I am nurturing a heavy heart as I write to you today, the events of this last week have held a palpable weight.

I shall speak the names of those murdered in recent weeks. Breonna, George, and Ahmaud. And I pray no others are added to the list in the day it takes to get this email out.

I know that if you are in my community you are committed to holding a space of non-judgment, and embracing the truth that we are all connected and our freedom must be shared. Thank you for holding and standing for that truth. 

We are being called to deeper work at this time.

Today I’d like to share one suggestion of a step that you can take this week. This is not intended to be a solution nor a Band-Aid, and this speaks primarily to the white people on this list.

To the BIPOC folks reading this email, please know that I have done the work at one level in my past work as a corporate diversity coach and as a public school teacher, and I am doing the work at a deeper level. I will make mistakes, I will say the wrong thing, but I will not say nothing. 

I am receptive to your input and contribution to my growth journey as a leader, and I do not expect it or take it for granted. I will pay for the support we need in this community to do the work. 

And I am sorry. 

When I came out of the closet, I was grateful to have people who supported me. And I was so happy to be walking in my truth. Yet when I looked deeper, I was also sad. I was sad for how long I’d had to live in hiding because it didn’t feel safe to be me. [I am by no means comparing my journey to that of walking this world in dark skin – I can hide my gay.]

I broke open. I didn’t even realize I’d been hiding from my grief over all of my lost years.  He was apologizing to me on behalf of our broken world, and it meant something to me. 

I feel hopeful that the current events are a true indication of reform. I know how long this fight has been happening. And I have seen more people speak up now than ever. I have seen more people willing to admit they’ve been wrong, which feels so important. I hold hope. And I want to say to the men and women of color, “I’m sorry the world didn’t get there sooner.”

I wish I could say I knew where ‘there’ is and exactly how to get ‘there.’ And I know when we get ‘there,’ we will have more work to do. But I am sorry. And I am hopeful.

And to white folks, imagine your grief at having had to hide yourself to get by in areas of your life, as I did. (I know you are called to your work because of this past pain). Now imagine this pain amplified, without the option to hide or walk away. 

I know at some level we are all feeling this right now., I invite you to feel the feelings. 

With light skin we have the option to walk away. To divert our attention to other matters that feel better.

I know for myself I’ve found it challenging to focus on business as usual this week. And that should be the case.

We need to be with and feel our feelings in order to work with them and channel that energy in a direction that makes an impact. When we ignore them and numb them out, we lose connection with ourselves and with Source. And choosing to use our privilege to do this is how we got to this place, in 2020. 

For our white readers, a specific assignment (I got this suggestion from my friend Amy Jo Goddard): Sit for nine minutes and feel your feelings about the current situation in our country around race. Even with your feelings around this newsletter. This is the length of time the police officer’s leg was on George Floyd‘s neck. 

 I am not gifted at sharing detailed resources, I’ve read many over the years, and there are many being shared on social media at this time. I am starting the book “White Fragility.”  If you are new to this conversation, get educated. (Step one: google pyramid of white supremacy and print it). 

A solid resource and transformational conversation for people of all races is happening in the Facebook group White people DOING something: CLICK HERE

To the people of color reading: this assignment is not for you – you deal with your feelings in whatever way you choose. Numb, rage, grieve, or focus on your work. Let us carry the emotional work right now if you can. 

For anyone reading who wants to use your voice, and you are not sure how, or if you are qualified, or if you will say the right things, remember everything is energy.

Get quiet and hear what is in your heart, and dare to express yourself. Trust that people will feel your energy and the intent behind your words, even if you get it wrong.

Remember, my definition of power is being free to be yourself, speak your core truth, and receive what comes. 

This is a prime opportunity to deepen your relationship with your power. We must be willing to receive what comes, and trust ourselves that we’ve done the inner work to be able to be with what shows up in response to our expression.  To be able to receive feedback, discern what feels true, take in what we need, and learn and grow. You’ve been training for this! Get on the court! 

Let the people in your life know what you stand for. Do not let fear of doing it wrong stop you. 

Love

Darla 

Want to start creating better client results by working with your magic now?

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Opening up to Source as your guide as a business leader will allow you to make the most aligned decisions, consistently.

Opening up to Source as your guide as a business leader will allow you to make the most aligned decisions, consistently. As a result of this alignment with your personal path, or your soul’s purpose in this lifetime, things get easier. You don’t need to do as many things because you will tend to choose things that work better for you. 

[Of course, if our soul needs a particular lesson, then we may choose something that ‘doesn’t work’ so we can get the learning, and this is OK too.]

In practicing this approach to business for the last few years, one thing I have discovered is that while we may tend to focus on the things we say ‘yes’ to, a bigger topic of discernment to focus on is that which you will leave behind.

Being willing to leave behind the things that are no longer working is a courageous act. We must build the muscle, and learn how to have these hard conversations so we can create the space for the new energy to show up. 

There is a Universal Law called the Law of Sacrifice which states, in shorthand, to have something of a higher nature, we must sacrifice something of a lower nature.

Take a moment to think about a time in which you have had to let go of something that wasn’t serving you – a habit, a person, a career path, an identity. What was required of you to let that go? How did you know that this particular energy had run its course? How did you feel about the thing you were leaving behind?

In working with high-level business owner clients for ten years, and in working with my own personal growth, I have seen that this process of leaving behind old energies opens up so many new possibilities and opportunities. It makes people more “Sourced.”  

See, when the old energies are taking up space in our field, we can’t hear or see the new stuff that is coming in at a higher vibration.

It is challenging to let go, but we can logically make sense of letting go of the things that aren’t working. We know they aren’t working. We can sense that they are ‘wrong’ for us. So, even if it makes us or other people uncomfortable, we find a way to let it go.

Can you outgrow something but still know it has been ‘right’ for you, right up until the end? And what if there were so much MORE available for us in becoming skilled at leaving the ‘right’ things?

Leaving the things that are ‘wrong’ is easy(er). 

Leaving the ‘right’ things is advanced-level leadership.

I am present to this idea for one reason.

Two weeks ago my beloved dog, Monty, left this planet. He was my friend and companion for nearly sixteen years. He was with me through many stages of my personal growth as he came to me during my first marriage, and was my trusty pal through my divorce, starting my business, living in five states, and so much emotional change.

He was truly the best dog, and such faithful support and love. He was also a healer at heart and supported my friends and clients as well. (This photo was sent by past client Bonnie Kutter).

Yet, as he passed I knew that his leaving was showing up in divine right timing, and that the loss of his energy would open up new possibility for me. I knew that I am such a different person than when he and I met, and that the guardian energy he brought to my life is not something I need in the same way at this time.

I have been trying to stay present to this, to the knowing that all is right and good in this unfolding. But I noticed something.

I noticed that each time I would think about the possibility that I am in better energy now that Monty has passed, my ego-mind felt the need to make the old energy ‘wrong.’ 

In other words, in order to feel good and positive about the future, some part of me needed to think of the past as somehow bad. From this space, I began to judge myself for being so attached to Monty (I didn’t realize how much I relied on his energy until he was gone), and for being someone who had needed his protection all those years ago. My inner dialogue became harsh very quickly.

Gratefully I was able to notice and shift this, and simply be present to what is, knowing that it is unfolding right on time.

Now, Monty left this planet, so I can’t control his leaving. But I can decide to move on emotionally, which can be even more scary.

You may not relate to my specific example (though many of you have shared your experiences with the loss of a pet), but I am guessing you can think of something that had a similar impact.

I remember a while ago I decided to leave a relationship with a coach I had been working with. I had gotten tremendous value from my work with this person and I was so grateful for the evolution that happened within me as a result of my choice to work with them.

It was a RIGHT decision to hire this coach, and I received tremendous value for my more than $100K investment over the time we were together. 

Then one day I knew it was time to move on. My soul felt the knowing. I was in the middle of a contract, and it didn’t make logical sense to leave at this time because I knew I would need to continue paying my agreement. But I also knew I couldn’t keep coaching with this person and get where I needed to go energetically. 

I tried to resist the knowing in my soul that I needed to move on. 

The longer I waited, the more I struggled internally. There was a part of me that was looking for evidence that this relationship was ‘right’ and that I should stay — after all I needed to get my money’s worth for my investment! 

And then there was a part of me that was looking for evidence that the relationship was ‘wrong’ to help justify my leaving. Because my soul had told me to leave, and I knew I needed to listen.

Just like I experienced with trying to come to terms with enjoying my life without Monty, I was trying to come to terms with enjoying hearing a clear message from my soul and acting on it.

Because somehow we are trained that you don’t leave things that are ‘right.’ We need to find evidence that it was ‘wrong’ to somehow justify leaving.

In my experience, by the time something becomes overtly ‘wrong,’ we are well past the Sourced™ moment of departure. If you left the job, or released the team member, or parted ways with the client at the first knowing that the alignment was off, you wouldn’t need to stay until things go ‘wrong.’ Can you see how this would help make life easier? 

Your soul knows, well in advance, that something needs to come to an end in its current form. 

Yet we are trained that we must have logical reasons for our decisions, and in fact our society is set up behind this in so many ways. We justify, we defend, we explain. These are all lower energies that immediately dampen our enthusiasm for what we are moving toward.

The moment we begin looking for reasons that something is wrong, we will find them. In fact we will create them! What if we could skip all of this and simply leave the ‘right’ things behind the moment we feel called!?

Start with a baby step. What is something super small, which has been absolutely RIGHT for you until now, that you know it’s time to leave behind? Don’t go for the big thing – choose something little, like a habit of pressing snooze which has nurtured your waking up process until now, or taking the most efficient path to (insert someplace you used to drive to regularly) which made logical sense, but you are now interested in inviting more spontaneity.

This may open you up to being able to make yourself right about ALL of your past decisions, while still trusting your intuition about when it is time to move on.

What has been your experience with leaving something even though it was so right for you?

What has opened up in the process? How does this make you more available to live “Sourced”? 

COVID19 is a Sourced Experience™

I’ve had a strong belief about what is happening in the world since I first learned about it. I finally have a moment to share it more broadly and I’ll be doing so here on this page over the coming weeks.

While I have been through a WIDE range of emotions over the last few weeks (we have also lost a close family member to cancer, been navigating a cross-country move, and have another family member in distress), I am ultimately extremely optimistic.

To be clear:

• I have turned my live retreats into virtual retreats.
• I strongly support the recommendation to minimize our travel and exposure and take extra precautions.
• I believe it is our responsibility to stop the spread with our personal actions, regardless of how well our consciousness is developed toward NOT getting sick.
• I am concerned for specific people I know and love.
• I am also saddened by the level of fear that has been spreading, and many of the reactions and I pray that everyone is able to keep their vibration high at this time.
• So as I share, please know I am not diminishing any individual experience or making anyone wrong for how they feel at this time.

That said, I believe that there is an upside to the virus. We are being invited to grow in new ways right now. I am hoping I am not alone in immediately being even more present to my level of consumption, and identifying ways that simplifying my life will improve my life, and my connection with the natural world (which I already prioritize).

I believe this experience is a Sourced Experience™.

For today I will share a post from my forthcoming Sourced website so you can get a sense of what I mean.

(Note, this was written pre-pandemic and is a general explanation of how source works in our life that I pulled from my site. I’d love to hear what YOU have noticed about the current state of affairs and how it may be shaping us. I’ll be sharing more thoughts on that.)

You came to this planet in this lifetime as a soul in human form — a unique slice of source energy. You came to express, explore, play and grow as completely magnificent energy blueprint that only you can be!

Then life happened. You were born into that household (the one your soul chose!) that shaped your thoughts, beliefs, and ideas about who you are and what is OK for you in this life.

For most of us, the rules we were given by others served to shut down some of our creative expression and disconnect from our soul’s truth. This is part of the journey.

As a result, we may create impressive results in this life (or not), but they won’t fulfill us, because they were based on someone else’s truth (parents, teachers, society), not ours.

Sourced Experiences™ are designed to wake us up to the truth of who are. They are invitations to live and express more in alignment with who we came here to be.

The experience is necessary to wake us up, because the rules we inherited are hidden from our view. I call these ‘hidden commitments’ or ‘default energies’. They are the water we swim in.

Without an experience in CONTRAST, we won’t even notice that we are going through the motions and following rules that don’t actually matter to us. We don’t realize that we have settled for showing up as a small fraction of who we came here to be. Like when I got promoted in my corporate job, and my joy was missing. Or when my stepdad was diagnosed with cancer the same week I filed for divorce.

These experiences serve to get our attention, and invite us into alignment with a whole new vibration.

But sometimes first they kick our ass.

(Think: illness, death, divorce, job loss, relationship conflicts, cash flow issues, etc. I even went to jail!)

The more tuned in we are to source, the more easily we operate in alignment with the truth of who we came here to be, and the less ass-kicking that is required. (OK — when you’re Sourced(TM) nothing really occurs like ass-kicking, it just is, but that is for another day.)

And that is the goal of our work — to support you as you learn to connect with your truth and stay tuned in to the messages from source (your intuition, higher self, inner knowing, the Universe, God). To see you live and work and play in flow with the divine, and experience less drama or trauma along the way. And to serve as a role model for others in this way of transformational living.

The busier our society and our lives get, the less likely it is that a person will walk through life tuned in to Sourced guidance. As the leader of this movement and someone who has committed my life to living this way, I can easily forget.

But experiences bring us alive. Experiences invite us to show up differently. They bring awareness to who and how we are BEING and give us an opportunity to choose again based on new information, and new commitments. And when we let ourselves show up differently, we literally transform. New neural pathways are formed in the brain, and we create a cellular memory of BEING someone new.

This is the power of a Sourced Experience™.

If we live unconscious to something for too long — like we are unaware or even hiding from a truth about ourselves and what we believe, what we love, who we came here to be — Source will shake us awake. Oprah talks about the cotton ball followed by the brick.

This is the Sourced Experience™ that ‘happens to us.’ (Stick around here and you’ll learn I don’t believe anything actually happens TO us because it is all FOR us, again for another day.) Often this shows up at an inconvenient time or via a circumstance that we find uncomfortable or even painful, as described above.

But then there is OUR Sourced Experience™. The one that is carefully and lovingly designed as a container for truth, to bring awareness to that which you haven’t seen that has been keeping you out of sync with your true goals, uncertain of your direction, or somehow holding back from fully expressing your beautiful, one-of-a-kind soul.

OUR Sourced Experience™ is an amplifier for your soul’s truth.

We design experiential programs and retreats that provide the optimal environment for you to:

• RELEASE any old stuck or stored energy that is keeping you from hearing what your soul wants — your most direct path to freedom.
• RECEIVE divine validation of the message Source has for you at this time. This shows up as an invitation to a new WAY OF BEING (vibration energy) first.
• RISE as you validate your truth, become visible as more of you, and value the unique gifts you bring to this world in a big way.

We design our containers to support leaders, like you, in aligning with their divine truth/ Sourced energy in the most graceful and loving way possible.

We provide tools and experiences to help you hear clearly what is yours to do in this life, and to clear that old ego energy so old ways of being can simply fall away.

We support our clients beyond the ‘ah-ha’ moment, to true integration of the new Sourced energy. From this place, you’re attuned to source at a whole new level.

There is no need to remember how to be, like the six-step process for ______ that we used to receive on a laminated card back in corporate training programs. You BECOME the person you came here to be at a deeper level, it is integrated into your energy field, and you emanate a new vibration, and invite new results.

This is the POWER of a Sourced Experience.

We offer our signature Sourced™ Retreat, the original Sourced Experience™ which is designed to bring you this clarity and precision in how you operate, while healing and releasing or integrating that which no longer serves at the next level.

We also offer training to high-level transformational leaders in how to lead Sourced Experiences in your business, integrating the process for transformation into everything you do.

Want to start creating better client results by working with your magic now?

Download your Sourced Experience™ Free Audio Lesson HERE

(before it becomes a part of our paid programming)!

Connect with our tribe! Share your Sourced™ story over on our Facebook page.

 Shortly after I got my business truly up and running…

Shortly after I got my business truly up and running, like to the point where I was able to generate clients online and I had integrated my own understanding of how to market programs that brought people to my retreats, an interesting new development opened up. The ‘click.’ 

(One of my clients later described this concept of ‘the click’ which we worked together to develop as an idea for her writing.)

I’d been learning to trust my intuition as an entrepreneur for some time, and for the most part outside of leaving my job and starting a business, the ‘hits’ were relatively small. Sit at this table at the networking event (person to the left becomes new high-level client). Order the steak at this restaurant even though you would normally order the salmon (friend orders salmon, it does NOT look good). In that realm. 

And I get intuitive knowings for my clients regularly – that seemed easier. I would get a vision of them doing something – on stage, on TV, touching people for healing, etc. Or I’d feel a “YES” in my body when they would say something and I would know that it was key to their breakthrough. 

But then I was invited by Source to make a big change. I had no idea how big it would become.

Because my business was now for all intents and purposes “location independent,” I began to imagine what it would be like to live somewhere else. Also, I had a mentor who used to ask this question in his teaching quite frequently, “Do you like what you see when you look out your window?” And as I would picture the neighborhood that I once loved, I realized suddenly that it was “no.” 

So I moved from the house I owned to an apartment with trees out my windows. My soul felt more alive, and I built my online platform from this odd little 2-bedroom apartment I loved. And then I knew it was time to move on. 

As I was going through my day to day life, I began to see mountains seemingly everywhere. I walked through a store and saw a puzzle with a mountain scene and it was like my vision stood still focusing on that image – it clicked. In the grocery store checkout the magazine cover filled with mountains. Click-click. 

Absently flipping channels on the TV and the nature show about mountains — click and click.

The mountains were calling. 

And I lived in Cincinnati, Ohio.

So off I went researching mountain towns that might be calling my name. I considered several – Asheville, Portland, Northern California, and Denver. And as much as Asheville made the most sense as I’d been there and loved it and it was a pleasant drive from Cincinnati, Denver continued to FEEL RIGHT. This went against my logical mind as I had actually been there once for research in a former job and I did NOT love it. But there was no denying that pull to the Rocky Mountains. 

Not to be too impulsive I decided to scope it out first. I rented a vacation rental for a month and loved being there. A year later I was back with a Uhaul. 

When people would ask me why I moved, they would immediately include, “Was it for a job?”

And I would have to decide whether to simply agree or look them in the eye and say, “Spirit told me to move to the mountains, so I came.” 

Mostly I just agreed. 

I loved my time in Denver. In fact, as I think back on it now I smile ear-to-ear. There was so much beauty to experience and I soaked it in. Yet I never really found it was ‘my place.’ 

But what I did find is my wife!

In the space of possibility that was Denver for me, I was able to create the freedom to be whoever I wanted to be. Turned out I wanted to be gay! I didn’t know it at the time, but the freedom I felt there would allow me to become more of who I truly am, and to meet my life partner and spouse, Kimmi. 

Through a series of unexpected events, I discovered that I needed to explore the idea of being with women. Through applying the principles I teach I affirmed that was, indeed, true (you can listen to my podcast about it HERE). And the same day I created a profile on OKCupid.com for dating women, Kimmi uploaded hers as well. And the rest is history. I was called to Denver to meet her, in perfectly divine timing.

I had no idea why the mountains were calling, but needless to say I learned to trust that click. The more old limits I’ve released about what is possible, and the more time I’ve spent connecting with Source Energy, the more directly I am able to communicate and receive guidance from my soul, without needing the ‘three clicks.’ Yet what a magical time that was to be guided in such a way!

What are your ‘mountains’?

What have you been getting signals about, and have you been listening? How might you listen with greater intention for deeper soul alignment in this life?

Love,
Darla

Want to start listening deeper for greater soul alignment?

Download your Sourced Experience™ Free Audio Lesson HERE

(before it becomes a part of our paid programming)!

Connect with our tribe! Share your Sourced™ story over on our Facebook page.

How present are you to the energy of the land?

I’d like to share a thought to ponder with you today through my current experience.

I am in a new house in a new city, for just over two weeks now, on quarantine. I could be ANYWHERE. My wife got groceries, I have only emerged from under this roof for walks in about a six-block radius — as far as our aging dog’s legs can carry him. If we put on the television at all, we’ve been mostly watching shows on Hulu. No local ads or news. As I said, we could be anywhere.

Or could we?

As a retreat leader, I have, often unknowingly, been invited into a great understanding of the energy of the land.

I’ve hosted more than 70 retreats, and while there are venues I’ve liked and been called back to, many times I am pulled to someplace new.

And even when our retreats have been in hotels in bustling city locations, we’ve been impacted by the energy of the land, and the people who inhabit it.

If you’ve ever doubted that energy is real, lead the same retreat in two locations and watch what unfolds. You will certainly learn that any fear you may have of getting ‘bored’ with the ‘same work’ is unfounded.

Different people are drawn to different locations for a reason in divine right timing along their journey.

Like the retreater who had never been back to the city where she got divorced, since she left, signed papers in hand. Until YOUR retreat, where she could heal and integrate that experience. Or the one who quickly entrained to the slower pace of the Italian countryside, knowing she would bring that back into her life and business.

Whether people ‘just know’ they are called to a certain place, or they are in resistance to that place, only to discover that it held the perfect lesson for them… whether we walk the land on retreat or stay tucked safely in our conference room… the place is working on us.

So, in noticing this, I am sure it is no surprise that the place we chose to LIVE is also impacting us. The land, the local culture and the community that has been drawn to that place, and the connection (or lack of) between the people and the land, they are all working with our individual vibration.

Each leg of my personal growth journey as an entrepreneur has had a place associated with it. I began in Cincinnati, OH, where I had an established chosen family after living there for more than ten years. Cincinnati taught me a strength in learning how to become more of myself in the face of a predominantly conservative and traditional city (I’d moved there to work for the stable yet arguably stodgy Procter & Gamble). Talking about energy and ways of being felt risky there. And I did it anyway. I am grateful for that strength.

I was next called to Denver. It was illogical. I saw pictures of mountains and I knew it was time to go. I pulled out a US map and circled all the mountains. I’d been to Denver and I didn’t actually like it, yet my gut said to go there. And I did. I experienced massive freedom to be me in Denver. And I met my wife there. 

I was so happy to be free in Denver, yet it didn’t feel like ‘home.’ As I sat with that knowing for some time and began to broach the topic with Kimmi, who was my fiance at the time and had been in Denver since college, I couldn’t explain why I just knew I was called to leave.

We explored various ideas, with the vision in mind that I had had for some time, to live on the water. Growing up in Minnesota, the land of 10,000 lakes, a place on the water was the symbol that “I’ve made it.” Any time I visualized I saw water. So to leave Denver, I knew that to ‘walk my talk’ and honor my vision I must step into that. We settled on Seattle and rented a home on the water via Craigslist without visiting.

It was beautiful. We had giant windows overlooking the Puget Sound, the Olympic mountains in the distance. It was like living in a national park. Otters, seals, eagles, and even owls brought us their medicine. We walked the beach when the tide was out, and paddled on calm days. We connected deeply in partnership. I wrote my first book.

And it wasn’t home. And while idyllic and heavenly, ON the water was not the place for me – it was simply an idea I’d inherited it seems. What a thing to learn!

We explored many places in our travels and contemplated possibilities. We also consulted astrologer Maya White, who I consider my friend at this point, at various times on the journey for astrocartography readings. These map your birth information to locations on the map. In this exploration, I learned that not only does each location hold energy (which was not a surprise by this time), but that the energy works on each of us in different ways.

See, the energy YOU came here to be is different than mine, thus my favorite places will feel different to you than to me. This is why we are called to different areas at different times on our journey to discover and integrate the lesson of that place. And this is why I have moved quite a few times because I’m on a rapid growth journey.

My book complete, our learning complete, we made plans to leave Seattle. Our experience, research, and astrocartography led us to choose Austin, TX. Yet the Universe and divine timing had other plans. Kimmi’s dad, who’d been healing his cancer, had a stroke the week we were scheduled for house hunting. He needed a lot of care, and Kimmi turned out to be great at this. Rather than heading to Texas, we moved back to her home state of California — because we could.

I started my business because I couldn’t be with my stepdad during his cancer journey in the way I would have liked. Grateful for our flexibility, and against our astrocartography, we chose California instead. We had two years with Kimmi’s dad before he passed last year.

While we weren’t energetically aligned with Southern California in the way we would like, we experienced EXACTLY what astrocartography said we would there. It was very healing for each of us to spend that time in Kimmi’s neck of the woods and with her family. I know it was healing for Kimmi’s parents as well. I would not change our stop there for anything.

We are in a house that could be anywhere. We’ve met just one neighbor. We ate takeout one day in a parking lot of a taco joint. We have by no means had the Austin experience.

Yet Kimmi and I reflect almost daily about how GOOD WE FEEL being here.

We love our new house – yes – though we haven’t been able to furnish it the way we’d like, and my Home Depot paint I ordered online to pick up in store is 10 days delayed already. It’s a great space for us.

We love the energy of the land.

We were staying at home in California for weeks before we moved, with our ocean view and endless sun. And yet we didn’t feel the way we feel here. We feel peace, and calm, and a deep knowing that we are right where we need to be.

If we can experience that, without leaving the house, what else is possible? We look forward to discovering!

What has been your experience of the land? What have you integrated? Which places have held healing experiences for you? (Mine include Peru, Vietnam, Tulum, Northern Italy, Southern France, Sedona, Northern California, and each of the places I’ve lived.) And how do you FEEL where you live currently? Are you feeling called to somewhere new?

And will you trust the calling?

Many of our clients have been called, for a season, reason, or lifetime, to a new location. Often the intuition fights with the logical mind when it doesn’t ‘make sense’ to go. Yet inevitably there is a specific reason for the calling, and in my experience, it needs to be honored or it doesn’t go away.

How is this resonating for you? I’d love to hear!

Connect with our tribe! Share your Sourced™ story over on our Facebook page.

I share the story of my first retreat. Or rather, I share the story of my failure leading up to my first retreat…

In my training program, Retreat and Grow Rich, I share the story of my first retreat. Or rather, I share the story of my failure leading up to my first retreat, which is how I got there.

As background, all of my own personal magical breakthroughs had happened during live group experiences. From the diversity coach training I took in corporate to my time in Landmark Education, I watched how live experiences moved me from being a controlling, guarded, and people-pleasing person to someone who could hear my own heart and experience love and connection. 

(Note: I still navigate these waters of transformation at new levels as I grow.)

So during the MANY YEARS between that first coach training and the time I started my business (nearly 10), I was dreaming about myself in front of a group, guiding an experience that transforms. I could see, feel, and taste the possibilities and potential in this modality. I knew, as a living example, the power of retreats to change lives, and once I discovered it, I couldn’t imagine doing anything else quite honestly.

Yet when it came time to start my business, something happened.

I signed up for some free classes. I went to a live event. I joined a business mastermind. And while these were all fabulous decisions for me before I knew it I was looking around at what everybody else was doing and I began to try to do THAT.

I had signed up for the newsletters of all my colleagues in my mastermind and I watched what they were doing. They would send emails about their programs and then within a couple of weeks they would declare the program ‘sold out.’ I was doing the math on how much money they were making based on selling out these programs and I thought I should do that too! 

(I later learned that some people would say ‘sold out’ to save face on programs that didn’t work – ugh.)

So I created a ‘group program’ and wrote pages and emails and all-the-things to fill it… and every day I excitedly checked my email for sales, but nothing happened. Ever.

I was so bummed. 

And then I decided to go within. To take an honest look at the messages I was receiving through this experience, and to be truthful with myself about my failed program.

And here’s what I discovered. 

I didn’t actually want to do that program I developed. It wasn’t the vision I had when I started my coaching business, it wasn’t the thing I was systematically guided by source to do — from being invited to the exact right transformational live trainings at the right time as a model for my future work, to literally seeing visions when I closed my eyes. 

But I wasn’t seeing other people doing what I wanted to do at that time, and I allowed myself to be influenced by that –– even by other people’s reported results that weren’t real! 

I followed the formula until I didn’t.

I had allowed other’s opinions to discourage me from hosting my own retreat until I got clear and honest with myself about my spiritual calling. Once I owned my true desire to lead transformational experiences, I was no longer shakeable by external opinions, thus I no longer energetically invited dissenting ones.

And I planned my first retreat!

I had a strategy for how I would meet clients for this retreat and have them be ready for and interested in retreating with me, which I developed from various ideas I had been studying (I teach this in my Retreat and Grow Rich Program), but my clear intention made all the difference. My internal belief in my own guidance is what had my actions line up for my first big success in business.

I had my first retreat in April of 2011. (My first website and blog post launched November 2009, for context). 

There were 16 attendees, four of whom were already private clients paying me roughly $375/month as their coach. I waaaay over delivered on content (183 powerpoint slides), but I also led with transformation.

I KNEW the people could walk out in a different energy, and that is what fueled me.

At that retreat (after much prayer requesting that the greatest and highest good unfold for all) I offered a $6000 coaching program in which six people in the room joined (and eventually closed with 8). Some current clients actually chose to pay me more because of the retreat.I walked out that weekend with $36K in contracted revenue, and filled with excitement for what would be possible for this committed group! 

But here’s the coolest part. 

In leaving my career as an engineer to dedicate my life to the work of transformation, I assumed I would not be earning much money. (This would go on to fuel me in teaching others like me to make money!) As a result, I had made my financial life as small as possible such that I could ‘afford’ to follow my dreams. In doing so, my income goal I set for myself was $36,000. For a YEAR! I could live with no ‘extras’ on $3K/month.  

And yet I contracted that in my FIRST WEEKEND doing what I had been guided to do! I went on to earn $78,000 in that year and never looked back.

I’ve hosted more than 70 retreats in three countries and all over the US. I have watched countless people physically transform before my eyes as they move old energy out of their systems and consciousness and way of being and invite in a new ‘Sourced’ energy to their world. 

Today as I write this we are experiencing a global pandemic, and all physical events are on hold. The very lifeblood of my work I was guided to develop and deliver has been eliminated at this time.

So now what?

Well, just like I did when my program didn’t work, and like I’ve done countless times since I have had to go within.

If we look around at what we are seeing ‘out there’ and take our cues from that, we might find ourselves saying yes to lots of good ideas – ones that are right for others, but not for us, just as I did.

There is lots of advice right now. Pivot. Stay the course. Give everything free. Focus on high level. Build for when this is over. And all of that advice is great — for someone.

But what is right FOR YOU?

Imagine a world in which each business owner is tuning in to their unique soul’s expression at this time — how Source wants to work through them, personally, for the highest good. What a beautiful dance of highest expressions that would be!

For me, I moved each of my live retreats to virtual experiences, and I am training my Retreat and Grow Rich program graduates on how I did this and how they can too for those who want to. I wrote last time about my solid point of view on this – the transformation happens in the CONTAINER, not the specific delivery method.

I have felt called to serve these clients who I already know are doing awesome things in the world with extra support around virtual retreats. I have felt called to write my new book with a renewed passion for the timeliness of the message. (The Sourced Experience – check out my post about the pandemic as a Sourced Experience HERE). I have felt called to nurture my new home (we moved to Austin just over a week ago!) and to send love to my family (my brother is still hospitalized but is healing and we speak daily – more on my lessons from that to come). And I have felt called to allow spirit to work through me with great intention in my last of three virtual retreats coming up beginning 4/18. These are my truths at this time and they feel great.

[There is ONE SPOT LEFT in our Virtual Retreat — does your spirit say it is yours? APPLY HERE]

I sense a few things that have been percolating will move their way to the front burner in divine right timing in the coming months, and I know I am being changed internally at this time to be an even more truthful and energetic leader.

I am not talking about which advice you agree with or think is smart, or what you are seeing others doing that you like or approve of. Those are head decisions, and more often than not, those things have nothing to do with YOU. 

What have you felt drawn to, what can you see and feel yourself doing, what feels spiritually aligned, and has you feeling alive to think about?

This doesn’t mean you won’t experience forms of resistance, as this kind of contrast shows up as a mirror of our old energy as it leaves our system. Resistance or contrast does not mean you aren’t meant for it. And this is where many have often felt stuck. [We address this illusion of resistance off the top in our virtual retreat experience]. At your core, in your purest knowing, you know how you wish to respond to the pandemic at this time. It’s time to BELIEVE YOURSELF, RECEIVE FROM SOURCE. Mwah!

Love,
Darla

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