by Deborah Globus
Back in early February – when I should have been planning the next few months for my business – I got it into my head that I wanted to rearrange the shelves in my office. I wanted to make room for the fabulous gift my husband and the kids got me for Christmas – a faux fireplace.
The problem was, it’d never fit with the extra shelf.
The problem was, it’d never fit with the extra shelf.
Eight years ago, when we moved in, I decorated on the cheap and set up six attached Ikea shelves to hold all my precious books and ritual items. I painted them midnight blue, screwed them together with the help of my husband and a power drill, and shoved them into place.
With all the shelves there was no room for the fireplace. One had to go! And apparently, it had to go that week.
But I was on retreat! I was supposed to be looking at my life and my business and forging a plan to follow in the upcoming months.
But this shelf was dogging me. All I wanted was to be able to run the Virtual Business Retreat (scheduled for the following week) from in front of a blazing (fake) fire (with built-in space heater.)
So, rather than sit there with pen and paper and plan, I pulled apart shelving units.
Here’s the thing, though. I had already begun my retreat.
I had declared sacred space and set an intention of learning about the next best steps for my business.
Once these things are invoked, anything you do (pretty much regardless of what it is) informs your intention. In other words “What could I learn about my business from moving shelves?”
Turns out? Quite a lot.
I learned:
With all the shelves there was no room for the fireplace. One had to go! And apparently, it had to go that week.
But I was on retreat! I was supposed to be looking at my life and my business and forging a plan to follow in the upcoming months.
But this shelf was dogging me. All I wanted was to be able to run the Virtual Business Retreat (scheduled for the following week) from in front of a blazing (fake) fire (with built-in space heater.)
So, rather than sit there with pen and paper and plan, I pulled apart shelving units.
Here’s the thing, though. I had already begun my retreat.
I had declared sacred space and set an intention of learning about the next best steps for my business.
Once these things are invoked, anything you do (pretty much regardless of what it is) informs your intention. In other words “What could I learn about my business from moving shelves?”
Turns out? Quite a lot.
I learned:
- Sometimes you need to ask for help. Like when you discover that the high gloss paint you used all those years ago has combined with 8 years of humid summers and adhered said shelves to your carpet. Solution – get the twelve year old to man-handle them with you.
- Trust my own knowing. One less shelf meant one less shelf of books. (gasp!) It was actually okay. I’d outgrown a lot of them, and letting them go showed me it was time to put my own stuff out into the world rather than leaning on others.
- It’s a lot of bloody work to make things happen. Emptying 6 shelves was a whole lotta effort. Sometimes I need to be reminded that this is the nature of the beast when you run your own business.
- The Universe will drop you hints no matter what you choose to do while on retreat. Under those shelves I found an arrow (for action and coincidentally aligned with the tarot card I drew for the year.) Then a quarter – symbol of money (and that reason we’re all in business, heart-centered or otherwise.) And lastly, a little blue ceramic fish.
 | What on earth did that have to teach me about my business? Now that is a good question to follow! So I did. That same morning that I decided the shelves had to come apart was also the day I received my “Goddess of the Year” intuitive reading from Amy Palko. This year’s goddess is Nyai Loro Kidul, an Indonesian sea goddess. Hmmm….. |
Up turns this little fish, wanting to tell me something about my business and where it needs to head in order to make money.
I took a break to ponder its meaning (and to give my shoulders a rest because damn, those Ikea shelves are heavy!) and started tooling around the internet. I wound up at Lara Eastburn’s site, drooling over her website offerings.
And there, as bold as you’d like, is a mermaid tale. It looks nothing like my fish, or even my goddess but after years of paying attention to intuitive prompts, I knew. I knew, without a doubt, that a new website was where I was meant to go.
And THIS - this gorgeous, easy-to-navigate website - is what you get when I move shelves for my business retreat.
Because here’s the last thing that I learned about my business (and myself ) from moving those damn shelves instead of planning for my business: I hate change, especially when something has been around for so long that it’s figuratively stuck to the carpet and requires a whole lot a work to move.
But change can be good, too. Sitting in front of my faux fire during that snowy, February week, talking my peeps through their own retreats, made everything that came before it worthwhile.
May is the next Virtual Business Retreat. During that retreat I’ll be figuring out the launch for the new site and interactive fun over on La Padre’s Facebook page.
That’s the theory at least. Or maybe I’ll be rearranging cabinets, or walking on the beach searching for signs of a late East Coast Spring.
Doesn’t really matter. So long as I’m on retreat and I keep my eyes open, I’ll learn what I need to learn.
I took a break to ponder its meaning (and to give my shoulders a rest because damn, those Ikea shelves are heavy!) and started tooling around the internet. I wound up at Lara Eastburn’s site, drooling over her website offerings.
And there, as bold as you’d like, is a mermaid tale. It looks nothing like my fish, or even my goddess but after years of paying attention to intuitive prompts, I knew. I knew, without a doubt, that a new website was where I was meant to go.
And THIS - this gorgeous, easy-to-navigate website - is what you get when I move shelves for my business retreat.
Because here’s the last thing that I learned about my business (and myself ) from moving those damn shelves instead of planning for my business: I hate change, especially when something has been around for so long that it’s figuratively stuck to the carpet and requires a whole lot a work to move.
But change can be good, too. Sitting in front of my faux fire during that snowy, February week, talking my peeps through their own retreats, made everything that came before it worthwhile.
May is the next Virtual Business Retreat. During that retreat I’ll be figuring out the launch for the new site and interactive fun over on La Padre’s Facebook page.
That’s the theory at least. Or maybe I’ll be rearranging cabinets, or walking on the beach searching for signs of a late East Coast Spring.
Doesn’t really matter. So long as I’m on retreat and I keep my eyes open, I’ll learn what I need to learn.
That’s the magic of retreat.
RSS Feed
