growing our business by leaps and boundaries

Unbounded Girls Polarity Ring with Sarah Donnell

Setting boundaries for our business isn't a one time set it and forget it kind of thing.

(unless you are in the crockpot business and if you are please hook me up with some new recipes - I just got one - I am already obsessed with it)

It's a practice.
 
We are always growing; always expanding.

(and when it feels like things are standing still it is just because things outside of us are busy catching up with us or falling into place for us)

We have no choice in this. It is just how the universe works. Our business works the same way.

When we are in the process of deciding to step into a new space or a new level or achieve something we have never tried before or whatever this looks like for us - there is always this part of us that wants the exact opposite.

(this is what polarity is all about folks, it's not just a locket after all)

There is a part (maybe an arm or a leg or an ovary) that just wants to hunker down and stay where we are. 

This isn't a bad thing (until it is, because it will be sooner or later).

A few quiet moments getting centered in our own heart will tell us if this "stay where we are" thing is about love - really loving where we are right now and wanting to wring every last drop of joy from it or if this "stay where we are" thing is about fear - of the unknown, of failing, of making a fool of ourself, of letting go of something good to just maybe have something great.

Creating boundaries around what we say we want is the best leverage we have against all the inner struggle (which might look like outer resistance, but it's really all inner stuff - trust me) that is certain to show up as soon as we decide we want something more.

Setting and upholding clear and healthy boundaries creates a place where self-sabotage is much less likely. I could write a gazillion posts about self-sabotage or maybe just one someday but it will be a doosie (stay tuned).

When I have some direction I want to take and I don't commit to a specific action I am never free of it.

The part of me that wants it - the part that doesn't want to "stay where we are" will be nagging me all the time. "Well, are you going to work on it now? How about now? What do you mean you are going to the movies, you can't go to the movies - you need to work on that thing we want!"  

But when I set up some boundaries for the leap - "I am going to work on this thing I want every Wednesday from 8 to noon" for example - then I am free and don't have to think about it the rest of the time.

Structure creates freedom.

Another boundary I have set up in the studio is not to answer my own phone. No, I haven't figured out how to get Olive to answer it (yet) and obviously if I know someone is going to call me at a certain time I answer the phone.

But for the rest of the time I set up a voicemail system and I return calls at the same time every day - yes, once a day (except for a customer emergency - I mean if a Polarity customer has somehow magnetized themselves to a train track and a speeding locomotive is fast approaching - I'm on my way - all my lockets come with a 911, 24 hour free emergency response unit, of course).

Julia Roberts made Pretty Woman at twenty one years old and refused to do a nude scene. It wasn't like she was a big movie star - it was her first starring role after all. She made a movie about being a prostitute and became the biggest movie star on the planet without doing a nude scene (even in 199? that was pretty remarkable). I don't think her success happened in spite of  her setting this personal boundary. I think it happened because she set this boundary and then she practiced it.

Now, I'm not exactly comparing my refusal to answer the phone with Julia's refusal to take off her clothes but I kind of am (and I refuse to take off my clothes, too - in fact my customers, and Olive, demand that I don't ... in writing actually). Maybe it's time we all sat down and really got clear with our own business boundaries - who knows what kind of freedom we can create for ourselves with some structure.

a wake, magical thinking and if you call me ma'am I'll cut ya'

We went to a wake for hub's 93 year old landlord. She was a real firecracker and he loved her. She lived her entire life in our very small town - in the very same house in fact. And although this information got hubs all wet eyed about small town life, it made me want to move now.

I flashed ahead to a time when I could be laid out in that same room, except no one would have ever heard of me, people would be all - who? how long did she live here? that long?? hmm I never even noticed her. what house? oh her - she was the one with the Kerry sign and the ... dandelions.

I want need to move folks. 

So I start affirming for the right house.  I don't make a vision board and get all focused on the details (although I do waste half a day on pinterest) - I am not trying to manipulate anything here. I know that the unwritten subtitle to the book The Secret is The Secret to More Karma. This is too big a deal to get what we want and then figure out we don't want it.

I release a personal focus - I affirm this move to be in the best interest of all concerned. I call in divine order - I know that our ideal home is out there for us as well as the ideal buyers for our home.

I mentally return my home to the universal flow so someone else can line up with its vibration easily.

I detach from the outcome - detachment is the most important part in all of this - this creates space for creation.

So now we are fixing up our house, which is going to be a process (notice I didn't say this is going to be a lot of work, because I don't really want to put that in writing although I guess I just did ... probably because this is going to be a lot of work) because we have let things slide around here. But I know there is some other woman, maybe on pinterest right now, imagining it - I don't want to let her down.

For those who don't believe in this manifesting stuff I want to offer up the following story that also happened this week as proof.

I really hate the word ma'am. I think we all do. I am not sure why. Maybe because it sounds too much like damn or spam or mammogram. Visions of dentures and bobby pins and someone gently holding my elbow and guiding me down the stairs always pops into my head.  

It makes me feel like the human equivalent 

of a wilted corsage. 

I mean, do you think Joan Jett would put up with this crap?! I might have to take somebody down!

There is a local restaurant where the waiters and waitresses always say this - drives me nuts (note- they call hubs "sir" and he loves it). I think "sir" would drive me nuts, too. I would have to think of it in a "to sir, we love" (great movie) kind of way if I were him.

We went there this week and before I went in, I did a little silent release of my annoyance at this word - we can only change ourselves after all. I thought about how the letters could be rearranged into mama and I loved that word, so I just imagined ma'am as someone actually calling me mama as in red hot mama, of course.

The waiter approached our table and I'm thinking red hot mama, red hot mama - and the waiter says "Hello folks. Sir, what would you and the young lady like to start with?"

I spit water all over the place.

(and yes, this did kind of make me feel like I was out to dinner with my grandfather and about to order myself a rootbeer float and some mcnuggets, but proof is proof folks and at least I didn't have to start a brawl and do one of those Jersey Housewives table-flips we all learn here in nursery school - although that would have given the town something to remember me by)

Next week I will get back to my money series and some Etsy stuff I've been procrastinating posting about. Have a nice weekend everyone! xo

gone fishin' ... without any actual fish having to worry

Catching up with some wholesale stuff and balls I have dropped lately ... back to bloggerworld soon - I hope everyone is having a wonderful week! xo

your Etsy shop as a transition position (why the making is more important than the making money ... until it isn't anymore)

evolving butterflies from caterpillars

The only way to get unstuck is to create instability.

Stuck stuff is stable.

(think dentures, well-made dentures, wait, do they still make dentures ...)

And it sounds like stable is a good thing (it is a good solid word after all) but sometimes stable is over-rated. Sometimes things need to be shaken up so they can fall apart and we can see what we are left with.

Often people email me for advice about their Etsy shop or about opening an Etsy shop.

Maybe, they have put a lot of time into their shop (very seldom have they put a lot of money into their shop) and it just isn't making them any money and sometimes they have just discovered Etsy or been stalking Etsy on the side and are wondering if it is worth putting in the time because it may or may not make them any money in the future. They are stuck.

(this looking too far into the future with money doesn't work anyway - we are evolving - kicking and screaming sometimes, but evolving and just like the farmer moved into the factory when we evolved from a society where almost no one had a job into a society where almost everyone had a job - we are evolving again into ... well, something else, my magic 8 ball isn't saying, but the way money is tied to work has changed forever this is certain)

Now, I used to look at this person's Etsy shop and offer some kind of advice around their pictures or their message or their makings, well not usually about their makings

(I tread carefully around people's makings because I realize I am dealing with people's hearts here, and if I was to say something not so nice about your makings and you didn't feel it in your heart, you would know you probably needed to put a whole lot more of your heart into your makings)

but you get the idea - physical stuff. But now I would be more likely to look at the non-physical stuff first - like why are they making their stuff? Were they making it before Etsy? How did they get here? What is their intention with this?

Your Etsy shop is not guaranteed to make you money - no matter how much work you put into it.

(nope, no guarantees, this isn't a job with a guaranteed paycheck for your 20, 40, 60 hours)

Although jobs don't come with guarantees either - no gold watch with guaranteed health insurance for life for us my dear - our safety net has holes large enough that even our winter backsides, holed up with a hot chocolate and cider donuts, can slip through easily. This is ok though, this is more than ok - we are moving away from the factory paradigm and if this gold watch stuff still existed we wouldn't be able to.

And often people tell me they have put a lot of time into their shop when what they really need is to put a lot of time (and yes, money, too) into their business.

(but that's a whole other post)

Etsy is a great transition position though - a place to move into the energy of creation - a place to get unstuck

(think that guy who's name you have forgotten that you went out with between those two great loves of your life - yes, him, that guy, well, that guy was a very important part of your life because he helped you transition, well him and chocolate ice cream anyway.

Etsy might be one of the great loves of your life, but more likely he is that guy, and that guy may be no less important)

Putting our energy (time, focus, money) into any act of creation (a totally unstable thing to do) can move us out of stuck. If we did things that only had a guaranteed outcome we'd never move off the couch.

We don't get to know where this unstuck energy will lead us - our Etsy shop that isn't making any money can lead us to something amazing that would never have happened if our Etsy shop had been making us money - stay open to the possibilities.

This is what we have really created with our Etsy shop - this space of openness - this space of potential and its place isn't in Brooklyn or on the internet - its place is within us and our only job is to make sure it stays open.