Put on Your Red Boots

Anyone who knows me KNOWS I am not a cowboy boot kinda gal. So the strong impulse to buy red cowboy boots when I was in Ashland, OR last year was a surprise.

The boots were clearly significant, but why?

Cowboys – and cowgirls  struck out into the wild west, braving the unknown. They forged their own path – conventions be damned. Their independent spirit and their strength and common-sense wisdom are a proud part of our history.

By contrast, I’m a yoga-pants wearing, city-lovin’ coach.

What the heck do cowboy boots have to do with me and my very citified, safety-loving existence?

Jessica Steward declared that 2012 would be my “Red Boot” year. Honestly, I scoffed.

Today, I’m wearing my red boots – spiritually and physically.

1. Changing the way women do business + money

I have changed my business model significantly to serve my values and frankly could give a shit whether I make 6-figures (which I was obsessed with for a while). I make, and we have “enough”, no, really, MORE than enough to meet all of our needs and a whole lot more. To be honest, there is a part of me that is shaking her head that I would admit such a thing as a money coach, but like I said, it’s a red boot kind of year.

When I teach women to Get Right with Money, I invite them to do the deep inner and energetic work that will help them be at peace with their finances, not to keep striving for someone else ideal. To let go of feeling driven by income. To see their worth and their wealth through a much wider lens of abundance – a much richer and truer picture of a life well lived.

When women align their relationship with money and their truest desires, it is a not-so-quiet revolution, because they get off the gerbil wheel and define the business and life that really serves THEM. Not a should. Not a “you have to do it this way.”

And a lot of times, the perfect income arrives on the heels of this inner revolution. It’s pretty fucking awesome.

2. The Art of Acceptance

My husband was going to deploy (but didn’t) THREE times before he actually left. My husband’s eventual deployment to Afghanistan prompted a question I have not asked myself since we married, “Where do I want to live?” Colorado screamed at me. It seemed so neat and tidy to move back to the place Clara was born, into our old community where we still own a home.

Well that didn’t happen for too many reasons to count here. By the time we arrived and were looking at places to rent, the homes in the neighborhood I really, really, really wanted to live in were either too small or had just been rented to someone else or didn’t have a yard for the dog or SOMETHING.

But there is this little tiny town just north of Colorado Springs that just opened up wide with a perfect home in a community I knew nothing about, except I had heard the schools were good and the house was the right size, in a quiet neighborhood with a killer view to the Rocky Mountains.  So you know, it wasn’t what I thought it was going to be but already, I can tell you, the lessons in sovereignty and belonging and living with grace in the face of uncertainty are rocking my world.

3. Fierce Devotion

I’m big on intentional legacies. You might have noticed. Financial legacies, emotional legacies, family legacies, community legacies.

When I started my business and my daughter started school, I sadly gave up. “Well, now she is in the hands of the school system – that’s just the way it is.”

As I spoke with parents in this new neighborhood, I heard tales of kids in trouble because class sizes are so big (26 – 28 kids). I heard horror stories about math becoming confusing as they keep requiring kids to learn multiple methods for each type of problem. I saw nasty behavior between the girls in the neighborhood.

And I kept hearing “home school”.
Inspired to live my beliefs about leaving a powerful legacy, I’m supporting my daughter’s education and her emotional well-being in a different way this year. This year she is home, with me, working on math and science and following her bliss in what she loves to learn about. We had history class today in the hammock – after my morning meditation and my clients – in the shadow of the mountains, while we waited for Erick’s phone call from Afghanistan.

In all cases, nothing was as I planned.

But every single tiny inch of it has invited me to experience my power. To pull on my red boots and forge the path that is right for me – not for the neighbors or my extended family or for my friends. To trust my “cowboy wisdom” and then take the action that is aligned with my truest desires and my deepest values.

Forge the path that is right for you.

This is the universal invitation to adventure and growth.

What isn’t as you hoped? What is unexpected and unplanned? Life is unpredictable and messy, inviting us to dance when we aren’t quite sure of the steps.

Put on your metaphorical red boots and do what is right for you. Forge your own path… make it your very own Red Boot year.

I believe you will.

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