Hi my friends,
Goodness, do I have a confession for you. I spent the first few months of 2022 in what my friend Lacy Phillips calls The Magic Dark (you know, that moment where it’s darkest before the dawn) and I almost broke my business because of it.
It all started in January when I was telling myself a story that I was bored with work and needed to add something new and exciting. But little did I know that it was actually a very sneaky form of my own subconscious sabotage.
Was I really bored? Maybe. Did it have anything to do with work? Most certainly not. It had everything to do with me putting down my old programming of being in constant “doing” and shifting more into “play.” But I was so resistant to the belief that my next level of success could be easy, that I thought I’d try and sabotage my business just to prove myself right. Oooooff.
Round and round I went—jockeying between allowing the voice and fear of my subconscious to drive the car and occasionally allowing my higher self to step in and take the wheel.
And I’m not going to lie to you…it was grueling. I was batting my subconscious, gladiator style, every day.
I was flooded with storylines like:
- “It has to be hard. Anything worth doing is, right?”
- “Who am I to have it easy?”
- “If it’s easy, people won’t be able to connect with me or see themselves in me?”
- And my favorite— “suffering is noble.”
Someone hand my subconscious sabotage an Oscar for this performance, please!
The fear-based part of my brain kept saying I couldn’t have my next level of success without a fight. That it wasn’t allowed to be easy. And since our beliefs direct our thoughts and our actions, I was moving through life trying to make my subconscious right.
Until I said, “No f*cking more” and allowed my higher self to get louder than my subconscious.
About a month in, I realized something was up. So I sat down to really look at myself and how I was showing up in the business. And I GOT BRUTALLY HONEST with myself and made a list of all the ways I sabotage my own success when I get freaked out. Here are a few cute ones to give you a sense of what I’m working with:
- Staying in a state of confusion
- Not doing the assignment all the way and telling myself it’s done and that it didn’t work! (this is a sneaky one!)
- Allowing doubt to hang around all day
- Working too hard and pushing until I get sick and then have to give in because I’m sick
For a few hours each day, I reminded myself of these things:
I am not my fears
I am here to evolve my lineage
I am here to heal the ancestry
I am here to change the definitions of success
I am here to make it feel easy
I am here to remind all the people that look and feel like me that it MOST CERTAINLY CAN BE DONE
My success is your success and I REFUSE to let you down
So when my subconscious roared, I roared louder. If these messages resonated with you, please use them for your own daily affirmations.
What my subconscious was really trying to do was to show me where I didn’t feel FREE. It had nothing to do with my business and everything to do with my mindset, where I wasn’t allowing ease and play in.
We all have those parts of our subconscious—big and small—that may try to take us out. But we don’t have to succumb to the belief or the programming. We can flip the script and it starts with getting clear.
If I’ve learned anything from this magic dark is that I am unstoppable. And I don't mean that in a gross hustle-culture type of way. I mean that when the going gets tough, I stay in the work. Even when the work is to surrender and do nothing. If you’re in a similar place, I deeply feel you and am sending you all the love and tools to help you shift and claim your unstoppability.
I’ve put together a little quiz for you to figure out where you might be taking yourself out. It’s called The Five Catalysts and underscores where you may need a little boost in order to fully embody the dream. Clearly, my mindset and faith needed a little bolstering, but I am so glad it did because the level of awareness that bloomed through as a result of my magic dark has been nothing short of magical.
Head on over here to take the quiz and get the worksheet to get clearer on where you might be unknowingly interrupting your success.
Say goodbye to sub c sabotage!
Amina xx