Soul Stories: When Plans Don’t Work

I am so afraid of the project I’m working on, and that’s why I know I must complete it. Since I can remember, people have told me that I’m a great writer. I have the test scores and credentials to validate that. I have written articles that went viral, and I’ve been published in magazines. But all of these external cues really don’t make up for the disappointment I felt when I lost a publishing contest in 2014.

Since I’ve been getting tattoos, I’ve known I needed to share their stories. Each tattoo I have holds a deep-rooted meaning from a story of a spiritual turning point in my life. The people I met along the way are truly the characters you meet in books. I thought, for sure, my chance to do that was when I attended a Hay House Publishing conference at the end of 2013. Coming off my time in Afghanistan, I just knew that my next step was to publish a Hay House book and teach people to heal from their traumas. I even met Marianne Williamson at the conference. I just knew, deep in my bones, that it was meant for me.

…until the morning the winners were announced, and I wasn’t chosen.

I only had Plan A, y’all. There was no Plan B if I lost this contest; that’s how sure I was.

So let me tell you what Plan B looked like.

I found out that I had lost the contest in May 2014, about a month into my relationship with my now-husband (and baby daddy hehe). I had met him while I was finishing the book proposal in sunny Saint Lucia in March 2014. Our draw to each other was instant, and well, as cliche as it is, we just knew. He helped me cope with losing the contest like a champ. As an artist, he knows it’s like that sometimes, and even when you lose, especially when you lose, you have to just pour your energy into your next project and keep going.

I planned, then, to move to the island with him and publish the book myself. We planned to get married so I could easily get a work visa. Every day we talked about our dreams, including our future children, travel plans, and simple island life. I could dig the loss of the contest knowing that a new exciting plan was on the horizon.

…until I got pregnant, way faster than we had planned. Scratch Plan B (no birth-control pun intended); it was time to figure out Plan C, fast.

We did what made the most sense to bring a baby into the world; we looked for steady paychecks and put our plans on hold so our child would have the most successful beginning possible. Especially for a biracial baby, we knew that his first year would be crucial to instill a sense of confidence, unconditional love, and trust in us as parents. I stopped writing and let my website die. I pushed yoga to the side and went back to 8am meetings and audit reports. I hushed my outspoken ways (sometimes) and silenced the parts of me that so much needed to be heard.

…until that corporate life couldn’t work anymore, for reasons I won’t discuss. The only thing scarier than leaving was staying, and after 18 steady months of pushing against my intuition, I surrendered. And I started scrapping for Plan D, which brings us to this post.

I’m back to seeing in the dark and seeking out the next stepping stone. I’m back to uncertainty, sporadic pay checks, tight budgets, late nights and early mornings. Some days, I feel completely in control like my plan makes total sense, while other days, I question it all. I worry people will question my authenticity, my consistency, and my vulnerability. I worry people won’t buy my book, or they will think my flavor of Kool Aid is just a little too wacky to drink 🙂 These fears drain me but fuel me; they dare me to look deep for my own courage and rise.

Will Plan D work? There is no guarantee. But at least I know, if it doesn’t, I’m damn good at making new ones, and maybe it’s Plan E that needed to work, after all. I trust and believe that these are the experiences that draw your greatness to the surface. These are the challenges, the adversity, that beg you to fly. These are the soul stories that I hope, one day, to be pouring in to other young, wide-eyed dreamers with big hearts and bigger ideas. Plans don’t always work as you imagined, but people who are willing to draw up a new one will always succeed. Here’s to planning, scrapping, editing, revising, replanning, executing, and thriving. Listen to your heart, always; it will take you to the next stepping stone you need.

xojf