2018 was a year of big leaps for me. For example:
- I began the year on a meditation retreat in Myanmar.
- In March, I did a week-long fast with very little preparation.
- In April, I made choices that ended my marriage.
- From then on, I spent months in an experiment of not living anywhere, floating between housesits and friends’ houses—putting myself in the flow of unknown receiving.
- In August, I quit my final job as a magazine editor.
- In September, I sat a 12-day vision quest in the Utah desert with the Animas Valley Institute.
- In November, I bought an RV, put most of my belongings in storage, and set out on an indefinite road trip with a man I’d only known for a few months.
Looking back, I feel amazement about how much I risked, changed, and evolved in that one year.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that, also in 2018, I was spending 6+ hours a week practicing with a master yogi named Sofia Diaz.
Sofia was one of the most enlightened teachers I’ve ever met, and her transmissions continue to shape me years after she stopped teaching.
The things that came out of her mouth were strange, unpredictable, and sometimes hard to interpret.
I couldn’t repeat many of them, but there’s a phrase I heard her say many times that year. (She stopped repeating it soon after.)
For some reason, it stuck in my head indelibly. Perhaps because the timing was just right to lubricate my evolution.
I mentioned it during the masterclass I taught last week.
It seemed to strike a chord with the attendees, so I thought I’d share it with all of you, too.
Are you ready for the thought that might help you launch a path of radical upleveling?
“It’s better to be wrong than to be vague.”
That’s it. Nine dangerous, powerful little words.
If you’re anything like the perfectionist I was in my younger days, the idea of any sentence starting with “it’s better to be wrong…” might be extremely disconcerting.
I think that’s why it was such a game-changing idea for me.
It was permission.
Permission to take a leap and have it fail.
Permission to be messy and wild.
Permission to listen without having it all figured out.
Permission to step out of the murky morass of indecision and denial I’d been wading through up until then.
So I took a lot of leaps.
I let myself be wrong.
And you know what happened?
Freedom.
I shed more unaligned habits, structures, and ways of living in that year than many people will in a lifetime.
Was it elegant? Definitely not.
Do I regret any of it? Pretty much no.
If you gave me a do-over, I might make some edits, but I LOVE where all that willingness to risk got me in the long run.
Because this is the thing about living a life of full alignment: You can’t do it while holding onto the comfort of the known.
And you can’t do it without being willing to break some stuff along the way.
I’m not saying YOU need to quit your job, end your marriage, and go be a nomad.
Not at all.
You get to still prioritize that which matters most in your heart.
But there WILL be things that need to break, if only your old concepts of yourself and your maladaptive coping strategies.
And your brain, which loves the familiar, may dig its little kitty claws into that old way of being and prevent you from trying something new by telling you, “What if you’re wrong, though?”
Well, what if you are?
Aren’t there worse things out there?
Courageously yours,
Rachel
PS – The replay of “It’s OK to Want More: 3 Shifts for High Achievers Ready to Love Their Lives” expired last night, but if you missed it and really want to see what I taught, hit reply and we’ll find a way.
PPS – Save the date for my next free class: Success Beyond Reason: Why Achieving Isn’t Making You Happy (And the 3 Shifts That Will) -Thursday, April 9, 1:00 PM MT (Register and you’ll get immediate access to the replay)
