One of our Thrive Community members has a best friend who is dying and she posted about her grief in our private Thrive Membership Facebook group. It was a beautiful, heartfelt post that touched me (Jesse) deeply.
Her therapist recommended that she take a break from her business and allow herself to fully grieve. From my perspective, this is not a bad idea. But it’s also not necessarily a good idea.
I wrote a response to her post in the Membership and I decided to share some of my response with you, to support you when your life circumstances are so challenging that you’re tempted to take a break from your business.
If your life is very tough now, this will be especially relevant. And, if your life is awesome, this might be a blog post you forward to a coach or holistic practitioner friend who is going through a tough time.
Here’s what I wrote:
----------------------
Thank you for sharing this. What an intense, incredible journey. I appreciate everything you shared and everything you asked for. You are amazing.
I know how deep the grieving can go and I believe that only you can decide whether or not to take a break from your business and for how long.
I’ve found that sometimes taking a break from your business is the perfect thing to do.
When I first started my business and had no business training whatsoever, I couldn’t get one paying client to save my life. Out of frustration and compassion for my failure, I took a year away from my “business” to reset and heal before ramping back up and succeeding the second time.
When both my boys were born, I chose to take about 3 weeks off so that I could support Sharla and set an incredible foundation with my new family. I’m SO glad I did this.
There have been other times where life circumstances have been VERY challenging and VERY emotional. Everything inside of me wanted to quit my business and walk away from everything I had built. But, I knew that this was not my truth… just me trying to avoid the discomfort of being called to stretch and grow in new ways. So, I’ve stayed the course for ten years.
The only one who can make the decision to take time away from your business or not, is… you.
I find that self-care and healing is often best done in small chunks of time and that we can get lost in a sea of depression if we give ourselves an indefinite amount of months to heal from tough life circumstances.
If I was grieving the death of someone close to me, I imagine that I would take a week or two or three away from our business to fully nurture myself and my family.
And, then, if I was still going through it, I would do everything in my power to get the nurturing, support, love, and healing for a couple of hours everyday.
Then, I would dedicate the rest of my day to channeling my emotion into service for you and every other Thriver, and my team and my boys and Sharla.
What I’m sharing is not “the right thing to do”. But it is my truth in this moment, as someone who is committed to taking my experience and dedicating it to the people who have asked for my support. The people who would miss my presence if I stepped away from Thrive for a long time.
There are people who are waiting for you also, who will benefit from your wisdom, heart and experience. And who would miss you, if you stepped away for too long.
I don’t believe that life is giving you anything you can’t handle. As they say, “whatever doesn’t kill you will make a great seminar story.” When you dedicate your life to service, everything you go through is in service to you being the best leader you can be, for your people. So, if you’re going through a tough time, trust that you’ll get through it soon, and everyone will benefit from your healing and empowerment, including you.
So, to sum this all up, I invite you to make a conscious decision as to whether you want to take time away from your business, and if so, how long. And, if you choose to take time off from your business, I invite you to hold a vision for who you will be, when you re-emerge.
I look forward to hearing what you decide. 🙂
----------------------
I hope that, wherever you are right now in your business and whatever you are experiencing in this moment in life, you have the courage to treat yourself with kindness and compassion.
Sometimes being kind to yourself means backing off and sometimes being kind means stepping up. I encourage you to get the support you need to do whichever is right for you.
And if you know someone who is going through a tough time right now, I hope you will share this article with them...
