Managing the Panic Button

Amber:

Well we officially made it through the busiest Summer ever! We also had the most fun ever. Balance seems to be coming easier to me now. Thank you ladies!

At a time when I normally get a little depressed about the kids going back to school and having extracurricular activities – three mornings a week, and five evenings a week, with competitive hockey and gymnastics – I have taken the time to make a plan. Instead of feeling swamped and worried about fitting in the things I love I have scheduled those too. Days off are scheduled as well as horseback riding and so on. This has helped me look a little more forward to the year ahead.

Adrienne:

Awesome xo. Congratulations! Your business is settling really nicely into it’s “predictable” years. Up and on from here! That’s such an achievement. Most small businesses never get there. I’ve had both, and it’s an amazing feeling to be able to settle into the security part of being self-employed. The hard work is always rewarded by the freedom and the self determination, the money abundance is the bonus ha!

This resonates with me too. I just this minute woke up to two text messages. I went from having painting-leads to being booked until the 3rd week in Oct. The lead-jobs just became the bonus! This feels amazing. Amazing.

So much is riding on my painting business, and yet it feels like a lark! It makes me so happy, and at the same time it is always an underlying anxiety about the next job, or the opposite that I work like a maniac for two weeks straight. It’s feast or famine, with a side of two art shows this weekend, and plans to revamp my bead business for the Christmas season, which will mean steady bead making if it works. Yesterday, I got lost driving to the new track in Burlington. I was pretty proud of myself – more on that later whoop whoop! – that I have suddenly figured out how to integrate that easily into the day. I was so happy. Then, instantly lost. I was on the wrong road to begin with, took a wrong turn, and then another. Turned the car around through a giant intersection in rush hour (not in the total middle, but that would have been funny ha!), and then went back down the wrong road again because I thought I was just missing the turn. Then, ended up in this really beautiful subdivision, and had a “this is where I am going to live next” moment. Dammit. Then I made another turn, and realising I was in one of those creative moments, I knew I was going to get really lost and miss my running window. I stopped the car, got on my phone, got organised, turned around and started driving, knowing where I was going.

And then suddenly, the emotion… it was like being slapped in the face. How to get from where I am now, to this particular subdivision? I’m actually lost – like actually! It’s an expensive area, yet I got “the hit” and those are irrefutable. I had to pull the car over and make the instant, on the fly contingency plan. It always satisfies, because it’s just logical – get a “real” job – but it would also mean learning a whole new life. I’d be giving up the freedom part of being self-employed for the abundance of a “real job” in order to make my blogging community vision happen. I mean, what the hell would I wear? I’d have to start all over again and buy some office casual, which I’m not sure I can do because I have a long torso and short legs. So there, pulled over on the side of the road in this amazingly beautiful subdivision overlooking the lake, in order to quell the immediacy of the panic attack just about to happen, I made the commitment to myself that I would not give up. I did the “real job” math, had the practice opening line to a friend who can hook me up with a job almost immediately, and said, self, stop with the aversion to office casual; you think it looks good, Lia will teach you shoes. No more painting. I give up.

See what I”m saying? These are the actual thoughts I had in the space of 30 seconds. Then I got back on the road, found the track, and was instantly happy as pie. It was SO beautiful out. My run was fabulous, and I was just as suddenly off the charts happy. If I had checked my phone when I was finished my run, which I didn’t because I couldn’t field any more tasks until after I walked Molly (wanted that more), I would have seen that I was booked until mid-Oct.

And now, fewer than 24 hours later, I am reading your post, and seeing what I need to do – sooner than I had anticipated. Things are going too well. I know that sounds crazy, but I need to drop some fear around this feast or famine thing. I need to upgrade my contingency plan. A year ago, it was a job at Starbucks. No joke. That is the sacrifice I was willing to make in order to keep my vision on the road. Now, today, my contingency plan is completely different. It’s about abundance, feast, not lack and famine.

For me, with my tendency for blinding panic attacks, this logic is essential. In those times of sudden and random fear, when I pull the car over, I need to have the plan right in front of me. I’m thinking that plan on a piece of paper will be the new c-note I have in my wallet. Instead of keeping that $100 bill in my wallet to remind me of my dreams, I will have THE plan showing me that I am in fact over-abundant and I am living my dreams.

Yes – busy ha! Good busy. I”m looking forward to the year ahead too! P.S. It’s pretty exciting that Karson has a new teacher whoop whoop!!

Amber:

I know exactly what you are talking about.  I have run a successful business for years now but holy moly, I still hit that panic button.  That “what if I all of a sudden have a really bad year button”.  The thing is that panic button is harder and harder to find because I know better.  I know that no matter what, I am a survivor and I will figure things out should things go sideways, but guess what???  They haven’t gone sideways in fifteen years.  Things are only getting better and better and I am settling in to it easier and easier.  I am trusting life and I am trusting me.  You are doing the same so woohoo!  I do know this calls for a shout out because I have stressed myself out so badly that I’ve made myself sick for years for nothing.  That’s over or almost anyway and so I am grateful that you are heading that way too.  We are abundant.  Yes, yes we are.   Cheers to being booked until mid October!

Oh and yes both kids have amazing teachers this year.  Kadie has a lovely and kind teacher after hers passing away and Karson was able to choose his male teacher who is kind and understands active children as he has a boy the same age very similar.  I believe you know this teacher.  Another one of those moments of trust where we just trusted this would be a good school year with great teachers and it’s happening already.  Whoop whoop!