going beyond Consuming Content: how I had to actively choose to be ready for change
Can I share a confession with you?
I have spent more time than I care to admit drowning in disappointment. Not just with other people, but with myself.
And to be honest, I think if disappointment came in a neat little package all by itself—it might not be that bad. But unfortunately, it’s usually tossed to you as a soaking wet tangle of emotions at the most inopportune time, when you’re hinging everything on “this is the time it will work out.”
Can I share something else with you?
I have spent thousands of dollars on group coaching programs, courses, workshops, academies—you name it—in pursuit of shortcutting my way to the life I desired but honestly wasn’t ready to change for. At the time, I hadn’t done the math of determining what my current decisions were actually costing me.
Did I know it was costing me money and energy I could have invested better elsewhere? Absolutely.
But what I never figured it would cost me was something far more valuable and harder to recover: self-trust.
The Pattern
You see, with every program, course, and PDF I purchased (and even got as freebies), I had renewed hope that this was it. This was the one that would build the systems, form the discipline, and lay out the quickest action steps I needed to take me from the life I didn’t want to the life I desired.
But as I found I could no longer force myself to continue with a program or course, the disappointment in myself grew.
For not finishing them.
For not putting in the full effort.
For not applying the knowledge.
And with each disappointment, the trust I had in myself eroded.
The amount of trust I lost in myself—in my ability—the questioning: Why can’t I just stick with this? What is wrong with me?
I questioned myself, and inevitably, I questioned my worth.
The Cost
Because here’s what I didn’t understand at the time:
I wasn’t ready. Not truly.
And I hadn’t sat in the Sacred Pause long enough to know myself well enough—to understand what I was working with (my Projector energy, my authority, my conditioning) and what I truly wanted.
What I thought I wanted was an easy, proven system to install into my life so I could escape my situation and instantly become happy.
But what I really wanted was to know me—so I could actually acknowledge and unbecome the habits, patterns, and conditioning that kept me making the same decisions over and over.
What I wanted was sustainable freedom and joy that came from alignment—not a temporary happiness band-aid that would randomly slip off in the shower one day, leaving the wound that hadn’t healed exposed.
(Woosah. I had to stop there, put my laptop down, and breathe through some tears after writing that.)
What I wanted was to trust myself and know that I was worthy of what I desired, what I deserved, and what the Universe kept trying to hand me.
The Realization
Here’s the truth I had to face: We are never truly going to feel 100% ready.
But at some point, we have to actively choose to be ready anyway—because we’ve finally done the real math and determined that doing the same thing we’re doing now is not going to create the future we want.
I came to a point where I looked at the decisions I was continuing to make—from 6 months ago, a year ago, 2 years ago—and made the determination that those decisions were what had created the reality I was currently living in. Let that fully sink in and marinate.
Two years ago, shortly after I cut all my hair off (my ritual for marking major shifts), I wrote this in my journal. And I’m going to share it with you exactly as I wrote it—rage, repetition, rawness and all—because I need you to see what the moment of REAL readiness actually looks like:
They have been breadcrumbing me with their:
-Time
-Half ass effort
-Half ass love or loving me the way they want and not the way I need
-Money
-Reciprocity
-Energy
-Attention
-Words that don’t turn into action
-“Nothing I do is good enough” deflection that made their crappy behavior turn back on me
-Shitty apologies
-Little moments of vulnerability followed by prolonged silence
It’s a hard truth to come to and the fact that I allowed it makes me sick. I’m angry not at them but mostly at myself because I let those little moments, that sweet word here and there and those unfulfilled promises of change keep me hanging on far longer than I should have.
This shit has to stop now. No one and I mean no one is coming to save me. I have to save myself this time once and for all. I deserve that. I am worthy of so much more than what I have allowed myself. I cannot really blame anyone outside of myself for what I allowed others to do and how I allowed them to treat me.
I don’t ever want to come back to this feeling again. NEVER!! I have to change. I have to let go. I have to forgive myself and them without the need for an apology, explanation, change or closure. I have to trust myself. I have to do better because I know better, I know too much to stay in this place. I have to stop squandering my potential to invest in the potential of others. I have to know without a doubt that I’m worthy. I have to love myself enough. I have to stop being afraid of my own power. I have to allow myself to be angry because fuck I am. I have to know that it’s okay to be angry. I have to stop expecting myself out of others. I have to stop waiting for things to be perfect. I have to stop waiting for someone else to extend me that chance. I have to just take it. I have to stop caring what others think, what they do, what they would choose because they are not me. And I am not them. I have to stop overthinking and just do it. Do it fucking scared as fuck but just do something. I have to stop letting that paralyze me into taking no action. I have to take accountability for the ways I have sabotaged myself. I have to stop the blame. I have to have the discernment of when to go and when to stay. I have to find my squad. I have to surround myself with people who will reciprocate the love and energy that I give. I have to surrender. I have to balance. I have to have the discipline and consistency that is needed for the life I want. I have to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am WORTHY!
It all begins there. Knowing that I am worthy. Knowing that I am capable. Knowing that I have a story to tell.
A few days after writing that, I found this note in my journal with no other context—I’m not sure if it was a message from a dream or just something that poured out of me that day:
“I have realized that yes, I have to do things the hard way. While the idea of shortcuts, cheat codes, and getting to the good stuff as quickly as possible sounds nice, they just don’t appeal to my soul.”
And suddenly, it all made sense.
I didn’t desire an escape plan.
What my SOUL wanted—what I was actually wired for—was to do it the hard way. My way. Even if it took longer. Even if I made mistakes.
I didn’t want to do it like everyone else, nor was I meant to.
Years later, I’d discover Human Design and learn that I’m a 1/3 splenic Projector—an Investigator/Experimentor. Which means I’m literally designed to:
- Research deeply before I move (Investigator)
- Learn through trial and error (Experimentor)
- Guide others through lived experience, not theory
I wasn’t broken for not being able to follow the “proven systems.” I was just trying to force myself into a method that wasn’t designed for MY energy.
The shortcuts weren’t appealing to my soul because my soul knew: The depth comes from doing it the long way. The wisdom comes from the mistakes. The credibility comes from lived experience.
And that realization changed everything.
The Choice
So I stopped fighting my design and started honoring it.
I stopped buying programs promising quick results and started doing the slow, unglamorous inner work—journaling without a formula, sitting with my feelings instead of bypassing them, therapy to unpack the patterns, the Sacred Pause to actually KNOW what I needed to unbecome before trying to become someone new.
I stopped consuming content about change and started actually changing. Here’s what that looked like:
I set boundaries with EVERYONE. Even my kids. Even myself (that’s still a work in progress at times). No one gets to toe the line anymore. Because I realized that boundaries don’t just protect me—they protect the quality of connection I desire to have with people. When I let people cross my boundaries, I resent them. I become bitter and no one wants to hang around a bitter Projector. When I honor my boundaries, I can actually love them freely and as they are.
I allowed myself to let things go without the need for explanation or closure. Would it be nice to have? Would I be willing to hear someone out if they chose to provide it? Definitely. But I detached from the belief that I HAD to have it in order to move on. Closure became something I gave myself and allow silence and distance to provide, not something I waited for someone else to deliver.
I became increasingly discerning with what I consumed, and trusted myself to choose what I engage with. As a splenic Projector, if it’s not an instant “hell yes,” if it feels off, if I have to read page after page trying to convince myself of its benefit in my life—then it’s not for me. I stopped overriding my gut to be a “good student” or to not “waste” money I’d already spent.
I called back the energy I’d been investing in trying to convince others of their worth. The energy I spent trying to get them to see the importance of our connection, to recognize their own potential, to convince them to love me the way I needed, to recognize the ways in which they weren’t loving themselves. I stopped bending and molding myself to fit neatly into their lives. I stopped overgiving in the hopes that they would deem me worthy to reciprocate. And I invested all that energy into the ONLY person I could actually change: myself.
I welcomed the feelings of resentment, anger, sadness, and hurt—and I sat with them in the stillness of the Sacred Pause. I finally listened to what they’d been trying to reveal to me, without judgment or fear that they would consume me. And when they said their peace, when they showed me the patterns and ways I was allowing not only those around me but myself to keep me small, when they started gathering their things to make space for clarity—I said my goodbyes and let them go.
This wasn’t overnight. This wasn’t linear. This wasn’t perfect or even remotely pretty.
But it was REAL change. Not content consumed. Not information collected. Not another program sitting unfinished in my digital library. Not shame disguised as discipline.
Actual, embodied, lived transformation.
And here’s what I learned: You don’t need to feel 100% ready. You don’t need the perfect program. You just need to be ready enough to take the next aligned step.
The Difference
When you choose to be ready and take that first step toward change—even when you don’t feel ready—that is a powerful reclamation.
For me, it was night and day.
When I was consuming:
I was gathering information, growing increasingly frustrated with an influx of advice pushing me to work harder and against my design. I was waiting for this perfect missing piece, this perfect moment, this perfect feeling that I expected would suddenly spring up and make it all make sense.
I was searching for temporary highs—the rush of a new program, a new workshop, a new promise that this would be the one.
I believed there had to be a formula I could follow, ten steps that would guarantee the result, a proven system that would shortcut the mess.
When I started actually changing:
I stopped searching for those temporary highs and went within instead. I chose to trust what my body and inner authority were guiding me toward—even when it looked harder, messier, like the longer route or like I was doing nothing.
Because the moments of clarity I was able to perceive without the noise of what I “should” do revealed what I actually needed to do for me.
I realized there was no perfect first step. There was no way to completely prepare myself for what was to come, because only taking action was going to bring me clarity—even if that action was the quiet and stillness of the Sacred Pause.
I stopped buying into quick fixes because honestly, they only made the process longer—by trying to follow something that bypassed the internal realizations and conclusions I had to come to in order to effect real change.
We will always have to be the source of the change we want to see. And when we outsource that work, we find ourselves looping in patterns.
And while yes, there are things I read and watch that give me AHA moments and great insight, I now know there is no perfect time or right feeling. The most profound moments of clarity and truth have come to me at the craziest times:
- Mid-invert or twisted like a pretzel while poling, suddenly seeing a clear path to what felt blocked
- Seeing a car that reminds me of someone and having a truth revealed about them or the situation that I couldn’t perceive before
These moments happened because I chose to move forward without a perfect next step laid out for me.
And most importantly, when I chose to change and follow my internal rhythm and flow instead of trying to mold it to this method or that way of thinking, I was able to release the judgment of myself.
There was no formula to get wrong. No ten steps I had to follow perfectly. I quieted the chatter of my ego that said I needed something outside of myself, and I actually asked the source—my body—what it needed.
And when I allowed it, my body spoke loud and clear:
It’s okay to stumble. It’s okay to take the long way. It’s okay if no one understands your path.
That’s when I could embrace the messy yet beautiful process of becoming—because I unbecame the shame and could give myself grace for mistakes, compassion for the restarts and pivots, and space for pauses along the way.
The Invitation
So allow me to ask you this as someone who’s been there and got the t-shirt several times in the same color and two sizes too small:
What is consuming content without changing actually costing you?
Not just in money. Not just in time.
What is it costing you in self-trust? In worthiness? In years of your life spent preparing to live instead of actually living?
How is it keeping you settling for “good enough” or “at least” in unreciprocal relationships and environments because you’re expecting the information to make the actual change for you?
Is it causing you to judge and place unnecessary blame on yourself because you’re holding yourself to a standard, idea, or process that wasn’t designed for you?
Where will you be in 6 months, a year, 2 years if you keep making the same decisions?
And what would it look like to choose to be ready ANYWAY—not 100%, not perfectly coifed and primed, but ready enough?
What if you stopped waiting for the perfect program, the perfect feeling, the perfect moment—and just started with the free work?
The journaling. The sitting with your feelings. The Sacred Pause. The brutal honesty with yourself about what your current decisions are costing you. No longer bypassing what is being revealed to you.
Because here’s the truth:
Despite me wanting nothing more than for you to become the woman you have every right and ability to be, I can’t want your transformation more than you do. No program can do the inner work for you. No course can make you ready if you’re still trying to shortcut your way around the unbecoming.
But if you’re reading this and something in you is saying “Yes, I’m ready—not perfectly, but ready enough”—then start there.
Start with you. Start with honesty. Start with one brave, imperfect step.
That’s where real change begins.
And maybe—just maybe—the Universe has been trying to hand you exactly what you need, but your hands have been full of programs you weren’t ready for and quick fixes that didn’t work.
So put them down. Make space. And receive what’s already waiting for you.
WOW! I always knew you were a great writer, not just saying this because you are my daughter. Back in grade school your writing skills were good, as told by your teacher ( you know your first love) 😂😂😂. Keep that passion for writing, a fan always. Mom
So proud of you
Oh trust me, I still remember Mr. Kasmer. 🤣 Thank you for being my biggest supporter and fan. Love you always!