How I converted my mind from a dusty attic to a colourful studio space.
Back last year, I met an incredible woman as part of a money mindset group I joined. Which by the way, if you’ve never heard of money mindset, it’s something I would highly recommend taking a look at; all too often, we are brought up with false and detrimental beliefs around money, which in my case and many others can seriously hold us back in life. Anyway, I met this incredible soul and have to confess I didn’t really take much notice of her until she called me a ‘chicken-loving, cult-escaping badass of a human!
I kinda stopped in my tracks because I don’t think I’d really had anything to do with her, but she clearly had been watching me and had rather unbelievably summed me up in a nutshell, and I loved it! Suddenly her tagline for me became my identity — I was ready to own it! And so again and again, I used the saying and found that people were blown away with it and could never forget me after hearing it. By the way, when I told her it had been the way I’d been introduced on countless podcasts, she described it as ‘a 10/10 proudest moments of her life.’.
Of course, I became fascinated to find out who she was. So, I joined one of her groups. But as I’d spent the last 12 months upgrading all my friendships, I had a whole fuck tonne of incredible entrepreneurial women around me and a multitude of different groups to join, newsletters to hop on, free challenges to take, books to read etc. I was inundated with all manner of goodness which is a fabulous position to be in!
But obviously, it took time to work through them all, understand what they were offering, find out how I felt about it, get to know them as a person and figure out if it felt a natural fit for me. Eventually, I was scrolling through Facebook while taking a bath on one of my Workless Wednesday’s — my self-care days — and here she was again, doing a FB live in her group. I listened, and I loved it (though for the life of me, I can’t remember what it was now!)
All I know is that it made a lot of sense and gave me the permission to stop forcing myself to be a coach and actually was my inspiration behind throwing myself into creating not just a Fluffybutt Love book, but an entire unending series! It was my — go grab it and stop telling yourself that being an author isn’t enough, you are good at it, and people love reading what you produce, so go the fuck and do it right away!
Pretty cool, right?
But it doesn’t stop there. During that Facebook Live, she had mentioned her upcoming challenge. So I kept promising myself that I’d go binge on it at some point. I don’t know why but I like to binge challenges. I’m either into something, or I’m not. And I find that many FB lives are so full of stuff you wanna take notes on, and I can’t write that fast. Plus, once I’m into it, I just wanna keep going; I don’t want to have to wait for the next day! Yeah, that’s me, super impatient, always living life in the fast lane, in fact — oh no, hang on, I’ll come to that in a bit…
But I never did get around to watching the challenge; I mean, I don’t have like 4–5hrs free on a weekday because I’m too busy hustling and feeling tired and trying to motivate myself to do my work which is never done. And then on the weekends? Well, no, of course not, because if I did that, I’d feel bad that I wasn’t spending time with my fiancé. Anyhow she put up a post that I could relate to and was super fascinated by about an upcoming live she was doing with another powerhouse woman I knew. Here’s an extract from it:
Did you know that back in May Solera and I were little newbies? She and I made less than $5,000 combined in our businesses that May. We met and became great friends super-fast, and we leaned on each other and grew together. Last month we had a combined $100k in sales!!! All in 8 months!
Let’s be honest with a bank account that was in the red (for the first time in my life, by the way, if you ever get into debt for the first time ever, at a later stage in your life — it feels pretttty sucky) there was no way I wasn’t going to give this a listen to! I mean, I loved her and the other women; well, she was totally outta my league in my view, so what could a listen hurt?
Turns out it did hurt but in a good way.
The day came for the live and I didn’t think I’d be able to make it as I had already arranged to talk with an incredible women’s rights activist who’d grown up in and escaped from Saudi Arabia — no kidding the stuff she shared in our brief call blew my mind — daily floggings, beatings and stoning’s of women, not being allowed to leave the house, and if you did then many shops had signs up saying that women had to wait outside while their husbands/brothers/fathers went in and did the business etc. After having my mind suitably blown, thanks Saudi Arabia, I jumped straight on the tail end of the live and then watched it again on replay and my world changed.
No, it really did.
You see Gaby (yes, that’s her name) is a miracle worker, in my opinion. For the first time in my life, I experienced RTT — Rapid Transformational Therapy, and boy is it powerful.
Consider please that this is a Facebook live so, it’s a group session in that sense, not personalised to anyone and yet it blew open for me so many unhealed parts from my past, showed me why I believed certain things, how they were affecting me even in my daily life right now and allowed me to heal them and move forward knowing that things were entirely different now.
As an example, one of the things Gaby asked us to do was picture a fantastic party and then amplify the fun feeling up by a good 10 times.
So, here’s the issue here — I wasn’t brought up to have any fun, the word fun didn’t exist for us, and we sure as hell weren’t allowed to have parties! That meant imagining a party was a trifle hard anyway, but one that I’d actually feel happy at?! Nope, sorry, Gabs, that wasn’t going to happen…I pushed myself hard, willing myself to do what she wanted us to do, desperate to please her. I managed to imagine my upcoming wedding — and then I realised that I could only ‘manage’ significant social events if I was in charge. Why was that though? I mean, I’d picked the idea of the wedding because that would mean people hopefully would be there with the intent to make it a good day for us — oh, there it was…they would have my good at heart.
Because root issue…I didn’t feel people were that safe to be around.
Why?
Because practically all my social events growing up hadn’t been safe. Whether they were socialising in our own home, going to church each night with 250–400 people or special meetings of up to 2,000. It never felt safe; I always felt like I wanted to disappear into the wallpaper and would move around doing whatever was necessary at breakneck speed, and even in our own home when we had visitors over, even our extended family, I’d retreat to the kitchen or my own bedroom again and again.
And in realising all this, I realised that when we’d had Dai’s lovely family over for a meal last year, I had found it incredibly hard to stay in the lounge room with them, instead wanting to retreat to the kitchen where Dai was cooking, forcing myself to perch awkwardly on the sofa whilst inwardly wanting to flee — even though I was now safe. Relaxing, having fun, feeling safe were historically all issues for me but having them shown to me like this was a turning point.
I was safe now.
The situation wasn’t the same anymore; I could let this go now.
Later on in the live we were asked to imagine how much money you could make over your lifetime of 20, 50 years and as I peered into my mind, all I could visualise was a big black void. Simply nothing would come up for me as I tried to imagine a ‘future’. And as I once again grappled, I realised that brethren’s belief of ‘the rapture being imminent’ often no further than 3 years away was so engrained in my mind that I couldn’t picture any further forward than 3 years.
It just wasn’t there. And again, I saw that I wasn’t living under that belief system anymore, that the world was about to end. I could look further ahead because I could let go of that old belief. When you feel there aren’t many years left in your life it puts you in a perpetual state of franticness. Take the title of my book Make Today Count!
I’m not suggesting that we shouldn’t value time, but if you know me, you’ll know how impatient I have been and how I’m always in a hurry and doing most everything at breakneck speed. This desperateness leads to burnout and depression, and anxiety at not seeing results fast enough. Just realising this allowed me to keep moving forward but to do so with peace, to know that if something doesn’t happen in a specific time frame, everything will be ok. And in that newfound sense of peace, the world is definitely a much nicer place to be.
These revelations might not feel like much, but I hadn’t expected them at all, and to also feel lasting impact of having cleared them made me decide that as the rugby was due on, on Sunday, I would allocate that time to binge-watch on Gaby’s challenge that I’d been wanting to get around to.
But it didn’t quite work out like that! It turns out that clearing this massive old belief opened up all sorts of opportunities for me and the next 24 hours turned out to be unbelievably busy! The girl who was known for her love of eating spent Saturday so busy that she simply got by on 2 cups of tea and a few biscuits until she forced herself to stop for tea at 7PM that night.
The next day the abundance continued to flow in. I honestly felt happier and lighter than I’ve ever felt before. Clearing aside a small window, I headed back to Gaby’s group to start binge-watching the challenge, but again I didn’t get that far. She had another Facebook Live that I’d missed from a few days earlier, so I decided to watch it.
Once again, even more revelations, this time I saw how I’d carried sexual shame about myself from the age of 6. Because of the way my parents and certain teachers at school handled educating me, I believed I was a bad person, had done bad things and deserved to carry much shame, yet none of this was about me, it was about the life we were forced to live and the upbringing my parents had had. But until that Sunday with Gaby, I hadn’t seen that, and I’d been lugging shame around with me for the last 28 years.
Shame that I had no business to be carrying because it wasn’t mine to carry, and all it was doing was ensuring I stayed stuck, making it incredibly hard to succeed in the way I so longed to. But once again, thanks to that simple Facebook live of Gaby’s that was cleared too, and my steps became even lighter! My heart started to sing in a way it had never sung before!
That night — after rugby, I popped out to get our weekly treat of a Chinese takeaway; with my confidence higher than it had ever been, I chose to drive there and back alone without my satnav — using routes I had told myself previously I never find my way on (after moving country the year before and barely travelling about much due to lockdown) and not only did I find my way absolutely perfectly but I did so without any anxiety and with peace and joy in my heart and a huge smile across my face. Before getting out of the car, I messaged Gaby and told her, ‘I am coming back!’.
I wasn’t home yet, but the real me was coming out, and I loved it!
Again, when I discovered in the kitchen that an item of the takeaway was missing, instead of going into a tizzy as I would have done before, I didn’t give up, I didn’t run to Dai and ask what he’d do, instead I simply slowly thought it through and figured I’d go check the car — which is where I found it.
Sounds simple, but you have no idea how proud of myself I was, as the anxiety that I usually proceeded with simply wasn’t there anymore. The constant negative self-talk that filled my top floor and continually told me I was weak, dumb, couldn’t trust my own thoughts was leaving the building and, leaning into my newfound confidence felt terrific!
To say I could hardly keep myself from smiling would be an understatement.
That night as Dai and I flicked over the channels on the TV, I saw King Kong, a film I’d heard about but never seen. I considered watching it but momentarily decided that I didn’t like ‘scary stuff’, but I pondered that and realised that it was because I’d lived in fear my entire life, my nervous system was attempting to protect me by suggesting I not add to that. Still, as I now knew, my reality was different now. I was safe; Dai was right there too. It was a TV, and I now knew enough to know that it wasn’t real; those were only actors.
I decided to give it a go and was ecstatic when I realised that I could allow myself to feel the fear. Still, I could just as easily switch my feelings back to seeing it purely as a film. I could be right there in it, feeling the terror and anxiety, or I could slip back to the safety of the circumstances I was in. So over and over again in the film, I watched how I could control this — no one else, just me!
Dai had already told me that we could switch channels if I wanted, but no, I wanted to experience this, I wanted to push my boundaries and try things — and I have to confess I ended up actually loving the storyline! The giant bugs, not so much!
That night I couldn’t sleep; my neurons were buzzing; they’d never been allowed to flit about with such ease and grace and create so much fun for me, and so I turned again to Gaby’s group as though it were some kind of drug!
I scrolled through the posts and found links to more of her work and tentatively allowed myself to click on the link to her products on her website — telling myself that they were bound to be in the £1,000’s there was probably no way I could afford to work with her but I could at least look. I found her products began at $47.
I flipped to my banking app and saw that I had less than £200 in my bank account and with bills due of £700+ that month and knew I had no idea where the money was going to come from to cover them, although somehow miraculously just enough had appeared for the past 2 months of the same situation.
I winced as I thought about my gorgeous loving, caring fiancé lying asleep beside me who would tell me not to buy anything right now, and messaged Gaby — ‘I really want to buy one of your products but can’t decide which is right for me, which would you suggest.’ With her help, I made my exciting purchase
Excitedly I picked a product, using the light of my phone to enter my card details whilst hoping my fiancé would not turn over and ask what I was doing. A few minutes later, I padded out to my office in search of headphones so I could listen to her money mindset RTT session before I fell asleep.
The following day I woke earlier than I have done in years. I mean, I wake earlier — anywhere from 5:30–6:30AM but usually I go back to sleep feeling depressed and unenthused to get out of bed, but this Monday morning, I couldn’t wait to leap out. I headed to the office, had the best day I’d had in a very long time, handled changing plans with ease, set up my monthly goals adapting them to suit me and me alone, cleared out emails, old files and plans and listened to more of her work. And the abundance continued to flow in. Last night I had 5 hours of sleep and woke at 4:30AM, itching to start the day. But I paced myself and waited for Dai to wake, taking the time to enjoy waking up together, being the one to make our cups of tea (usually the stuff of blue moons) and still arrived at my desk hours earlier than normal.
And then I notice something for the last three days I’ve been spying unexpected amounts being deposited into my bank account!
And on the 4th day when I look in my bank account there again is another unexpected payment! And meanwhile, I have had yet more inspiration on how I can share my skills and talents with the world and have unfailing faith in it working out too. Because after the yesterday I’ve had how could I not?
One listen of Gaby’s Impostor Syndrome RTT, and I knew that I could no longer put off the Kindle formatting that my next book required. I’d been procrastinating on this for ages as previously I’d paid for it to be done as I’d found using the software very frustrating. But this time, I settled down to do it calmly and stuck a new playlist on to help. And here’s what I noticed:
Firstly, I decided to go and read the instructions on using the software — yes, honestly, who’d have thought?! But there it was, all the stuff I’d wanted to know, just waiting for me to be ready to read it. It turns out that all I’d been wanting to do was actually incredibly easy if you’d just sit down and read how to do it instead of blatting on with no idea. Not only did it show me how to format the ebook but also the paperback, and soon I was well away! Removing one of the main bottlenecks, I had to put more books out into the world, which I am constantly being asked for!
I also noticed something else curious — my tolerance had increased. In the past, I was very set about what music genres I would listen to and had always felt that my dyslexia was the reason I struggled to concentrate. I was never one of those people who could have a radio playing in the background while they worked — mindless music — as I called it. If I tried that, I would find myself unable to block out focusing on the lyrics. But somehow, my mind was now calmer, and I could actually allow that music to flow around me while I worked. I realise I have said a lot about Gaby’s work, but that’s because it’s had such a profound and immediate impact, and it’s happened while I’m writing this book*. I can’t help feeling I would long to discuss these profound brain changes with my mother, who would be fascinated with it and no doubt long to recommend it for my brother.
I wrote this as we entered March, and now as I make my way through June, I am thrilled to report that the changes I’ve experienced through Gaby’s RTT have continued to compound. It feels as though someone has finally gone up into my top floor and cleared out all the boxes of junk from years gone by, swept away the dust and cobwebs and in the new airy space, installed a window, and currently, a loft studio space is being created, full of creativity and fun and fantastic colour!
From where I stand now, I see how flat and monochrome my life once covered in the ashes of old beliefs, now I live in a truly vibrant 3D world of colour that I can absorb because my headspace is alive and waiting to receive all the abundance the universe is sending its way.
*Extract of my book Make Today Count
Jessie Shedden is a chicken-loving, cult-escaping badass woman and inspirational author of Tomorrow’s Not Promised and Amazon Best Selling The Fluffybutt Love series.
As the Queen of Standout she coaches female entrepreneurs on how to fast-track their authority & move from barely noticed to unforgettable in 6 weeks or less.
Connect with her on Facebook now.
