My 5 steps to process a rejection

Hello gorgeous,

This week I have been confronted to different types of rejection, that I had to process, slowly but surely, in order to get my usual self back. I had an interview for a part-time job and after a few days the answer was a No; I also got a No from a girlfriend to come to my next women circle.

I think it took me a few days to process it (specially the first one!). And luckily I also experienced good surprises this week, such as an unexpected gift coming via the post and nice messages from my girlfriends. Plus it was the Xmas week so that’s always good! 😉

But that made me think about how best to process any kind of rejection. As your mind can say something that will sound good, like “it’s not about you, it’s about the fit with the job/ it’s about her path, not yours / it says nothing about you…” But, deep down, it is difficult not to take it personally, and your heart will still feel hurt and pained…

So what are the steps that I took to finally get over those?

1. Accept the pain, do not reject or deny it.
2. Ask yourself what it is that you need, do you need to process it with someone for instance? I had the opportunity to do that, I was on Skype with a colleague and girlfriend, and our plan was to look forward to next year and revisit our Be Do Have list. So when I asked myself what did my heart want at the time, I felt a stronger push to do what we had planned, and not to process the rejection. But if it had been the other way around, I would have asked her to do just that. The point here is to check with yourself as often as possible about what it is that you need to feel good (or better!) and then do just that, in the moment.
3. After our exercise, and looking forward (and backwards a bit too, to see what we had accomplished!), I felt much better, I could feel that my energy had shifted already, just by being busy with positive things.
4. Receiving support from my girlfriends was also a great help. Knowing that they cared about my well-being. The message that I still remember was: “It’s not that you are not good enough for the job, you are too good for it” (thanks Em!!!)
5. The last step was about letting go and trusting that it would all be ok eventually, whatever happens. Trusting myself and my future. Trusting the Universe.

Are you taking similar steps when that happens to you as well? I would love to know if it resonates, and if you have more tips I would welcome those too!

In France it’s still too early to wish you a great year, but at least I want to wish you a great ending of 2015, I already did an accomplishment list (came up with 21 items!) and I suggest you do the same, you will be amazed at how many things you accomplished in a year!

Setting goals (or not)?

Hello gorgeous,

At this time of the year, I keep receiving emails about goal setting. Videos, methods, webinars… I’d love to do, watch, try them all! And at the same time I feel pretty rebellious. Following up on my post from last week, I am thinking… I don’t want to set goals! I tried the “dream board” exercise, I tried to make the video instead, and I tend to like them…for a while, until I forget about them and just go on living my life! That’s why my Be Do Have list is above my computer, otherwise I would have forgotten all about it either! But I am going to review how far I am in this one this week, as it’s half time (3 of the 6 months have passed already!)

Actually, the only thing I want now – instead of setting goals – is to feel inspired and to be able to act on it! I am taking the risk of sounding even more chaotic and disorganized (more than I am of course!), but I want to trust that, deep down, I am following my own path and that I am led to taking inspired action, whenever the idea arises.

So, this year, I am going to do it differently:

• No goal setting for me at the beginning of the year (I am only going to keep up with my Be Do Have list)
• Which means no need to review them later 😉
• I will still look at and reflect back on the following:
  • What am I grateful for
  • What have I learnt
  • What am I keeping for 2016
  • What am I letting go of that does not serve me

So how about you? What are your 2016 goals? (Just joking ;-))

No seriously, I’d love to know if you love setting goals and following up on them!

Or will you follow my rebellion?

I wish you a wonderful week and specially to spend quality time with your loved ones for Xmas!

I don’t have a plan!

Hello gorgeous,

Reflecting on those lasts months and what happened in my (professional) life, I was thinking about the fact that I am probably not fit for making plans and following them.

If I look back at my career, I always stayed open and grabbed the opportunities when they appeared instead of having a career plan. I did not have that definite plan that I then made happen. The only time I was sure of what I wanted was when I joined Unilever and I wanted to go to the HR department. That was actually the most difficult thing to make happen (whereas going abroad was a piece of cake J), and then I even realized that was not exactly what I wanted…

Whereas I feel that, when I follow my bliss, things happen. Maybe it looks completely disorganized, maybe it feels weird to others, but it definitely feels good to me to be driven by what brings me joy, even if it means going against what most people would advise.

Back in Jan 2015, I certainly wouldn’t have thought that I would be running women circles by the end of this year. And yet, this is what happened. The need for a community of women around me, the need to share, to feel supported as well as to support others, the need to be with like-minded women, all of that contributed to me joining a one-month training on that exact topic, a training that suddenly appeared to me, from a post on Facebook, and I fell in love with the ideas and the lady and the training and now I can’t wait to run more of those… The funniest thing of all is that, while I was cleaning my inbox today, I came across an email that my good friend Candi had forwarded to me, with the link to this same lady, back in Jan 2015 😉 Life has strange ways sometimes…

So what do I make of all of that?

That, maybe, plans aren’t for everybody. At least, that plans are there so that they can be changed, as we humans are in constant evolution, it only feels logical that it is so for the plans that we make.

That it is important to stay open to new and wonderful opportunities that can come your way and that you maybe wouldn’t have even considered if you were fixed on a specific plan, a specific route to your final destination.

That life (aka the Universe) has strange ways to bring us what we need and what’s good for us, and that we should simply have trust and faith that it will all be ok J

 

So how about you? Are you a big fan of plans? Do you manage to stick to them or do they keep changing as well? Can you recognize a good opportunity and do you seize it? Do you trust you will get what you need? I would love to know!

I wish you a wonderful week!

Start before you are ready!

Hello gorgeous,

This topic just came to me on this bright morning 😉 After having talked about trust issues, it feels completely appropriate! So what do I mean by that? I mean: do not wait for the stars to align, do what you feel called to do, do what makes your heart sing at this very minute. And then the stars will align in response to your movement!

Let me give you a few examples:

• Say you want to move house, but you feel you need to sell yours first before you can even consider buying another one. If you stay in this energy of waiting, you might not allow yourself to feel the joy of a new place to live, the excitement of a new place to decorate. Whereas if you allow yourself to start visiting other places, you first start refining your wants and your priorities, such as what’s more important to you, how big the house is, how many bedrooms, garden or no garden, a lot of work or no work at all etc. Yes, you might fall in love with a house, and not be able to make an offer because you have yet to get an offer on your own house. But you might as well experience synchronicity and find the house of your dreams on the day you receive that offer (I promise, that happens too!!!).

If this beautiful synchronicity does not happen to you, there might of course be other factors, but at least you will be in a positive energy, looking at a brighter future, and getting excited about changes ahead. And that’s what is important, to be happy in the now, instead of needing external conditions to feel the happiness inside.

• Say you want to start a new business or launch a new product in your current one. Take for instance my women circles. If I had waited until feeling ready, I would probably have never done it ;-). To start publishing it, I only waited to be sure I had dates and a place to do it. And then I started, and I knew the rest would come. I felt aligned. I felt the trust that it would all be ok. That I would get the inspiration to put the program altogether, beautiful women to join, whatever help I needed to make it happen beautifully. Or the 10-day Self-Love challenge I just ran on Facebook. I just had this idea and I felt called to do it. So I did and started inviting people to it, and more people joined. When I started I only had a list of 10 topics. I started recording the videos 2 days upfront, and then one per day. I love every second of it, I loved doing it, the interaction and the feedback with/from the participants. And I am doing it again pretty soon (just need to fix the date!). It wasn’t difficult, it wasn’t cumbersome, and there was so much joy in doing it! Whereas preparing my first 7-day e-course had taken me months… Can you feel the difference?

So I am sure I could come up with more examples, but I want to ask you: what are you putting for later? What are you not doing that would bring you joy? What activity could you start to check if you would like it (belly dancing, pole dancing, piano lesson, whatever! ;-)) Just do what you feel called to, at this minute, and watch how beautifully the rest will unfold!

I wish you a wonderful week!

Having trust issues?

Hello gorgeous,

I hit another block this week, and it feels like I haven’t properly learned my lesson so it’s coming back at me… Last week I was talking about feeling overwhelmed and needing a break, but this time it’s about giving the Universe some space ;-). Let me explain…

When I realized that I was blocking my emotions, and decided to dig deeper into the issue (with some help!), I came across the fact that I was doing too much and pushing too hard to make things happen. It felt like forcing onto things, and a bit of a struggle as well.

And then I saw that by doing that, I wasn’t giving enough space (to the Universe, or to however you want to call it) to let things happen for me. I didn’t trust those things to happen without me (I sound pretty much like a “control freak” now, don’t I?). I thought, once again, that I had to do it all on my own. But I don’t!!!

We actually very seldom do things completely on our own, for when there’s human interaction, there’s always a choice, and different ways things can go. So why am I always working like crazy to make it happen? Well, one reason is that I am pretty active, and it’s a lot easier for me to be in the Doing rather than in the Being. I actually do very little “just being” cause it feels boring ;-). And because I feel guilty when I am not doing anything. Do you recognize that feeling too?

After that realization, I was able to slow down a bit (and then things started happening for me during that day!). I decided to take some time off my business, which I barely ever do – even though it just means doing something else instead (crocheting for that matter) and to relax this weekend instead. I also decided on a mantra I wanted to use for a while to help me with my trust issues: “I happily give space to the Universe to make things happen for me”. Another “action” I agreed to do daily was a 5’ break doing nothing (only 5’!!!).

Do you find yourself in that situation? Doing, doing, doing all the time? And not seeing the rewards yet? Maybe it means it’s time to slow down and let things happen for you too then? You don’t have to do the exact same steps that I took, but if any of those are bringing up resistance (like not doing anything for 5’…) then they are probably the best ones for you to take. Resistance is simply our mind finding excuses for not doing what would help us 😉

I would love to know if you have a similar issue ;-).

I wish you a wonderful week!