Hola gorgeous hearts!

One of the things that really inspired me (+ still does) when I’m down in the salt mines of my business, trying to work out the next step, is listening to the stories of other business women who’ve been where I am + have had an insight that’s helped them along.

With that in mind, I’ve asked a number of gorgeous, inspired, soulful business women to share their sacred AHA! moment – of the thing that changed their business.

Today’s insight is for everyone who has followed a windy road to get to the place they most want to be.

Lots of love,

Leonie

A WINDING ROAD TO CLARITY AND DIRECTION

There is no simple phrase or collection of just a few words that can adequately sum up what I’ve learned from Leonie (so far). It’s more of a story than that. A story that begins before I ever found her on the internet.

I was (well, still am, really) a psychotherapist, working at a non-profit agency. I was also about 8 months pregnant – or, holy-jeez-I-cannot-possibly-get-any-bigger-can-I? pregnant. And as my due date sped towards me, I was starting to realize a few things. Such as how little time I was going to get to spend with my daughter working Monday through Friday, 9 to 5.

That made me incredibly sad and that sadness propelled me to search.

It wasn’t a directed search, mind you. I didn’t start at Google and end at leoniedawson.com.

I knew I was looking for something, but I wasn’t really aware of what it was I was looking for.

So I surfed and I sulked and I sighed and the next day I surfed some more and felt lost and so on. I felt an internal sort of restlessness beyond the butterfly kicks from my tummy of the daughter I hadn’t met but knew. A call I wanted to answer but couldn’t find the words or wind to shout.

And that was when I stumbled onto Leonie.

A bright burst of color through a grey day is how I would describe it. The joy Leonie clearly experiences by putting her heart, soul and the fullness of her self into the world to help others spoke heaps to me and I resonated like mad with that.

Wasn’t that the very reason I spent so very many years in school to earn the degree that would allow me to help heal hearts?

It was what kept me going through the two years post-grad work and fueled my hours of study to pass the national exam.

When had I lost my way?

I knew I needed to find my way back to those things that brought color to my soul. Eureaka! I had a direction!

Well, not a terribly specific one, but I was pleased as punch to have a bright spot in my achy, tired-but-unable-to-sleep, waiting for any-day-now-baby world.

It’s been a process of discovery and rediscovery.

Of figuring out boundaries and setting goals and being okay with the process. Because, I’ll be honest – sometimes it’s easy to mistake resonating for wanting to duplicate. And who wouldn’t want to duplicate Leonie’s joyfulness and light?

But we are also all here to do different things, walk different paths, embrace different experiences and share our unique gifts. Boundaries are so very important in figuring out what’s true for you and being okay with its different-ness.

There are many ways to get to a place of happiness, you know?

I want to get there in my way – it’s the best way for me!

Leonie taught me that I don’t have to follow a course schedule or a career path. Doing that was leading me to a place I wasn’t sure I wanted to be, in a manner that I didn’t want to utilize to get there. It was making me grey-hearted and peering into a future I could only meet with dissatisfied unhappiness. Certainly not what I want to teach my daughter!

Leonie taught me to be ok with the process taking time too.

There’s certainly a part of me that wants to jump in, full steam ahead, and to experience results that are immediately gratifying. Wouldn’t that be a wonderful world to live in? But, I want to build something substantive…and that takes planning and careful consideration.

It means choosing my steps and being deliberate in how I use the energy I get from the things that inspire me to action. And whenever I feel discouraged by the limitations of how many hours are in a day, I think of how Leonie wrote blog entries on her iPod while nursing in the middle of the night and I remember that progress is still progress, no matter how or when it is accomplished. And I am not afraid of moving slowly.

In the months since my daughter was born, I’ve made time for myself to adjust to my new role as mama.

• I joined the Academy and have been using Leonie’s programs to make changes in my home organization and business plan (because a mess in one can equal a mess in the other).
• I’ve decided that for now I want to focus on working with moms who do too much and people who are recovering from trauma.
• I’ve taken a course on traumatic incident reduction to improve my professional skills.
• I’ve launched a website.
• I’m putting together a book and program for moms that I hope to offer on my website soon.
• I am working through the big transition of working in an agency to private practice.

And I am doing it all with a sense of peace and joy that I would have doubted the sincerity of at one time in my life.

Surely all this change requires stress and anxiety and fear!

But it doesn’t. Leonie taught me that.

Jessica Campbell is a wife, mother, therapist, artist and writer living in South Florida. She offers coaching and therapy in person or via video chat. You can find her blog at http://www.jessicascampbell.com.