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I don’t believe in the biblical sense of heaven and hell but I do believe they can be experienced. Suffering is a place. A perpetual place of pain the living can and do get stuck in. I was once stuck in this place. That was hell for me. I found a way out through psychology, hypnotherapy, energy work, life coaching and NLP. Moving out of suffering requires

• Awareness, a knowledge of self
• Accountability, taking 100% responsibility, and
• Integrity, living in accordance with your values.

Applying these principles to my daily life allows me to experience peace. Peace for me is accepting that there will be moments of pain and sorrow in life and a knowing that I am able to experience those moments without getting stuck there.

I had become an expert at hiding. It’s what I did best. I was actually proud of it. Who wants to deal with all of those bothersome feelings that get in the way of getting shit done? I was under the illusion that I could live life unaffected by my baser human emotions like empathy and sympathy. Strangely enough, I’ve always been very compassionate and kind but that was easy because I didn’t have to be vulnerable to show compassion to others. In fact, I learned, the kinder I was, the more liked I was while never having to reveal the real me.

Heaven forbid I had to share my feelings. That was my kryptonite. Whether to friends or therapists, the relationship was not long lived once I had spilled my beans. Emotional closeness felt like stepping on a slug barefoot, it was yucky. It was also scary. The facade I had created of a successful, strong, capable and functioning member of society was at risk if I let on to what was really going on inside. A tangled mess of confusion, loneliness, anxiety, depression and disconnection.

Watching 3 Mics yesterday on Netflix brought this all back up. The memories of my 20-something-year-old self desperately seeking help for the emotionally broken child within me sobbing uncontrollably as I repeated over and over the story of my childhood in therapists’ office while at the same time running as far away from the pain as I could in the arms of lovers, both foreign and domestic.

3 Mics is a comedy special, a one-man show by Neal Brennan. His one liners were funny but what left an indelible impression on me was his candid revelations of his own journey through depression as a result of growing up with a violent, alcoholic, and narcissistic father. I envy people who can string together minimal words into impactful sentences. Listening to him describe his story and reading comments on his page from his fans sharing how they felt like he was telling their story reinforces a truth that while our stories may be unique, our pain is the same.

He recalls growing up as the youngest of his parent’s 10 children, with a father that took up all the physical and emotional space in a room learning to stifle his feelings so that eventually they atrophied and in order to feel anything, in essence, became addicted to achievement and adrenaline and yet the rush of his successes never quite satisfying his core needs, to which I can wholeheartedly relate.

I used achievement and adrenaline to feel as well. Growing up I didn’t feel seen or appreciated so in school and work, I worked hard to be recognized as talented and dedicated, which was made easy by being an INTJ. Adrenaline came in the form of drama, relationship drama specifically. If I wasn’t having one-night stands with strange men then I was stirring up havoc in my relationships as a result of my love addiction and intimacy avoidance.

Unlike Neal, I’ve never been medicated. I never got far enough with any therapist to have that topic come up. I just learned to cope and hide when things got too real. Until I had had enough of the turmoil. I was fed up with spinning my wheels in life, love, and career. There is no one path to emotional freedom but the result I believe is universal, reconnecting with your true self, your forgotten self, learning to help the broken child within you become whole again.

This is the journey I began about 5 years ago and one I continue on, with compassion and love for myself.

“If I feel like nothing without you, I have a lot of work to do on myself!” -Wendyne Limber

That sentence really struck me as I did today’s reading recalling the tension I felt in previous relationships, logically knowing when it was time to let go but being unable to because I only felt okay when I was with someone. When I was alone, I was depressed and directionless. I had a savior complex, one that worked both ways in that I felt powerful enough to save someone else and was also in need of saving. My feeling was if we could save each other, we wouldn’t need anything or anyone else.

So desperate was I to live that role that I would do anything to keep my partner, even if that meant tossing aside my values. I don’t drink but I started drinking for a girlfriend who thought I was boring and felt that if only I would drink, I would open up more and be more fun. It was fun, for about a week but I couldn’t sustain it, I didn’t want to and so she ended it.

I begged her to take me back promising to change, to be more fun, and she did but it was a mistake and we both knew it and spent another year in hell.

Write YOUR OWN NEW COMMITMENT to your partner or some person you are in relationship with. What do you really want?

I am not in a relationship currently but know what I want of a future partner and that is a conscious communicator and emotionally healthy being. This is who I’ve committed to being and want no less from a partner.

A conscious communicator shares themselves fully and is both powerful and vulnerable. Their thoughts, feelings, ideas, concerns, and passions are expressed with an intention to grow as an individual and to grow closer in the relationship. They speak and respond with loving kindness for connection and with compassion rather than judgment and blame.

An emotionally healthy being follows their inner guidance and takes responsibility for their feelings, reactions, and path in life. They do not rely on someone else to fulfill their emotional needs, to save, fix or protect them. They actively and consistently work to understand themselves, recognizing their triggers and taking action to resolve them.

This concludes my series on Speaking My Truth. The course I’m taking, Intimacy Without Responsibility goes for 7 weeks but I felt this series a very important piece in cultivating healthy relationships. I hope you enjoyed learning more about me and hope you learned something about yourself as well. If you’d like to take the course yourself, you can find the details here.

Seth Godin said these words in an interview with Marie Forleo this morning and it instantly caught my attention. This pique in interest was self-directed as I wondered, what am I? Could what I’ve been doing be classified under a wandering generality or a meaningful specific? Of course, none of you are in my head but I’m there all the time, it’s actually my favorite past time and because of this I know when I’m not being in integrity with myself. There are no small or large measures of personal integrity. When you fall out of integrity with yourself, the effect is the same and that is, a loss of self-trust, which leads to a loss of self-confidence.

Why am I bringing this all up and why do I sound like I’m being hard on myself? It’s because there’s a part of my “mission” that I waiver on time and time again. I start and stop endeavors. I get wishy-washy on living or speaking my truth. And why? In truth, because I haven’t figured out what it is. I’m just on this journey of life, like many of you are, trying to figure it out while staying true to myself and my values.

I’ve been trying so hard and failing at having a “mission”, a mission to bring wisdom and healing to other’s who’ve suffered with abuse like I did in childhood. Perhaps this “mission” is too large. Perhaps, I’m just not that invested. Perhaps the form I’ve been trying to have this “mission” take is not the right one. I have many questions and many ideas but there is one thing I am sure of and that is, I want to be a Meaningful Specific and not a Wandering Generality. So I promise to be patient and loving with myself as I figure out where I’m going and how I get there.

p.s. I arrived home Friday night after my trip, attended a lovely wedding on Saturday and started feeling ill Saturday night. I haven’t written because I haven’t been feeling up to it. I’ve had the flu only once before, not fun. This I consider a cold but I do have aches, a headache, I have vomited but I’m getting better and sleeping many hours. Cheers to taking time out when you need it.

I opened up google maps to search for neighborhood restaurants and settled on a Belgian beer restaurant. I thought I’d had no problem getting in though even they recommended making a reservation. As it was just me and the menu being as amazing as it was, I decided to walk the block and a half to face my fate.

As soon as I walked in, I got worried. It was packed and people kept walking in. I caught the eye of the host and after he seated a couple, I told him I hadn’t made a reservation. He asked if it was just me and I responded yes. He said I was in luck, that someone had just canceled. I was seated in the back room at a two-seater for one facing the room of a few occupied tables.

Yes, this was my first solo dining experience outside of the states. I’ve eaten out solo in Vegas but at my comfortable neighborhood spots. Actually, on second thought, I lied, I ate solo in Cameroon during my one-year stint in the Peace Corps.

I started with a refreshing non-alcoholic Stella Artois. I liked it. I like the taste of a Heineken type beer which today I learned is a Pilsner but I don’t like the feeling of ‘getting’ drunk.

The seafood soup was delicious with bits of mussel, salmon, perch and broccoli in a lemony-garlicky-buttery-creamy goodness of a broth.

The mussels were large and tender but I didn’t love the creamy garlic broth, a bit too salty but I did indulge by dipping my baguette slices.

I ended my dinner with a cheesecake of ricotta cheese and strawberry jam and a cup of chamomile tea. I normally don’t like cheesecake but this cake was light with none of heavy cream cheese base that seems to take up residence on my tongue.

All in all, I had a comfortable meal. No one stared at me and the wait staff were very nice.

Traveling through 4 cities in central Europe has been great and I am ready to go home. I’m ready to be back in own home and comfortable bed. That being said, the pleasant experience has left me a little contemplative as traveling will do.

Here are some of my thoughts:

I want to live in Vienna, at least that was my immediate reaction upon arriving in the country; clean, ordered, emphasis on art, music, architecture, and history.

I want to visit more of Austria; the mountains, take in the gorgeous landscapes.

I want to see more of Europe; the Netherlands, Scotland, Ireland, Romania, Georgia, and more.

Come to think of it, I’ve never traveled alone and I would like to and figure out my preference, it might be alone.

The pull of owning multiple small businessess is still there. I visited a couple of small shops/boutiques/cafes and they appeal more to me than malls and big name chains. They’re more intimate, more personal, and charming.

I like the feel of walking through a small town/village with cute shops and seeing people out for a stroll or sitting at a cafe chatting with friends; where getting around doesn’t necessarily require a vehicle or if transport is required, then taking the tram is the next best option; where people are friendly and saying good morning or good evening with a smile is normal.

My airbnb guest from a few weeks ago who lives in Bratislava invited me for a trip. We were there yesterday and it was absolutely beautiful. We spent most of the day in Old Town after having had a traditional meal there with Nika the night before and it was like being in a bubble. There were a few cars around the embassies but it was a walkable enclosed section of the city with brick and cobblestone streets around the Hrad ‘castle’. By all appearances, an intentionally and lovingly preserved time in history with exactly the kind of feel I just described. Nika, short for Veronika, told us a story about a woman who’d recently opened up a gelato shop called Koun. She’d been in the news and had become popular for her amazing gelato. The story goes that she quit her corporate job, moved to Italy to go to gelato making school, returned home to Bratislava and opened her own shop. We forgot to go, even though we were right there in any case, stories like this tug at my yet unpursued dreams.

Now to plan…

For pictures of my journey, visit The Wandering Lesbian on Facebook.

I didn’t have a chance to post yesterday as I usually post at night and we had to prepare for our overnight train to Prague last night.

Here’s a lesson traveling on the Czech line from/to a different country: you must buy an international train ticket in addition to any supplemental upgrades like a sleeper. Perhaps I’m the fool but I was under the impression you couldn’t get a seat upgrade without an actual seat but that’s exactly what I did. We almost weren’t able to get on the train as we didn’t have ‘tickets’ and only a sleeper car reservation. Luckily, the steward took pity on us and said we could buy tickets from the conductor which we had to do 3 times in the three countries we were traversing before we could sleep undisturbed for 5 hours.

I’m writing in a cafe, drinking mead, across the street from the Blacklight Theatre where we’re waiting for an 8:30pm rendition of a non-verbal production of Faust.

We just came from listening to classical czech music and other classical music from around the world in a small, cold church.

Ta ta for now. We’ll be in Vienna tomorrow, travelling on another overnight train.

All things considered, it wasn’t so bad.

We arrived to drizzle which was expected. Whisked through passport clearance and customs, thank goodness.

I had mapped out our route to our ‘hotel’ via public bus and our first bus was right at the entrance to the airport. Buying bus tickets was a challenge only because the 1st ticket machine wouldn’t accept payment.

Took the bus to the Metro station where a lack of signage didn’t help but saying the word Metro with an inflection got us directions in hungarian made easy with hand gestures (who needs language when you’ve got hands) from a security person. The ‘station’ was separate from where the bus let us off. It was more like a mall, there was an H&M and a Claire’s. Cristina went to Vodaphone and I went to T-Mobile for SIM cards. Her for her phone and mine for my chromebook. Success and still not very many English speakers to be found, not that I expected to.

Next on the route was one stop to the next metro station where we would transfer to the bus that would take us within walking distance to our ‘hotel’.

Ah, the 950 bus. After 2 trips up 25 flights of stairs, we were told the 950 bus is a night bus and the night bus only starts running at 11:30pm. It was 10am. So back down the stairs we went after being told we should take the Metro 3 to the last stop. Cristina wisely suggested we look at maps and I don’t remember what set me off but I proceeded to laugh hysterically including tears and I must have appeared to be having a fit because we were approached by a young man asking us with concern if we needed help. We explained our situation and he thought the night bus added a 9 and suggested that we might want the 50 tram. Hey, it was as good a suggestion as any so back up stairs we went after looking at the map for the 50 tram’s route but not finding it. At the end, after unsuccessfully trying for an Uber, we got in a taxi to our ‘hotel’.

The Metro/bus situation was funny even though we had to lug our suitcases up flights of stairs in the cold drizzle.

Now is where things really get interesting.

We arrive at our ‘hotel’ which actually looks like an office building. Downtown Apartments shows to be on the second floor and the list of occupants shows to dial 222 on the dial pad. As I’m about to do that, someone is exiting so in we go as I listen for a response from the office. No answer. Cristina calls the number from our reservation, wrong number. I get out my chromebook to call via Google hangouts, wrong number. The plaque outside shows 3 additional numbers, none of which work.

Cristina goes up to the second floor which is actually the 4th floor to knock and returns to the vestibule after receiving no response. We call expedia which due to Hurricane Matthew has longer than usual wait times. After 30 minutes, we get a representative who puts us on hold while she goes to call the ‘hotel’.

While we’re waiting, several people go in and out. It’s noon, so lunchtime. I say excuse me a couple of times to ask if anyone knows anything about Downtown Apartments and either get ignored or annoyingly waved off. Finally a young guy who thankfully speaks English stops on his way out and helps us by calling first the 1st number on the plaque. He gets a response only to say it was a wrong number after a 10 minute conversation.

p.s. when we stopped him to ask about the ‘hotel’ he says, oh yeah, there’s always a problem. WONDERFUL!!

This came after us reading more about our hotel confirmation on our expedia itinerary which said to please call the hotel before arrival to make arrangements which we had not done. Check in starts at 2pm but we figure someone should be at the office at least so we can drop off our bags.

Okay, expedia rep returns on the line and tells Cristina there is staff in the office and that lo and behold we have already been checked in. Oh Yeah? and that happened when and how and after seeing or speaking to whom? There is no one here we tell her. We have spoken to no one.

Cristina suggests I go upstairs to the office with my chromebook as we’re calling from my laptop to check which I do. After ringing and knocking several times to no avail, I say to the rep, no one is there. All I get is silence. It’s now 50 minutes since we’ve been on this call and now I get silence and then the call ends or not really because it dials back expedia so I can only think i’ve been transferred.

I return downstairs. English-speaking guy is gone and we’re on hold again but Cristina said he told her it’s the last number on the plaque that’s the right one. I can’t take anymore of this. I read on our itinerary that the ‘hotel’ has another location so in need of a both respite and to see about the possibility of getting a cab, I step outside.

I spot a taxi idling on the corner but he waves me off, guess he’s break. Another one pulls up behind him but there’s a passenger in the front seat and my attempts to make eye contact fail so I walk back to the office building. Forlornly, I look out the window, feet hurting, annoyed, and see the 2nd taxi drive by and then stop because of the car ahead of him. I rush out, he rolls down the window and I tell him, we need a taxi but have bags. I run back to the door and gesture to Cristina, Let’s Go! She scrambles out, chromebook still open and huge pink suitcase. Driver gets our bags in the car and takes us to this second location not very far away.

We wait for him to drive away so we can get our suitcases out of the street and with me still holding the laptop so as not to lose our turn in the hold queue, amble up to the open front door. We look at the list of occupants of what appears to be another office building but what is in actuality offices on the first floor and residences above and don’t see Downtown Apartments listed. Ah, but what is this, a plaque with their name off to the left detailing that they’re on the ground floor.

Cristina goes off to look and comes back, no success. I go, same deal. We carry our bags inside the hallway to wait for an expedia rep to answer our call while Cristina checks out the neighborhood on google maps. Her attempts to cheer me up with other suggestions are not working. I Hate This Place!!!

It’s now 1:45pm or so. I decide, Fuck Expedia! and hangup and ask Cristina for that third telephone number. I dial it as I would were I in the states and it rings, YES! A guy answers and I explain we need to check in but can find no one. He says he’s going to get an English speaker. I thought we were on hold by nope he’s hung up, so I call back and it’s busy. On a second attempt, I get a call. It’s Downtown Apartments. Yes, we emailed you 3 times yesterday to confirm he says. I respond, we’ve been travelling since the 4th so we haven’t seen emails.

Never mind then, we’re here and want to check in. He tells us the apartment is on the ground floor. Look for a white door with a white gate on the left with a plaque on the door that says Downtown Apartments and gives us the codes. Cristina goes to look but doesn’t find it. So I go. I find the door but the plaque is a damn hologram which you can’t read without special maneuvering. I enter the gate code and it unlocks, step inside, find the door to apartment 2 and enter that code and it unlocks. Hoo fucking ray!

I thank him and tell him see you soon as he’ll be here in a 1/2 hour. Cristina and I unpack and she heads into the shower asking if a nap is possibility to which I respond Yeah cuz I’m tired. Balasz knocks on our room door to welcome us, shows me how to use the electronic key card instead of the codes and collect the city tax of 5 euros for our 8 night stay.

My turn to shower, heaven. Off to bed we go at 4pm. I wake up every so often to noise in the hallway because this is not an apartment. It’s a bunch of rooms in an airbnb apartment.

We wake up around 2am. Cristina scopes out the area on her phone and I begin this post. I’ve been writing for an hour so I’ll end here.

All things considered, Day 1 hasn’t been so bad. Yes, I dwelt in my annoyance for a couple of hours but once we entered a warm room with hot water, the world was a better place again.

As I sit in JFK awaiting my connecting flight to Istanbul and thinking about what to write about today, I turn to Google Keep, my trusted thought-keeper. I saved a quote I saw on instagram several days ago and chose that as my inspiration.

The essence of this quote is at the center of my deeply held belief that self-awareness is key to a happy, emotionally-healthy life.

“Despite how open, peaceful, and loving you attempt to be, people can only meet you, as deeply as they’ve met themselves. This is the heart of clarity.” –Matt Kahn

How deeply have you met yourself? Do you like how you show up in your relationships? Do you leave your interactions feeling better or worse than when you began them and have you considered why that is? Do you surround yourself with a supportive and uplifting network of friends and family? How do you feel your upbringing has affected your beliefs about your potential to impact your world? What things set you off as you go about your daily life?

There are a million and one questions to begin to build your self-awareness practice. The level of your ability to know, love and accept yourself can serve as a clue to the quality and success of your relationships.

The last time I flew over the Atlantic, was on Air France and it was freezing. My poor fingers were blue and their blanket was doing nothing for me. I even felt bad for the flight attendants. Well, not tonight. I am bringing my own fleece blanket.

I spent a few hours yesterday saving maps and guides of the 4 countries my friend and I plan to visit; 140 pgs. Rather than tax my home printer, I sent the job to the professionals, Staples. I’m about to go pick up the job and a few last minute items before our flight tonight.

We arrive in Budapest on Thursday to a high of 49 degrees but it will be 8am so it’ll be more like 35 degrees and a 64% chance of rain. Luckily, the the 10-day forecast shows Thursday to be the coldest and wettest day of our trip with the rest of the day’s highs around 56 degrees. If you’re wondering why the weather forecast, it’s 74 degrees in Vegas.

I bought a new jacket which I thought would be too warm, thank goodness I kept it. It’s waterproof and fleece lined.

I’ll be bringing my chromebook to keep up with my daily posts but I couldn’t decide whether to rely just on my smartphone camera or bring my bulky digital camera. I bought it a long long time ago so it’s a little larger than the palm-sized cameras of today. I figure if I bring it, it’ll save my phone battery.

Okay, time to take out the trash for tomorrow and bring my plants over to my neighbors for watering, then a shower, wash my hair, run a few errands and head to the airport.

Talk to you in JFK during my 8 hour layover.

How vulnerable do I give myself permission to be? That was the question that opened the floodgates. I was on my ½ hour scheduled call with my wealth coach and I was discussing my next steps around putting myself out there to deliver value to my future clients and the subject of perfectionism came up in the last 15 minutes of our call.

I’ll be 38 in January and never once have I allowed myself to be anything less than capable. I strive for excellence in everything I do. If at first you don’t succeed, try try again has been an unwritten rule I’ve lived by and it’s clearly seen in my work product. Anyone who’s worked with me expects no less than the best possible outcome on any product or project I work on.

So, for the past year, I’ve been confounded by why I haven’t been able to get my coaching business off the ground. I’ve gone through countless training programs and acquired an amazing amount of knowledge and have ample personal experience to support why I’m good enough to help people gain self-awareness, heal from trauma, and create healthy intimate relationships and yet, something was holding me back.

In speaking with my coach, it began to dawn on me that I’d assigned different meaning to my ability to succeed intellectually than emotionally. Success in connecting emotionally, aka, in being vulnerable was alien to me and so I protected myself by building sky high fortresses against attack. Questions like “How would I be seen if this didn’t work out?” and “How would I feel about myself?” and “What would I make that mean about me?” sprung to mind and that’s when through all my mind chatter, I heard my coach ask “How vulnerable do I give myself permission to be?”.

All the air suddenly left my body in a sign of relief and unburdening. I vibrated with the realization that no one had placed any expectations on me and that it was all me and all I needed to do was let go and allow, give myself permission to be vulnerable. I’m stronger than the seven year old little girl who couldn’t fight off her rapist and I’m stronger than the nine year old little girl who desperately needed love and couldn’t say no to her molester and I’m stronger than the fourteen year child who ran from her attacker believing that in order to survive she had to be closed off and watchful, untrusting and afraid.

I built my fortress to shield and protect me but it became my prison, disconnecting me from my essence, a loving, giving, compassionate being, distancing me from experiencing true connection with other loving beings. I believe I stepped outside my prison in that moment and in doing so, the floodgates of pent up sadness, isolation, and burden of unnecessary expectations was opened up and released.

I am a wise and strong woman. I gently and tenderly care for my wounded inner child. I am freedom expressed. In my vulnerability, I find my voice and my strength. I am love calling out to you who are wounded, living in the world in isolation, desperately seeking love and validation and security from others telling you that joy and peace can be had from within.

Wonderful things can happen when someone holds space for you to safely step outside your self-constructed emotional prison. I will hold space for you.

My message, my purpose, this idea I sometimes fail to articulate, that emotional health is foundational to a happy, healthy, and meaningful life was revalidated just now after reading this article. Perhaps what I had failed to get across when speaking about the importance of emotional health was the tieing in of mental health. I think people understand mental health more than the words emotional health. I didn’t speak in terms of mental health because to me, mental health issues begin as emotional issues.

Let me be very clear about one thing. I am an not a mental health professional. I have never studied psychiatry or formal psychology. My training is in alternative healing modalities such as hypnotherapy, neurolinguistic programming, transformational life coaching and spiritual psychology all of which are flavored by traditional psychology and talk therapy.

I have personal experience with mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, panic attacks and addiction and in my opinion, speaking just for myself and what has worked for me, I have been able to move through these issues with the assistance of the modalities I mentioned before. This is why this subject matter is so dear to me. I am not ‘healed’. I am ‘healing’. My experiences have shaped who I am today. The knowledge I have today due to my experiences provide me a different perspective on the world and the people in it and I wholeheartedly believe that so many of the ills plaguing our world can be resolved with more focus on a person’s emotional health.

Too often, we focus just on physical health or what we can see that needs fixing. A holistic view of a person’s well-being takes into account their physical, mental, emotional AND spiritual well-being. While my main focus is on the emotional well-being of individuals, that one piece affects all other aspects of what it means to be a happy, healthy individual.

My healing journey began when I was in a low place, and I’ve been lower than that but it was a time when I was able to see more than just my suffering, meaning, I could imagine possibility if I just did something. That knowing is something I carry with me today when I talk with people who are stuck in their muck which is that I cannot pull them out until they are ready and they won’t be ready until they can see possibility. I believe it’s my duty to expose some of that possibility to them.

When I took the time to focus on my emotional health, I emerged a better person, a better employee, a better friend, a better daughter, a better sister and will be a better partner when I am ready to be in a relationship.

If you are interested in learning more about emotional freedom, I wrote a short ebook , A Beginner’s Guide to Emotional Freedom, on the subject and also designed a workbook to help you start your emotional freedom journey.

By the way, this post just poured out of me and I hope it reads well. Also, I’m celebrating 10 days of my personal challenge to blog daily for 30 days. Yay me!!

I am an aspiring multi-business owner and I was reminded of that dream today. The Wandering Lesbian is an endeavor to claim my writership, something I never claimed to be any good at, despite having ideas about penning lesbian short stories and my autobiography. During my 10-day blog challenge, I was able to get clear on the intention of this new endeavor which is to share how to achieve emotional health and live a life free from self-constructed destructive beliefs and behaviors as well as to continue to grow as an individual and share my travel stories.

The Wandering Lesbian is new but my dream of owning multiple businesses is not and one of the things I like to do is imagine said businesses in my mind, come up with business names, think up design ideas, etc. I’ll share my ideas with anyone who will listen and anyone who knows me well knows that I engage in more talking than doing when it comes to this dream.

For instance, my longest running business idea is to run a tea shop. The spark hit me soon after starting my Master’s program in 2005 while living in NYC. I love tea, drink it every day and I imagine a quaint, hip gathering spot for book lovers and tea drinkers to relax and enjoy a nice cup of tea. This tea business idea has gone through a lot of different versions in my head but two things remain constant; it would serve tea, obviously, and have a book exchange. I thought of calling it The Library.

I don’t plan out what to write daily and prefer to let inspiration guide me but today, I had no idea what I was going to write about but since I did commit to blogging daily for 30 days, the universe sent me some help. This morning, I got an email from Satori Holistic Wellness & Beauty, a holistic spa I visited a couple of times when I lived in NYC. I found it on Spa Week. I’ve been on their email list for years and though I haven’t been a client in close to 10 years, I still get emails every now and then.

I bring this up because another business idea of mine is a holistic wellness center & spa. In today’s email from Satori, they mentioned their location move in addition to some new services they provide and I’m falling even deeper in love with this place. They embody everything I would want my holistic center & spa to be. If you’re ever in NYC, I highly recommend a visit.

What services would I offer you ask?

• Hypnotherapy
• Spiritual Psychology
• Massage Therapy
• Nutrition
• Herbal Remedies
• Aromatherapy
• Yoga
• Mindfulness Meditation
• and a host of personal development workshops

I don’t have a name yet but I’m sure one will come to me in time.

I just woke up from a glorious nap. I went to bed around 12:30am and woke up at 6am for a 6:30am hike at Red Rock Canyon. The whole night before, I kept wanting to cancel the recurring meetup I had scheduled a few weeks ago. I only had one RSVP and facing the Grand Staircase again made me tired just thinking about it. I didn’t cancel though; I scheduled those meetups for a reason. I wanted to get back in shape and I wanted to get back into hiking again.

In 2013, I started hiking consistently with my LEZ Vegas in Motion meetup group as one of the members was an avid hiker and hosted beginner to advanced hikes. At the time, I was in ok shape but had gained some weight, about 30lbs less than I weight today, and wanted to experience some of Southern Nevada’s beauty. That along with a semi-strict Paleo diet and weekly volleyball, the weight melted off. I got introduced to scrambling, a cross between walking and climbing, sometimes using hands for leverage and maneuvering over rocks, and fell in love with it.

Scrambling is a full body workout, and I like it because it requires you to pay attention to your body. Last week, I took 5 other women on this hike and they loved it and as we were talking about the benefits of scrambling, I remarked that it reconnects you to your body.

I met Cathy on this hike. She’d just returned from a 2-wk trip in South Africa the day before and was surprised she wasn’t feeling any jet lag. We talked about our work and how much we enjoy working from home. She told me about her experience having lived abroad and I told her about my upcoming trip to Budapest and she said her parents were from Hungary, so, I took that as a positive sign.

We started our hike at the Grand Staircase but then decided to take a trail instead. We walked along the base of the staircase stepping over beautiful marbled rock formations and around cacti until we came to the Red Spring area and started climbing the ‘path’ there and made it up about 3/4 before coming back down. Below is a photo I took about 1/4 of the way up.

It was a beautiful morning and was only 70 degrees. The sun was shining, highlighting the deep red color of the rock, the air was fresh and I felt great. I got my workout in, met a cool lady, did some exploring and enjoyed the freedom nature abundantly provides.

I had finally had it this morning with my pigsty of a bedroom. I keep the rest of the house clean for two reasons, mainly because I hate cleaning so if I don’t start a mess, then there’s no mess to clean up and also because I do AirBnB.

While it’s really great, I also work from home. I had a separate office which I now use as a second guest bedroom and since my master bedroom is quite large, my office is also in it which means I have a lot going on in there so it gets messy. It’s amazing really that I let it go on for as long as it did because I can’t stand messy.

I got done with cleaning in about an hour and a half and put my laundry in the washer and as I hit here writing this post, I feel like a burden has lifted. Decluttering my live and work space has created a lot of breathing room. Because I hate cleaning, I don’t have to have it be the first and last thing on my mind every time I walk into my bedroom or before I go to bed, keeping me from focusing on the things that matter more to me at the moment, like writing.

Decluttering your physical space is no different from decluttering your emotional and mental space. Doing so allows in clarity, time, relief, a sense of accomplishment and the ability to see and focus on what really matters.

There’s no time like the present to reflect on the clutter keeping you from focusing on what’s most important and taking the steps to declutter.

I admit, I like to waste time playing games, sometimes thoughtful, sometimes silly games. There’s a game on FB games called Piano Bricks. It’s the familiar brick breaking game with a couple of differences, one being the sound of the breaking bricks are piano keys. It’s very soothing, if you like piano, which I do. I’ve become quite addicted to it over the past few days.

I not only play for the music but to improve my score. I’m up to 104 and I just realized there was a leader board and the best score so far is 150 and I think I can do it.

I bring this game up because my tenacity is playing it over and over again can also be applied to how I play the game of life. While I don’t consider there to be winners and losers in life, I do believe the quality of your life can be attributed to how well you ‘play the game’ and because I believe your only competitor in the game of life is yourself, the quality of your life improves as you learn better strategies for dealing with the curveballs life can throw at you.

I play the game of life in this way:

• Have no expectations of anyone or anything except improving how I ‘play the game’
• Play the game with fairness, respect, and compassion for others
• Seek to know myself and grow from every experience and encounter
• Be a positive, encouraging and supportive example to others in the game of life
• Focus on the present moment rather than the outcome or expected result
• Be open to learning new strategies for ‘playing the game’
• Be open to challenges to expand my perspective

How do you ‘play the game of life’?

I started my LLC, Conscious Creators, nearly two years ago. I had just finished my studies in Clinical Hypnotherapy, Transformational Life Coaching, and Aromatherapy and I was on a mission to change the world. I was recently transformed and wanted to share the magnificence of emotional healing with people just like me who were struggling in their lives and relationships.

I gave it a shot, I won’t even say I gave it my best shot but I failed and I failed fast and though I’d heard the saying, “fail faster”, when it happened, I felt like a failure. I didn’t want to go through that again. I thought to myself, I’ve tried and I’m just not cut out for this entrepreneur stuff, on top of which, I’d spent so much on quick fix schemes, many of which I feel certain are aimed at desperate new entrepreneurs who want to learn to do it right and have it all right now, that I’d spent myself into bankruptcy.

So I was done and I was miserable, again. This lasted for a couple months and I needed to go through that muck and then I was ready to try again but this time on my own terms, without a crutch. The attraction to shiny promises of success just didn’t hold the same power over me that they once had. I had learned my lesson.

This is the key to transformation, learning from life’s abundant lessons. But it’s a choice, to evolve or revolve.

The very thing I wanted to help other people achieve was the thing I saw myself shrinking away from, consciously creating the life and livelihood I desired. I was shrinking away because of fear and allowing defeat to define me. The decision to pick myself up was not conscious at first, it was fed by a knowing deep within me that I could not give up on myself. Despite my ups and downs and deeper downs, self-defeat was never a place I lingered in for too long. I’m not comfortable with mediocrity or self-pity or feeling dissatisfied. Once I became consciously aware of the discomfort, then I decided to take action.

That action was to start blogging and to take it slow and really figure out what I wanted out of life and how I wanted to make an impact. Once the decision had been made, opportunities began presenting themselves and all I had to do was say Yes. The first yes came in the form of Kyle Cease’s 2-day Evolving Out Loud seminar where The Wandering Lesbian was born. The second Yes came in the form of Natalie Sisson’s 10-day blog challenge that I finished yesterday.

I don’t know what more is coming but I know there is more coming and as long as I stay focused on being a conscious creator, opportunities will present themselves to me in abundance.

I did it! I’ve done it! Its done! Today is day 10 of Natalie Sisson’s 10-day blog challenge and I have to say I’m very proud of myself. It was a spontaneous decision to join this challenge and I’m very glad I did. I was going to wait to launch The Wandering Lesbian while I was in Europe but launching it now and in this fashion allowed me to really flesh out my intention.

My favorite challenge was from yesterday where I talked about location independence and how The Wandering Lesbian fit into that. I was able to really get clear for myself what the purpose is behind this blog and brand and it left me feeling not only excited but with a sense of direction in what my next step is which is to design a workshop, one I’m certain will go through several iterations as I develop my message.

Not only was it a clarifying challenge, it also relieved some of the doubt I had about writing, specifically what to write about and would anyone read it. I have followers!!! I was not expecting that and I’m so pleased people like what I’ve shared so far.

M biggest takeaway is ‘just write’ even if it’s short, don’t lose momentum. On day 7, I challenged myself to keep this going for another 30 days. Obviously, I intend to continue blogging but I hadn’t planned on blogging every day and it will definitely be a challenge without Natalie’s daily prompts.

Thank you for accompanying me on this journey, stick around, the best is yet to come. This is only just the beginning.

This blog post is in response to Natalie’s 10 Day Freedom Plan Blog Challenge Day 10.

As I imagine what my ideal live, work and play scenario is, I am reminded of the original conversation I had with a friend when developing the idea for The Wandering Lesbian and the details behind that original idea still holds true now and is especially fitting for today’s blog post about location independence.

Personal Growth

Personal growth, self-awareness, and self-discovery are not concepts I grew up with and only fairly recently realized the magnitude of the healing properties they can have on a person’s well-being and development, speaking from personal experience.

Around 8 years ago, I was 30 then, the stirrings of feeling unfulfilled began. I wanted something else, I wasn’t quite sure what, where or how but I began doing research. At the time, I was very lonely, had recently left a heterosexual relationship with my best friend and decided to begin living as the lesbian woman I felt I was inside. I had been working in corporate America for only 3 years, having received my Master’s degree in Library and Information Science and I just didn’t feel like it was the right environment for me. So I began looking at alternative schools. I had gotten an introduction to yoga and meditation a few years before in NYC where I had grown up and was completing my Master’s degree and I was interested in seeing where spirituality could fit into a future path so I researched yoga teacher training.

That led me Southwest Institute of Healing Arts (SWIHA) in Tempe, AZ. I browsed their course catalog and fell in love, fantasized about moving to AZ, going back to school and coming out happier and more fulfilled, working in a field that was calmer, freer and less stressful. At 30, I didn’t have much debt, only school loans, can’t even remember if I had a credit card but what kept me from taking action on this dream, was the lack of funds. You see, I wanted to be able to pay cash because I didn’t want to take out any more school loans, so the plan was to save up $15K, quit my job and move to AZ.

Well, as it so often does, life has a way of testing your resolve and if you’re like I was then, a people pleaser, never wanting to disappoint others, lacking boundaries and the ability to stick up for yourself, lacking self-trust, self-confidence, and self-love, when pushes, you give in and that’s exactly what happened. Work got more and more demanding, physically, emotionally and financially. As my salary grew, so did my expenses and my debt. I started living off credit, with 5 or 6 credit cards in my wallet, I didn’t know how to say No, I can’t afford to move here after having just bought a condo or take on these new responsibilities or No, I don’t feel comfortable telling someone not to come in to work tomorrow. Instead, I said yes and yes again and again and it took its toll on me and the relationships I tried to have.

When you’re broken, everything breaks around you, no matter how tightly you hold on, no matter how many promises you make. When you are not in touch with you are or what you stand for and are able to articulate what your needs are and demand they be met, life will trample you and that’s what was happening me. Life was happening to me and it sucked so bad and I needed to escape because my sanity was in danger.

Fast forward 4 years, I was finally in a position where I could work full-time from home and decided to leave a 2-year lesbian relationship that we both knew wasn’t going to work 9 months in and moved to Las Vegas, the city I’d lived in with my ex-boyfriend a few years earlier. I chose Las Vegas over two other choices, California or Arizona. Yes, I still had SWIHA on my mind but I wasn’t ready to make the big leap, I had no money and knew no one in AZ. Similarly, I knew no one in CA and heard it was expensive, so Las Vegas it was. I had some friends from when I lived there before so in a split second decision, 2 months before the lease on mine and my girlfriend’s apartment was up, I hitched a Uhaul trailer to the back of my Honda civic and drove cross-country.

I tell this whole preamble because 3 years ago, I was at a pivotal moment in my company. I had been consistently promoted, receiving top performance scores, was the go-to subject matter expert, well-paid, receiving excellent benefits and was absolutely miserable. I kept wanting to quit even if that meant working at McDonald’s or becoming a cocktail waitress making tips. I just hated my life. And then, an opportunity presented itself, one I initially said no to because I felt unworthy. My department’s director had nominated me for a 2-year leadership development program that provided outside career coaching and group facilitated training at our top-notch training campus. I said thanks but no thanks because I didn’t feel it was right to ‘use’ the company’s resources for selfish gain when in my heart of hearts I was just waiting for a miracle to happen to finally set me free.

What I didn’t know was that the miracle I was praying for was this opportunity and after a frank conversation with a colleague who had completed the program the year prior, I decided to accept the nomination, applied, and was selected and that was the best decision I have ever made in my life. As I write about this, I am reminded just how low I was and how high I felt following the series of events that followed as well as the ups and downs that followed the initial euphoria and how worth it it has all been.

The only coaching I knew about was on a playing field so the concept of career coaching was so foreign to me that I felt ill-prepared and a little closed off for my first in-person 4-hour session with my coach. Four (4) hours!!! It went by so fast and so much was revealed to me. The session wasn’t so much about where or how I saw my career but about how I was feeling, how I’d gotten there, how I imagined it could be different and what was possible to make it happen. It was freeing, revealing, shocking, and amazing. In those four hours, I decided to attend SWIHA and realized I didn’t need to quit to do it.

With courage I pulled from deep within, I strengthened my resolve, called my manager and told him I was giving my four-year notice. Yes, you read that right, I gave four year’s notice and explained, I was going back to school and following that would be planning my exit strategy. He said “okay, how can we support you?” I nearly threw up, I was perspiring like crazy and I could feel the blood pumping in my brain during that conversation. I don’t know what I expected, to hear no perhaps, or to hear yes but be walking on eggshells waiting for them to fire me because how dare I. So, when I heard “Yes” after articulating what I wanted and asking for what I wanted, I felt freed. That feeling I had been looking for the previous four years had been right there at my fingertips, literally, at the tip of my tongue all along, I just had to ask.

I enrolled at SWIHA a few months later, packed my bags and moved to Arizona, subletting my apartment in Vegas. During that year, I changed my focus 3 times from yoga teacher training to nutrition and finally to Hypnotherapy, Transformational Life Coaching, and Aromatherapy.

Completely experiential and immersive classes, hypnotherapy had the biggest effect on me, helping me release years of blocked emotions, self-sabotage, and destructive relationship habits. Transformational Life Coaching helped put into practice the skills of helping others find the same release I had found and Aromatherapy was just fun. I had tried my hand at making soap and bath products in the months preceding moving to AZ and felt that becoming a certified Aromatherapist would take my products to the next level.

I spent the following year attending several personal development seminars, really devoting myself to rediscovering who I was and the purpose I was meant to serve. Personal growth and self-discovery continue to be top of my priorities and I want to expand and explore that even more by connecting with people, sharing my experiences and wisdom and learning more about myself in the process.

Travel

The Wandering Lesbian has an aspect of travel to it. I love learning and why not combine my love of learning with travel because learning about people is my favorite thing. Give me food, culture, history, music, art, and architecture and I’m in heaven. The first of many adventures begins on Oct 6th – 14th, where I’ll be visiting Budapest, Vienna, Prague and a new city added to the itinerary, Bratislava.

Service

The ultimate goal of The Wandering Lesbian is to combine travel and personal development in being of service to others. Women like myself who have spent years feeling depressed, disconnected, alone, imprisoned, desperate for something to break the chains but not knowing what or how to find their wellspring of fulfillment and happiness, they are who I want to serve. I imagine traveling to cities and hosting freedom workshops, incorporating hypnotherapy and transformational coaching to begin breaking down those walls, releasing trapped hearts and minds, opening them up to the splendor life could be, a life they can create when they experience healing like I did and to be able to ask for what they want and let go of everything that is not serving their highest and greatest good.

With these three foundations, I can create a truly location independent lifestyle that combines my passions and serves a higher purpose.

This blog post is in response to Natalie’s 10 Day Freedom Plan Blog Challenge Day 9.

Coincidentally, day 8’s blog challenge called to do something fun and write about it. I usually don’t get to the day’s challenge until nighttime so I was pleasantly surprised to read today’s challenge because I in fact had spent my day doing fun things.

I spent the morning with new friends at a fantastic local coffeehouse in town, Sunrise Coffee, chatting about old classic movies, Las Vegas farms, upcoming Pride and other meetup events. I host this New Members Coffee once a month with my meetup group, LEZ Vegas in Motion.

Then I went bra shopping and I hate to admit it, having gained a lot of weight recently, my bra size has increased and just my luck, it was 50% off at Soma with a free pair of knickers. To continue on the shopping vein, I stopped off at REI to do a return and make a new purchase of a jacket (for my upcoming European tour), a pair of much-needed running/tennis/walking sneakers, and long hiking pants for my 6:30am hike tomorrow.

I visited my friend Mark for a bit, caught the end of a This American Life’s podcast, The Problem We All Live With, on integrated schools in Missouri and he loaned me a book he thinks I’ll like but I’m not so sure, David Weber’s Off Armaggedon. My reading these days has been on my kindle so I’ll be bringing sexy back falling asleep reading an actual book by lamplight.

On a whim, I decided to catch a movie, Don’t Breathe, which I’d been wanting to see for a while and it was playing at the right time and place, uncrowded theater reclining seats, edge of your seat type of thriller. I enjoyed it very much.

I then talked myself out of buying fast food for dinner and made couscous instead and heated up some chili-lime-cilantro chicken I made the day before.

Okay, so maybe not ‘fun’ in the usual sense of the word but rather a chill, laid-back, uneventful, unhurried kind of day, just the way I like my weekends.

This blog post is in response to Natalie’s 10 Day Freedom Plan Blog Challenge Day 8.

Today is day 7 of Natalie Sisson’s 10 day blog challenge and today, I get to choose an imperfect action to do for the next 30 days that will bring me closer to living my freedom lifestyle. I choose to continue blogging daily. So far, this challenge has been fun and encouraging. The daily prompts has made it easy to find a discussion point and to express some of who I am and what I’m about. The challenging bit, for me, will be to keep this up on my own once the 10 days are up without the daily prompts.

Since 30 days makes a habit and quitting is not an option, challenging myself to post daily will create the muscle memory required to succeed in this endeavor. I created this blog to share my passions and my wisdom. I have some ideas on what I will write about but I’ll just let inspiration guide my hand. And, if inspiration is lacking, I have a secret tool I can use to combat over thinking and perfectionism, my kryptonite.

The Wandering Lesbian will be in Budapest, Prague and Vienna Oct 5th-14th so for sure some of my blog posts will be sharing these beautiful cities with you.

This blog post is in response to Natalie’s 10 Day Freedom Plan Blog Challenge Day 7.

I’m excited about this post because I know exactly who I would love to mentor me. Today is day 6 of 10 days of Natalie Sisson’s blog challenge and she asks to write about 1 – 2 people who are living the kind of life I want to live and whose tribe I would like to be a part of.

Mara Glatzel

Mara is an intuitive guide and energy healer whose tenets are self-responsibility, self-trust and self-love. Mara inspires me because she is true to herself. She has become one with and loves herself. That is the number one reason I am attracted to what she represents. Self-love is one of the tenets of my beliefs. In my post, The Benefits of Self-Love, I speak about the four benefits to cultivating self-love; self-worth, self-respect, self-esteem, and self-confidence. Without self-love, the world is just a chaotic miserable place, intent on keeping you from achieving your desires. With self-love, your world is what you make it. Through the eyes of love, there is wonder, beauty and compassion in the world. I am also enamored with Mara’s style, in her writing, products and brand. If there was one question I could ask her, it would be, ‘how did you arrive at where you are today in your life and business?’

Kyle Cease

After watching Kyle from afar, i.e. the internet, I had the pleasure of seeing him live at his Evolving Out Loud 2 day seminar. I loved him before but developed a greater respect for who he is, what he does and how he inspires following that event. I left feeling not only inspired but motivated to take action and truly become the designer of my destiny. It was during that 2-day event that the idea for The Wandering Lesbian came about. Actor, Comedian and Motivational Speaker, Kyle lives and breathes the entrepreneurial lifestyle and he does it humbly, transparently and authentically. He’s funny, talented, creative and generous of spirit. What attracts me to him is his ability to take this thing called ‘personal development’ and make it real, practical and fun. If there was one question I could ask him, it would be, ‘how were you able to let go and become fearless?’

This blog post is in response to Natalie’s 10 Day Freedom Plan Blog Challenge Day 6.

My daily success plan happens first thing in the morning and begins with a meditation to ground me before I go out into the world. Meditation helps to center me, quiet the internal noise so I can hear my inner guiding voice. The messages I receive often provide the idea for a new blog post, a solution to a problem, a new idea, clarity from a lesson learned or confirmation I’m on the right track.

Next on my daily success plan is stating my affirmations, powerful and positive words to encourage me and create the frame of mind I need to continue moving forward in my purpose.

My daily success plan would not be complete without journaling. This is the time to get down all my new ideas, thoughts and feelings about any and everything. When I journal, I get into a state of flow and feel directly connected with universal wisdom.

My daily success plan also includes action steps. I have four goals each day.

1. Write one blog post
2. Read/research for at least one hour something in my field of expertise
3. Spend at least one hour on business development
4. Review my budget and financial plan

Last but not least, a must in my daily success plan is travel planning, researching fun, historical, cultural and interesting locales and capturing beautiful images.

This blog post is in response to Natalie’s 10 Day Freedom Plan Blog Challenge Day 5.

My superpowers are definitely cerebral. I think my greatest superpower is my ability to simplify the complex. I do that everyday at work. I find solutions to technical and procedural problems and I’m proud to say I do it well. This, coupled with my love of learning, is the reason I am a subject matter expert in my field and also what draws me to transformational life coaching.

The more I know about a topic, the more easily I can deliver solutions, shed light or bring clarity and awareness where before there was darkness and confusion. I like knowing the why of things, philosophically and technically. Human psychology, specifically how the conscious (physical) and subconscious (emotional) minds affect our states of being is a topic I’m very passionate about.

Solutions lie in knowledge and that’s why knowledge is power. – The Wandering Lesbian

Gaining an understanding of why my life and relationships were not working, through the transformational and holistic healing practices of Hypnotherapy, Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and Spiritual Psychology as well as researching human development, abuse, trauma and addictions was what I needed to begin letting go of the habits and patterns keeping from creating a life I desired and fulfilled me.

Another one of my superpowers which goes hand in hand with my ability to simplify the complex is my listening. I don’t mean being able to hear the drop of a pin from a mile away but my ability to not only hold space for the speaker but also to hear the unspoken or unaware truths being spoken.

A few months ago, I took a personality test on imperative.com and learned I was a Luminary which is very fitting based on the superpowers I described above. Here is the Imperative’s version of my superpowers.

This blog post is in response to Natalie’s 10 Day Freedom Plan Blog Challenge Day 4.

I wake up, sans alarm, from a restful sleep with rays of sunshine peeking through the curtains. I stretch, wash my face and brush my teeth and spend an hour in silent reflection after which I jot down any ideas I’ve had.

I spend 30 minutes moving my body, bringing life into my limbs.

I shower and dress and walk to my favorite cafe. I sit outside and I eat a light breakfast as I people watch and plan out my personal and business goals for the month.

I return home, log onto my computer, update my blog, check emails and meet with clients.

Time for a stroll. Taking along my journal, I get in my car and take a scenic drive out to the countryside. The mountains, the flowers, and the clear streams relax me.

I meet with friends for a late lunch and catch them up on the details of my latest wanderings. We go see a film, something subtitled.

It’s now evening and I have a date so I head to the spa for a facial, sauna and massage.

We meet for dinner, dessert, and conversation. It’s lovely and we make plans to meet again.

Returning home, I get into my PJ’s and climb into bed with my kindle.

This blog post is in response to Natalie’s 10 Day Freedom Plan Blog Challenge Day 3.

Your unique gifts & talents will be revealed to you when you take time to sit in silence and just listen.

Who are you when no one’s looking? Don’t wait to be her.

Emotional freedom is a choice and the choice is made when you accept you can’t escape from reality in fantasy forever. It’s the moment you decide to become captain of your own ship because you can’t go on living emotionally broken and dependent on others to validate and complete you.

Not so long ago, I made the pivotal decision to slowly transition out of my full time, high paying corporate job and leave a relationship that was distracting me from what truly mattered. Taking those steps were difficult and took courage but what was more amazing to me is where the courage came from and that was from a deep inner realization that I had lived my entire life wanting to please others in order to feel like a person who mattered.

I didn’t and still don’t quite know how I was going to live the freedom lifestyle but I knew my why was in helping women, who just like me are realizing a shift needs to happen in how they are living and in who they are living for, learn how to let go of the need to be validated and loved by things and people outside of themselves and learn how to become self-aware, self-loving, self-supporting, self-validating, and emotionally healthy creators of their lives.

The idea for this blog, The Wandering Lesbian, came to me during a morning meditation a few weeks ago while attending Kyle Cease’s 2-day Evolving Out Loud seminar. While I was sharing the idea with a new friend I’d made, the possibility of what this could be came flowing out of me.

I imagined combining my love of self-discovery and travel with meeting women all over the world and sharing this message that emotional freedom is a choice and that it can be achieved.

This blog post is in response to Natalie’s 10 Day Freedom Plan Blog Challenge Day 2.

1. Perfectionism
2. Feeling Inadequate
3. Financial Constraints

I suffer from the all too familiar and well-documented disease of perfectionism but don’t worry, the prognosis is optimistic. I’ve made some changes. For instance, I have a blogging buddy, we meet weekly to discuss our vision and plans for our blogs and work on our posts. Also, I’ve started a monthly ‘support group’ of women in my home around the theme of letting go and one of the things I want to let go of is perfectionism.

There’s nothing wrong in wanting things to work out or to be sure you’re doing the right thing or in the right way before doing it but when it gets in the way of actually doing, it’s a problem. My disease is as much procrastination as it is perfectionism and it is deeply rooted in the fear of being judged or appearing as lacking in expertise, knowledge, ability or potential. You see, my entire existence is built on my appearing to others as capable, strong, wise, knowledgeable and, yeah, perfect.

I know that no one is perfect and I am able to forgive myself when I make mistakes but making a mistake when others are watching is earth shattering. Feeling like I’ve disappointed someone or not lived up to someone’s expectations of me makes me want to run and hide in a cave and wait for the world to end in a catastrophic meteor shower.

I know things intellectually and I fear things emotionally and it’s a constant battle to choose faith and love over fear and I’m grateful that there’s a deeper part of myself that won’t let me give up; a deeper part of myself that knows there is something more I have to experience and share and that’s the purpose behind The Wandering Lesbian.

Growing up in adversity was one on hand emotionally devastating, leaving me feeling empty and disconnected to myself, untrusting of others yet desperate for their approval and validation because I didn’t feel enough; yet on the other hand, it served as the catalyst for becoming the brave, truth-seeking, curious and loving woman I am today.

The feeling of not being enough and not knowing enough also adds to my procrastination because I always want to gather more information before I can teach or serve or implement my many ideas.

Last but not least, 4 months into Chapter 13 bankruptcy, I had a rude awakening. More information gathering will not get me closer to my goal of becoming financially independent and has in fact made me even more dependent on a paycheck than I was before. The impulse to appear more than I am in the eyes of others has humbled me.

Even though, intellectually I knew, it wasn’t until my bankruptcy was confirmed that it finally registered that I couldn’t buy happiness and only because it was no longer financially possible. I was relieved and felt free the first month. Month two depression took hold. I was lonely, felt like a failure and saw the end of my entrepreneurial dreams. Month three I decided to write more and now in month four, I’m dreaming again.

There will be more challenges and I will overcome those as well and I will be patient and loving with myself.

This blog post is in response to Natalie’s 10 Day Freedom Plan Blog Challenge Day 1.