Q. Wow, this is so powerful, Lauren. To be a space holder for so many women isn’t a small feat and carries with it such sacred responsibility. What did a typical day in your coaching business look like? How did you feel now that you were in it full time? What did your business evolution look like — because knowing you and witnessing your growth, business offers us layers of misalignment we need to shed so we can come home to our soul. Could you share a bit more on that? Of course! See, what I don’t think people realize is that when you consciously choose and your soul consciously chooses this decision to help other people, you get initiated into the deepest, darkest depths of your own healing, right? And that was what was happening for me. The veils started to lift. Pretty much, from 2015 to 2018, my number one focus was work on yourself to make more money. I was working on myself to make more money, and it was working, right? So I kept doing all the things — all the self development, the rituals, the conferences, the learning. By the time 2018 rolled, we had a team of four employees, maybe more. The business was bringing in a revenue of upwards of $80,000 months, more than once a month. We were almost at a million dollar level in the business. It was right there — the ‘mark of success’ — We did it. I did it. We reached millionaire status. I celebrated it. And while it was incredibly amazing, I felt a twinge of emptiness in me. If this is what success was… why then did I feel so empty? At this point in 2018, I was becoming very aware that not only were the efforts, the energy, the mindset that I continued to use in both my business and personal development unsustainable, but they were downright abusive to myself. I was constantly beating myself up, chasing more, more, more, and it always felt like it was ever enough. I started asking myself, at what point does it feel enough? It was a vicious cycle. I was working twelve to thirteen hour days because every hour that I had needed to be poured into my business. In my consciousness, more effort = more results, more success even though my life, my body, and my relationships were all warning me that it wasn’t the way to be. My health, my marriage, my morale, everything around me was running on fumes, depleted, and receiving the worst of me. A representation of the chaos within me. I thought that more money would make me happier and peaceful. But it was causing me to become more of a neurotic mess. Because of my wounding that I had yet to heal. My body was deteriorating. All of that extra time I was spending at work was starting to catch up with me. I was puffy, inflamed, brain fog for days — where I’d forget the simplest of things. My joints hurt and I didn’t fit into any of my clothes anymore. Every single symptom was a sign that my body was trying to get my attention. At the same time, I was on 5 different mental health medications that I was trying to slowly step back from. Yet again, I reached this point in my business that I was repeating the same cycle that I had repeated earlier in my life. This needed to end. How I was living wasn’t sustainable. There had to be something better than this way. And they say, ask for a sign and you’ll receive it. This is when I found plant medicine. This is when the trajectory of my life, my relationships, my health, my business shifted. I am forever changed. And I am grateful to plant medicine.
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