the Obstacle is the Way

Dispatch from Entrepreneur Island

ICYMI, I was let go from my Marketing job in October, three days before a three week vacation in Italy. After Italy, I traveled to Saigon where I’m spending six weeks building Eliza Gets full-time.

The fear is so real. The past two days I’ve woken up at 5-6am with a sharp intake of breath and a pounding heart. I can’t get a full breath in. What is this concrete in my chest??

Yesterday I woke up in a panic that I’m starting my last two weeks in Saigon and there is still much to be done. I compiled a set of goals before I left for HCMC and, while I’ve made good progress, it’s time to buckle down.

1. Complete Prototype #2 of my Musical Oracle cards

2. Generate sales pages + document funnels for all offers

3. Host IRL events in Vietnam

4. Take professional photos for future website

5. Maintain social media presence

These goals are, of course, in addition to all of the *human* things I’m trying to prioritize while I’m here: connecting with my community, healing my nervous system after leaving corporate America, working out/getting my steps in/tracking my nutrition, taking care of the studio cat Emma, enjoying my favorite city, etc etc etc.

It’s a lot. But the greatest obstacle isn’t the actual execution of the to-do list; my biggest challenge is navigating the fear. Fear of failure. Fear that I won’t be able to financially support myself. Fear that the clients won’t come, that the offers won’t sell, that it will be hard and miserable and I’ll have to go into debt and everyone will tell me, I knew this was going to happen, why couldn’t you be more realistic??

I’m terrified that taking the risk to go full time with Eliza Gets is going to lead to my life imploding. And. And and and anddddd... That’s okay. It’s okay that I’m experiencing some panic, anxiety, fear.

The fear is logical. It makes sense. Given my financially-insecure upbringing, given the state of the capitalistic patriarchal world I’ve been conditioned in, given the fact that I have literally never done this before… it makes total sense that the warning system in my head is ding ding dinging, trying to alert me that we are flying/falling and we can’t see the ground.

Rather than try to logic myself out of being afraid, I simply accept that, for the next little while, there will be moments of intense panic and fear. I understand the origin of those fears and I choose not to allow the panic to alter my course. My mission, my purpose doesn’t change just because I’m afraid of failing. In fact, this fear helps me identify cracks in the foundation of the person who successfully runs Eliza Gets Intuit. The fear shows me the elements of my being that need to be resolved in order to lead the entrepreneurial life of my dreams. As my breathwork teacher

Millana Snow

likes to say, The obstacle is the way.

After years of practice, I know how to hold space for the lyrics of Defying Gravity my emotions. I return to breathwork. Breathwork is my favorite tool for clearing my emotional landscape because it allows me to—

1. Occupy my brain by giving it a job: breathe in this specific pattern

2. Manually transition out of fight or flight mode

As my brain is distracted and my nervous system calms, I’m able to observe my emotions from a place of nonjudgement. In those moments of deep presence, I open up to my fear and I listen to its message. It’s often uncomfortable, but only temporarily. Once I feel the feeling and hear its message, the sensation is neutralized. It doesn’t need to shout at me any longer because I have heeded its call.

I am then able to generate space for another emotion to come up or to cultivate an emotion of my choosing (joy, excitement, etc). Using my breath, I bring myself down from the ledge of panic and continue the necessary work of running EGI without the alarm bells of fear ringing in my head, heart, body.

This doesn’t mean that the anxiety never crops up again. Maybe in a few days, something new will tickle my ~worry button. That, too, is okay. This is a cycle of humanity: Vision → Obstacles → Entropy or Evolution → Repeat ∞

It’s like training for a marathon. You set a goal. You have a vision of yourself crossing the finish line, but your body is likely not ready to run the moment you set the goal. You’ll need to train. You’ll be presented with obstacles. Those tests are opportunities to close the gap in your skills, your mindset, your physical well-being, so that you can become the person who is capable of crossing the finish line. Sometimes it feels like three steps forward, one step back. But that’s still progress.

So this Sagittarius Season — the season of radical optimism, adventure, pursuit of dreams — what is your vision and how are you faring? Do you have the tools in your toolbox to help you navigate the Obstacles on the way? Let me know in the comments below. This post was a slight departure from my seasonal astrological newsletter and I’m curious what you’re taking away.

From the other side of fear, I’m signing off. Love ya.