It is a very slippery slope trying to open up and explain who I am. While, yes, it’s obvious that is the whole purpose behind creating an entire page to sharing who you are – I also have to be careful. I have a habit of going on… rangents? Yes, that is a made up word. A word made up by myself and a friend of mine for the ridiculous ‘rants’ and ‘tangents’ we can get going on when we are catching up after a few days or are clearly passionate about the subject. So, while I hope to be able to paint a picture – hell, maybe not even paint, maybe just a quick crayon drawing of why a person like me might want to open up their writing to the world and why a person like you, may just want to read – I just hope things don’t turn too rangent-esque.
I’m sure at some point – or several points – I will explain about my love for essential oils. Why I chose to go the “crazy hippie witch oil” path, the relief I find by using them, the peace of mind of choosing natural and holistic options for my family’s health and wellness.. but for now, I will just touch of my favorite part of what I get “to do.” That’s the education.
Our best way to share our passion and spread our knowledge is to get in front of people and teach classes. We advise and demonstrate the ways we use these natural solutions in our home on a daily basis, we make and share recipes, and always have a good time chatting; either catching up or getting to know new friends.
One thing I have had to learn as a leader and a presenter for my business is how to efficiently portray who I am, why I chose this route, why I love it so much, and the education behind the journey – while keeping it quick, precise, and engaging a group of strangers. Not the easiest task, right? But, oh how I love a challenge.
Enter my current absolute obsession with PowerPoint right now. There is such a beauty in a fresh new slide or presentation – a blank slate for your creativity to unfold. Why in PowerPoint, you may ask? Because it has all of the structure of programs like Word or Excel, but there is freedom for movement and your own ideas.
Now, I do need to stop here and give a lot of credit to one of my best friends. We are very like-minded. I have always believed that ‘your vibe attracts your tribe’ and we have been able to offer so much to each other over the years in terms of support or creative feedback. We both started down a very similar path in high school – focused on elementary education. Teaching. Creating. Sharing. Growing. Building. Helping… Fast forward almost 15 years into our friendship and we may have changed our paths – I veered towards the business and management side of teaching while she started focusing on the younger generations and early childhood development where her true passions lie – but those same base values still define why we get up and keeping trying harder the next day. In her field, she noticed a very real and very frustrating issue of the lack of curriculum that left room for the young mind to create and develop within a safe and encouraging space for them. Enter her obsession with PowerPoint. I could go on for hours with lists of the beautiful things she has created for her preschool, but let’s leave at she taught me her tricks, she inspired me, and frankly – created a monster…
I’m sure someday I will discover 100 different other ways I could do things, but starting to structure my ideas and thoughts right now and in a program that was already at my fingertips, was a great fucking idea. I was learning how to utilize a program that will outline and convey everything I want to get across while still leaving some space for personality and passion in my presentations.
Alright – getting a little ran-gent-y, back to my point. Being able to accurately portray who I am to a group of people who do not know me.
This is a picture of the ‘Who Am I?’ slide in my Natural Solutions 101 class presentation. A very quick snapshot of the things that fill my days. You can’t see the hundreds of hours, tears, love, or hard work behind all the pictures – but it’s the best way I could find to try and describe an entire life in under a minute.
I really wish I had screenshot of the original slide I made to give a more accurate portrayal of the ground-breaking revelation I had while making this one. Yes, a complete personal epiphany off one silly PowerPoint slide.
When I first created this, the two lines were reversed. The, now, bottom row can best be described as my “production attributes” – some are money making, some are passion fueled – but this row was originally on the top of my slide. The top of my blue-print. And it took until that moment for me to see that I had let the last 10+ years of my professional life define who I was. I made a slide about “Who am I?” and I filled it with my jobs. The things I do with my time.
I am not my work.
I will say it again for the version of me in the back that still just won’t fucking listen; I AM NOT DEFINED BY MY WORK.
It took me over a week to get that slide finished, cause damn. That was a heavy pill to swallow.
I have worked incredibly hard over my short professional career to make it one that excites me. Spend my days doing things I am passionate about and finding a way to make money from there; rather than chase the money and remember to fight for my happiness in 20 years. Trust me, I get the naive nature of this mentality. I fully understand the burden it has put on our lives, our relationship, my family, my friendships – but I rest assured every night that if I gave back into the long miserable hours of punching the clock for paycheck – I will yet again, be someone who is hard to be around and hard to love. I’m sure some will fight me and say that’s not the case, but I struggled to look in the mirror every day. And that life is not fair not myself or anyone around me.
This has gone down several different paths and I am going to try and bring it back around to my main point. Whether it is creating a PowerPoint, teaching a class, making a post for social media – the education behind my journey with essential oils is my favorite part. There is so much discovery and self development involved with helping guide others to a better path.
Ultimately, it has been a fruitful and gratifying journey for me; and it could not have come at a better time.
Last week marked one year since the unexpected passing of my mother on her 58th birthday. It was a Sunday; and up until 9pm, it was a beautiful Sunday.
That Friday and Saturday I spent on an out-of-town trip with my essential oil team to an event we call a “Wellness Summit”. Full of education on both new and developing products and also tools and wisdom for those of us who are choosing to build a business structure of our own within the company. So enlightening and a truly fulfilling trip. We came home Saturday night and I was excited to have Sunday at home for Mom’s birthday. We decided on brunch (always a first choice for our family, it’s a thing) to not only celebrate her birthday but also a ‘Cheers’ to my big brother and his girlfriend as they were heading off to their new venture to LaLaLand. So much happiness and love. We were excited and joyful, my now fiance and I, continued the afternoon with the same good vibes; no clue of how much our entire world would come crashing down by the end of the night.
I am not going to go into detail here of that night’s events and how I have been changed from it all. There will be a time for that and a time to try and illustrate the beautiful woman my mother was and will always be in my heart. But I do believe I needed to introduce the concept to try and fully depict why I so desperately needed a new pace. I feel like I have been living in survival mode and I know for both myself and what my Momma would want for me; I have to get back to thriving.
I am not quite sure how to do a double-citation here, but to bring it back to Rachel Hollis and her book Girl, Wash Your Face from my first post – she mentions how she was watching a Tony Robbin’s documentary, I’m Not Your Guru and he had said “If you’re going to blame your hard times for all the things that are wrong in your life, you better also blame them for the good stuff, too!”
Another hard pill to swallow.
I have spent the last year wrapping my brain around our new reality. Actually – scratch that – TRYING to wrap my brain around our new reality. I just told my fiance last night every time I try to go from a wonderful childhood memory and then back to current day, my brain will not do it. It’s too awful of a concept. That’s too dramatic of a jump from one minute having her and the next minute not. But unfortunately, that’s our ugly fucking truth. Literally hugging her that afternoon to them taking her away that night.
I have also spent a lot time angry. For obvious reasons. We need her. I need her. The world needs her. I have also spent the majority of my adulthood battling mental illness – I don’t need to add PTSD in there. My family craves her guidance. She was our sure hand and our calming voice. I was already coming off of what I thought had been the hardest year of my life and we were just starting to find a way to crawl out. The anger and devastation got so heavy. It was suffocating me.
There is not a day that goes by, or probably ever will, that there won’t be a sting in my heart for my Mom, my best friend. But for both of our sakes – I have to find a new way.
A new way. A new me. A new journey.
“You better also blame them for the good stuff too” – Tony Robbins
The Northwest Mad Hatter 
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