Judging success based on our reality tv, celebrity, media obsessed world metrics will keep you feeling like you’re never going to get there

I was sharing yesterday what safety, security and freedom looked like to me, as a traumatised child. And it was being a successful businesswoman, even though at the time, I didn’t know what that meant.

But, when I reached the giddy heights of corporate management and international travel, if you were to judge me by Kylie Khardasian standards, then I’d failed miserable. But by my own standards, those of the little girl I was, I did pretty well.

What I didn’t understand, even as I was writing my piece yesterday, was that I’ve created what it was I needed back then, by being a successful businesswoman now. I just never recognised it for all sorts of reasons, like the one above, it not looking like other people’s ideas of success.

And this is where we make so many mistakes and create so much unhappiness for ourselves, by not understanding what success and happiness means for us and us alone.

For years I followed other people’s rules, I worked for a big corporation, I was tough and demanding of myself and my team, I worked long hours, weekends too. I though I had to grind and hustle and charm and coax and always do more than everyone else, be nicer, pull off incredible feats of juggling supply chains, production units, customer demands and all within tiny profit margins. Because I thought I had to.

Following other people’s rules made me miserable.

But I didn’t know there was another way to be successful. My way.

Now being a successful businesswoman on my own terms, that rocks!

I have the freedom and the security I always craved, and as I create more success, I gain more freedom and security.

The freedom is in being myself, preaching, teaching, helping, learning and sharing as I go, growing and moving along the path to healing and guiding others on their own journey. I couldn’t buy this kind of freedom and all I had to do was give up trying to be what I thought was expected of me.

As I change my life, I help other people change theirs.

As I share what I’ve learned, I shine a light that illuminates other people’s struggle and they see things more clearly.

I didn’t even see it yesterday while I was writing. It was today, as I sat down with my journal that I saw I’d created what I’d been craving all those years when I was little. And its not the image of ‘successful businesswoman’ that’s important in the end, its the feeling of what I was missing – safety, security, freedom.

For years I put safety and security over freedom and wondered why I was so unhappy. Because I was missing a key value of my life.

Are you able to sit quietly and tap into the child that lives in your subconscious, and there may be many different ages of childhood for you to connect with, but they will all value the same things. Ask him/her what she craves, what is the feeling she needs that was always missing? What image is in his mind and what does it represent?

I love inner child work because to me there’s nothing more powerful. We’re all carrying around a bruised little version of ourselves, who thinks the world doesn’t love them, in our heart.

When I think of that, I can have compassion for almost anyone, even the worst people on earth. Well, I’m maybe not quite that good, so we’ll leave that there! But how can you fail to have compassion for yourself when most of the things you beat yourself up for, the things you did when you were angry, stressed, tired, scared, came from that child in your heart and mind acting out from fear – regardless of they’re being in an adult body?

There’s two questions to ask here – how do you stay in your adult mind, with all its incredible resources of reasoning, knowledge and experience? It would obviously be much easier to problem solve in that mind, wouldn’t it.

The answer to that one is keep your inner child, calm and happy.

Which raises the second question – how do you keep your inner child calm and happy?

Pretty much the same as you would any child. You soothe it by showing it that you understand that they’re scared but its okay, you’ve got this situation under control. Whatever happens, you’ve got it, and even when you haven’t you’re always able to take care of yourself and the little one. They don’t have to step up anymore.

Now, that can be difficult to do in the blink of an eye when crisis erupts out of nowhere. Which is why you have to practice, you have to train to stay calm and in conscious control of your thinking.

Just as you train your body for peak performance, so must you train your mind. And as you do so, day after day, stepping up into your values, being your best self, you keep going, keep getting better at being you.

And someday, you realise that you’ve reached the place you always wanted to be, you’re giving yourself all the feelings you always needed but never received.

For me, that’s safety and freedom. Check in with yourself and discover what’s yours?

Love,

Cynthia xx