When I got married, all my happiness came along with one big problem. I knew I had married the love of my life. I knew the feeling I had when I met the Hubs was the most loud and clear sense of rightness I had experienced since 2nd grade when I met my best friend, who is still my Bestie to this day.
Do you know what happens when every cell in your body feels clearly what YES! Is like? Everything else in your life that does not feel like 100%, absolute, shout-from-the-rooftops YES!!!!!!!!! Suddenly becomes a huge and very radical no.
So when I got married, I was both the happiest I had ever been and the most frustrated I had ever been – at the same time!
I knew I loved my hubby. I loved coming home from work and everything about my life outside of work. Even though I had a good job, supportive co-workers, and wore nice shoes, I had this very clear, very miserable feeling that something was missing. I knew I was ready to change my life, but I didn’t know how.
I would have long talks about it with The Hubs and say, I don’t know what I am supposed to be looking for, but I know something is missing. So I did what I always did when I had a problem. I watched me some Oprah! I grew up watching her after school, after work, or on weekends when I got too busy. On this particular day, she was talking about making a vision board. So after the show, I got on my computer (this was before smart phones!) and looked up vision boards and stumbled upon the door that would bring me here, to this blog today.
I had no idea at the time, but a lovely blogger named Christine Kane had written an article about how to make a vision board and this soulful singer-songwriter, would soon become my beloved friend, mentor and help me transform my life in profoundly unexpected ways, including, creating the whole idea behind Modern Married.
This is how it went. I read her blog, signed up for her list, and when I got an email update saying she was holding a retreat, I went. Loved it. Came home totally jazzed and vision boarded up! Then I got another email saying she was launching a program called “Uplevel Your Life”. It was simple, you would get an email every day for 40 days with some inspiration, an action step and a recording in case you prefer listening to reading. I thought, what the heck? I loved the retreat, let’s try this email thing.
OMG.
One of the concepts she taught in this email class was “completing incompletions.” You know those things left hanging in your life, that you didn’t quite get to? The un-finished scrapbook, the half decorated bedroom, or in my case the incomplete education. I had gone to school but never finished. Something about that always hung over my head (in my mind) and I never felt I could fully thrive in my career in HR. It was like I had shackles holding me back.
Feeling ready to change my life helped me learn a ton of things in that class, but without a doubt one of the biggest lessons was “completing incompletions.” When the class ended, I went back to school. I went to community college at night while working full time.
It wasn’t easy. The Hubs did a lot of groceries and had to tutor me in Statistics. (Not fun.)
But I graduated. And because I happen to live in Miami and our Community College is the largest in the country, my commencement speaker was the President. Seriously, the big fancy school got the Secretary of the Treasury or someone similar and I got President Obama. Whew.
Completing incompletions turned out to be a really powerful thing. When I had to decide whether I was going to continue in school or do something else, it was about time for another retreat with Christine.
This time one of the girls at the retreat planted the seed in my mind that I could be a great life coach because – in her words – I kept her focused and I never let any crap into the exercises we were doing. What?!
I enrolled in Life Coach School and started blogging. I also found my purpose – to re-define marriage for myself and for anyone who would listen.
Suddenly my job was more fun, and I got recruited to a better one. And I got a raise. I started a blog (yes, this one!) And one day I woke up and realized, I was not only madly, deeply, in love with my own husband (always a good thing!) I was also truly, soulfully, and completely in love with my own life.
I love Christine in a way that words cannot express. For everything she has taught me and every way my life has been blessed by following some pretty straightforward, do-able advice, one day at a time and I am so excited to share what she taught me with you!
This week’s LoveWork is to take a look around your life and ask, “Is there anything that needs completing?” Make a list. Pick one thing and complete it. Rinse and Repeat.
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