Breaking Through

This has been a MAJOR week for me so far, and it's only Tuesday!

I have repeatedly put up barriers to my own success in the past.  I have created obstacles that didn't need to be there.  I built walls.  I have found excuses.  I have self-sabotaged.

Please don't think this is arrogant, but I think part of the reason I have put up these barriers is because I really have believed deep down that I'm capable of big things, and somehow I embraced the concept that I was unworthy of success.  I felt I needed to shrink in order to fit in and be liked.  I couldn't handle the thought of being more successful than others in my family.  I didn't know HOW to be a true success.  Failure, that I knew how to do with grace and style.  Give me a hard circumstance and I could turn it into something good.  Give me hardship and I could light a path out of it and lead others out with me.

But success?  Egads, what does THAT look like?  I have had so much potential in so many areas of my life that I let slip away.

In the past, I created and ran three businesses.  All three enjoyed some degree of success and had much bigger potential.  One was a partnership and I didn't get anything in writing.  I arrived at the office one day to learn it had been sold by my partner.  The other two, however, were sole proprietorships and both fully supported me.  Here in Maryland, my business supported me, a deadbeat husband and his failing business, our home, a secretary's full time salary, and a fairly plush office space.  When it imploded I had just secured investors and was about to go national and even market via television.

I'd like to blame my ex entirely for the downfall of the business, but that wouldn't be truthful.  I made a series of choices and if I am honest with myself, I knowingly chose failure OVER certain succeess.  That was a hard sentence to write.

Well, I am certain now that I want success.  I am succeeding in my fitness goals.  I am succeeding in interpersonal relationships.  I want to make choices that will allow me to move forward into the light where I think I should have always been.  Not the spotlight.  Carly's Light.  No more hiding in the shadows.

I will talk more about these goals down the road, but I want to end with my favorite Marianne Williamson poem (often incorrectly attributed to Nelson Mandela) It speaks to my heart:
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Our Deepest Fear
By Marianne Williamson

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness
That most frightens us. 

We ask ourselves
Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God. 

Your playing small
Does not serve the world.
There's nothing enlightened about shrinking
So that other people won't feel insecure around you.

We are all meant to shine,
As children do.
We were born to make manifest
The glory of God that is within us. 

It's not just in some of us;
It's in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine,
We unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we're liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.

♥♥♥