They didn't teach this in Dave's MBA program
Lately, Dave and I have taken time like to pause and ask for Divine guidance on or near the new moon. Typically, we do a simple three card spread with 2 Tarot decks we like (yup, Dave...
Hello Courageous Thrivers!
Happy New Moon!
Lately, Dave and I have taken time like to pause and ask for Divine guidance on or near the new moon.
Typically, we do a simple three-card spread with 2 Tarot decks we like (yup, Dave is a Black Christian dude who doesn’t flinch at doing this practice – just one of the many things that make him awesome and un-boxable).
I suspect some of you have similar rituals.
And some of you wouldn’t touch an oracle or Tarot card deck with a 10-foot pole.
No matter. Take what resonates for you from our story and leave the rest.
The thing I want to share is that for two months in a row now in the “What is the Recommended Action?” spot Dave and I have gotten the card “The Lovers.”
Mind you. We were asking for guidance about the BUSINESS, not our marriage.
Seems clear that we are meant to take action to build this business by taking action to be better Lovers.
This guidance actually aligns with internal wisdom/images that showed up in my head last summer when he first joined Thriving for Equity.
The image was of us together on a relaxing vacation, and the business was a tree or plant, rooted in that time, and energy.
But we didn’t make that vacation happen last year.
Which is part of a much bigger, decades-long pattern of somehow rarely managing to make space for the kinds of fun, relaxing, connecting celebrations and vacations we wanted for ourselves and our families.
I want to acknowledge that we had the incredible privilege of going to my parent’s lake house at some point every summer for very little money at all — which was a great gift—but also draining in a number of ways.
And we didn’t create the kind of time off that would have deeply nourished our souls and created more relaxation and lightheartedness in our family’s life. We didn’t create what we truly wanted.
We felt jealous of people who did.
But regardless of external circumstances (salaries, jobs, health, ages of kids etc.) we never managed to carve out the financial or time resources needed for renewal and fun.
So, as the Divine seems inclined to do, we we’re given another invitation to try out making space and time to nurture love, relaxation, fun etc.
I’m pretty sure they didn’t teach Dave this business-building method when he got his MBA.
We’ve been married a long time, and it’s been a pretty solid partnership – though not without some times when it seemed like we might need to end it in service of our continued growth toward aliveness.
But what we’re realizing more and more is that the kind of emotional, spiritual and yes, sexual, intimacy we desire, requires a whole lot more nourishment than what we’ve been giving it.
And it’s not just about taking a vacation.
Almost immediately, I noticed another way this not-carving-out-time-for-renewal-connection-and-fun pattern has been showing up.
Eleven months into working for ourselves and mostly in the same house, I noticed that we had reproduced days without lunch breaks, during which we are each doing a lot of siloed work, and living mostly separate lives.
Not that different from when we both had high paying, high stress jobs at the same time. Or when we lived on opposite sides of the country.
I’ll bet you’ve noticed something similar in your life.
You change a circumstance that you thought was the source of your challenges and find out NOPE! You are incredibly skilled at creating it again in a new place and form.
I’ll bet you’ve also had moments when you hit that place again and decided.
“This is it! I’m ready to make a shift.”
You might not know the how, but you know you don’t want to waste any more of your life living the story you keep repeating.
Well, that’s where we are.
So we started by taking a lunch break. Together. Outside.
And on that lunch break we booked a place for our vacation in the Finger Lakes region of NY - which we actually took last week! Nothing fancy, but away.
And my fabulous sister took care of the dog and Dave’s mom so we could be away.
We’re exercising some new muscles. Because we’re committed to living what we believe in.
A world that is built on Love.
A world in which everyone lives well-resourced – financially, relationally, emotionally, spiritually, physically.
Courageous Thrivers, you can’t create that reality for others if you don’t start with yourself.
Be Brave enough to pause.
Acknowledge the voices in your head that say your selfish and continue the experiment a little longer.
Don’t worry, at some point, Love will ask you to stretch out and share the abundance with others. That’s just what Love does.