Every Moment Has Its Purpose
I participated in a community breathwork session with a Reiki Master the other night. She had us set an intention, and mine was to trust and let go.
As we were filling up our diaphragm with air and releasing it, I began to think about a woman who used to be one of my best friends. We had similar career paths in the fashion industry, and I even walked down the aisle at her wedding as a bridesmaid.
However, my resentment toward her began to grow after collaborating on a video project for her fashion line. I offered to produce a TikTok for her, ghostwrote a poem, gave her art direction of video shots, and spent nearly 20 hours editing this spoken word video for her fashion line and doing this for free in exchange for a testimonial.
I was so proud of our collaboration that when I shared our work on Instagram Stories, I jokingly said I am channeling a privileged white man and gave myself credit for writing, producing, voice overing, and directing the video.
The joke didn’t sit right with my friend as she said I was taking full credit for her fashion line by taking credit for my work – I tried to pass this moment off as a miscommunication, but it never sat right with me.
My feelings were hurt by her revealing the celebration of my hard work made her insecure about her business. I realized this went beyond miscommunication and signified a misaligned friendship.
We were growing apart as I was stepping into the light as an entrepreneur and founder of my company, while she, also an entrepreneur fashion designer, was threatened by my leadership.
She held a scarcity mindset, and that’s when I realized our friendship was running on this dynamic as I was always hiding in her shadow since we became friends.
I slowly distanced myself from the friendship after that encounter yet continued to hold onto resentment until the breathwork session.
That’s when I heard the words every moment has its purpose.
Even the ones that cause us pain and confusion.
Last year was a dark purge of me walking away from friendships with three women whose weddings I was in.
I became resentful of feeling like a walking predicament to them with my series of job layoffs and a catastrophic breakup.
And when I began healing was when those relationships shifted. I was no longer comfortable in the shadow, I was ready to shine my light, and those friendships no longer nurtured me.
Those painful and confusing moments of not getting my needs met in those friendships led me to a yearning to want more and, like a catalyst, pushed me to create a new world filled with friendships allowing me to expand my wings.
Every moment has its purpose. And the purpose can turn endings into new beginnings - just like the process of writing a memoir.
To be able to look back at challenging moments of your life and see how they transformed you into the person you are today.
This is how we connect the dots of our adversity and reclaim our sense of agency by having the ability to look back and see how one moment can lead us to beginnings.
This is how I coach all my memoir clients to write their adversity by compassionately exploring the meaning of what happened to them. Not to say we deserve painful experiences (because no human ever does), but to take adversity and turn it into inner wisdom to be shared with the world.
This is what makes a bestselling story – your ability to process your past in your unique perspective and voice.
When you work with me as your memoir writing coach, I guide you through this process of approaching your past with purpose.
This is the true essence of memoir writing and I teach you all of this in Memoir Momentum, a 90-minute intensive to guide you to write a chapter of your memoir, learn my proven storytelling framework I teach to all clients, and build a book synopsis so you’ll have the confidence to begin writing your memoir.
Book a clarity call here to learn more.
Sincerely,
Mary
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