12 Moons
June 14, 2018
This New Moon marks the 12th moon of my sobriety.
Every aspect of my life has shifted in the last year of moon cycles.
Let me just provide a small window into my old life:
Imagine a person who has so many reasons to be happy but is blind to nearly all of them. My internal dialogue was cynical, stressed out, lacking hope and mercilessly critical of my every move. I was using alcohol and cigarettes as an emotional bandage. A way to hide from what scared me about the world and myself, a way to feel “happy” enough to socialize, a way to feel “brave.” But mostly just a way to NOT feel. Because feeling hurt. It was an inner darkness that was like a little cloud over my head that I couldn’t chase away. It’s not as if I wasn’t happy with my life. I have wonderful friends, supportive family members and I’m married to my Soul Mate—those things were all true then too. But I just wasn’t connected.
Last May, Danielle Kurtz helped guide me through my first order. I chose only obscure oils. I “knew” too much about essential oils to want the “basics” found in the starter kits—I’d been using essential oils for cleaning products for nearly 10 years. I worked for a natural skin care company and played with my own formulations in my down time. I “knew” what I was doing. I had no idea what truly pure essential oils created with aligned integrity could actually DO for me. One of the oils in my enrollment: White Fir—now replaced by the far superior Siberian Fir. An oil for inflammation, BREAKING HABITS and healing generational wounds. My intuition was working right through my nose. I see this happen with other people too—our bodies and our intuition know exactly what we need. Our bodies’ natural state is vibrant health and vitality and our bodies will guide us to that state of Being if we only quiet ourselves enough to LISTEN. As I began exploring life in a full-spectrum of emotions, I found myself led to tools to cope. Oils. Proper supplementation. Emotional Freedom Technique. Spiritual reading. Kundalini Yoga. Abraham Hicks. Most recently, The Work of Byron Katie. All have become passions of mine. I find myself to be a hoarder of positive tools and, most of the time, positive feelings.
My story has many other details, I could write an entire book about it. Perhaps I will. For the purposes of this journal, however, allow me to get to the origin of Go-Alignment.
I was listening to a lot of Abraham Hicks on youtube before Jimmy and I took our second canoe trip of the summer—AND our first trip sober. By this time Jimmy had fully joined me in leaving the drinking lifestyle behind. He quit smoking on the same day I did but we’ve always valued autonomy in our relationship so his relationship with alcohol remains his own. Thankfully, for my own immaturity with alcohol-free living, his use of alcohol shifted too. But I am so appreciative of my ability to see his experience as his own, just like mine is my own. It’s an ongoing thought project—Abraham Hicks has helped greatly.
While at the lake, experiencing that space in a whole new way, we spent a ton of time talking. Talking about oils, which had become my full-time obsession, and dreaming about our future. Then I asked Jimmy if we could maybe make me a bag to carry the oils that really showed off the labels and kept them organized. Maybe it was part of my perfectionism that made me believe that I needed to have a professional looking organizer to do doTERRA as a business, and that might be partially true. I like to think it was my Self guiding me to a way to use our shared creativity to gain confidence and gain an even deeper connection as partners.
During our discussion of this imaginary bag, we realized that millions of people are using these beautiful oils as well and plenty of them probably felt the same way I did about wanting beauty and organization. It was a pretty simple idea, but we began to expand it into a much larger project. And for the first time ever, we began taking Inspired Action. We’ve had plenty of dreaming sessions, it’s what makes our marriage rich and exciting. But in the past we lacked the motivation and confidence to take real action on most of our ideas. Using the Oils, taking care of our health with diet, exercise and supplements plus taking the time to cultivate healthy minds have changed that habit of dreaming and dropping. Once we began taking action, all of the pieces began to light up as though a series of light switches were turned on as we became ready to find the way. The name of our brand encompasses our philosophy: Go in the direction of your Own Alignment. The oils help make finding a better perspective easier.
When these moments of Divine Inspiration arrive, I’ve come to realize that it’s really about the invitation to self-development rather than the specific end result. Building two new businesses while newly sober would have been mind-blowingly overwhelming to me last May if I had tried to set that as a goal. Now that’s my life. Jimmy and I are growing and learning together on this venture. It happened in small actions. Saying yes to the invitation of the Oils to integrate simple self care into our lives was the first of so many small commitments to living the life we WANT to lead rather than letting life happen to us.
And if we can do it, if I can do from where I was a year ago, anyone can wake up to their own dreams being realized.