How to Spark Change When You're Running on Empty - When Roadblocks Lead to Life Lessons

Happy January everyone! And Happy Friday the 13th to all of you who believe in the secret power and healing energy of the 13 lunar cycles of the moon.

Whether you do or do not believe in the typical superstitions surrounding Friday the 13th or in the potential power that energy holds to honor a cycle of creation, death, and rebirth, it matters not to me.

I think we can all agree that it has become a somewhat “unlucky” day for many people around the world.

Horror movies (and even some scientific research) taunt that on this 13th day – there is much fear surrounding crossing paths with black cats, breaking a mirror that leads to a 7-year streak of bad luck, an increase in bizarre accidents, and other ominous, doom-laden happenings beyond our control.

There is even a name to describe the irrational dread of this date – paraskevidekatriaphobia – a specialized form of triskaidekaphobia – a fear of the number 13.

Now my husband was born on the 13th of April, and I don’t know if that is why, or if it’s just something he feels in his gut, but his very favorite number is the number 13.

There are others who see this day as a day of enlightenment. Using the power of the energy of the lunar cycle to spark change – a period of death and rebirth, if you will.

While I’m not dissuading the notion of superstition, because I mean, who really wants to tempt fate, anyway, huh? I am saying that I am choosing to use this date for the betterment of myself and the future that I wish to manifest to create my best life.

Maybe it will work – maybe it won’t – but I say, why not choose to look at THIS Friday the 13th as a day to embrace and focus on this powerful energy to stimulate our creativity – let’s look at ways to bring art, music, writing to life and bring healing into the world.

Now, I know that for some, like me, January isn’t exactly our favorite time of year. I mean, the business of the holidays is over (thank God some of us might say!) And we’re all pretty much back to our regular routines for the most part.

But, for me, this season, this cycle of the new year, is just – let me be honest – it’s depressing.

The sun barely comes out, and even when it does it is often short-lived. Most days are cold and gloomy, often in the Midwest where I live, there is the potential threat of snow, ice, sleet, hail, freezing rain – you name it – on any given day of the month.

So while I have every intention of kicking butt this year while I power straight into reaching every one of my goals, I often get tripped up this time of year in trying to do too much, forcing myself to feel it when, honestly, I’m just running on empty and trying to keep up in the rat race that is life.

By the end of January, I end up fighting to just hold on amidst the chaos, instead of feeling truly inspired and motivated to enjoy knocking things off my bucket list.

But on the flip side of this same energy, I can’t help but feel a calling. A calling to move. To motivate. To change.

I wanted to talk to you a little bit about how the universe works and sometimes, just, slaps you in the face and drags you kicking and screaming out of your comfort zone to wake you up and say “Hey. What are you doing? You are literally the only thing holding you back from achieving your dreams! Now let’s get moving!”

And that is when I start listing all of the reasons why I can’t do it right now. Why I’m not motivated enough to start. Why I’m not inspired enough to finish.

But let’s get real – those are all just excuses to stay stuck in a place we don’t belong, aren’t there?

If we truly want to spark change and propel ourselves forward this year, we, myself included, must push through the hard times, destroy the roadblocks standing in our way, and make it happen, no matter how much work it is going to take to get there.

So, first, let’s talk about roadblocks and how they prevent us from truly living our lives out loud.

Now in my case, I think one of the reasons why I’m starting off the year not feeling fired up and ready to go is because there were many things from last year that I chose to sweep under the rug and not deal with, so, what do you think happened to those things?

That’s right – I dragged them into a brand new year, and now I need to deal with them before I can move on.

One of my biggest goals for last year was to get my writing course off the ground. I wanted to create a digital course where I shared my core message with the world, and taught others how to tell their story.

Now the undertone of my core message is pretty heartfelt. It is that I believe that every story deserves to be told. The hard truths. The weakest moments. The brokenness manifested into healing. Every Single World is worth speaking into existence.

In fact, my very first slide after talking about that message is called “Exposing my Pain.” It begs the question “Why am I here.”

The next paragraph reads – For many years, I asked myself the same question, over and over again. Then one day, not so very long ago, a string of seemingly coincidental events came into play, and suddenly, I found myself with a heart torn in two and my eyes wide open to two choices that lay before me.

This was a very poignant and pivotal moment when weighing my words to teach others to tell their story – see, I have always been drawn to the poem The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost.

The one that reads:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Now, I wrote this part of my course over a year ago, planning to have it presented to the world by the beginning of summer.

I also created a free workshop as a teaser to this course – “How to Write Your First (or 20th) Novel Without Having a Panic Attack!”

It gained some traction and I had several people sign up for the free workshop. I was beyond excited and ready to hit the ground running.

But from the get-go, there were roadblocks, pitfalls, technical difficulties, and petty annoyances that nearly stopped it in its tracks.

I chalked it up to a normal first-time, almost Murphy’s Law, type experience. I didn’t expect perfection, but I also didn’t expect to feel defeated before I ever began.

Now, I let this experience tear me down. I let doubt sneak in and I let fear silence my voice. Something I swore I’d never let happen again. I had too many dreams to live to let it drag me down for good.

But I questioned if this was even the right thing for me to do. Or perhaps it wasn’t the right time. So I pushed it away like I do everything else that’s easier to hide from than face head-on, and I moved on.

I focused on things like my health, like fighting my new diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes and keeping myself alive instead.

While those were also super important goals to have for the remainder of 2022, I focused more on my physical health and I allowed my mental health to suffer in the meantime.

It wasn’t exactly on purpose. It just sort of happened. Our work life because chaotic and noisy, while our personal life was pushed to the back burner. I stopped doing this podcast. I’m also an author – and I stopped writing. I have had an intimate connection with music my entire life, and in the midst of this last year – I even stopped singing. The bottom line was that while my mental health began to suffer, I also stopped creating – which is THE essential component that makes ME who I am today.

Let’s flash forward to the new year. I had a very real and honest conversation with my husband about feeling like I let myself down in not pushing my course forward. I feel that I have a message to share and an audience to serve – to help inspire and motivate others to change.

The reason I created this podcast – The Daily Escape Podcast – in the first place was the offer hope and healing to others to manifest and create their very best lives too. I feel like this is, and has always been, my life purpose.

So in pushing my dreams aside and struggling just to keep my head above water, I began to feel like a hypocrite. How could I uplift and motivate others when I couldn’t even find the strength to do it for myself?

But I sat with the silence and the ache in my heart to want to do better this year and I realized a lot of things about myself that I didn’t recognize before then, or at least that I hadn’t been willing to admit just yet.

I found that there are still a lot of things from not just this past year, but from my whole entire life from childhood on that I haven’t yet dealt with – that I’ve pushed aside and swept under the rug because let’s be honest, it’s much easier to do that than to face your own demons to change. Am I right?

I know that in hearing from you in the comments that many of you are feeling this way too.

So I guess my first question to myself was - and should be to you as well - What are we going to do about it? What are we willing to do to change?

For me, I realized that I’ve been unwilling or just flat scared out of my freaking mind to admit what I need to go back to my past and face.

Now, as I mentioned, I am an author. I’ve been creating make-believe stories and writing books for my readers for years.

I’ve written 6 books under my pen name Sadie K. Frazier that you can find on amazon if you want to check those out, and 2 that I’ve co-written with my author, husband of 23 years, and lifetime best friend Stephen St. Clair.

All of these are fictional – a form of prose that describes imaginary events, people, places, and things that were invented by our creative minds.

But I’ve come to the conclusion that maybe it’s time I stop hiding behind the pretense of an imaginary life and I learn to deal with the reality of my REAL life and grow up.

So as I said, my husband and I had a very real conversation about what we’d like this year to look like. The changes we need to invoke to spark change and better ourselves in a new way.

It became very clear to me WHY my workshop, and my writing course, did not take off the way I’d hoped. It was clear that I had no business asking or teaching others to write their story – unveil their pain – recognize and define their past when I had been unwilling to do the same for myself.

At that moment, on one of the last days of 2022, I made it my mission in 2023 to unveil my past and write the story of my life. I felt like I needed to find my own voice before I could help others find theirs.

Now, here is where things get interesting.

The VERY next day, I get an email from the lady who hosts our author library events at our local library. Now she and I spoke probably 2 years ago about my course and how I wanted to help others write their story. But things just never worked out on her end and she hadn’t thought much of it – until now.

So like I said, the very next day after my hubby and I had this “life-altering” conversation – I get an email from her and this is what it read:

I know that we spoke a little bit about your ideas to create a "writing" course for the community. Have you made any progress on this idea? Might you be interested in creating some sort of mini-workshop presentation for a library event focused on writing?

Our Summer Reading Program is on the theme of "Finding Your Voice" -- "Our voices have power. We use our voices to share stories, express ourselves, and spark change. Our voices include not only the sounds we make, but the words we write, the art we create, the movements we perform, and the actions we take each day to impact our world."

What do you think?

Now I don’t know about you – but I firmly believe that in life, there are no real coincidences. Everything is meant to happen at the exact moment it’s destined to happen in.

When I read her email, I was in shock.

It was just further proof to me that I was on the right track and that this opportunity would enable me to share with others not only MY shortcomings in writing my own story, but also it would help them to see that in life, the struggles are real.

But, as I said earlier, if we truly want to spark change and propel ourselves forward this year, We, myself included, must push through the hard times, destroy the roadblocks standing in our way, and make it happen, no matter how much work it is going to take to get there.

So, I’ve heard a lot of other people/influencers, podcasters, and authors, suggesting that we choose a motivational word - One Word/One Phrase to inspire you - for the New Year ahead to get us motivated to move.

Basically, it’s a theme to follow to spark the changes we want to make.

I’ve also heard others speaking on new year’s resolutions, goal setting, and bringing in the new while letting go of the old to create the very best version of ourselves we can.

So I thought I’d jump on board with this idea and see what I could come up with. At this point, I’ll try anything to keep my mind from feeling defeated or telling me that whatever progress I’m making isn’t good enough and that I need to do more.

So my theme for this year is going to be “Find Your Voice.” Plain and simple. I have started writing my story, and I won’t stop until the very last line is complete.

I want to make a quick suggestion for another podcast to listen to if you need a little extra motivation and inspiration to get through life as I have - If you have never heard of Mel Robbins – guys, I want you to stop right now and look her up on whatever venue you listen to your podcasts on.

Every episode of hers on The Mel Robbins Podcast is filled with the motivation and tactics you need, plus deeply personal stories, related topics, and research-backed advice to help you create a better life.

I’ll be honest, in listening to her speak – for me, it’s the raw honesty, the motherly, big sister, if you don’t listen to me I’m gonna kick your butt advice that really speaks to the core of who I am. Or at least to the woman who I so desperately want to find again. The me I’ve somehow left behind.

Last week, I talked on my blog “The Nomadic Gemini” – about it being time for something new.

In closing, I’ll remind you, and myself, of that very pivotal thought-provoking realization I had just a few days earlier – and to the letter I wrote to my future self.

To the woman who once lived in fear, (and honestly still fights the anxiety that causes every second of her life), it's time to quiet your anxious mind and learn to let it be still.

To the me who feels with every fiber of her being that there is something new on the horizon. Something that is about to catapult us into a future we could never have imagined. Something that's simply waiting for me to get out of my own way and make room for it to manifest into becoming.

And last, but certainly not least, to the little girl within still longing to be enough for once, I'm going to sit with you for a moment longer until we figure this out. Until we face the ugly things that we've been hiding from. Until we learn to believe that we ARE worthy. We've always been worthy. But we need to convince ourselves that it's okay and it's time to believe that now.

I'm done looking back.

I'm done making excuses.

This will be the year things change - I can feel it in the core of my soul.

This is the year we find our voices - our power - to pivot, spark change, and heal.

This is the year we trust the process and learn that while releasing the old, we are clearing a path for what lies ahead.

And nothing, I mean NOTHING, is going to stand in our way this time.

It's time to rewrite our story and find our voice!

I can FEEL it!!

Let's do this!!!

Until next time,

With all my love

I am unconditionally yours,

~ Sadie