Embrace the gifts

I’ve been absent from blogging over the past several months and there’s good reason. Not that I haven’t wanted to share my leadership thoughts with the world’s most amazing followers, but I needed to step up and start putting my own advice into practice. I drove into a pot hole along my journey and needed to hit the garage for some fixin’ and take the time to pull out my map to reevaluate the route.

I was the recent keynote speaker at the Famou5 Foundation Speakers Series where I was asked to speak about my success, the challenges and adversity that I faced along the way and how I overcame each one. After many attempts to write my talk, I made the last minute decision to rip up each and every page (mere hours before I hit the stage) and speak from my heart….and this was the most challenging talk that I have ever given. I embraced my vulnerability like I have never embraced anything before….and I’m glad that I did. My biggest success came from my biggest life challenge and in true F.Revolution spirit, I share and celebrate my story in the hope that it will help even just one person.

Here is the last ten minutes of my talk…also, quo the ugly tears that could’t stop flowing while I spoke these words:)

During a recent interview, I was asked to describe the biggest defeat or challenge in my career and how I overcame it. This used to be such an easy question for me…. I would list off everything horrible that happened in my life (my divorce, the balance of being a new single mom while building my career, the nervous breakdown in a public parking lot,  the constant battle to get a seat at the table, the depression and anxiety, blending a family of five while going back to school to get my masters degree, the mental health struggles that came along with all of this, the chronic people pleasing…..you get my drift).   It was always so easy to come up with an answer to this question, because I sure had a lot of difficult challenges to overcome, but nothing that made me any different than anyone else.

When I look back on my life and everything that brought me to where I am today, I realize the biggest challenges are my biggest gifts.  Don’t get me wrong, being smack dab in the middle of what seems like the worst thing that could every happen to any human being, I certainly would never think “wow, this is such a gift and I am so happy to be going through it”.  No, it was the complete opposite!  Why is this happening to me?  Why does everything bad always happen to me?  In all of my self loathing, I would ask these questions and do absolutely nothing to resolve them…nothing!  

As with most if not all women, it has been engrained in me to be the one to solve everyone’s problems.  To take on the weight of the world and put my own feelings and needs aside to ensure that everyone else is taken care of.  As long as everyone else was feeling content and happy, then my job was done (even if I wasn’t feeling content and happy myself).  Can anyone else relate?  I buried each challenge and defeat and quite literally just moved onto the next one and the next one and the next one and the vicious cycle kept building more momentum…..and I got so emersed in this tornado that I didn’t recognize any of the DANGER ZONE signs.   And it truly took the biggest challenge of my life to come to this realization.

Now, let me preface this next story with this:  I have never wanted anything to define me and I certainly never wanted to be perceived as weak and fragile, so in typical Carrie fashion, the information I share with you now has been kept very close to me and my most trusted inner circle.  How special do you feel right now?  

Let me set the stage for you and take you back to December 2020.   I had not been feeling well for several months and quite honestly thought I was going through menopause.  My mother went through it early and so I just assumed that I inherited the bad luck.  I was at my worse but kept pushing forward hoping that one day it would all go away.  It never went away…in fact, it just got worse, and in April 2021 I was diagnosed with leukemia….a day that goes down in history as not only the day that changed my life but the biggest gift that I have ever received.  

Remember the little girl that I spoke of earlier who quietly and very strategically accepted any challenge that came her way?  Well, that girl has never ever hit up a challenge like she did with this one.   I silently walked out of the oncology department with my husband, had conversations with people that I can’t recall having, got in the car and uttered with the most confidence in the world that there was NO way that this was going to destroy me.  I had my childrens weddings to attend, I had future grandchildren and great grandchildren to meet, places to visit, people to see and things to do and I was going to do them all while growing old with my best friend, Matt.   

I often talk about the bumps in the road that force us to stop, look at the map and change our direction…and here I was reflecting on the advice that I give to others.  I had hit a pot hole that forced my car into the shop for some fixing, and while I wait, I’m pulling out the map and revisiting my journey….plotting out the roads to travel that will get me to my final destination.  AND so began the biggest journey of my life and I was going full speed ahead.

I have always been a believer in the Law of Attraction.  Does everyone know what the Law of Attraction is?  Well, according to the law of attraction, your thoughts have power to manifest in your life.  If you think positively and visualize living the life that you dream of, you will start to attract opportunities that will make it a reality.

Anyhow, I’ve read the books, my husband and spent a week with Bob Proctor learning from the master himself.  I have put it into practice many times in my life and have attracted success through the law, but never have I put it into play like my life depended on it …until now. 

I am truly blessed with medical doctors who have been nothing short of amazing through all of this, so in addition to their great care, I started researching ways that I can help myself and the universe starting bringing the most amazing people into my life….have you ever noticed that people come into your life when you need them the most?  I am blessed with a team of people that I never go a day without sending love and gratitude to.  With the help of this team, one of which is here today my trauma counsellor/reiki master/turned into my beautiful friend Tammy, I embarked on the most important journey of my life.

I hit the ground running with the hardest work I have ever done, and here’s where I started:

·      Researched healing foods- bought all the books

·      Made some major changes in my diet and exercise. 

·      Started to visualize myself being and feeling healthy and happy. 

·      Reinvented my daily gratitude practice….and never missed it. 

·      Started sending love to everyone in my life who have caused me pain.  Forgave them for their wrong doings.  

·      Started to deal with the layers and layers of everything that I had buried throughout my entire life.  Facing past and current trauma head on.

·      Started replacing all negative thinking with positive….and only allowed positive energy into my life.   

·      Started a daily meditation and visualization practice…and never missed a day.

·      Believed with every ounce of my being that I was going to live a long, healthy life and cancer wasn’t going to be part of it. 

I went through a complete life transformation…and people started noticing.  People saw and felt the change in me and started making comments about how great I looked and the positive changes they were seeing in me, and when asked for my secret, I always just told them that I’ve changed my diet and started exercising.  

I started attracting opportunities, amazing people and more gifts and it all just started to naturally become the way I lived my life. 

I set the intention before each oncology appointment that I was only going to get good feedback, and this started to become my reality.  My numbers stopped going up and started to go down and staying there and I was feeling better better than I ever have in my entire life! So much better in fact, that I am so thrilled to report that I was just told three days ago that my numbers are staying at a level nowhere near the danger zone anymore….and if they remain the same at my next appointment, my oncologist no longer feels the need to follow me!

This new journey has been thee hardest one to travel.  I have never worked so hard in my life, but the work has changed my life.  I am grateful every day for the time I was allotted to make these changes, because not everyone is given the gift of time, so I encourage you not to wait to receive the gift that I received.  Don’t wait to do the hard work until your life depends on it….you only get one life.  Don’t waste it living for other people.  Don’t waste it doing things that don’t light your soul on fire. 

In his famous commencement speech, Steve Jobs said “your heart and intuition always know the way, you just need to listen”. Sit in silence and listen….you will never be lead astray.

Carrie XO