You wouldn’t believe what happened to allow me to start my business.

Looking back on it, it is hard to believe that I wasn’t running around shouting about Source from the rooftops way back then, with how cool this story is.

But to be honest, I was embarrassed. It felt crazy. And I didn’t think anybody in my life at the time would understand, so I kept it a secret.

I’d like to share the secret of how spirit funded my business.

It was the year following my divorce, and I was stressed as all get out… about money.

My marriage had been what a friend termed a “celebrity marriage,” meaning it didn’t last long, and I was left with less money than I started with.

The more I learned about my ex, whose true colors shone right after the wedding, the more I was clear that I needed to leave. And quickly. I handled the divorce proceedings on my own, and I chose to simply ‘handle everything.’ Because that is what I did at the time.

Handling everything meant I assumed our collective credit card debt, which was just about $25,000. (I did this because I knew I wasn’t the only person my ex was court-ordered to pay money to, and others had been waiting a long time!)

But this balance was completely weighing on me. Both financially as I’d never carried a balance like that, and emotionally as it was a constant reminder of my experience of failure.

I stopped going out to eat with friends, and I quit my coffee-shop coffee habit to save money and pay it faster. Yet when I did the math I saw that paying the balance was going to take me quite some time.

I did the math in various ways… if I get a roommate, then I can pay it off a year sooner, and so on.

I thought through every option I could imagine to be back to a ‘pay in full every month’ credit card user, but I was stuck. My income was fixed and any easy second job I could think of would only make a small dent.

At this point I had been daydreaming about starting a business for many years, but from the consciousness I was in at that time, I couldn’t really imagine earning very much money in a business, so I held a firm belief that I couldn’t start until I paid that debt. So my dream felt so distant. (Today I know that an aligned business would have helped me pay that, but that was not my reality at the time.)

Then one day I had coffee with a friend of a friend.

She was a super spiritual woman who worked as a counselor in a church community. We talked about all sorts of things, she especially loved talking about relationships, which I was feeling, well, not great about at the time.

In my memory, there was nothing in particular that stands out about the details of the conversation, but looking back now I understand that it was her ENERGY that opened up the possibility of this story I’m sharing right now. She was super connected to Source, and when we spend time with people who spend time connecting, our energy entrains to theirs and we become more open to connection by osmosis.

(As a side note, it took me years to discover that THIS is what people are really buying then they pay to come to my live retreat experiences.)

On my way home from the coffee date, the strangest thing happened.

I was driving my car along I-71 in Cincinnati, just as I had a million times before, thinking about my credit card debt. But this time, as I was driving I looked up toward the sky and I said, “I surrender.” I asked, “If there is a plan for me, please help me to find it.”

Ten minutes later, my mind was still reviewing the various options for eliminating my debt, all of the ones I’d been over many times before but had come up short.

Then out of nowhere, my car swerved on the highway. Nothing dangerous, but an obvious swerve to the right, for no reason. 

Just as the car spontaneously swerved, I had been contemplating the idea of taking money out of my retirement account to pay off my debt.

Now, this was also a thought I’d had MANY times before. And each time I had quickly ruled it out as an option.

Because based on all I had ever been told, based on what ‘they say,’ one should NEVER cash out their retirement early. It is not a SMART choice, after all, to pay the extra fees and taxes. You’d have to be really stupid to do that! And the last thing I ever wanted to be was stupid.

So even though I had thought of it many times, that path to freedom from debt had not been an option for me.

Until that very day as I swerved on the highway while thinking about it. It made no sense to my logical brain, however my intuition said that spirit was trying to get my attention.

I pondered it for an entire week. My logical mind simply could not accept that this was a good idea. But my intuitive self knew. I knew spirit was telling me to release all the things I have been told about looking smart and to trust this divine guidance.

At the very least I knew that it was worth taking the action to find out if the message was indeed real.

And besides, I knew what I had been doing wasn’t really working for me emotionally. And I finally considered the idea that it was OK to make the decision for that reason only. What if my feeling good emotionally was enough of a reason to go against the grain of what I had always been told? What if freeing myself from the energy of my marriage and divorce was more valuable to me than the money in that account?

I had taught in public high school for just 2 ½ years and was able to leave with enough money in retirement to pay this bill. What if that job had actually been the most amazing gift that allowed me to get the spiritual lessons of my marriage and divorce?

These are all the thoughts I considered, and at the end of the day I chose to move forward with the plan because I felt it was divinely guided, even though a very large part of me thought I’d gone mad and there was no possible way that it was God guiding my steering wheel.

So guess what happened next?

One week to the day from sending that money out to pay our credit cards, a friend of a friend called to recruit me for a new job.

I was working in the marketing department at the time at a company that paid, well, just OK. My friend knew that my former company was hiring for some unique roles. One of their brands was about to spin off and become an independent company owned by some of the employees. My friend, who knew I wanted to start a business, thought I might enjoy working in an environment that was going to be entrepreneurial while also being stable.

Within a few weeks I had accepted a job making $35,000 a year more- the exact amount of the retirement fund I had cashed out!

Not only that, but six months later it was announced that our little entrepreneurial company was being purchased! Rather than relocate with the new company I chose to take a severance package. This severance not only honored me for my current role, but also for all of my prior years of service with the parent company. 

Out of nowhere, with a sequence of events I could have never planned or predicted, I was not only out of debt, but I had the money to start my business!

Had I chosen to ignore the message spirit was bringing me, I may not be here today. And just to reiterate, to me at the time the message made no sense.

Both the way it was delivered, and the content of the message, made me quite skeptical. But because I was committed to finding a way, because I had surrendered and opened myself to seeing a different path, the steps unfolded in miraculous succession.

It took me years to recognize that this type of guidance is a gift that is available to us all the time, and not just some freak occurrence that showed up in a moment of desperation.

This is what it’s like to live Sourced™. We don’t need to know how things are going to unfold. We just need to make the decision that we want them to, and follow the one next step that shows up.

My first business mentor used to say, “Where the desire is present the way to fulfill it is also present.”

Generally, our logical mind will not find the way, because inherent in the path we must take to fulfill our desire is an invitation to become someone new.

And that feels terribly scary, which is why most people don’t do it.

In my example, before that decision to pull my retirement funds, I had always been someone who did the “smart” thing, with smart being defined by the rules and guidelines of society. But spirit invited me to make a decision that didn’t seem smart at all. And in that moment I freed myself from my old tired path, from being the person who evaluated every move as smart or stupid. I opened myself up to a new energy entirely. This is what it is to live transformationally.

I got to make decisions just because they made me feel good, or brought joy, or seemed intuitively right in the moment. I was no longer limited to the path that had me only choosing to look smart. Everything opened up.

This is also why choosing to live Sourced™ means choosing to be the most courageous person you know.

But the rewards are certainly worth it. As I have now been in business over 10 years and my life continues to grow and evolve in miraculous ways, I can say this with certainty.

Join me in living a Sourced™ life?

Love,
Darla

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