I worked for a company for 10 years that I absolutely loved. It felt good to be part of a team and to be part of a successful group of people. The company became part of my identity. Even though I loved the company I worked for, I loved my coworkers and clients; I woke up everyday with stress, anxiety, fear, insecurities, frustration and so on. How could this be? 

I would tell myself how lucky I was to be part of such a wonderful company and team. How lucky I was to have bosses that are so enlightened and generous. But still I felt uneasy. I began to want out.

 Even when it logically didn’t make sense. I was financially abundant and even had freedom within the company. Was I ungrateful? 

 I began to think something was wrong with me. Maybe I could never be fully happy. Maybe I was broken. Everything else was so perfect after all, so I must be fundamentally flawed in some way. I had absolutely no logical reason to be unhappy in my career. But I was. 

 I would allow myself to daydream. Dreaming about what it would be like to create a business of my own. What would it feel like to create financial abundance just by doing things that I love, that feel good. What would it feel like to eat whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. What would it feel like to wake up with the natural rhythms of my body. What would it feel like to sleep when my body asked for it. What would it feel like to go for walks & bike rides whenever I wanted. What would it feel like to sit and read for hours. What would it feel like to have an open schedule with no one begging for my time. What would it feel like to abandon all media, including social media. What would it feel like to follow your natural impulses in each moment of the day. What would it feel like to be guided by nothing external, only your own inner compass. 

I was daydreaming about ultimate freedom and liberation from social norms. 

 I felt like just a dreamer. Head in the clouds. People can’t do this. This isn’t how life works. You have to do things you don’t want to do, you have to suffer a little, you have to work hard and money doesn’t grow on trees…..right?

 Besides, who am I to think I can bypass the system? Who am I to have it easy when others work so hard and struggle? 

 What if I told you that all of your stress, all of your anxiety, all of your fear, all of your lack, all of your perceived unworthiness comes from striving, chasing, problem solving, efforting and doing things you don’t want to do? 

 I retired from this company 5 months ago and my REAL journey began. 

 I cannot write everything on this subject in one blog post. It is gonna take a lifetime, perhaps, to explore all the layers to this. It is developing everyday. But what I intend to do is share my journey as it happens. Layer by layer. 

As I reflect on the months that have passed (and in future months too) I will title each segment with where my mind was at the time and write about what I learned during that segment.

  My hope is to encourage, inspire and act as an example of how you too can ditch the system and create your own way. Working through stress, anxiety & fear so that you too can be liberated from the idea that negative emotions are the NORM. 

 I want you to know there is another way. You don’t have to continue down a road that creates stress, fear, anxiety, lack, unworthiness and you are not fundamentally flawed for thinking that there HAS GOT to be another way.

  The Plan. 

 5 months ago I had a solid plan. I was going to be an online course creator. I created courses to teach people the power of Alignment & establishing morning rituals.. 

 I launched with an Alignment Mastery class that was a success. It felt so amazing to share with others the VALUE of Alignment in their lives. This was IT! I was going to create courses and help thousands! 

 Pretty quickly I started obsessing, stressing, problem solving, over thinking and efforting sooooo hard.  I spent money on  classes to better my social media, strategy & marketing. I also started comparing myself to other course creators and feeling not good enough. I was trying all sorts of things & not feeling connected to any of the processes. 

  I continued to write, journal & read. And these were the only things that felt natural & good. 

 I started to wonder if I was just trying to copy what others had already done or if this was something that felt like an original desire from me, to be a course creator.  I was all over the place and feeling lost. I had been so sure of myself just a month ago and now I was completely lost. 

 I felt like I HAD to be successful at this. I felt like I owed it to my husband ‘for letting me quit my REAL job’, I owed it to the company I had left (just because, well, I had left them), I needed to prove to my parents that I am successful & not a fuck up.

And starting over with a new plan felt like setting my masterpiece on fire. I had worked so hard on the courses, marketing, software, website, research, certifications, social media & my email list. I felt so much weight on my shoulders to perform & to make this work!

 So many HOURS I had dedicated to this plan!  I was beginning to wake up even more. I started to realize the irony. I was a hypocrite. I was a fraud. How could I in good conscience lead people down a path of unconditional Alignment if I wasn’t in a state of unconditional Alignment??

  Alignment is the union of:  thoughts + emotions that create inspired action. 

 Yet here I was doing things (social media, strategy, marketing, efforting, problem solving, stressing….) that didn’t feel good and taking action from a place of NON Alignment. 

I had put myself right back into a career that didn’t feel good anymore.  I was working all hours of the day. On my phone and not present with my son or husband. I was neglecting everything in my household. I had completely gone overboard and I knew it.

  I was NOT living the daydreams I had  just a few months ago. I was far from it.

  Renunciation.

 I felt calm on this morning. I sat with pen, paper & coffee as I always do in the mornings. The gig was up. Today I would make a video letting my followers know that I would be leaving social media and why. It felt good. It felt right. It felt like a 100lb weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

 I was free. Well sorta. There was more to come. I just didn’t know it yet. 

 No regrets. With social media taken off the plate I was free to read, to write, to go on those walks, to go on those bike rides, to clean my house (i’m weird, but I love to clean my house), cook dinner, sit and stare into the abyss, listen to podcasts, watch educational videos, engage with my son and husband, teach my dog a few new tricks, go to lunch with friends, meditate, daytime salt baths, naps….

 Could I have done all these things with social media? Of course I could have. But it’s just different now and let me tell you how. 

 When was the last time you went to the grocery store without your phone? When was the last time you went for a walk, a bike ride, took a bath, sat in a room to read, cooked dinner, cleaned your house without your phone?

 Really be honest with yourself here.

 When was the last time you went to the bathroom to do number 2 without your phone?? When was the last time you sat outside and listened to the birds and the trees, went on a break, ate lunch or folded laundry without your phone? When was the last time you left your phone at home? 

 Now if you are honest, you probably haven’t done many of these things without your phone in a long long time. And that is okay. But you don’t know what you don’t know. I didn’t know either.

 I had an inkling, a thought, a discomfort but I didn’t truly know until I went cold turkey on social media. I wrote about it here: Am I Better Without Social Media?

 As the days passed without social media, the constant pinging & dinging of my phone, I was blown away with how much I can do in a day.

I literally found hours. Time became abundant! Presence is easy.

 How had I missed all this before? I did not know what I did not know. I had no idea what I was missing out on. The richness of each moment, the enjoyment of mundane things in complete presence. 

 My senses are no longer dulled or distracted. I find enjoyment of quiet, of stillness, of watching, looking, listening, smelling and tasting. Back to the basics. Childlike in the exploration of my current surroundings wherever I am. Openness. Allowing. Receiving. 

 In this segment of the journey I began to journal this question and you can too. Why should I do anything? Why should I create a career or business at all? Why not just move from one feel good thing to the next and see where it takes me?

 What if I just create art when I feel like it, read when I feel like it, write when I feel like it, take naps when I feel like it, cook when I feel like it, go for walks & bike rides when I feel like it, be with friends when I feel like it? 

What if I only said yes to things that felt good and practiced radical faith that, that path will take me to prosperity and abundance? 

 I know what you are thinking. Every mind who reads these words is screaming but how will you pay your bills!? How will you pay the electric bill, a mortgage, phone, groceries...ect!? You will become homeless, go bankrupt and lose EVERYTHING! 

This is the ‘normal’ linear way of thinking. This is exactly what we all have been told our whole lives.  

 Here is some journaling I did as I worked through what I was really resisting by letting go.

 What if I did nothing. Nothing, meaning I wasn't actively figuring out how to be something? What if I stopped problem solving and just became? What if I just practiced being? What if I came into each moment of my day as I am.

 What about this creates so much resistance inside of me?

 I am scared I won't have money, I won't get the house of my dreams, I won't look successful, It will look like I'm lazy or have given up, it will look like I am not living up to my fullest potential.

  Can you feel the lack, scarcity, unworthiness and concern about what others would think about me if I just did ‘nothing’?

 Unworthiness.

 Unworthiness is what drives us all into the unhealthy journey to create ‘Success’. 

There is some aspect of you that believes you will feel worthy if you EARN your way to success. On the flipside you feel unworthy if you gain success without ‘EARNING’ it. 

 What does it mean to EARN your way to success? This is the effort, stress, anxiety, doing things you don't want to do, struggling, hustling and problem solving. 

We subconsciously connect success with effort. We connect effort to working hard & massive action. We connect working hard/action with doing things we don't want to do. We connect doing things we don’t want to do with suffering. We connect suffering with our unworthiness.   

 You have to come back to the truth. You are worthy. You have always been worthy. You have never not been worthy. Unconditional worthiness is your natural state. Your natural beingness is WORTHINESS.

 Because you were born makes you ENOUGH. You do not need to prove your worth. To prove that you are worthy is to imply that you currently are not. And that can never be true. You do not have to earn anything. You do not have to prove anything. You do not have to do anything to deserve prosperity or abundance. You are worthy at your worst and you are worthy at your best. You are always worthy, just as you are NOW and in every NOW. 

 So if it is success you desire ask yourself what is my true meaning of success?

 If you can answer the question from a place of knowing your worthiness, then how does this change the feeling behind the definition? 

 When I answered this question from the perspective of my unconditional worthiness: Success is FREEDOM in all areas of my life.  

 Now this is profound. Everything I have ever desired or thought of as ‘success’ was truly just a move towards an expansion of FREEDOM. 

 Freedom of time, freedom to feel good, freedom to explore, freedom to write, freedom to read, freedom to create, freedom to love & freedom to be present.

 I may be the most successful person I know! Talk about a paradigm shifting realization.

  Relieved & Realized. 

 Relieved. I am so relieved. I don’t have to do anything. I don’t have to be anything. I don’t have to make an effort, strive, struggle, hustle, problem solve, manipulate, argue, fight, prove or do anything I don’t want to do. I am worthy of all that I desire without these pressures.

  Focus on how you feel and this will tell you everything you need to know about your life.

  To be continued. Thank you for sticking around. This is a super long blog post. But I hope you feel inspired and feel your WORTHINESS. 

I will continue to share my journey and build upon the many many layers I have been peeling away.

 As always, I love you and I am rooting for you. 

 If you would like to receive 1:1 coaching on mastering your alignment, schedule your zoom call. 

Also free 15 minute consultations to feel into what you need. 

xoxo,

Inga Kervin