This week, I have shared with you on the blog my notes from the LiveBIG Conference I attended in Salt Lake City (technically Sandy). I have also shared with you many of the nuggets and takeaways and my personal story at this event. I have more...and over the next few weeks, I want to visit a few things and elaborate on them, but in posts that are not so lengthy so you are able to digest them more and maybe we can even have a dialogue about it.
I have gotten a few questions that some of you that are my blogging followers and readers might have had too and so I am going to list them and do my best to answer them:
- Why are you sharing your experience of LiveBIG on the blog?
Not everyone is going to have the ability to attend a LiveBIG Event like I did, even though I can tell you that if you did, you would not regret it. Some of you may want to but life is not going to let you because you have families, work, or other activities that prevent you from going and doing what you want. I have my own limitations that at times make me unable to do all the things I want to do and each of us have to decide what that is and how to work around it. Some of you may not even want to attend, but you are curious about it. Regardless, we are not able to learn all the things in life we want to learn and if something I share could encourage you or help you on your journey, this is my hearts desire.
I want to grow. I want to be different. I want to be better. I want to change. I want to believe a new belief system. I want to encourage. I want to support. I want to make a difference. I want my life to have meaning. I want to LiveBIG. This means that I will share my journey with you. Even if it is hard. Even if it includes ugly parts of My Story that make you cry, that bring pain, that are difficult, I will still share.
- Don't you think by being this vulnerable on your blog is risky?
Life has risk. If you always live in the boundaries of small and safe you will never experience more. Being vulnerable isn't comfortable. Being open about all your junk, crap, or s***, whichever term you want to use (each speaker at LiveBIG had their own word and used it) takes courage. Your junk might be easy for me...my junk might be easy for you, but we both have walked in different shoes and had different journeys that have lead us down different paths. We have had our own life experiences that have created meaning, definitions and beliefs that we live in. In order for us to not continue in those same patterns, we have to be willing to be open to change. In order to change, we have to be vulnerable.
I have always lived with courage and I will continue to do so. I am more determined than ever to use the tools I was shown at the LiveBIG Conference and rewrite my story, make my life what I want it to be, and live even bigger for My God! The more you learn to love you for you, the more you will be comfortable with being vulnerable. The only reason you hold back from being vulnerable is because you are hiding behind your shadow and can't embrace it. Not everyone can. I understand that. But I also believe you can, if you want to. I believe you will gain the strength to face your lies and replace them with truth when you look them in the eyes. I have been told for years I share too much on my blog. That will not stop me. I believe by sharing our journey with each other we create power, show forth love and inspire others to have courage.
- What has made you decide to open up and share your story?
Last year was a big year in my journey as I faced an encounter with a client that made me see I needed help. Through this experience I faced things I had never expected to face with memories, feelings, emotions and trauma that I thought had been resolved and was at peace with. My delving into my past, it made me discover and learn that I had a story and that my story mattered. When I worked through professional counseling to work past my fears in talking about my story, I realized that it needed to be taken to another level and that is where my purpose to write a book sharing my story came from. I realized that I only could share my story when asked and I kept the details in an overview type setting, not the emotional, intense level it was experienced at. For fear that if you knew the truth of my life what you would think of me? For fear that the pain, challenges and ugly experiences I faced would cause you pain in your life. For fear that when you learned the truth of my life, you would shove me out just like everyone else has done in my life. I have tried to leave my story behind and press on running the race as God has called us to do, focus on just being different, asking God to give me the courage to change the things I could and the wisdom to know what I couldn't change as the serenity prayer states. I have lived with the purpose to be loving and generous despite how I have been treated and how I continue to be treated. I have seen too many people be angry and take the things they have faced and become bitter, hurtful people. I have tried to live this in every way possible in my entire life, but in reality, deep in my heart was pain that was shoved down that never was allowed to heal for fear of not being accepted, not being loved, not believed, not mattering, not worthy.
God has been bringing people and situations in my life to help me work through my junk and rewrite my story. The level of growth in my life in one year has been absolutely amazing!!! I anticipate the results of Professional Counseling, my Life Plan Coaching and this LiveBIG Conference to create some incredible results in me this year. I know that the stories of others that I have read and personally know of give me courage to continue on my courageous journey and I am praying that by sharing mine, it does the same for you.
I want you to live with courage and learn to love deeper, to be inspired to be more than you are now, to LiveBIG!
