I'm currently reading "Girl, Wash Your Face", by Rachel Hollis. I'll admit, I resisted reading this book for a long time. It was so hyped up and I often find that when something is really hyped up and I finally indulge, I am left disappointed. Maybe I expect something more after all of the hype, maybe I expect to be deeply and profoundly changed and then I'm not. So I didn't read the book or listen to the book.
But then I had a break from school and while I didn't read the book I had bought the book and it was sitting on my Kindle, waiting to be opened. So, I opened it and began reading and it did actually begin to resonate with me. Then I reached a chapter that challenged me. Do you ever read those books of encouragement and hit a spot where every page or every paragraph even forces you to stop reading and process what you read and how it pertains to your life? Maybe you don't, but I do. It's like I can't go on reading until I stop and reflect and pray, but then I also have to keep reading.
This chapter was about dreams and spoke to me and forced me to stop and really reflect on my dreams and goals and what those looked like for me. Before my husband's double lung transplant, I had the goal of starting an amazing birth centered business. A friend of mine and I even talked about starting it and we looked for spaces to rent. But the timing never felt right for either of us so it was pushed to the side. Since then, whenever I read books or blog posts similar to what I'm reading now, I always correlate it to my business as a massage therapist and doula and the business that I have envisioned for so long. But life changed after his transplant and new dreams and goals began to unfold. Yet, I had trouble applying many of these things I read to this new goal of becoming an RN and hopefully, eventually a nurse practitioner, and I had to reflect on why I could only read these books and posts of encouragement and success through this lens of the business that may or may not even be in my future at this point. In doing so I realized that my mentality needed to shift.
This book that I am reading does not only apply to entrepreneurs. Yes, the author herself is a very successful entrepreneur and many of my friends who have been inspired by this book are also entrepreneurs, but she is not only speaking to this population. She is writing to anyone and everyone who has any sort of dream. I realized that I keep watching my friends on social media who are amazing, strong and successful female entrepreneurs who are rocking the businesses that they built and that is who I dreamed of being and I have had a really hard time letting that go. Some parts of that are envy, some are grief. To stop and chase a new dream has, in so many ways felt like I am giving up something that could have been great before it became great. But I also have a family to support and it takes an unpredictable amount of time to grow a business that can solely support a family of four. So, when I really stopped and thought about what my current dream was, it was exactly that. My dream is to be able to support my family so that we can collectively meet our goals that we always talk about, but can't do right now and my new dream of being an RN will allow me to do that.
Nursing school is hard, that alone should be goal enough and I don't give myself enough credit for walking this path. The end goal however, is to become an employee and even before massage school, my goal was self employment. This has been a huge shift in mentality for me. That is years of seeing my life play out one way for one event (decline and transplant) to change my whole trajectory and it has been a process that I am continuing to work through.
I read another book this past and in it, the author talked about how we often have life events where we have life before that event and then there is life after the event. That event is declined transplant for us. I am not the only one who's goals and dreams have shifted, and I am really starting to feel that shift in my heart and soul in a good way, Elias has experience that shift as well. We have both grieved, we have both dreamed and we are both on new path than what we were on before.
