I should have trusted my gut
I should have listened the first time
A few weeks ago I went to Cathy Heller's summit in Hollywood. It was a two-day event with an optional VIP day.
When registration opened, my immediate reaction was, "Of course I'm doing VIP." Not because of the agenda. Because it felt right. VIP is a vibe, and for whatever reason, I knew I was supposed to be there.
Then my brain got involved.
The VIP agenda looked okay. My accountability buddy wasn't doing VIP either. I started talking myself out of it and signed up for just the two-day summit.
The moment I arrived, I saw the updated agenda for the VIP day. It had changed. It was now a full day.
The second I looked at it, I knew.
I was supposed to be in that room.
My first thought was, "Shit."
Cathy had told us it was sold out. I could have said, "I'll do it next year." But this entire year has been about learning to trust myself. I've spent months doing the work to break through my income ceiling, and one lesson keeps coming up over and over again.
Your intuition whispers.
Your mind argues.
Your mind's job is to keep you in what feels familiar because familiar feels safe.
If I was serious about becoming the person capable of creating the life I want, I couldn't ignore that whisper. So during the break, I walked over and asked if there was any way I could still join.
The answer was yes.
Then came the harder part.
I had to call Scott and ask if he could handle one more day at home. And I had to call Bailey.
She was already sad that I was leaving for a few days, and now I was telling her I wasn't coming home when I originally planned.
That decision lit up my nervous system.
Not because staying one more day was wrong. It was because it challenged one of my deepest patterns: it has to be me.
I carry a lot of the day-to-day responsibilities in our family, but this belief didn't begin when Bailey was born. It started when I was a kid. So choosing my own growth instead of automatically choosing to be the one who handled everything forced me to confront that old pattern again.
This year I've been peeling back layer after layer of these limiting beliefs. Just when I think I've cleared one, another layer shows up.
The first day of the summit, I was so activated that my stomach hurt. It swelled so much I looked three months pregnant.
For months I thought this swelling was something I was eating.
Instead, I realized my body had been giving me a completely different message.
My stomach is one of the ways my body tells me I'm out of alignment with myself. When I ignore what I know is true, when I override my intuition, my body lets me know.
The biggest lesson wasn't that I needed to attend the VIP day.
The lesson was that all of the pain came from not trusting myself the first time.
If I had listened to my gut when registration opened, everyone would have expected me to be gone for four days. There wouldn't have been last-minute phone calls. There wouldn't have been guilt. There wouldn't have been all that nervous system activation.
My intuition already knew.
My mind just needed to catch up.
Trust your gut.
Listen to the whispers and move.
Your intuition is often leading you toward the next version of yourself long before your mind can make sense of it. If you wait until it feels comfortable or logical, you may end up creating the very discomfort you were trying to avoid.
I'm learning that the fastest path isn't overthinking.
It's trusting myself.
Disclaimer: I am an educator, not your personal financial advisor. Please make sure to do your own research before moving forward with any actions discussed in this blog post.
Know that all investments involve some form of risk and there is no guarantee that you will be successful in making, saving, or investing money; nor is there any guarantee that you won't experience any loss when investing. Always remember to make smart decisions and do your own research!