Over the past several weeks, I have been encouraging my social media community to pause long enough to notice the flowers. This morning, while sitting on my porch and taking in the beautiful arrangement of flowers I planted, I found myself reflecting on the garden of my own life. I began thinking about where I am now compared to where I was before LeadWhole was even an idea.

Since starting my original basket design business, I have always felt drawn to the idea of holding space here in Ithaca, New York. When I relocated back to this area, I struggled to readjust to a slower pace of life after spending nearly five years in larger metropolitan areas such as Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and Fairfax, Virginia. I found myself drawn to Ithaca in many ways, although at that time I never imagined I would one day open an actual business there.

When I opened Just Chill, my priority was to bring something magical, meaningful, and unique to my hometown of Cortland, New York. That became the direction I chose for my business over the past five years. Since then, the journey has brought an ongoing series of challenges and unexpected turns, to say the least. At the same time, it has also become a deeply character-building experience, both personally and professionally.

This entrepreneurial experience has taught me many things: unwavering resilience, a level of flexibility I did not know I possessed, and, unexpectedly, a greater measure of self-acceptance and self-confidence. It has stretched me and challenged me in ways I truly never thought possible.

By the grace of God, it has also taught me how to better manage and accept the natural ebbs and flows of change. Perhaps even more importantly, it has taught me how to receive support from others, something that has not always come naturally for this highly independent soul.

This season has helped me learn how to do two important things: first, to be open and willing to ask for help when I need it; and second, to be ready to accept help when it is offered, even when I did not ask for it. I am learning not to view outside assistance as a sign of weakness or as something that might be used to hurt or take advantage of me. Instead of asking, “Why are you here?” I am learning to say, “I am grateful that you arrived.”

If I am being honest, for much of the last 30 years both personally and professionally, I have been, pun fully intended, “Just Chill.” I have often operated as an island unto myself, the very picture of fierce independence.

To be fair, that independence has helped propel my life in many directions. It has supported achievement, success, and career advancement. However, it has also created, at times, a strong wall of resistance to seeking and accepting solutions for challenges that are truly outside my own personal and professional span of control. Yes, even coaches have trust work to do. The difference is, I am facing it and acknowledging where it may be getting in the way 🤪.

As a result, I have come to understand that my hyper-independence has been both a blessing and a barrier. Even being able to name that truth feels like a meaningful point of internal growth within my own rooting, wholeness, and becoming.

Growth does not always require large, dramatic, life-altering events in order to have a significant impact. Our growth, our rooting, our wholeness, and our becoming are not defined by one single experience.

They are shaped by a series of accumulated changes, challenges, experiences, and moments. In my own life, they have also been shaped by a lifetime of epiphanies and an ongoing collection of “aha” moments that continue to guide who I am becoming.

The lesson is this: we need to spend more time gazing upon the flower garden of our own lives 🌼. Each of us has the ability to change direction. Each of us also has access to countless opportunities for growth, learning, and deeper self-awareness. What we once believed would forever define us can change. Sometimes it changes in an instant.

In other cases, as it has in my own experience, change takes shape more slowly through a series of circumstances and moments that challenge us in every aspect of who we are.

Every moment that invites us to reflect, and every experience that asks us to confront the parts of ourselves that may be holding us back, is an opportunity for growth. These moments can open our lives to greater possibilities, deeper wisdom, and new opportunities.

So, as your coach, I invite you to take time today to notice the small accumulations of change and challenge that have shaped your own becoming.

I encourage you to sit with the flowers 💐 of your own life’s journey and reflect on how they have changed you. Honor them. Learn from them. Carry those lessons forward as nourishment for your continued growth and future success.

Until next time, embrace the gaze!

Coach Carol