This week I will hand back the keys to the practice
where I’ve been offering reiki treatments. Long-time readers of my blog may
remember that 12 months ago, I took a massive leap of faith and committed to a
one-year lease on a room at a health and wellbeing practice here in Sydney. I
planned to offer reiki treatments two days a week (read that blog post here),
and hoped that I could grow a client base and eventually make this, combined with
my angel card reading service, a career alternative. It was a big financial risk… and
it has not, unfortunately, paid off. The very worst result that could have
happened – the one I was most afraid of – has indeed happened. And I’m OK with
that. Now.
For a long time I was not OK. In February it became
apparent that my business was not working.
That, on top of a (temporary but prolonged) drought in my primary source of
income, plunged me into a state of despair... not to mention debt.
When I realised there was nothing I could do but
watch money flow down the drain until my commercial lease ran out, the sense of
disappointment was immense. I had lovingly stacked my hopes and dreams, along
with significant sums of money, into this business, and it had not worked. I
had wholeheartedly trusted that having faith was enough to make my dreams come
true... and I was wrong. I couldn’t not see this failure as an indictment on my
skills and my worth. The failure of my business felt like
proof that I was a failure as a person. My inner bully’s cries of “I
knew you’d fuck it up!” were deafening.
Business leaders around the world consistently
describe the experience of losing everything as integral to shaping their
success. JK Rowling famously had her Harry Potter manuscripts rejected 12 times.
“I was the biggest failure I knew,” she said. When Bloomsbury Publishing took a
punt and printed her first three books, it warned her not to quit her day job.
As we all know, Joanne went on to achieve stratospheric levels of success. Yet
on 12 previous occasions, she had failed. It was not her moment to shine… until
it was. The Universe has a schedule all its own.
Failure is a blistering, heavy word. The most unhelpful thing
anyone said to me when I was coming to realise things were not turning out as
I’d hoped was: “Just think positive – it’ll all work out.” Please, never say this to
someone going through a significant challenge. It implies they’re not trying hard enough, that a lack of faith is
the cause of their struggle and that getting what they want is a mere case of
wishing for it (a wildly inaccurate interpretation of the law of attraction).
So, so unhelpful.
What *was* helpful for me as I licked my wounds was reframing the situation. There’s a difference between failing
and being a failure. The former means I haven’t had success yet; the latter
indicates I am flawed on a personal level. Once I understood the distinction
between the two – and stopped beating myself up – I found my way to a space of
acceptance. Instead of seeing myself as incompetent I was (eventually)
able to depersonalise the experience, and recognise failure as a necessary step
in my development. Brene Brown says: “Failure is an imperfect word
because the minute you learn from it, it ceases to be a failure.”
Although the Universe didn’t meet me halfway on this business plan, it
did issue me with an invitation to grow. Learn from this, and you’ll
become more resilient. Learn from this, and you’ll navigate future obstacles
better. Learn from this, and new doors will open up to you, opportunities better
than you could have scripted. The secret of life, as Paulo Coelho expressed so
exquisitely in The Alchemist, is to fall down seven times and
get up eight.
There are all sorts of reasons why my reiki
practice likely didn’t fire. It could have been the wrong area. It could have
been (and most likely was) simply the wrong timing. It was 100 per cent not
lack of skills nor lack of effort on my part. I know that I could not have put
anything more into that business. I have no regrets… now.
So when I take my certificates off the wall and
push my business cards through the shredder, I will remember the difference
between failing and being a failure. I will remind myself that I am not defined
or diminished by this disappointment. And as I let go of my expectations I will
hold space for shiny new opportunities.
Your move, Universe.