Relying on faith, hope and charity
In March-ish of 2019, I was sitting in my white, bright, sunny apartment in Manly, Australia getting ready for my first coaching call with Ang Stocke. I kept having this feeling in my gut that I KNEW I was destined to do something, to create something, to have a business of my own that I wanted to put out in the world, but I just couldn’t quite figure out how to figure it out.
I got my Macbook, headphones, poured my coffee and sat down at our kitchen table from Fantastic Furniture around 6:30 a.m. my time, because that was the only time that worked to connect with the 17-hour time difference. I think maybe it was 15-minutes into the call, and I was crying. It was so unexpected. I didn’t realize that I had a big mental block happening that was keeping me from any forward momentum. Somehow, with Angela’s magic wand she figured this out in only 15 minutes.
After that first call, I sat down immediately and journaled out a four page typed document of everything I was feeling; things I needed to change when we moved back to Minnesota, and things I wanted to keep from our current lives in Australia to apply to our lives in Minnesota.
Then I came up with a list (I’m such a lover of lists; lists and systems.) I came up with all of the possibilities of jobs that I could potentially look into / career paths I could take, came up with a list of my passions, and journaled about some other questions Ang had asked me about.
By the end of the second session, I had come across the realization that I was breaking-up with full-time jobs at other companies. If there was going to be anything full-time, it was going to be creating my own business, and running that. By the end of the second session, I had come up with some further lists of business ideas, and then finally word-vomited until I came up with the idea of the retreats. By the end of only my second session, I had come up with the statement of,
“We’re here to bring millennial women together for an off-the-grid experience where you’re inspired by your peers, and rejuvenated by time. Time to reconnect, to relax, to indulge and to remind yourself you're worth it. And time to drink (good) wine, because life’s too short for the bad stuff.
This is a place where you come to relax. This isn’t a yoga retreat. It isn’t a wellness retreat. It isn't a health retreat. It’s a place to come connect, rejuvenate, spark creativity and drink wine.”
And ultimately, that’s how Balanced Roots Retreats was born - quickly evolving upward and onward from that second coaching session.
During maybe the third session, Ang had asked me what I thought was a good launch/start date was for this business (remember, it was around March 2019). I decided the summer of 2020 sounded good. Angela proceeded to remind me that I like to move way more quickly than that, and asked me for a new date. We landed on February 9, 2020.
February 7-9, 2020 was the date of my first retreat held at Gathered Oaks in Alexandria.
pivoting on the plans
Before launching this business I had a lot of ideas of how it was and wasn’t going to work. About how many people were going to sign up for each retreat, and that all ten retreats I was going to host in 2020 would instantly fill up.
Well, so far - that hasn’t been the case. What I didn’t plan for was a global pandemic that would literally shutdown the world. I didn’t expect that for month(s) on end we’d be stuck in our homes, schools would close, hundreds of thousands of people would lose their jobs, and hundreds of thousands of people would lose their lives to this nasty, nasty virus.
I know I’m certainly, by far not the only one left trying to figure out what the heck I’m supposed to do now, considering I was building a business built around bringing a community of people together under one roof and spending time together.
So, here’s where we’re at. The past few weeks have been good, and bad. I’m not a medical professional on the front lines trying to save lives, putting myself at risk everyday in order to save others. In general, as long as I stay home, I don’t need to put myself at risk, really at all. There are many blessings I can count right now that I am thankful for amidst this chaos.
The thing I’ve been struggling with, is that ultimately my routine hasn’t really changed that much. Before this pandemic hit, I was working from home. Yes I was able to get out and go to the gym and meet with people and go sit at coffee shops when I needed a change of scenery - but now more than ever, I’m having trouble getting into a routine myself. I just canNOT seem to find my motivation. Like hello, where did you go? I know you’re in there, somewhere.
There are days when I can feel good about what I’ve done. I feel good about how I’ve been able to pivot on this business and come up with two new, digital offerings like my 2-week journal & meditation course, and my 1-day digital retreat experience. These are offerings I wouldn’t have come up with prior to being forced into isolation.
There are days when I find it really hard to get out of bed and the most “productive” things I can do for the day are make sure I put food in my body.
So, each day - like the rest of you, I’m trying to get by. I am stressed about the pandemic, about how I am going to get my groceries without contracting the virus, about finances and what the heck is going to happen with this business. Is it ever going to take off? Do people appreciate what I’m putting out into the world? When are we going to be able to get out of the house? When will we be able to see our family and friends again?
The new normal
On Sunday, we were doing our new “normal” Sunday routine, where we wake up, get our coffee and watch church on our computer screen. I’ve been really captivated by mass the past two weekends. It’s been a sense of hope and light at the end of the week. It feels like something to hang on to. The homily this week was so good - the priest talked about the 2010 Chilean mining collapse, where thirty-three men were stuck underground for sixty-nine days. He talked about how those men were able to find hope. How they were able to use their faith to carry them through - and how ultimately those men underground who once were non-believers, became believers.
What I loved about this story, were a few things:
We don’t have it that bad right now. For those of us sitting in our homes, and all we have to do is stay home, well, we could be trapped 2,300 ft. underground without any supplies.
It reminded me how important faith is during this time. I’ve found myself on the days where I’ve been really down, sad, and feeling like I’m in a black hole - turning away from my faith. Like I don’t want to pay attention to it. When I come back up for air, I realize that ultimately that’s what I needed all along to get me through.
The final message from the homily was, “faith, hope and charity will get us through these times.”
So, although today when I sat down to write this blog post, I really didn’t intend to focus so much on writing about COVID-19, I think that’s just what I needed to get out today. Next week I’ll be able to focus on something else, a more positive message and offerings that will have nothing to do with this - but right now I’m trying to give myself a little grace, something I urge all of you to do as well.
With that said - we can get through this and we will get through this. Rely on your faith, whatever that might look like to you. Don’t lose hope, as there will be a light at the end of this all. Give charity. Help others how you can at this time. Use your strengths, your talents or your monetary abilities. Whatever you can do, do that.
