2020: The Year of Doubling

It was two weeks ago, I was sitting at the kitchen table of our AirBnB, pulling document after document of proof of my income to show to the rental company for our new place. I even needed a letter from my accountant stating the growth of my company.

FYI, Australia doesn’t mess around when it comes to proving you can pay your bills. 

As I was reviewing my numbers, it was then that it hit me…

“Holy shit...I did it!” 

I leaped up from my chair and ran into Spike. “I did it!”

We doubled our income this year.

We doubled our profit this year.

And then, we doubled our profit again. (Found that one out from my accountant’s lovely letter. Thanks, Jerra!)

We’re on track for a 150% growth in 2020. 

This is the number I screamed from the top of my lungs at Tony Robbins’ Business Mastery way back in January.

I felt this growth in my BONES.

After we settled into our new place (yes, we got the apartment...woot-woot!), I started reflecting on all the ways 2020 has doubled.

We doubled the number of countries we’ve lived in for over 3 months.

We doubled the number of moves in one country. 

(Yes, we have moved as many times in the past 9 months in Australia as I have in the past 22 years in the US. I’m kind of done with moving for right now.)

Of course, growth is not without stress. Hello...moving!

You literally (and physically) need stress to grow.

That’s how we adapt as humans. 

You don’t want TOO MUCH stress, as that sends your body into overwhelm and your nervous system into fight/flight mode.

You don’t want TOO LITTLE stress, as that creates atrophy.

And no one wants a bottom line or a bottom that is atrophying. No one likes a saggy a$s. 

You atrophy energetically from stress when you withdraw, numb out, avoid it, or pretend like “of course, you’re totally fine,” when inside, you’re screaming.

For some, the stress of 2020 was too much, causing lives, businesses, relationships to completely spasm in fight or flight mode.

For others, the stress of 2020 threw them into “freeze” mode (a neurobiological response from overuse of the fight/flight), where they withdrew, avoided, escaped, or numbed out.

The key is to find your oscillation with stress. 

How do you allow for enough stress to grow you? But not enough to debilitate you?

That dance, that balance is ENTIRELY 100% personal to you.

You’ll find it in your body. 

In your breath. 

In your emotions.

Just like when you’re at the gym, you know when your body has had enough reps (aka stress from an outside weight), you can also know when your body has had enough emotional stress from your breath and how your body is able to process the emotions you’re experiencing.

This is why I’m so excited to be incorporating more somatic work from Pilates and breathwork into my coaching practice.

I started exploring more bodywork practices when my own body was experiencing a decade’s worth of PTSD in May/June. 

It was through that healing, through the integration of the body, mind, emotions, meditation, and movement, that I found the perspective, and ultimately, freedom from a decade of trauma that has recurred in those months.