I needed to change.
Part of how I showed up was with controlling behavior, which I now know was really how my fear manifested, which I talk about in this episode of the Transparency + Truth podcast.
For a really long time, my even-keel go-with-the-flow husband would tell me, “you have to stop letting the things that you can’t control, control you…”
In 2018 that finally clicked for me, kinda.
I realized that what he was saying to me was that I am the only thing that I really have control over and that I need to work on THAT.
I needed to work on myself.
As somewhat of a starting point in doing that, I ended up having a natal chart reading. It is a reading of where all the planets were in their journey around the Sun at the exact moment you were born. It can reveal your strengths and weaknesses, your opportunities for soul growth, and even predictions on the best timing for your most important moves.
I had that done by Jheanell of the Astrohive, and that cracked things wide open for me.
I felt so rebellious for doing it. Mostly because of how religious folks tend to look at those kinds of “Woo-woo” things, as I like to call them. I also felt like I had been given the cheat codes to working on myself and finding my own personal happiness.
But that was just the start for me.
I went back and listened, and re-listened to that reading at different points in my life. And eventually, I moved into focusing on some other personality tests to get a closer, more deep, understanding of myself.
It was as if I had the pieces to the puzzle. I just needed to sit down and put the puzzle together.
I started journaling more to hear and digest my own thoughts and feelings. That was my version of therapy at that time.
I have never been one against or not willing to go to therapy. But at that time my funds, time, and being in a new state without my usual resources left me not able to seek out therapy for myself at that time.
What I was doing was working for the time being, because I was starting to formulate my true feelings, and even voice them and express what I felt I needed, and even wanted.
That was big!
I can’t fully remember what else happened between then and when the thing that catapulted my growth journey happened and brought everything full circle for me. But there were some other integral parts, I am sure.
On April 22, 2019, my daughter tried to take her life.
She was 15, a month shy of her 15th birthday.
Her attempt was a direct result of my parenting style. And as I mentioned before my parenting style was not what I wanted it to be.
I was showing up as what I thought I was supposed to and how I was made to feel I should.
It was exhausting. It caused so much strain on our relationship from as early as the age of 4.
While I wanted to do something different I wasn’t intentional to do so. I didn’t feel equipped to do so. And I was probably more comfortable just complaining about it rather than doing the work to change it honestly.
Man intention is such a big game changer.
After she got out of the hospital things didn’t magically get better, it actually got worse.
It got really ugly before there was any resemblance of it being pretty.
We both were spiraling in different ways. And we agreed we needed space. So she went to live back home, 500 miles away with her biological father.
I felt like the worse mother ever sending my kid 500+ miles away for so many reasons. But I knew I needed to.
I cried a lot. I bargained with God all the way until I dropped her off, but the answer was the same.
And even though I was having a personal crisis inside, the world around me didn’t stop. I dropped her off in Ohio and had to leave there on a plane to go to a work conference in another state when I really just wanted to go home and curl up in my bed.
But I did what I had to do, and then I went home and curled up. Because sometimes we have to do what we have to do, in order to be able to do what we want to do…
I was embarrassed. I wondered what people would think about me.
Like who does that??
But also I kept thinking how much did I suck that my child tried to take herself out???
I decided I didn’t care. It was so much bigger than me. And eff people anyway…
She was only gone a year. But the growth and healing we both experienced in that time is truly indescribable.
It fully clicked for me. That I am truly the only person or thing I have control over, and if I work on me, I can literally change anything.
With 500 miles between us, me going to my own therapist and finding her a therapist back home, by being intentional, and by figuring out who we were independent of each other we literally started to heal and rebuild our relationship.
I started tapping into getting to understand myself better by researching and diving into my personality type more. Through the use of the Enneagram Personality Test and the Myers-Briggs personality test, my mind was blown.
I started learning how to improve my strengths and also leverage my weaknesses.
When she came home, we were both anxious. But we both put forth the effort needed. I acknowledged hers, and she acknowledged mine.
We learned and are still learning to communicate differently. I released control and have allowed her the space to be who she fully is; rather than what I wanted her to be. Sometimes we have to remind ourselves that what’s behind us, is behind us.
As I navigate this journey of my own and get better acquainted with myself I am better able to help her be her best. Which is all I ever wanted to do.
Recently I asked her “what are your unmet needs from me?”. Because one thing I am learning in my work is I need to check-in and not assume because I think I am giving my best, it is in fact what she (or others) needs…
Her response almost took me out…
“You’re actually killing it in the mom department”
Those words meant everything.
The clarity I gained and the connection to myself that I learned in that time is a large part of why I started doing the work I do now in my business.
It brought the start of my original blog, which no longer exists, and what I believe in my heart is my purpose, together full circle.
In 2020, I enrolled in Jheanell’s Astrohive North Node Program. It helps you tap into your souls’ mission and sole purpose in your time here. It comes as no surprise that mine is centered around family and building family relationships and legacy.
My coaching, whether business or personal, is centered around increasing self-awareness. By getting to know and better understand yourself, showing up as that, and changing your own life by controlling the things you actually have control over.
Equipping you to have greater success in both your personal and professional life. We do that by changing and shifting relationships, how you view and show up in the world, and revealing what you are truly capable of.
The reality is the journey never ends. There’s always room for growth and ways that we can expand. There will always be relationships and experiences that push us to grow or take the wind out of our sails.
And which it actually does is solely dependent on how we encounter and decide to experience those things.
I choose to be stretched. To seek out help in the form of therapy and even hiring my own coaches when needed. To self-evaluate, and be honest with myself and others.
I will always choose growth – for me and for those around me.
Growth is my entire brand!
Now that you know pretty much everything there is to know about me, I’d love to hear about you!
In the comments, drop me a line telling me if you know 4our Enneagram number and/or your Meyers-Briggs type. And if that information has helped you understand yourself better at all.
Interested in seeing if we would be a good fit to work through your personal growth journey, let’s chat and see.
