From Welfare to Millionaire

I have given birth four times. I still remember being in “transition” during my labor with Michael, my oldest. I had done well with no drugs throughout the whole 14 hours and then I got to a point where I felt like I was going to go mad. Like bat-sh*t crazy.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t sit, I couldn’t stand, I couldn’t lie down, nothing worked, nothing felt better. It was time to transition and let go. Not let go of my baby. But transition to a new state of having my baby. I could no longer have him within me. It was time to let go and let him transition to the outside world.

If you watch the birth video, you’ll hear me cry out to my mom as the midwife starts to tell me to push as I scream, “I’m not ready! I’m not ready!! I can’t do this!!!” But my body and the universe had other plans because I got to a point where pushing was not an option, it was inevitable. My body would take over and lead the way to the next stage of life and existence. And I needed to trust that my body could handle it. And it did.

Transition was the hardest part for me with all of my labors. It was the point where I considered the drugs and felt mad for not asking for them earlier. Though I have no judgement toward women who choose drugs, I knew that I didn’t want them. But transition made me question my ability to make it through, to survive, to cope, to succeed. It was torture. But the only way out was through. The only way to have was to let go. And the only way to escape the pain and torment was to trust that I’d see the other side.

I find this story to be a great metaphor for where my business is today. It is no longer a hope or dream, no longer a germinating seed or a budding embryo. I cannot serve my business by holding on any longer to the stage it was in when it began. I am in transition and I will begin to let go.

Losing my childcare is like missing the bus to a party I didn’t want to go to anyway. I stammer and curse but also feel a tremendous sense of relief. But only because I was headed toward the wrong party. The real party I was craving was in myself all along. I don’t need to trade my vision in for what others say it should be like. That is living like a servant to others and their acceptance. It takes all the fun out; robs me of why I began this journey.

I have been screaming out to the universe that ‘I can’t do this’ and ‘I can’t handle any more – I’m already maxed out.’ But that’s because I am not doing what I need to be doing – I am doing what is easy, what I know, and what protects me from the overwhelming fear I have of success.

I fear that the success will be so overwhelming that I won’t be able to cope or handle it and I will become strangled and die. But it’s time to start envisioning “holding the baby” and “enjoying the baby” versus the pain of giving birth to it. For if I am able to envision a time and a place where I can actually savor and bask in what I have helped make, surely the universe will give me just that.

My favorite part of any movie is in Finding Nemo where Dori and Marlon are in the belly of the whale and the whale is about to blow them out. Marlon is hanging on for dear life while Dori says, “It’s time to let go.” Marlon responds by saying, “But how do I know it’s going to be okay?” And Dori says, “You don’t!” And it was there in the letting go that they were able to be set free onto the next leg of their journey.