Taking My Time Back & A Transformative Session
Are you currently a Pathway Member?: No
What was on your manifestation list?:
-High profile gallery shows in major cities
-High profile reviews of my shows
-Selling out my shows
-Quality press opportunities
What workshops did you use and what blocks did you discover during the DIs & workshops?: Unblocked Money, Uplevel, Unblocked Inner Child, and Authentic Code.
I came to find out that I had a block about how I would manage my time/resources/schedule to produce the best artwork possible when that BIG opportunity comes. I have a busy family life where my attention is pulled in a lot of directions due to my husband and children. I was fearful of how I would organize my life to support the focused studio time I needed to rise to certain opportunities. It felt like those who had reached the heights I aspire to came from wealth and didn't have traditional family obligations.
What expanders did you find?: Mainly other female artists - or filmmakers or other creatives - who have children and make a lot of money selling their art and are seen as the top in their field. But also, celebrities who are comfortable with having their image and face available for public consumption.
What tests did you face? Which did you pass? Not pass?: I faced two big tests "themes" over the past year:
1 - Would I allow my focus to be disrupted and my time to be broken up into many smaller sections by internal and external forces that actually don't matter? Some of these forces would include self-doubt, distraction, fear, unhealthy competitiveness/comparing, too much texting/time on IG, overly serving my family. I got a lot of tests in this area as I continued to gradually secure my energy for myself and set boundaries around how frequently I respond to other people (via text or DM). I found that I started to have much more time to focus on my work.
More importantly, I began to have long stretches of work time each day, which is critical to pursuing a sustained inquiry into a single pursuit and reaching excellence (one of my authentic codewords is: Mastery). When I valued my time, others also valued it as well and - especially my husband - began to make more offerings to be with the children so I could have work time. As I began to make the sales and connections, he was also excited for me/us, and my pursuit became, even more, a "family pursuit." One of my blocks was around the belief that most successful artists come from wealth and essentially have had a team of people nurturing their ease and creative growth from birth.
I changed my perspective to view my husband and children as my AWESOME team, and that has healed some of that limiting belief around my apparent lack of privilege. Valuing my time also naturally led to comfort around outsourcing tasks that degrade my work time. I'm not necessarily talking about paying people to do things (though that helps, too), but more around other duties - for example, I am the room parent in my child's classroom, and there was an item needed for a class party. It would have eaten up an hour of my time to plan for/buy/drop-off this item...so instead, I asked another mom if she had this thing and if she could take it to the school.
She quickly agreed, no problem. Of course, I still felt terrible asking her because part of me felt like a failure for not fulfilling my room parent duties on my own - but overriding that impulse of perfection and asking her to take care of it helped build my deservingness around my own work.
2 - The second major test theme was around my self-worth/deservingness for these larger gallery opportunities. I did a 1:1 coaching session with Atarah that was critical to securing my most challenging manifestation: working with a gallery that felt very intimidating to me. He gave me customized homework that was specifically targeted at dissecting my expanders. I journaled about a new expander every single day for an entire month.
That showed me very clearly that the common theme among these people is a quiet deservingness, or inner core of self-assuredness, around their gift - and their external circumstances and opportunities seemed to match that high level of self-regard. In doing that month-long focused research project on my expanders, I think I began to inhabit that way of being, or at least the ability to fake it when faced with intimidating situations. I passed a series of tests where I set a boundary around what I expect in the gallery partnership, and they rose to my expectation.
Did you experience a magic dark period? If so, tell us about it.: Yes, there were two magic dark periods. In both, I had felt like I had several solid "leads," and I was just waiting for one of them to "stick." It was so painful to wait! I threw myself into my work with the expectation that once something comes through, I will need to be ready and in top shape mentally to handle the up level. Atarah taught me that action is very important for me, so no matter how I felt (shitty, filled with self-hatred and doubt, cursing fate), I would work work work, and improve the quality of my work so that when the time comes, I could present myself as the best. Another one of my authentic codewords is Rank #1/Champion.
Another thing I practiced during both the low and high periods was to try to stay as even as possible regardless of the level of distress or euphoria (and again, that goes back to taking consistent action on a daily basis with my work, no matter what). I had been worried about how the roller coaster of emotions with this particular career would affect my longevity as an artist because the highs and lows are so great and damaging to myself and the people around me. Practicing a more even disposition helped to unblock some of my fears about how I would manage as I take this career further because I felt less at the mercy of my external circumstances. So - the second magic dark I had was painful but not AS gut-wrenching as the first because I had such a strong relationship with my work that I was able to keep the faith.
How did your manifestation come through?: My manifestation came through several smaller steps over the course of six months. The final up level occurred when I was faced with a request that didn't sit right with me, and I countered with what I actually wanted, and they gave it to me. Again, I think that Atarah's advice of taking action was so key here because I was frightened and confused about starting conversations with this particular gallery because I had no guarantee about where I stood with them. He told me to jump in the fire. It worked out brilliantly.
I had spent most of 2019 doing several of the foundational TBM workshops and then mainly doing DIs to maintain my focus in 2020. The individual coaching session is what really kicked things up a notch for me. Around that time, I realized that it's better for me to do manifestation work that is action-based, i.e., literally moving my body to make mental changes. I didn't realize this consciously, but looking back I can see that Atarah's comment flipped a switch in me and I generally became more active/physical.
I started receiving coaching in a new sport - something totally different than the actions of my career. Then I happened to undergo some physical therapy for a mom-related injury, and a friend did some hypnotherapy on me. The combination of these body-related actions and intensely protecting my time led to my manifestations becoming realized. Some other things that I realized as my manifestations were coming through:
-I was able to connect with my expanders 1:1 in a variety of ways. I sent small gifts to two of them, which connected us in a new way. I invited a third one to help me with a project, to which she amazingly agreed, and now we have a fruitful working relationship and a new connection through our kids.
-I've always been outwardly confident, and I'm naturally engaging when I'm interacting with people...so it was a challenge to really drill down and uncover the undeservingness. Isolating the aspirational qualities of my expanders, through Atarah's homework, literally helped me inhabit their way of being. The daily journaling seemed to have the same effect as the hypnosis for me. I learned not to confuse my outward presentation with my internal state of being; people smell your deservingness on you. So - when I walked into that recent meeting with the gallery, I felt all sorts of messed up on the outside and was a bit subdued/nervous (unusual for me). Still, I knew my internal state was intact, and I felt like I had this platinum rod of strength along my spine...and ultimately, I was prepared to walk away...and that's how I got what I wanted. In the past, I'd be outwardly confident but would easily bend in regards to my goals.
-I learned that the landscape of wild emotion around everything in my life is not necessarily reality :) I saw how I sometimes drop perfectly good opportunities because of assumptions I make based on my emotions. So, I've started to take action despite my emotions. One example: a great gallery I worked with, who I wanted to continue working with, was a bit quiet with me for a few months. I was getting angry as I started to feel forgotten and dropped, and I assumed it was because they were not interested in me. In the past, I would have gradually seen them as a villain thwarting my efforts and blocked them out of my life. I see now that I was acting out of fear of being rejected. In this case, I kept in contact with the gallery and came up with ideas on how to take the next steps with our partnership. They were receptive, and I'm continuing to build that partnership in a fruitful way.
