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Was it Actually Failing?
25 Plays4 months ago
When I think of all the stories I’ve told myself over the years that I would have considered at the time, failures or limiting beliefs… I also can’t help but think that I am not still in the same place, struggling with those same obstacles which has lead me to consider that perhaps they were not really failures.
Like the fact that I did not pass English in high school and put it down to having parents who migrated to this country before I was born and for them English being their second language, which created a story in my mind that I never really had the support at home to help foster my English skills, especially when it came to reading & writing.
Add to that, the fact that neither of parents even completed high school, my father only made it to great 6 and mother year 10… so again I carried the story that I was not being raised in a family of educated academics, so how could I expect to become one, let alone master the basics at the higher school education level.
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Intro & Outro Music: Shaman Dance by slavamusic
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Transcript
Introduction to Marie Nicole
00:00:00
Speaker
Do you desire to turn your passion into income? Connect with other creative souls who also dance to the beat of their own drum? I'm Marie Nicole and I'm devoted to combining beauty, uniqueness and connection in everyday living experiences. As a creative professional and Dharma coach, I help people connect to the truth of who they are and facilitate them in embodying their uniqueness. It is my hope in this podcast that I inspire you to live your life on your terms and earn your income through being uniquely you.
00:00:33
Speaker
After all, it's the unique thread that we each contribute to the collective tapestry that creates the whole.
Digital Solutions Program for Businesses
00:00:43
Speaker
Before sharing today's podcast with you, I wanted to let you know about how the Digital Solutions Program, a government funded initiative serving micro and small business owners, can support you in your journey. If you're in New South Wales, Australia, Have an ABN run a for-profit, micro or small business, even if you're just starting out. For a small fee of $45 plus GST, when you select the All Access option, you can receive up to four hours of one-to-one coaching, focusing specifically on your needs in the digital space.
00:01:18
Speaker
and I am one of the coaches in this program. You can also sign up for the LITE program which is free and get access to a library of resources and join the community and connect with others travelling the same uncharted waters as you. By signing up to the program through my affiliate link Whichever option you choose, the all access or light, you'll also be supporting the production of this podcast as I receive a small fee for bringing you into the program. If you're not in New South Wales and would like one to one business and wellness coaching ad hoc, you can book this via the service that the rural woman is now supporting. And this option is $121 for a one hour session. The difference here is that you get to focus on
00:02:05
Speaker
whatever would be most supportive to you right now. And that may not have anything to do with your digital presence at all. But instead focusing on building your confidence or overcoming imposter syndrome, this is something I'm seeing come through a lot at the moment. You'll find more information and links for these offerings in the show notes. So now that that's out of the way, you can enjoy today's episode uninterrupted. So go on and enjoy.
Educational Struggles and Creative Pursuits
00:02:36
Speaker
When I think of all the stories I've told myself over the years that I would have considered at the time as failures or limiting beliefs, I also can't help but think that I'm not in the same place that I was back then. I'm not struggling with the same obstacles, which has led me to consider that perhaps they were actually really not failures. The fact that I did not pass English in high school and put it down to having parents who migrated to the country before I was born and for them English being a second language, which created a story in my mind that I never really had the support at home to help foster my English skills, especially when it came to reading and writing.
00:03:20
Speaker
Add to that the fact that neither of my parents even completed high school. My father only made it to grade six and my mother to year 10. So again, I carried this story that I was not being raised by a family of educated academics. So how could I expect to become one, let alone master the basics at higher school education level, Two years after completing year 12, I decided that I'd attempt to get into university, especially since there were no jobs advertised for artists out there and I found myself working as an accounts clerk and receptionist in a window furnishings business, attending night school studying photography and advertising. But my heart was calling me to create beautiful images of our natural environment and I really wanted to become a National Geographic photographer.
00:04:12
Speaker
And I loved to draw. And so I thought if I completed a Bachelor of Arts in Visual Arts and Design, I'd create more opportunity for myself to be employed in a creative role that actually aligned with my interests. But the fact that I did not pass English was an obstacle. so I pleaded with the institution to let me enter on a probationary basis and I would prove that I could actually learn the basics of English so I could enter a field of study that allowed me to engage in practices that made my heart sing. While doing that degree I was encouraged by my lecturers to change my degree to a Bachelor of Secondary Education with a specialty areas of art and design.
00:04:56
Speaker
One reason being that they said I was very good at presenting my tutorials and the other would serve as a good backup in case I couldn't turn my creative pursuits into a career. Eventually I caved and I took on those extra subjects and overloaded to try and complete my studies with a teaching certification under my belt. which I got very close to doing. All I had left to do was my final practicum and I would have been done. However, instead of completing it there and then, I took a break from studying and soon after I got married, I was given the opportunity to teach full-time in a high school for two whole terms. And at that time, if you were far enough into your degree, you could teach the younger years in high school.
00:05:40
Speaker
So I taught art, textiles, food tech and geography. My former husband was a geography teacher, so I had his guidance on this. But when I got to the end of that teaching stint, I declared I was never going to become a teacher, not in the system at least, because I felt like I would get stuck in that system and my creativity would be stifled. And I never thought I would really thrive as an artist if I did that. So I guess you could say I failed at becoming a teacher too. Instead I chose to focus on building my photography business. Eventually I did go back to university to complete my degree but graduated with a Bachelor of Arts and a double major in Visual Arts and Design.
Cultural Roots and Family Values
00:06:26
Speaker
But back to my upbringing and the perceived failures of that.
00:06:31
Speaker
My upbringing was quite primitive. My parents were from two very small islands, Mauritius and Rodriguez, just off the coast of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. They met in England and moved to Australia when my sister was just a one year old. And then I was born three and a half years later. We grew up very much immersed in the Mauritian culture. For the first 13 years of my life we lived in Melbourne and then later in my teenage years and early 20s we moved to Brisbane. Mauritian families were very big and spread across the globe. So even though I was born and raised in Australia, my experience of my childhood was very much Mauritian in Australia.
00:07:12
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It was a lifestyle where we grew, raised, and cooked our own food, made our own clothes, built things with our hands, but education was not a part of our roots. It was something our generation evolved into. Aside from that, my family was not at all wealthy. Even though my grandfather back in Rodriguez was, his children were not, and they all worked very hard to provide for their families. We were barely middle class, more working class. But what we always had was this aspect of quality. Everything we made was made to last and what we bought was also of a higher quality. I remember travelling across the city to pick up two pairs of handcrafted shoes. My father had a cobbler made to his specifications. One pair in black and the other in brown. We were still in Melbourne then so I was quite young.
00:08:05
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After completing grade 6, he ran away from his father's home in Rodriguez to live with his mother who'd moved to Mauritius with his older brothers. But she could not afford to pay for him to join them, so he got a job as a patent maker for a cobbler. So he valued the quality of well-crafted shoes. He cared for those shoes and wore them for as long as I can remember. In his working life, I wouldn't be surprised if he still has them. And add to that the fact that my mother as a seamstress could help me create anything I wanted in terms of garments. So long as I made it from the fabric she had available, which was sourced from a remnant warehouse, so not always the latest fashion, but my designs were always cutting edge.
00:08:50
Speaker
When we started doing sewing classes in school and everybody else was making boxer shorts and pillowcases, I made a suit. While I loved these aspects about my upbringing, there were other aspects that were extremely challenging and I very quickly learned in my youth to become ashamed of what we did not have and where our family had failed.
Journey of Self-Worth and Transformation
00:09:13
Speaker
We were not wealthy, educated and I came from a broken home, my parents divorced while I was still in high school. Despite all this, I seemed to attract friends who were really quite wealthy, and I really started to see that divide. Add to that the lack of education and shame about what we were not, I then started to aspire to becoming someone. In the words of my father who would often say, you need to become someone.
00:09:42
Speaker
I say that without judgement now, even though it hurt back then to think that I was no one until I was someone. one Then after all of those years spent striving to become someone, dating guys from families above my station, my father also always said that I had lobster taste with a beer budget and he was right. but he instilled in me the value of quality over quantity. How many people do you know have a pair of shoes that were custom crafted and that they polished every week and kept for next to 30 years? When I eventually married into a family that represented all the things I believed that mine lacked in, I thought I was on the road to success, to becoming someone after all.
00:10:32
Speaker
I won't go into all the details of how that was not the case, and eventually finding myself in my late 40s, self-employed, a single mum with a teenager still at home with me, and my older son old enough to embrace his independence, but feeling inside of myself that I was back to not being special enough to be kid and sit in someone in the eyes of another. Other than my children, of course, they have been the greatest gifts in this lifetime. So what do you do after all that striving to be someone to find yourself at the bottom of a pit feeling like an even bigger failure than ever before? Well, in my experience, I can say with all my heart, the best thing that I did was to start to value myself.
00:11:19
Speaker
and see the value in myself and recognise that what was being reflected back to me through all of those years of striving and struggling to receive that external validation was the fact that the love I thought needed to come from within me first. We've all heard this before. I know, but let me tell you, when you're at the bottom of that pit feeling completely worthless, there's really nothing anyone else can say to lift you out of that darkness. Surrounding yourself with love and support is of course crucial, and protecting yourself from unwarranted advice from those who just can't know what it's like to be down there is just as important.
00:12:04
Speaker
But being down there and connecting back to what I truly appreciated about my childhood brought me back to all the aspects that by society's standards were seen as failures. The primitive upbringing connected to the cycles of nature, eating homegrown goodness, handcrafting our wares, singing, dancing, laughing together. They were what added to the quality of my life back then, and they do now. So over the last two and a half years navigating this change, it has not been my degree, my postgraduate studies, certifications and qualifications that have made me feel like someone. It has been my resourcefulness, the memories that my boys and I have created together, using our unique skills, combining them to enjoy experience that we will treasure for many years to come.
00:12:56
Speaker
This resourcefulness and these skills were passed down from generation to generation and are based simply on being our unique selves. We are someone from the moment we are born. We have our natural abilities that are our contribution. And if society fostered that more in children, helping them see that their unique gifts and talents are what they are here to contribute to the collective's needs, we'd have a lot less people feeling like failures and more thriving instead.
Exploration of Gene Keys and Personal Growth
00:13:28
Speaker
This is one reason I have loved exploring the Jean Keys. I've been working through this as a part of the Pearl Sequence Retreat, which focuses on prosperity. This is an online retreat that the Jean Keys offers and it's been a wonderful meeting up with people regularly online who are also going through this journey of self-discovery, contemplating one sphere at a time, starting with a sphere of vocation. mind being gene key five which is the shadow of impatience, the gift of patience and the city of timelessness. The city being the highest expression of that key. My line in this sphere is a four which is the line of connection. Now I was certainly not patient as a child and when I told my father I was studying to become a teacher
00:14:16
Speaker
His first response was, how could you become a teacher? You're not patient enough. What he didn't know at that point was I had developed the gift of patience in that area of my life anyway, while living away from home. The line four of connection was no surprise to me at all, as I've always seen the value in others and how they contribute to the collective and tried to connect people who could support each other in whatever it is they need. So from the sphere of vocation, we then travel across the pathway of initiative to the sphere of culture, in which I have the gene key 63, which is the shadow of doubt.
00:14:53
Speaker
the gift of inquiry and the city of truth. In that sphere I'm aligned to, which is partnership. Now I must admit I struggled with contemplating this sphere as my profile states explicitly that I thrive best in partnership. And with not with it not being long since my partnership of just over 25 years had come to an end, this was one of those rather challenging moments for me. However, I did come to the conclusion that month that thriving in partnership can be about many forms of partnerships. Partnerships in business, partnership with my children, partnership even with the people I engage in the delivery of the message of this podcast.
00:15:36
Speaker
Each conversation I have is a partnership that strengthens the message and mission of my podcast to encourage and support others through living their highest expression and doing business to their own beat. And when I think of my 25 plus year partnership, I did thrive in that. There was so much that we co-created together that I am grateful for, including our two beautiful sons. I don't really see our marriage ending as a failure, but more of an end of a soul contract, which was fulfilled.
Life Lessons and Unique Contributions
00:16:11
Speaker
And now as I head into the next phase of my soul's journey, I may one day attract another partner whom I can thrive alongside of, but for now it's just about me working through my process of my personal journey of growth and expansion.
00:16:26
Speaker
The next pathway in the pearl sequence being growth and leading us to the sphere of brand and our life's purpose. In this sphere I have the jean key 17 which is the shadow of opinion, the gift of farsightedness and the city of omniscience and for this sphere I have the line 4 which is the line of service. This sphere was one that I felt quite comfortable contemplating, as I could see how all that I experienced up to this point had been leading to me developing the gift of farsightedness.
00:17:01
Speaker
There's a line I've often used with my children, even before becoming aware of my gene keys, and this line is, there's no right or wrong, just different. My whole life experience has been based around learning this valuable lesson. Never feeling like I've truly belonged anywhere, and yet feeling like I belong everywhere at the same time. After a range of personal experiences led me to realise that those who think their way is the only way are missing out on the magic of our existence. We only have to look at wild nature to see that thriving takes place where there is diversity. Even in each species there's a variety.
00:17:42
Speaker
and each plays their part in the health and well-being of the collective. We humans are no different, and yet we like to box and brand things as right and wrong, better or worse. Which brings me to my pearl in the sequence. In this fear, I have the gene key 25, which is the shadow of constriction, the gift of acceptance, and the city of universal love. Such a revelation. To see all the experiences of this lifetime, good, bad and ugly, are all a part of the process of forming this beautiful pearl that I get to gift to the collective. A pearl of universal love. Oh, and my line in this fear is a line five, which is power, which is about me using that potent medicine that I have distilled through a life's journey to help serve the collective for the greater good.
00:18:34
Speaker
I see this platform as a part of me using that power, the power of my voice to express all the things I was unable to express as I was travelling through my journey of learning lessons I needed to learn. So now when I look back over my failures, of which there are many more than I've shared here today, I am grateful to all those who have taught me along my journey of this lifetime, and not always in a comfortable way. Some of those teachers have been ones who have rejected me for being who I am. And me trying to be something I was not led me to fail even more.
00:19:12
Speaker
The biggest lesson I have learned from all of this is that for most of my life I believe society was a rejecting me, but in fact it was me who was rejecting myself. It was my failure to see my own worth and celebrate it rather than try to disguise it to fit in with what I thought would be more acceptable to others. While it's easy to say this now in hindsight, it has been one of the deepest, most difficult life lessons I have had to learn and embrace. But in the end, it has brought me back to the truth of who I am.
00:19:49
Speaker
my essence and my self-worth. And it has been preparing me to live out this lifetime at my highest expression. As I let go of all the layers that once dimmed my light and masked my truth, there's a real sense of relief when you can step forward in the strength of who you truly are. I don't know about you, but I have found it much easier to accept and love others for who they are than I have myself. So life has had to keep presenting me with opportunities to learn this lesson at a very deep level. On so many levels, really. And honestly, I don't think it's over. I'm sure I'll be presented with opportunities going forward to revisit this.
00:20:33
Speaker
But I'm also feeling like it'll be easier for me to handle those opportunities because I have strengthened the muscles required to support me through them. So looking back over the things in my life that didn't turn out as I hoped or expected, lately I've been really contemplating the question of whether or not they actually meant I failed. Or was the process simply slowing me down to deepen the learning so that I could really appreciate the achievements that I'd actualised. While we can be guided on ways to navigate our way out of the pit, no one can do the inner work that is required to truly help us transmute the patterns of behaviour that led led us down there in the first place.
Aligning Work with Personal Strengths
00:21:20
Speaker
That work happens from the inside out, from our true desire to overcome the challenge and transform our stories.
00:21:28
Speaker
I hope me sharing this about my journey helps you see that some of the lessons you have been presented with over your lifetime are also challenges you too are capable of and probably more than ready to transmute. In terms of business, since a large chunk of our time is spent doing what we do to earn an income to support ourselves in living, in a society that requires us to exchange money for services, Creating a harmonious life also includes working in a position that aligns with our unique skill sets and sometimes there is no job description that describes yours and in which case you get the choice to create one that does which is what I have ended up doing and why I am here sharing the learnings and insights on this platform about doing business to my own beat.
00:22:21
Speaker
I'd really love for this podcast to be supportive of your journey. And so if you have any questions you'd like answered from myself or a guest on the podcast, I'd love to hear from you. Please reach out to offer feedback and submit your questions. So until next week I'd like to encourage you to reflect on what you have in the past perceived as failures that have really ended up being a part of your greatest lessons learned and obstacles overcome, leading you to honing your craft and connecting at a deeper level with your unique gifts which you are here to serve the collective with.
00:23:02
Speaker
Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is, and I hope you got value out of listening to this podcast. If you are looking for a coach to support and guide you through your own unique journey of creating a life you love, then reach out for a connection call. And if you'd like to connect with other creative souls in person by joining us at a workshop, a retreat, or to book a unique um shopping experience here at Creators Nest, I run those by appointment. So check out the website for more details. The link is in the show notes.
Audience Engagement and Feedback
00:23:32
Speaker
Oh, and please leave a review. I'd love to hear any insights or inspirations that were activated in you from this podcast. And I look forward to drumming, dancing or soaring alongside of you.