The time has come to heal my inner child. I pulled out photographs when I was very young. Photographs my mom had collected over the years and decided I should have for myself several years ago. Sometimes I take them out to show my kids what I looked like at their ages. Today I looked more deeply at the photographs as I placed them on my bed, choosing just the right one to accompany me on this journey of healing.

Day 8

Draw myself as a child? Yep. That’s part of my writing exercise. I know I’m an artist and have been an art teacher, but I am not too fond of drawing myself or the drawing I just did of little me (Geesh – negative self-talk!). I used a pen, and it was a very quick drawing. After the drawing, I have to ask some questions and rely on my intuition for the answers. Here we go –

• What do you like? I like Barbies, riding my bike, and playing outside.
• What do you dislike? Being alone in my room at night.
• What frightens you? Older men, the dark, aliens.
• What do you need? Love.
• What can I do to make you happy? Love me like a mother would. Spend time with me.

Those last few got to me and stirred up emotions.

Day 9

I hate to admit this – I half-assed today’s exercise. I read it, but just didn’t do it.

Day 9 (Redo)

When I was little, I loved to play outside. My brother and I rode our bikes all over the place. Sometimes with the neighbor kids in our elementary school, and other times just the two of us. In the winter we took our sleds down the hill behind our house or played in the dark during a snowstorm the night before school called off. In the summer, we swam at our family’s pools. I liked playing with my brother because he was good company. When I was by myself, I loved playing with my dolls in the dollhouse my uncle made for me. I liked jumping on my bed pretending I was an exercise instructor, of course, until my mom yelled at me to stop jumping on the bed.

As I grew older, I liked to read books like The Babysitter’s Club and Goosebumps. I started loving singing and drawing more and more. I could spend hours in my room with my drawing board and pencils, and probably just as much time memorizing lyrics to my favorite songs. I also loved keeping the house cleaned and moving furniture around, more than the average teenager.

Day 10

Today’s reading and journaling exercise focused on pain – physical or mental. I am going to write about my recent illness spanning a good 3 weeks. I’ve learned, beyond this book, that stress can physically manifest in the body. I believe this to be true and experienced it. When this cold entered my body, I was also battling fear and controlling thought patterns. Synchronicity. I made some big breakthroughs, raising my own awareness when my inner voice began controlling my mind and urging fear to raise hell in my thoughts. I persisted and decided I had enough and fought to redirect those fear-based thoughts when they appeared.

As part of my journaling today, I am making an action plan to navigate fear and replace it with confidence and peacefulness. My fear loves to challenge the plans I have for my career future. Here are the steps I plan to take to boost confidence and replace fear with peace and calm:

• Continue to discuss my fear openly with my life coach, feel the feelings, break old thought patterns, and replace them with healthier ones.
• Take a business course. I know how to coach, but my experience teaching art didn’t give me the “how” I need to launch a thriving business.
• Read and listen to books and podcasts about money mindsets, abundance, and entrepreneurs.
• Surround myself with people in the career I am moving towards.
• Meditate daily.
• Say mantras.
• Visualize and feel my future.
• Shed my art teacher identity in bits, so that I am not overwhelmed with the loss.
• Express gratitude.
• Continue to take clients who want solutions I can help them achieve.
• Serve others.

Some steps of this action plan I have already implemented. It’s exciting to take mini-power steps towards achieving my goals and celebrating the small miracles along the way.

Day 11

Releasing anger is the focus this morning. I have held onto anger and resentment for years. Thankfully, I’ve processed and released quite a bit of those feelings regarding my childhood. There are still thoughts and circumstances lingering in my heart, waiting to be released as well. In my exercise today, I spoke to myself in the mirror as if I was talking to one of the people I am angry with. I addressed so much that I haven’t been able to in person without the anger taking over the conversation. It is evident that I have to continue repeating this exercise with this person so I can release the anger once and for all.

In my journaling activity, I am taking a deeper dive into anger. Questions in the book have already been asked of me in the last several months of my NLP coaching sessions with my coach and classmates. My answers remain the same. I am holding onto anger because it is comfortable, despite how awful the feeling makes me. I have had an intimate relationship with anger since my childhood, and I am working to process it in healthy ways and to release it. Yet, I still have some kinks to work out. What am I doing that continues to attract in others the need to provoke these feelings? Why am I punishing myself by allowing anger to escalate in these moments?

Before I respond to these questions, I need time to sit and think, giving space for myself to look inside and reveal what’s really going on. Is it fear? Fear that I’ll lose people I love? Fear of failing in my future? Fear of change?

What is it I really want for my life right now? Maybe if I consider this question, my responses from the previous one will appear.

• I want harmony.
• I want to be able to communicate my feelings in a calm manner without them taking charge instead. I don’t want the spotlight to be on my negative feelings.
• I want to feel confident in the decisions I am making for my future that it brings confidence to those around me.
• I want to be decisive.
• I want to be trusted that I know what I am doing and am taking actionable steps towards success. I’m focusing on personal development, recognizing my blocks, and responding to them because this is so incredibly important to me right now. I’ve spent my entire life not knowing myself, not knowing how to communicate my feelings, and it feels good when I see that I’ve reprogrammed myself and stepped toward the healing light.

This is what I want for my life. I want to stand in my truth, living purposefully in my journey moving forward.

Day 12

There is power within fear, and today in my mirror work, I am taking steps to overcome it. This morning I stood in front of the mirror, grappling with a big fear present in my life right now. I talked to myself like a trusted friend. I could feel fear creeping into my body and surging through my body making me worried and nervous, just by acknowledging the fearful thoughts swirling in my mind.

During my writing exercise, I am tasked with identifying big fears in regards to family, career, health, relationships, and finances. I compare them to worse-case scenarios. Here they are:

• Family: I fear a broken, disconnected relationship between my children and myself.
• Career: I fear taking a leap of faith into the unknown and failing miserably.
• Health: I fear disease that would take my life, causing it to be short.
• Relationships: I fear the feeling of isolation, without loving relationships and connection.
• Finances: I fear having to live in poverty, much worse than I experienced growing up, unable to pay bills, feed my family, or provide food and shelter.

Turning my negative affirmations into positive affirmations:

• Family: The connection I have with my children will always be rooted in love.
• Career: I am surrounding myself with support systems, establishing a foundation in coaching, personal development, money mindset, and business in order to make informed decisions about the future success of my business.
• Health: I will take care of my body from the inside out and live a healthy life for as long as I’m meant to live.
• Relationships: I surround myself with loving family and friends.
• Finances: I will take action to live in abundance.

Day 13

I enjoyed today’s reading, exercise, and overall messages. The topic focused on morning routine and setting your day up for success. About 6 weeks ago, I changed my morning routine but recently have felt that it needs another revision. Today’s message may be perfect timing.

For the longest time, my morning routine looked like this:

• 5am: Wake up, drink water, take my medicine and vitamins
• 5:15am: Watch the local news in the dark living room while sipping coffee and eating my breakfast
• 5:30/5:45am: Start getting ready for work
• 6:00am: Wake up kids, get them breakfast, dressed, ready to leave for the babysitter’s home
• 6:30/6:45/7am: Depending on which of the 3 schools I’m at for the day, I hit the road for work

I began feeling overstimulated, and in fact, I started complaining about how loud the volume was on the radio, tv, others’ devices, etc. 6 weeks ago, I made a change to my morning routine. Now it goes like this:

• 5am: My alarm goes off. I stretch and focus on my breathing while still in bed. (Sometimes that backfires and I’m so groggy I fall back to sleep)
• 5:15am (or 5:30 if I’ve fallen back to sleep): Rise from bed, drink water, take medicine and vitamins, prepare coffee
• For the next 20-30 minutes, I sit in the dark living room, drinking my coffee, doing breathwork, visualizing, thinking of positive affirmations, setting my intentions for the day
• Afterward, I eat my breakfast at the table and read a book
• About 40 minutes prior to our departure, I wake up my kids, get them fed and ready, and finish my own morning prep.
• We leave for the babysitter’s home within minutes – give or take – of our normal leave time, depending on which 3 schools I am at for the day.

I know my routine needs to be tweaked and improved. Here’s my proposal:

• 5am: My alarm goes off. I apply Mel Robbins’ 5-Second Rule and rise from bed. I had been doing that right before the pandemic, and then it went to sh*t just like everything else in our household’s routines.
• Drink water, take medicine and vitamins, prepare coffee
• For the next 20-30 minutes, I sit in the dark living room, drinking my coffee, doing breathwork, visualizing, thinking of positive affirmations, setting my intentions for the day
• Afterward, I eat my breakfast at the table and read a book
• Write
• Continue routine as stated above

Not too many changes, but I know I’ll find better success to implement small steps. The two areas of improvement that need to be addressed include getting my butt out of bed when my alarm sounds and writing in the morning.

Day 14 – Review of the second week

I feel like I have been making major progress. In today’s exercise, I revisit one of last week’s journal entries. In it, I expressed how fear is creating some blocks for me moving forward. Fear has a way of doing that to us. After the second week, I feel more confident in my dreams for the future. I realized that in order to overcome fear, I have to educate myself. Knowledge is power, right? It is for me. I recognized some of the ways fear had a hold on me. To overcome it, I began searching for the resources and networking with others who could inform my steps towards success. As a result, I made the decision to take a huge step that will lead toward exactly what I want in the next chapter of my career. I can’t wait!