When we do not stay in touch with the divine assignment given to us, things can spiral. During the 14 years of living the journey of entrepreneurship with Matt my faith has been questioned more times than I can count. I’ve had to face my ego and I’ve questioned my purpose over and over again. We do not find ourselves in the peaks – we find out who we really are in the darkest of valleys. Our ego tells us, “I got this. I don’t need anyone.” I had to get to a place where my inner light was brighter than my ego.
The problem with being pushed around by the loving hands of the universe is you can let yourself be hardened. You can get a heavy chip on your shoulder. I wasn’t living up to my potential, I wasn’t listening to that small voice inside me trying to get me to answer my calling. When you ignore the universe bad things can happen. For real!
For me I got sick. Not coughing fever sick, but mentally sick. I stopped believing in what could be, I stopped dreaming. In fact, the mere thought of thinking about what could be made me want to cringe. I wanted to run. Not put my tennis shoes on and go for a jog, change my hair color, buy a ticket, board a plain kind of run.
Matt and I use to look at huge multi-million dollar homes and dream. We would talk about what we wanted to do in the future, but I no longer wanted to play the dream game. What was the point? I had such a negative dialog playing in my head that I had no time for dreaming.
This was so frustrating to Matt. He saw me disappearing, the light inside me getting dim and he would try in the best way he knew how to reach me but nothing worked. Our paths were dividing. He felt like I wasn’t believing in him anymore. The truth was I didn’t believe in myself. We would have arguments and he would say I was one of his “haters.” Do you see how the mindset had shifted. It was no longer ours, but “his” what he was doing. We truly did not know how to communicate.
This was very painful because I wasn’t a hater, I was hurting, and I wasn’t fulfilled. I was taught at a conference we went to that people can have stuck energy. When we have stuck energy we lash out and react in negative ways to get this energy out of us. I would get so upset and not even know why. I was literally uncomfortable in my skin. I now know it was my stuck energy. The feeling of being unfulfilled in my life was eating me up. Seeing Matt’s success didn’t make me mad at him or resentful of him or his success. It made me angry because I was being faced with my own disappointments and seemingly lack of success.
Assumption and lack of communication is a relationship killer. As an entrepreneurial family your safe place is your home. When your home has negative energy you will seek out a place of calmness. This is why it is so important to know how to speak to each other and share how you’re feeling. Matt and I now know how to communicate in a way that we can both feel we’re being heard and understood. Here are some other amazing things that we learned and realized during the quest to find our path again.
- We realized that we couldn’t read each others mind and everyone perceives differently. If you need something you can’t expect that they will just know. Tell them what you need.
- We learned how to listen, truly listen. Not halfway listen only to sit waiting on the other to finish so we could speak.
- We are best friends and we started making a conscious effort to speak to each other as such. You wouldn’t treat your best friend with anything but respect and you would give them your best, right? Why wouldn’t you do the same for your spouse?
- We grasped the concept of the shared vision, we again realized this entire entrepreneurial journey was for us and our family. We got back in touch with how we were in the beginning. It stopped being his or mine and became ours.
- We agreed to travel together. This meant if there was an event or function we would only go if we could both attend. This helped in many ways. If you go to an event and get motivated and come home and your spouse is not on the same level of inspiration it is a little bit of a buzz kill. This can completely demotivate and derail any momentum you might have had. You must share the excitement, motivation, and connections you make when you travel.
- We read the book The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. This book seriously opened us up to what we really needed in order to feel loved. It helped us find the tools that were necessary to give in a way that would create a loving marriage.
What really happened through all of this is we came to a place where we laid our ego aside and really appreciated who we were married to. I like my husband. This I feel is better than love. You can love someone you really cannot stand to be around, right? I like him. I like the person he is, how he treats people. I like the father that he is to our children. It took some growing throughout the years, but how amazing it has been.
