I wonder why you picked up this book. Maybe it’s because you're feeling trapped or you feel powerless in your own life or you’ve lost that spark, your ‘joie de vivre’.
Perhaps you have been feeling this call to show up and do something much bigger, much more different, even a complete 180-degree turn even though you don’t know where that turn is leading you. You just know a big change is looming and it’s got you a bit scared. Have you been stuck in this comfortable uncomfortable and know there is a big great fabulous life waiting for you if you just had the guts to pull the trigger and jump, fly, leap into the unknown and really show up for YOU!
If you’ve been, feeling there has to be more to life than this and you just can’t seem to figure out how to flip the switch and make it happen then keep reading. There is a magical unfolding of your greatest good, total fulfillment and happiness awaiting every woman reading this book. You simply need to be willing and open to doing some exploration, to try something new and maybe a little unorthodox. A willing and open mind is all that is required on this magical journey!
That amazing fulfilling life, high on happiness and gratitude flow where everything just shows up for you; lining up to deliver amazing synchronicities and magical encounters, income spikes, the perfect opportunities, great relationships, money, that fabulous new career, YOU name it. It exists! It unfolds for you on a silver platter when you show up and say, yes to God! I don’t want you to be all freaked out by the word God, so use Universe, Higher Power, Source Energy, whatever you want to call that power. Ok?
I want to share with you my secret recipe for taking your Power Back and putting it where it belongs with God and your relationship with the source that creates worlds - and when you do - the sky is the limit!
I know what it’s like to feel dull, stuck in a total rut in that comfortable uncomfortable and afraid that you couldn’t make something better for myself. Imagine making $900 a day selling mops while doing live product demonstrations in chain stores across Canada for 4 years. Sure, I was the best sales person in the company although, I was watching time go by, praying for each day to end because I had to be stuck working in a store, inside a mall on a gorgeous day while always working for someone else.
No matter how many courses I took on personal development that promised huge cash generating results, I couldn’t seem to get my own coaching and consulting business off the ground. I was totally stuck, terrified and frustrated. I know that I was meant to be doing more than selling these darn mops but I couldn’t piece it together. I simply couldn’t break free from that job where I was making a good living but not fulfilling my purpose. I had to learn how to take my Power Back.
Back in the summer of 2009, my on-again off-again ex-boyfriend of 8 years nearly killed me in a drunken rage in a hotel room on his birthday because I didn’t want to have sex with him. Actually, truth be told, I was drunker than a skunk myself. We were both out of our minds escaping the ugliness and craziness of our lives. I remember being thrown across the room. When I opened my eyes I was on the floor with my face two inches away from a big vase - you know one of those big ceramic flower vases, hip height and 3 inches thick. That’s when I thought to myself holy smokes Vanessa, two more inches and you could have been killed. Well that sobered me up pretty fast.
I escaped from the hotel room thanks to the knife that we used to cut our limes. Thank God, for vodka cranberry drinks because I had that knife to protect myself. In reality, I could have just as easily killed him with that knife. Thank God, I didn’t or this would be a very different story. When I escaped into a taxi, it hit me all at once. I had just become one of those battered women you read about in the newspapers. I wanted to know, how did my life end up like this? The next question I asked myself was, “God why is this happening to me?” The reply was immediate just like a domino effect with all of the pieces clicking into place.
God’s answer was, “So you can help women not fall into the same patterns,” and that terrified me. It scared me more than what had just happened in the hotel because for years I had been asking the Universe for a meaningful way to serve.
“Please God show me how to serve, show me my purpose, I am ready, who are my clients, what’s my mission, what’s my offering, my tag line, just show me what to do and I’ll do it. I surrender!”
This went on for years. I kept asking, begging and pleading with God to send me a real sign, some clarity, anything but selling any more of these freaking mops!!
Well when the answer finally arrived, I was horrified. All I could respond with was, “You’ve got to be shitting me! You want me to share this shameful story with the world, all the shame and guilt, this crazy roller coaster relationship, all the addiction and the darkness. Are you kidding me?!”
I have this tag line in my previous book From Bankrupt to $900 a Day Selling Mops and on the book cover, “Authenticity is the new currency in business today.” (S., ed. 2011) Ya, thanks - you want me to be that authentic?! Talk about swallowing your own pill of advice!
Well I decided, “I can’t do it. There’s no way.” I was like, “I take it back, I don’t want this mission, rewind, cancel the request, I don’t want to do this, what will people think of me?”
Instead, of answering the call, I sat on the story for a few years.
A good friend of mine after hearing the story told me that God sends you wake up calls. The more you ignore them the more intense they get. She said, “Vanessa just remember, to ask God for toothpicks now instead of 2 x 4 wake-up calls.”
That night was a serious 2 x 4 upside the head wake up call!
For years, I had been successful keeping up this happy mantra and insisting to myself that I had it all together. I kept everything together in my relationships just as I kept it all together in my family and as long as I was in control of it all, it was all good.
That night was my wake up call and in that moment when I heard the message, I made a decision. I decided that this was going to be the year that I heal everything in my life! I’ll heal it all. I would go into all the places that are dark, that I had been avoiding, delaying, procrastinating on with no holds barred, no excuses, just do it, heal it all in one year and the most amazing things happened.
I launched my successful coaching career and was invited to teach at a prestigious ‘Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED)’ talk on success in Costa Rica. I took my new portable freedom based business on the road; sky rocketed my hobby from $600 a month to $15k per month and moved to Hawaii. Now I tell people that this Canadian traded in her red shovel for a red bikini!
All kidding aside, I have an amazing life and business now, my relationships are fulfilling and I live in paradise usually with as little clothing as possible. Because I love living in the tropics, I get to enjoy plenty of time to play on the most stunning beaches in the world, hike and adventure out in this lush playground and magical enchanted land called Kauai, Hawaii, which is my absolute favorite place on earth.
People always want to know what happened to the ex-boyfriend. Well he came back to apologize after the weekend was over even though it wasn’t even necessary. I had forgiven him in that moment in the Taxi. Boom, it all made perfect sense.
This man I had been in a relationship with for a total of 8 years whom I couldn’t for the life of me leave, whom I would leave and always go back to, feeling like a prisoner with everything decided for me and doled out to me! On a very fundamental level, I knew it wasn’t where I should be, yet I couldn’t break away from him, and from his family and the only somewhat normal community I had.
I believe we have contracts with people before we come into this world with predestined agreements with your self and with these people. In the book by Carolyn Myss, Sacred Contracts she explains in depth what is meant by a sacred contract.
“I believe that each of us is guided by a Sacred Contract that our soul made before we were born. That Contract contains a wide range of agreements regarding all that we are intended to learn in this life. It comprises not merely what kind of work we do but also our key relationships with the people who are to help us learn the lessons we have agreed to work on. Each of those relationships represents an individual Contract that is part of your overall Sacred Contract, and may require you to be in a certain place at a certain time to be with that person.” (M., ed., 2003)
This man’s contract was to wake me up to myself, to my own power. No matter that, I may have killed him with the knife. I am not pretending for one minute I wasn’t angry, totally out of control and no matter what, he was going to wake me up. What a mission to undertake and what a blessing he gave me, an entire business, a movement and a message that I had been begging God to deliver to me all along?!! Wow! It was right under my nose all along!
While I was giving my power away stumbling around in that relationship, consumed and drained with all the problems, I had a great excuse for why I wasn’t living my purpose. I was totally consumed about taking care of him, the relationship and my family issues. As soon as I let go of the relationship and began focusing my attention on my relationship with God, everything changed. What an amazing God to have pre-calculated all of this in advance! I mean come on!
No matter where you are in your life, maybe you hate your job, you’re stuck in a bad relationship, you live with weirdo roommates in a bad part of town or you drive a crock boxcar, whatever it is, just know that God has your back. Everything changes in that moment you decide to take your Power Back and stop giving into fear, worry, self-doubt and all of the separation the ego causes. When you take your Power Back, have the courage to show up and place it in God, listening to that small voice of intuition; when you love yourself enough to honor and obey that above anything else, when you discover who and what you really are, as the child of a loving God that wants to give you the world and you say, “Yes!” Wow, hang on because you are in for the ride of your life!!
If you’re stuck and don’t know what to do, where to go or how to begin - start by asking for a sign. Whenever I am unsure about my next step, I begin wheeling and dealing with God.
God has a sense of humor and wants to give you the world. I wheel and deal with God by saying to myself, “Hey God if you want me to do xyz then show me a sign, show me the money, give me this or that or I’m not doing it! Show me, open the way and open the door when the doors are shut. Show me how! Make the signs clear and easy to understand. Let your will be done not mine.”
Have the courage to hear the sign too, unless you want a big fat 2 x 4 wake up call upside the head… have the courage to act on these signs. Yes, you will need courage. Listen I will be the first to admit in big pink flailing letters that showing up and saying yes to God is anything but convenient! Do it, no matter what because it is Oh, so worth it!
When you put yourself first, when you love yourself more than needing others approval, or stop looking for happiness outside yourself and begin to open up to that source coming from you, guiding you - you stop being a victim and start really living and creating the life of your dreams. It goes even beyond your dreams.
That’s my invitation for you in this book. Take your POWER BACK and thrive in every area of your life, business and personal relationships because you are creating it with every decision you make.