“The whole point of being alive is to evolve into the complete person you were intended to be.” Oprah Winfrey

My heart is broken. And when your heart is broken, no amount of fake smiles and motivational quotes will help. You just have to feel it, grieve the losses, let time help you to move through it, keep opening and releasing even when all you feel like doing is closing and retreating.

My heart is broken for so many reasons. The state of the planet, the amount of hate and fear that are permeating our culture and media, the dishonouring and disrespecting of the feminine that has heightened in these past few months. It’s broken for so many losses and so many hurts that have deeply wounded me, personally, corporately, globally.

I used to be able to work on top of all of that. Not have to feel it. Distract myself with busy-ness. Not have to acknowledge how deeply broken and wounded my heart has been. Irreparably.

Business is a terrible place to be when your heart is broken. Business can be devastatingly harsh, unkind, unemotional, aggressive, malicious.

Sometimes, I hate it. If I’m really telling the truth, a lot of the time.

It takes a lot out of me to be in business. I’m good at it, and I’m strong, fierce really, and at times I can appear impenetrable. I’m never afraid to make the tough decision and can do so with unemotional swiftness. But truthfully, I’m sensitive, I feel everything far too deeply, my empathy runs through every cell in my being, I trust people far too easily and leave my heart unprotected, naively at times.

Yet in order to go where I need to go, to fulfill my purpose, to execute on this mission I have undertaken, business is the only way through. I have to learn how to protect myself, how to be guarded, how to fight for my position, how to push back and hold my ground when attacked and undermined, how to be deeply wounded by people that I trust the most, pull the arrows out of my back, and keep going. How to keep my heart open and my truth honoured while having wolves after my jugular and demands and pressure that would crush the most seasoned of souls. To balance purpose and vision with execution and structure. To trust intuition. To fail, be tested, be pushed to the limit and find solid ground. To make tough decisions that make me highly unpopular and unliked, judged, criticized, blamed and attacked, but have to make them anyway.

And every step forward brings another level of challenges, far greater than the last. Just when I think I can relax…another freight train. Sometimes I don’t think I have what it takes….but only sometimes.

So why do it?

I have this insatiable desire, this compulsion, this obsession, this unwavering depth of commitment, to lead a purpose driven life. To be the fullest expression of myself. Unbounded and connected to my Source. I have no idea where it comes from, this tenacity of spirit that is unrivaled. But it is the only thing that keeps me going.

It’s selfish really.

Yes, as a company we are committed to creating sustainable businesses, pushing forward change-making projects that have impact and I am fiercely passionate about it. But that’s not why I do this work. I do this work for selfish reasons – reasons that are hard for me to put into words, they are beyond words.

I do it for my own commitment to the pursuit of something I can’t quite describe. Ascension, growth in consciousness, to be the fullest expression of myself, yes. But even those words all fall flat.

Why write such a deeply personal blog? Goodness knows it’s not for the fan mail. I’d never be this honest about the dark corners in my mind – my fears, my vulnerabilities, my amateur grammar – by choice. It’s painful for me to write this thing, but I do it because Spirit calls. I must. Who knows why.

I am relentless about it. Willing to do whatever it takes. Go wherever I need to go, do whatever I need to do. When I win and when I fail, my resolve is the same. None of that matters. It is a pursuit, a lifelong one, a connection to a higher consciousness. Winning and failing don’t matter there. Accolades or acknowledgement are nice, but they don’t mean anything. Whether I am judged or praised matters not. Nothing matters, but this pursuit, this connection. And every day it starts from 0. Every moment is a fresh start to move forward in this quest for consciousness – to bring the Light of Understanding, for myself, yes, and for others, I hope.

It leads me often to places I don’t want to go, to decisions I have to make that break my heart in two. To keep releasing attachment to anything. It is a life beyond attachments. It will bring me to my knees and then ask me to surrender further. It will open my heart to great depths of love and devotion and then ask me to let them go. It will confront me with my greatest fears again and again and ask me to befriend them. It will bring me to be betrayed and betrayed and betrayed and somehow find a way to forgive and keep trusting. It will wreck my broken heart again and again, until I learn to find strength in my vulnerability. It will keep my fallibility in my own view until I can live in my own forgiveness. Until I learn to be a walking, wounded, broken-hearted soul, exposed for the world to see, so full of humility and Grace that there is no other option than to surrender deeper into every moment, every situation and every opportunity.

One giant, life-long process of letting go. Of letting go of ego, of self, of attachment, of mistakes, of the way it “should” look, of what I had in mind……to make room for God.

Krystine McInnes is CEO and Project Director of Athena Farms and Grown Here Farms. Stewarding purpose-driven, change-making projects with a focus on Planet, People, Profit and a commitment to Sustainable Business models.

“All these years I’ve been feeling like I was growing into myself. Finally, I feel grown.” Oprah Winfrey

The feeling I have, right now in this moment of true depth and empowerment, is that I have finally found that Light, that Spark, that Inner-Goddess that I remember having when I was little, even if only the sense that I had it then. And somehow, over years of life happening, lost.  Maybe I lost it when I was 3 or 5 or 6. Maybe pieces of it were chunked away slowly over time, until one day I woke up and didn’t know who I was. Lost in insecurities, everyone else’s perceptions and ideals for me, trying to be perfect, desperately unhappy, searching to find that Inner Light again, looking in all the wrong places. Finding only superficial, false idols that I clung to and had been so terrified to let go of. How do you let go of a lifeline not knowing what’s next, or if there is a net to catch you?

In my experience, that’s where the gift is. In learning to let go of our addictions to false idols and superficial fills, step into the unknown, face every dark and frightened part of ourselves, tell the truth about it and stand there, vulnerable, opened, uncertain and deeply humbled. To find out who we really are.

It’s not easy. My fear has always been that the answer to the question, “who am I?”, is all of the terrible thoughts in my head, all of the guilt, shame, blame, punishment, “I told you so’s”, not enoughs and not worthys. How could I face myself if it was all true? Best to cover it up with superficial niceties, get the botox and the makeup out, drink it away, drug it away. We certainly have enough media that tells us that’s what to do. “Focus on my body, please ignore my spirit.” “Tell me the only way I’m valuable is to have the best jacket, car, house or shoes.” “Hide that deep fear deeper and deeper below the surface and cover it up with money, fame, shiny things and fake everything.”

Who am I? It’s an unanswerable riddle. Every layer leads deeper, to another and another. Past the fear, past the superficial egoic state, past the things I’ve told myself about who I am, past the things I’ve been told about who I am, past all of it.

There’s a beauty that starts to unfold there. A deep sense of peace, of connection and communion to….something. Something bigger. A returning to that Inner Light, that Inner Spark. A joy that I can’t quite describe in words, it just simply isn’t human. Who am I?

I don’t really know, and yet I have a firmer sense inside of me than I ever have. I feel stronger, more connected, more authentic, more honest and truthful, more alive and more joy than at any other time in my existence. Who am I?

I am afraid. How can I possibly be worthy of so much? Sometimes I have to stop – I can’t let it all in. It overwhelms me.

But still my path continues to unfold into the mystery of the answer. And to be able to manifest projects into the world that become places of resonance, that sing that same deep song to lead us all back Home, to that place of Inner Light, Inner God/Goddess, Inner Spark – wow. I am so deeply, deeply humbled and honoured.

Into the mystery I go.

Krystine McInnes is CEO and Project Director of Athena Farms and Grown Here Farms. Stewarding purpose-driven, change-making projects with a focus on Planet, People, Profit and a commitment to Sustainable Business models.

“Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.” Oprah Winfrey.

I always end the year with contemplation. Go off-grid, get quiet, connect, meditate, dream up the coming year. A chance to reinvent myself all over again. Who do I want to be this year? Am I proud of who I was? What kind of life do I want to lead? That I get another chance to start again! How blessed am I?! That I am allowed to recreate myself and begin anew.

It’s never been about resolutions, but about my resolve. Who am I? What do I stand for? Why am I here?

Questions that sometimes get lost in the haze of a busy Spring market, the heat of the Summer sun, the hustle and hurry of Christmas time. But this last week of December, ah, that’s the time when I can turn it all off, get quiet and bring forward those questions that are often in the back of my mind to the forefront, make them centre stage and begin again.

We can do that you know.

We can start again at any moment.

As I get older and the successes and failures build my character, I notice how much harder it is to overcome those parts of myself that want to hold on to the past. That who I was is who I have to be, that I can’t, that it’s too hard, that risks seem more risky and trusting myself seems in shorter supply. I want certainty more than faith. I want gravity more than dreamland. I seek comfort and security over the unknown.

The battle rages most loudly in these times of quiet contemplation – there are no distractions to drown it out. Here I sit, face to face with myself. As I glance in the rear view mirror to see where I’ve come from and assess where I want to go, fragments of those battle scars hang on. Like travel stamps I’ve picked up from my journey, they stick. And I notice – I am more withheld, more reluctant to risk my heart. When did I become so afraid? When did I stop seeking adventure and start looking for the path already paved before me?

To reinvent ourselves, we have to be willing to let go of who we think we are, what has defined us, what has hurt us, what has scared us and all of the things we have believed about ourselves. To open the door for what is new to enter.

To welcome fear, past pains, heartbreaks, trauma and hurt to our dinner table. Our greatest fears, our darkest parts, our embattled and scarred hearts, to sit eyeball to eyeball with them and find a way to love them still, let them go, and risk our heart’s again.

Life tries to beat that out of us. Not in a malicious way, but in a testing way. Otherwise, how would we ever find our true Greatness? Like every great story of all time – the battle of good and evil, the quest, the journey to find what has been lost or forgotten, and the heart-wrenching trials of mind, body and spirit that must be undertaken before what is being sought is given.

We are all heroes in our own stories, our story is our life. We have the pen, the paper and the ink. If we are willing. If we are brave enough to commit to the journey, to the trials and the tests. And to never, ever, ever give up.

What miracles will 2015 bring? What trials, what tests, what opportunities and surprises? I don’t know. But I am willing. God, Universe, Spirit, whatever You may be, hear me now, I am willing.

Krystine McInnes is an accredited mortgage professional with over 10 years in the mortgage industry & a background in the legal field. She also stewards the vision for numerous boutique development projects between the Okanagan & Vancouver, British Columbia. Find more on her here: www.krystinemcinnes.ca

 

“Living in the moment brings you a sense of reverence for all of life’s blessings.” Oprah Winfrey

What would you do, who would you become, how would you live your life if every, single moment was a fresh start? If you trusted rather than doubted? If you committed more whole-heartedly to what you wanted, even when what’s coming back to you is what looks like struggle – to lean in anyway, to commit more. Not to recoil in fear, but to find your feet, to firm them on solid ground and to start every moment again, as a recommitment to what you want to create?

Every day I’m reminded to trust the intangible more and more – lean in HARDER. I live in a space of possibilities, I AM a space of possibility – it’s how I create crazy finance solutions that can’t be done, connect dots that are invisible to most, build solutions that seem impossible and live in the miraculous.

That’s not fluff, it’s actually planned, structured and committing to a future I’m creating, not one that is happening to me. Even when the answer is “I don’t know”. Surrender anyway. Commit more to what you want. Commit more deeply.

Nothing takes the sails our of possibility and miracles more than fear. I know it all too well, the pattern that emerges in the process of creating something new. In the beginning, the winds are high, the sails are full and there is nothing stopping me. Then, slowly, adversity hits.

Things don’t go as planned, tries and fails, hits and misses, two steps forward one step back. Doubt starts to set in. Push forward, stay the course, keep going.

Then, the inevitable silence of nothing – nothing moving, nothing seemingly happening, all the doors that were opened have now shut. Where do I go? What way do I turn? The ground beneath gets shaky, uncertainty starts to chatter in the mind. Then fear. Maybe I’m wrong? Maybe all those negative things that swirl in my head about myself every now and again are true. Maybe I’m not enough, maybe I can’t do it, maybe I’ll fail. Self-doubt, uncertainty, fear – possibility’s nemesis.

It’s in these moments that I’m reminded. Possibility requires trust, it requires surrender and a deeper commitment and grit than I have ever known – go deeper. Miracles don’t live in a place of tangibility, you can’t chart them on an excel spreadsheet or explain them in a boardroom. And yet, I know in my heart it’s where I live. The miraculous, the intangible, the possible. Creation. An open heart, a grateful heart, a trusting, surrendered, vulnerable, committed heart.

This isn’t a game. And it isn’t a fluffy ideal of some fantasy world. It’s truth. I know it in my bones, I know it in my spirit. But to trust it? To step into the “I don’t know” and be exposed and vulnerable for the world to see, not knowing if the answer will be yes. Not knowing if I’ll be hurt or wounded. To open anyway.

Being in the possibility isn’t enough though – we can’t just will something to happen, we can’t just focus on it and think that’s all it takes. That’s just the preamble, what comes next is a depth of commitment you’ve never known, complete and total responsibility for your actions, thoughts, part in your relationships and what you have created, a deep ownership of your truth and gifts, intelligence & a willingness to work harder than you ever thought possible and to never, ever give up.

And if you succeed, you do. And if you don’t, you gave it your all, you learned & you’re a better person for it.

Life isn’t meant to be a struggle, it’s meant to be a miracle. I invite all of you to come and play in a space of possibility and miracles with me as we move forward what’s next.

That’s where miracles live. That’s where possibilities unfold in ways unimaginable. When we let go of control, stay the course, stay committed to the outcome, never quit, trust ourselves and when the day goes silent and there doesn’t seem to be another way, to commit more anyway, to love what we want to create more anyway, to open our hearts not knowing if we’ll be hurt anyway. Do it anyway. Love and abundance are intertwined. And what is creation but the birthing of something that we love into the world?

Krystine McInnes is an accredited mortgage professional with over 10 years in the mortgage industry & a background in the legal field. She also stewards the vision for numerous boutique development projects between the Okanagan & Vancouver, British Columbia. Find more on her here: www.krystinemcinnes.ca

“With every experience, you alone are painting the canvas. Thought by thought, choice by choice.” Oprah Winfrey

The closer I’m getting to manifesting what I want to create, the more untamed I’m becoming…

Like a circus animal that’s spent it’s life in captivity, learning slowly to return to the wild. Then, like a raging waterfall, that instinctive nature bursting forth into rebellion and wildness.

The tricks it once learned to please the crowd are lost and all that remains is the roar of freedom.

I am my own master here.

I breathe my Self in. My lungs feel like they’re breathing air for the first time.

I love this feeling. I love who I am becoming, who I am. I won’t apologize. I won’t bend, I won’t cave, I won’t look back. Now that I have tasted the sweat of my labour, felt the heat of my steady, committed work – there is no turning back. Freedom is all there is.

Freedom from what? Chains of conformity, expectations, judgments, opinions of others. Freedom from self-punishment and inner demons and fear. Freedom from trying to be what I think everyone else wants me to be.

Freedom from past, freedom from the stories I’ve told myself about who I am and continued to live out as if they were truth.

In every moment we have the power to choose who we will become. Most often, we choose to recreate our past – not becoming who we want to be now, but recreating who we once were again and again.

Every 7 years the cells in your body have fully regenerated, in essence, you are physically a new human being every 7 years. I hear of things like “muscle memory” or “chronic” injuries. But if every 7 years we’re physically a new human being, why do we recreate old injuries and ailments and carry them in our bodies as if they happened today?

Every moment in our consciousness, I believe, is the same. We can choose to ask who we want to be now, to recreate ourselves in every moment.

Or we can choose to take the old sack of the past and recreate it as our future. Never, ever truly giving ourselves the beauty and magic of now.

To let go of old memories, guilt, judgment, self-punishment, self-sabotage, self-abuse. To forgive ourselves. To love ourselves more. To surrender the past the moment it is passed. To value who we are. To honour who we have been and choose to be who we want to become.

That’s a life, for me, worth living. That’s the most empowering decision I can make in any moment – to choose.

It takes a deep commitment. Perseverance. “Gonads of steel” to stay the course.

But slowly, as the ship starts to settle out of the stormy waters and the smell of sweet, liberating, beautiful freedom is in the air….there is an insatiable passion ignited within me to keep going.

To be bolder, to be more outrageous, to speak my mind and heart without editing, to let go. To be untamed.

And to find those who are just as wild and just as free to stand with me.

Krystine McInnes is an accredited mortgage professional with over 10 years in the mortgage industry & a background in the legal field. She also stewards the vision for numerous boutique development projects between the Okanagan & Vancouver, British Columbia. Find more on her here: http://www.krystinemcinnes.ca

“I was once afraid of people saying, “Who does she think she is?” Now I have the courage to stand & say, “THIS is who I am””. Oprah Winfrey.

I’ve been afraid of not being perfect a long time, afraid that all the world will see how fallible I am and somehow persecute me for it.  I know that might sound silly, particularly if you’ve met me – I’m a walking ball of glorious, beautiful imperfection.

But my life is a revolving door of ironies. I have a deep inner need to be accepted, liked and perfect, I want everyone to agree that I’m doing it right, I crave reassurance. But there hasn’t been a societal norm I haven’t wanted to bust free from the minute it’s put on me, I often offend many people in the process, I’m a systems-buster and a visionary and very little I do reaches a place of agreement from anyone, let alone reassurance.

I have a deep fear of sharing my passion and my voice with the world and having everyone turn their backs on me and I will be alone, ridiculed, laughed at. Yet I am compelled to get on a stage any opportunity I get and talk about those things most passionate to me and it’s difficult to get me off it once I start.

I hate the limelight, but have an inner desire to share my message with the world on as many stages as I can find.

And sometimes, I have absolutely no idea what the heck I’m doing and am terrified the world will find out and I’ll be seen as a fraud, a fake.

The funny thing is that most entrepreneurs share these same fears, even the ones with multi-gazillion dollar companies. They all write memoirs about it and I relish in the honesty of it all.

I want to be honest about who I am. I want to live my life with deep integrity to my own truths and my own path. For me, the things that make me great are also the great ironies in this game called life that house my deepest fears.

I don’t believe that we can truly live a life of integrity with our own path unless we fully own those things that are our weaknesses as well as those that make us strong. They are two sides of the same coin. Together is what makes it whole. If I say I am only those things I want everyone to believe about me and I’m dishonest about the rest – what purpose does that serve?

I’m not saying to give those things any power, goodness no. But acknowledging they exist, owning them, communicating them and being ok to tell the truth about them – nothing is more powerful. Nothing takes all the jet engines out of fear than to just tell the truth about it.

I see it all the time in the media – the contradictions that burst wide open in people. The senator who claims family values but is found to have 6 mistresses and a fetish for prostitutes, the pastor who is found to have an entire collection of rather nasty pornography, the perfect family with the perfect image who ends up in a horrific murder suicide. It’s everywhere.

These stories we use to sell the world on our perfection, to fit a box or an idea. To not be judged, to not be seen as imperfect, fallible. We repress them, hide them from the world and sometimes, they burst right through the ceiling.

Who knows how long I’ll want to write this blog, who knows if my opinions may change as my business moves forward and I change and evolve as a leader and a woman in my life. But I know I’ll always want to stand for the truth. As fallible as I am, I know in my heart I do my best to live my values and live my truth everyday. I do my best. And really in the end, I don’t know that I can ask much more of myself than that. Nor can any of us.

Krystine McInnes is an accredited mortgage professional with over 10 years in the mortgage industry & a background in the legal field. She also stewards the vision for numerous boutique development projects between the Okanagan & Vancouver, British Columbia. Find more on her here: www.krystinemcinnes.ca

“I want every day to be a fresh start on expanding what is possible.” Oprah Winfrey.

What is freedom to you? For me, it’s to be the unbounded, unchained, unapologetic, full expression of my true self & live a passionate, purpose driven life outloud in the world.

What I’m learning is it takes more than a little courage to do that – it takes (pardon my language) balls of steel.

My creativity, wildness, doesn’t-make-sense-ness all out on the line. So much judgment, so many opinions about the way I should or shouldn’t do things, conduct myself, run my business, even do my hair. People feel the need to tell me all the time. Like some sort of magnetic force, they can’t help themselves.

I have an entire tickle trunk of responses to manage it, it’s not their fault really. When someone is outside the lines, when someone doesn’t make sense, when we’re struggling to understand “how” or “what” or “why” something or someone is – I think it’s just human nature to want to put them in the box of our own understanding and our own ideas about how they should be.

Those kinds of boxes make my blood boil and my heart break right in two. Those kinds of boxes, for me, are where my freedom goes to die.

When we see the truth of the world in a straight line of A + B = C, it threatens our own construct of existence to include a world where A + B = anything I want it to be.  And this makes some people scared and the ground underneath them uncertain.

And uncertainty threatens control.

And often times, it’s well-meaning control. For example, if you believe the world is flat with all of your being and I tell you it’s round with all of mine, well certainly you’d want to set me straight with your version of the truth so I don’t go and hurt myself with my none sense. Or, worse, be persecuted for it. That well-meaning control is out of a desire, sometimes, to keep me safe.  Sometimes, to keep you safe – my goodness how your world would be turned upside down to learn that it was round. And that the foundation of your truth wasn’t truth at all!

So it’s no one’s fault, there is no blame. Possibility thwarts certainty, possibility means change and spontaneity and living in a space of faith. Not blind faith, not stupid faith – intelligent, strategic, powerful faith…and surrender.

These aren’t words that bode well in a boardroom. Trust me.

And they are even worse in a world full of control, forceful drive, workaholism, pressure pushing, deadline ridden, this is the way we’ve always done it, will always do it and the way you should do it too – mentality.

I don’t believe in that kind of world. It’s just not the truth for me. I just don’t accept that as a reality. It is a perception, one many people have bought into and continually recreate and call a reality. But I do not believe it is truth.

I live in a very different world. My world is a foundation of possibility, infused with creativity, hyper-intelligence, structure, efficiencies, passion, purpose and a deep commitment to living my values and my truth as best I can in this life, as fallible as I may be.

I’m too wordy, as my blogs will certainly tell you. Sometimes I can’t remember if I brushed my hair before I left the house. I don’t always care if my clothes are perfect and my makeup is on. I don’t have all the answers and often, more often than I like to admit, my answer is “I don’t know”, but we figure it out. Sometimes I ramble and over communicate, sometimes I speak my heart and it’s unreciprocated, sometimes I’m secretive and hold my cards so close to my chest they indent. I leap forward and build the details on the way down – learning rapidly as we push projects forward, not trying to have it all figured out in a perfectly kemp row before I do. Sometimes I fail. Sometimes I can’t solve the problem and it breaks my heart, I get emotional about business because I care. And I don’t take my recycling out enough.

I believe in a world where none sense is perfect sense and answers often lie in questions and just because it’s been done a certain way doesn’t always mean that is the only way and if it isn’t aligned for me then I’ll just decide to do it differently.

And that’s just a short list of things that may be a little odd out there, I certainly get criticism for them regularly.

I know that the answer is to surround myself with people who live in a world of possibility and freedom too. I know I need to keep moving forward, trust myself, connect to my truth, serve my clients and my projects with my gifts – and build my life from my truth, not someone else’s opinion of it.

I wish it was easier. I wish I knew how. I wish there was a fold out map with implicit directions so I could find my way out of the loneliness of being a brightly coloured fish in a sea of grey.

One day at a time, one lesson after the other, pushing on into the unknown, the uncertainty, confronted by my own insecurities and self doubt every minute. Fragile. Uncomfortable.

But I move forward. Onward. Maybe it’s not going to look the way the “established-rules” say it should, maybe I’m going to screw it up a bunch before I get it right, maybe I’m alone in the world and just a silly girl with a head full of naive ideas, maybe I’m a brilliant buster of societal norms, maybe I’ll succeed, maybe I’ll fail – I really don’t know.

But I do know I can never live a life under the dominion of others judgments and opinions, criticisms and ridicule. I could never pretend to be something I’m not just to play by someone else’s rules, so I don’t rock the boat. I can’t ever agree to give up my freedom and turn my light down because it makes others insecure around me, or uncomfortable. Maybe we all need to get a little more uncomfortable.

At the end of my days, I want my obituary to read the truth of me. Not the polished, packaged version of the story I sold the world. If I claim to want to live my values, that isn’t just out in public only or behind closed doors only – that’s fully outloud, in the world, authentically 100% of the time, in true integrity. Or not at all.

Krystine McInnes is an accredited mortgage professional with over 10 years in the mortgage industry & a background in the legal field. She also stewards the vision for numerous boutique development projects between the Okanagan & Vancouver, British Columbia. Find more on her here: www.krystinemcinnes.ca

 

“In every aspect of our lives, we are always asking ourselves, How am I of value? What is my worth? Yet I believe that worthiness is our birthright.” Oprah Winfrey

Breathe. One in. One out. Just breathe.

I stand on the precipice of everything I want. My desire for a purposeful, passion filled life, creating projects that are driven in social enterprise, grounded in solid business principals & extremely profitable. Planet, people, profits. Serving my mortgage clients in a way that takes care of them, building solutions that solve problems, strategizing financial structures & helping them build wealth.

Running both companies parallel & intertwined, both supporting & feeding the other. Building the right team of strong, committed individuals that serve a greater vision.

I was put on this planet to lead. Have been bossy since the day I was born. Can’t stand to be told what to do. Makes my skin crawl to hear someone tell me it can’t be done that way. See possibility everywhere, strategy everywhere, solutions everywhere. Build business models in my sleep.

So why do I feel like I’m standing at the precipice….but I’ve got my hand on the grenade? Isn’t this everything I wanted?

Worthiness is a funny thing. When does it get beaten out of us?

Who knows what stories we all have about whatever our pasts are, really in the end they don’t matter. What happens happens, it is what it is – it’s what we make it mean about ourselves that does the real damage. And we carry that damage with us, sometimes for our entire lives.

I have my hand on the grenade because everything I’ve worked so hard for is happening, is manifesting, after years of struggle & successes followed by failures & getting up & dusting off & going again & the hardest most arduous journey of my lifetime. Here it is. The next level. And I can almost not stand my own success.

It terrifies me. It rests above the pit of I’m-not-worth-it-ness that is hidden deep below. Will everyone see how unworthy I am if I step into the light?

How can I let that amount of love & abundance & connection into my heart & still stay in control? I can’t. My vulnerability is triggered, my terror to let it all in & then suffer loss, have my heart broken in two, have my dreams ripped to shreds & chewed up & spit back to me – I’m not sure I could take it. I’m not sure I would survive. Need to stay guarded, stay strong, stay impenetrable. And yet I know that I can’t either.

How can I possibly let myself receive the immensity, the vastness, the greatness, the awesomeness of everything my heart desires? Aren’t I supposed to struggle, aren’t dreams fulfilled for fairy tales & fiction & not for me?

Just breathe. Time to call in my support systems, get on the phone with my mentors. Give myself some time to be nurtured & filled up & take care of me. Gently now. Slowly. It might take a few days, in fact it has been almost a week of this energy that I haven’t broken free of. But I can’t rush it, if I do, the grenade drops.

Breathe in. Breathe out. What’s the purpose again? Why am I doing all of this again? Connect with the purpose – remember what it’s all for Krystine. For the family you want to build, for the life you want to live, for the God-given purpose you are here to fulfill. Breathe it in. Visualize. Connect. Calm…

Now, slowly. Ever…so…slowly. Put the pin back in. Gently now. Put it down.

Krystine McInnes is an accredited mortgage professional with over 10 years in the mortgage industry & a background in the legal field. She also stewards the vision for numerous boutique development projects between the Okanagan & Vancouver, British Columbia. Find more on her here: www.krystinemcinnes.ca

“If you just keep breathing, you cannot be conquered”. Oprah Winfrey

I am starving. Starving for something I can’t  describe. Food won’t fill it, wine won’t numb it, work won’t drown it out.

Its a hungering from deep within me. One I’ve long heard & past ignored, worked on top of, drown out with behaviours to numb it.

I noticed myself slipping recently. Reverting to some old behaviours – things I used to do to hurt myself. Goodness knows why – my I don’t deserve it units or I’m not worth it units having a field day in my psyche.

Picking apart my mind until I’ve fallen back far enough to satisfy that sabotaging voice.

It’s the subtleties that make the difference.

When I see those old thoughts & behaviours creeping in. It happens gradually – a compromise here, a missed commitment there, a deadline passed, a promise broken.

This is where failure happens – not at the finish line, but in all the subtleties in between start & end.

When the crossroads in my mind between my desire for a passion filled, purposeful life meets my deeper feelings of unworthiness.

Something is different this time though. Something has changed. My awareness has deepened, my support systems wide & vast, my team strong, my vision clear.

And my desire – to want something more, to be willing to confront the darkest parts of myself with compassion & conviction & deep surrender, to turn my life over to a greater service, to a higher path. It is insatiable. I will not yield.

I’m too committed. I’ve crossed the line in my own desire for a purpose driven life, for meaning, depth, leaving everything on the table, living on the skinny branch.

I am afraid – goodness how afraid I am, terrified really. The decisions I must make are hard, the road has been long, there is no sign of rest soon & I must remain highly conscious of myself so that I don’t become my own worst enemy. I must manage my mind & cannot trust my thoughts.

But fear & success move like the stream & the rocks within it. They are intertwined. They are inevitable friends not foes.

Lean into it Krystine. Feel the fear & lean in harder. Trust this path, this committed vision, this quest to guide me through.

I am a weary traveller searching for my way home, lost a little as night has fallen & I am nowhere near – listen to the wind, let it guide me. Let the trees give me shelter & the land nourish me. Lean in. Lean in. Lean in.

Krystine McInnes is an accredited mortgage professional with over 10 years in the mortgage industry & a background in the legal field. She also stewards the vision for numerous boutique development projects between the Okanagan & Vancouver, British Columbia. Find more on her here: www.krystinemcinnes.ca

 

“Often we don’t even realize who we’re meant to be because we’re so busy trying to live out someone else’s ideas. But other people & their opinions hold no power in defining our destiny.” Oprah Winfrey

There’s a certain kind of loneliness that comes with diving head first into creating something with purpose & mission. It’s not the kind I could describe so much in words, it’s like a mist that slowly moves into my orbit, until it’s clouded my view & then I see that I’m immersed in it.

Most times, it’s not in moments when I’m alone at all, it’s in moments when I’m with family or friends, maybe a Saturday night with a few drinks, maybe out on a date with a new boyfriend – where I feel myself so separately from them, so far away. I see the compromises I make in order to stay where I am, the withholding of my own truth so that I don’t rock the boat in the relationships. And I feel the consequences of the derailment from what I’m creating as a result.

Where I say yes, & if I truly am committed to what I want, the answer was really no. Because it compromises me too much, derails me too far from my path.

Yes, I’ll have another glass of wine. And then miss a day that I need to focus because my head hurts. Yes, it’s ok that you’re disrespecting my time. No it’s not – & I’m wasting time that I could be focusing on what I want to create by even entertaining it. Yes, it’s ok if I work all weekend, even though I know I need a break to recharge so I can be filled up.  Yes, yes, yes – compromise, compromise, compromise.

I’m upset with myself for the compromises. It makes it abundantly obvious where my commitment is failing. Am I too hard on myself? Yes. But greatness demands 100%, not 60% because everyone else is comfortable with doing less.  I’m not. And I know what it takes. And right now, I’m failing.  It might not look like it on the outside, but I can see it. I’m off by 1 degree right now, we’re moving so rapidly, growing so rapidly that 1 degree will be 30 if I don’t adjust now. Move now. Crisis manage now.

I’m failing in my commitment, I’m failing in my determination, I’m failing in engaging my team at the level they need to support this company & these projects, I’m failing in being able to stand up, say no, mean it, own it & be totally fine with all the judgments & accusations, & misinterpretations of that that may come. Even if who they come from are those closest to me. I have to be ok being seen as a bitch, as demanding, as out of my mind, as stuffy, as “too much”, as angry, as mean, as cold, as unemotional, as a hardass. Whatever they are, I’ve got to be ok with that. Can I be?

Something has to give.

I can choose to keep doing what I’m doing – pretending to be what everyone wants me to be & suffering inside all the time as a result. Or I can choose to be who I really am, without apology, & become more committed to my path fully.

It seems like an easy choice, I know this too. But it’s not for me.

I try so hard to balance it all. I know something has to give – that something is me.  What am I committed to?

In these times, when that loneliness fog creeps in, it’s hard for me to know. I’m craving that kind of embrace that says “it’s all going to be ok, just stay here with me for a while”, that feeling of escape from the outside world to a place of comfort & ease. But what follows it is another voice that says “well, you tried your best”, then another “it just wasn’t meant to be”, and another “maybe next time”. Those are the voices of failure. And comfort & failure are great friends, they exchange notes in the back room I’m sure of it. Giving in to comfort, ease, escape – it’s like the voice of the snake, luring me away from what I know I need to do – as hard as it may be.

Hasn’t it already been hard enough? How badly do I want this?

It’d be easy for me to say yes & put my ambitions down & never pick them up again. Breaking through is hard. There’s nothing wrong with a comfortable life – I’d have a good career, make some money, take care of some clients, build a family, have a decent life. Why do I want more than that?

But I’ve seen it so often – those people, we all have them in our lives, who’ve done just that. Wanted to be something, wanted to create something, had a purpose or a calling deep within them – but the waters got choppy & the fear got high & instead, they chose a less-risky life, a “safer” life. I see those people & I know that that kind of life is a death sentence for me. Hallow behind the eyes, only in few moments do they show life again. Pushing down anger, resentment, hiding their real aspirations so far down they make themselves sick. No.

I know what I need to do. I know how hard it is going to be for me to do it. To lean into that loneliness & call it my friend. To not know how long I’ll need to stay there. To not know if I’ll ever make it out.

To crave the comfort of a family & a home & the smell of turkey roasting in the oven & children playing in the yard. And to know that I have to fight that craving, I have to fight through that desire for all that is comfortable to get somewhere I’ve never been before, to the unknown, to who knows what’s next.

Today, all I want is comfort. All I want is to know it’s going to be ok. To not feel so alone, so scared or so uncertain. For just a little while.

But tomorrow the sun rises & a new day begins. New choices are made, new people met, new opportunities moved forward. If I keep my feet steady, one foot in front of the other, leaning in hard to the wind, perhaps I’ll make it through….

Krystine McInnes is an accredited mortgage professional with over 10 years in the mortgage industry & a background in the legal field. She also stewards the vision for numerous boutique development projects between the Okanagan & Vancouver, British Columbia. Find more on her here: www.krystinemcinnes.ca