“Your job as a co-creator is to nurture this seed in you and continue to open to the truth of who you are, which is wanted and needed in the world.” —Wendy Wallbridge, Spiraling Upward
There were 2 reasons why I was thrilled to read, Spiraling Upward, the 5 Co-creative Powers for Women on the Rise.
- I’m am building my business business back.
I was a solopreneur for 8 years. I took a break from my business to work in a corporation and be responsible for projects and lead generation targets on a large scale. After a few years, I returned to my passion, working for myself. I’m aware that I need to make some changes if I want my business to expand and achieve these goals:
- Include employees and a team
- Work on more strategic projects
- Shift my focus to customer experience, blending content, conversation and communication with user experience
- I believe that your beliefs shape your experience.
What you believe subconsciously shows through your actions, words, and thoughts. Spiraling Upwards includes instruction, exercises and stories to help you shift your beliefs about yourself and the world around you. I know I wanted to see which beliefs about my business and myself could be changed to achieve my goals this time.
Wendy Wallbridge opens her book with an inspiring story about her life, which sparked her own transformations and later her coaching practice and this book. When she was very young, she was very successful when suddenly she contracted Lupus. More health conditions from Lupus emerged over the years until finally she needed a kidney transplant. Years before the transplant, she realized her disease was an analogy of her life. Lupus is an autoimmune disorder – she was literally attacking herself. Symbolically, her soul didn’t know who she became – she wasn’t who she was supposed to be.
After this realization, she worked on finding her authentic self, searching her soul to be who she was called to be and create a life that made her truly happy. She stopped living through other people’s stories (in this case, her father’s perspective) and live her own.
Most of us won’t experience a catalyst like Lupus to kick-start such transformations. However, with the process and exercises she proposes, we all are able to know who we are and what our soul wants, which will make achieving success and our goals that much easier.
Wendy structured Spiraling Upwards into three sections, or turnings of the spiral:
- Initiation – activate the co-creation process and live a more authentic life. You get in touch with you.
- Aspiration – move beyond trying to fit some old improved picture of you. Release old images of what you should be and create space for an image of who you are today and allow who you are becoming to emerge.
- Inspiration – instead of actively pursuing your purpose, allow your purpose to pursue you. Create an intention and let your dreams and aspiration unfold for you.
The basis for everything in the book is love. Love is the core of who you are, and without love, you can’t create or live your new story.
Each spiral includes a section on:
- Energy
- Thoughts
- Feelings
- Speech
- Action
Through these sections, the book builds you, starting with energy shifts, which fuels thoughts, which lead to feelings, which guide speech, and become action.
These sections include short personal stories and exercises to help you reach into your soul and allow the real you to shine through.
Some sample exercise topics:
- Facing your fears and what’s really upsetting
- kNOTs and limiting beliefs (she shows you how they assist with self-sabotage, but she has a way to turn them around to empower you again)
- Making requests and saying no – or finding your voice
- Working with intention
- Trusting love, embracing the good
- Self-advocacy and speaking truth to power
- Rewriting herstory and reclaiming your destiny
In “Becoming a Wide Receiver,” I learned how to listen to my body and the messages it communicates to me. I rarely taking rest when I need it – I’ll keep pushing and not be effective because I physically need a break. I learned how to “hear” the need for rest, and not discount the emotions with it.
In “Untying your kNOTs,” I learned how to look forward to what I want rather than backwards to what I don’t want. For my business, this is key to achieve my goals. I reflected as to why I didn’t hire staff and how that served me. I realized I didn’t want the additional responsibility of people reporting into me. Now that I do, I believe that I can now expand my business.
For the “Rewriting Herstory” exercise, I realized that I have achieved far more than I thought in my career. I acknowledged that I was a strategic contributor for my clients, and I was great at collaboration, contributing new ideas, and building solid work partnerships. I also realized that I have been working on customer experience projects all along – I just needed to see it.
After experiencing this book, I feel more confident that my business will grow in the new direction I’d like to see. My goals aren’t out of reach – it’s all possible. It depends on my perspective.
However, the deeper learning I got from Spiraling Upwards is that we create our reality. Sometimes it is easier to blame outside influences for challenges, like accusing others of standing in our way. That perspective may serve us, but at the same time it can be a self-sabotaging belief. This book guides you inwards, to discover your own personal power and how you can empower yourself to follow your dreams, allow opportunities to arise, and let life lead you towards your dreams and goals.
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Organizations with women in their executive suites regularly out-perform others. Yet rising female executives (and their mentors) are frustrated at how hard it is to break through the glass ceiling. In this extensive guide, Executive Coach Dana Theus shares her tried and true strategies to help women excel into higher levels of leadership and achieve their executive potential.
