Holy macaroni! I had my first coaching session yesterday–and I was the coach! I’ve been taking free webinars lately all about online marketing, social media marketing, branding and biz building. But you know how she found me? Not through any of that stuff. She found me simply by me being me.

More and more I step into my purpose, spiritually and verbally, and with each action there’s a counter action. It’s like playing Candyland. And in the days prior to this appointment, I was in the Molasses Swamp. My laptop was resisting everything I was trying to do and Apple Support was uncharacteristically, extremely non-supportive. 

Times like these make me think of archery–the arrow gets pulled backwards before launching forward. Most of my best moments, maybe all if I sat and really thought about it, have happened this way. 

During the maiden voyage of my first camper, it started on fire. Being fired lead to me going on a 30-day spiritual retreat that ended up lasting twelve years and completely changed not only my life, but myself. And getting diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease gave me the gift of needing to access the power of the mind-body connection.  

I haven’t talked much here about the book I’m writing Gut Instincts: How To Get Off the Medical Merry-Go-Round and Have a Self-Induced Healing. I was diagnosed over thirty years ago, back when Crohn’s was weird and rare. No one I told had heard of it, much less had it. The book is about how I found my way through the wilderness and healed it. And the coaching business I’m building, Gut Instincts Coaching, is to help people find their answers by following their inner wisdom and guidance. 

My life has been calibrating around this purpose for a while now. And my mind has been spinning with all the ways to let the world know about it. Cutting through the mist like a laser, comes a text asking for a couple hours of my time to help with something someone is writing. 

She’s a new friend I’d met through a mutual friend who’d hired me as a writer for her business. I’m just so entertained by how it all works. Doing what I love–a reset afforded me by a pandemic that took away the work I was doing, hospitality, and gave me time with myself to hear what I really wanted to be doing, helping others–has lead to me doing more of what I love. 

Instead of fitting into various pay scales, I decided on what I was worth and defined my own minimum wage. I’m just starting out so it’s low, but it’ll grow. It always does. Once, as a daycare administrator, I took a center from having two empty classrooms when I was hired to having a waiting list two months later. My last job, playing pool games at resorts here in Key West, (think cruise director, but on land) started with three pools a week and it grew to fifteen. 

I’m not bragging. I’m reporting on what happens when I follow my gut. It never fails me. While the brain is busy thinking and figuring and weighing and analyzing, the gut knows and it broadcasts it like a beacon. In songs and serendipity, inklings and seemingly random encounters. In nudges and nuances. It’s a station you need to be tuned into–an already programmed preset. Just push. 

And the more we listen, the louder it gets. 

Thanks for celebrating this milestone with me. Leave a comment about a time this was true for you and I’ll celebrate with you, too!

“I was smart enough to go through any door that opened.” ~Joan Rivers