When your life is falling down around you, it is almost impossible to feel good and pull yourself out of it.

That’s why I hated the Law of Attraction teaching because it felt so fake and unrealistic. When I’m almost bankrupt and living with cockroaches I cannot visualise the opposite life and pretend its real.

I saw that teaching to be responsible for so much of my downfall, but really it all had to do with me – my choices, my insecurities, my fears, my negative emotions and unconscious state.

As I told you in my last post, those cockroaches showed me that something had to change.

Once I had set that intention and commitment, I began to act less like a victim and more like someone in conscious control.

I could not let this be my legacy. Life had more meaning than that. I had to return the power to me, rather than letting money – a piece of paper have it all.

How was I going to change it and what was I going to do?

I am not a mug on the shelf

It all became very clear to me on night at a friend’s Christmas party in 2009. The moment is still so vivid if feels like it happened just yesterday, not eight years ago.

I was sharing my frustration with Craig over a glass of red wine as to how I felt that all our years of travel experiences, and all the lessons that came with them, were all for nothing.

What was the point to them all if now we had this life full of fear and lack, which wasn’t contributing anything to the greater good?

With frustration, I spat out the words,

“I feel like I’m just going to be another mug left on the shelf.”

Life’s markers

Our lives are a collection of moments that shape and define our new directions. We remember those moments with crystal clarity for years to come as either the missed opportunity, or the one that finally sent us on the right path.

As soon as I uttered the words, I knew this was a moment and I connected it to a dot in my past. Within the space of a few lightning bolt moments, I got it.

That moment was a flashback to 11 years earlier when I sat with a Romanian gypsy in a caravan on Brighton Beach England.

She looked deep into my palm, told me so much about myself, including how weak I was, and then looked directly in my eye and said,

“You are worried you are going to be another mug left on the shelf.”

She patted my leg and smiled, “You don’t have to worry about that. You’ll find your strength.”

She indicated the session was over and I left clueless to what she meant and what she saw. I was just going through a horrendous break up, I wanted to be a mug left on the shelf.

So I dismissed it until that fear came flying out of my mouth at the Christmas party and I understood what it meant.

My travels were never just for me alone. They were for me to share.

I knew I had learned so much through travel. I knew travel had the power to change so many people’s lives. I knew I could be the one to share my stories and my lessons to help other people.

Our experiences are worth nothing unless we take the power from them and share to help others.

Making it less about me

I took that hopeful smile of hers and, not long after, started our travel blog, no longer afraid to share. Whether or not I stayed on the shelf was up to me and I would only remain up there if I kept everything within.

I wanted more people to travel so they could get to know themselves, fall in love with life, embrace peace and be more accepting of differences.

For me it was the simple solution to a peaceful and loving world.

I became so immersed in the world of travel again through travel blogging that I stopped thinking about money and began to feel joy and enthusiasm. I wasn’t traveling, but I was sharing the joy of it and the stories.

The wheels began turning, the wonder and joy opened up and gratitude returned. The blog began to grow and our life began to change. But this time, it wasn’t just about me traveling and feeling joy, but about serving to help others feel the same.

Things began improving immensely and the money started to flow again. We were able to pay off our debts and after a couple of years both Craig and I worked full-time on the blog. We had the dream life of travel, we were spending every day doing what we loved, and we were making an income.

But, my soul was only partly nourished. We weren’t making an income on par with the value we offered and this bothered me.

No matter what I did, and how we grew the blog, I could not get our income to rise. Unexpected expenses would arise, contracts would fall through at the last minute, and no matter how hard we hustled, opportunities weren’t showing their face.

I knew this was a problem.

Upper limit problems

Remember I shared with you, it’s never bad luck, it’s always about your journey and your ability to create. If you’re stuck in an area, (and creation is not just about money, but one segment of it) it’s because you have some kind of limitation or blockage stopping you.

Those limiting beliefs lie deep within your subconscious, sabotage you and bring you back down to a level you unconsciously feel you’re good enough for.

It’s your own issues that prevent you from moving forward, even though you may think it’s the GFC the job loss, the bad investment, or the bad luck.

It’s not, it’s an upper limit problem and a belief in what we think is possible.

You may think you deserve the mansion on the hill, but deep down you’ve learned through years of conditioning that you’re not good enough for it. Therefore, your subconscious will work to protect you and ensure you stay in that zone of not being good enough.

I was stuck in that zone and could not expand my upper limit of possibility.

I felt like a failure and a little worthless and I no longer wanted that backpacker lifestyle where I had to just get by and make a lot of sacrifices to have what I wanted. The lack of money that matched my value was having an impact upon my peace and happiness.

I was getting the travel, which is the number one thing that makes my soul happy, but there were other things it also wanted that I couldn’t afford, or I worried endlessly over spending the money for it … like organic food, or a trip to the chiropractor to help my sore back, or an extra pair of hands to help me with the all consuming workload.

It was simple things I desired, not money for money’s sake, but choices to help make my life easier, healthier and more fulfilled.

I had a persistent fear that the success I was starting to have could so easily melt away and I’d return to that horrible position of shame, failure, lack, and fear.

I had a choice.

Either figure out what was going wrong and make changes so I could thrive and continue this mission to spread the joy of travel, or kiss all of it goodbye and struggle for the rest of my life, not helping anyone.

Stay tuned for my next post, which will share how I turned all this around…

I’d love to hear your questions, thoughts, or comments below.