Faith in the Unknown

Recently I have been reflecting on and planning the services I offer within Butterfly Minds.

Currently my main focus has been on my offerings for children and families with Slow Down Amaya. In my previous blog, I shared what I had been doing behind the scenes since becoming a published author.

This blog shares a mixture of my planning for future offerings for adults and children.

At the beginning of this year I picked a word for the year. My chosen word was ‘Faith’.

As we're nearly half way through the year I feel that it's a good time to revisit this and explore how faith has played out so far.

Belief and Faith

I think that belief and faith are closely related, and at the same time they’re different.

We all have different things we believe could be religious beliefs, faith, spirituality or something else.

You might believe you can't do something but when someone else does the same thing you have faith in their abilities.

Believing and having faith in something/someone can appear at different times throughout your life and even day to day.

For the purpose of this blog, I share how belief and faith have made an impact in my life over the last year. I realise that these themes have been relevant before I decided on my word of the year.

Mindset

If someone had told me this time last year that I would write and publish a book, have requests to deliver private training and workshops while raising a baby, I wouldn't have believed you!

In general, I am mindful throughout my days and I regularly remind myself not to worry about the future. However, that doesn't mean I don't ever think about or make plans for the future. I didn't plan to write a book, the inspiration just came to me. Yet when I decided to publish it, I had faith that I would be able to reach a lot of readers. I believed that although I had no idea what the publishing process involved, I would one day have a published book.

On a different note, this time last year I was heavily pregnant. I knew how to look after, teach and work with other people's children.

What I didn't know was what my life it would look like while raising my own child. What I did have was faith that I would learn and I would discover what did and didn't work.

The only certain thing in life is change.

Although I already knew this, sometimes I resisted or felt uncomfortable with change. Now, in my everyday life, I notice changes in myself, my child, and my business.

Writing and publishing Slow Down Amaya felt like having a second baby, in the form of a book! I had an idea of what it might look like but I did know it would make a difference to my life and others.

What was the difference?

They both pushed me out of my comfort zone and taught me that new things happen at any given moment.

Comfort Zone

I have continued to regularly take steps out of my comfort zone.

A recent example of this is when I asked if my book could be stocked in the retail section at MakeBelieve- Baby Play Place. I felt nervous to ask, upon reflecting I think this was based on a fear of receiving no which I might have taken as a feeling of rejection. However, they said yes, and it's now available in their new premises!

Even if I had been told no, I think I would still feel a sense of pride for reaching out to ask. I would have reminded myself of ‘having faith’ and knowing that a different place would say yes in future.

A Special Request

This week I am teaching a group of 23 students yoga and meditation. The organiser got in touch with me last year about the classes. 

You might be wondering how this is leaving my comfort zone. I’ll explain. 

The group are in Edinburgh for a literary tour and have visited from America! This will be the first time I’ve taught a large group of people who are from a different country and as a private request.

I'm looking forward to meeting them and sharing yoga and meditation with them.

Showcasing my Work

The final piece I'll share about leaving my comfort zone is sharing new offers with a new audience.

Over the next couple of months, I plan to contact schools to ask if they would be interested in me doing an author visit. I'm fortunate that the two schools I’m booked to visit before the summer holidays got in contact with me.

Although I used to work in a school and I have visited schools for various reasons, I still feel nervous, and at the same time excited, about reading Slow Down Amaya to children! I think this is because I know that children are very honest and don't hold back on their thoughts!

The other new service I will offer is to businesses, sharing my diversity and inclusion training. I have been working behind the scenes on developing three workshops. These aren't public yet, I still need to work on releasing the need for everything to be perfect before taking the next step.

However, if you would like to know more about the training feel free to get in touch at by emailing hello@butterfly-minds.co.uk

Perfectionism and procrastination still appear at times.

I have been focusing on prioritising different tasks each day to take steps forward in my business. I've found that not having too many things to work on each day helps reduce procrastinating.

Inspiring Others

I never thought of myself as being inspiring before. I still have a hard time accepting the compliment when people say that I am. That must be my imposter syndrome creeping in. Another thing I'm working on reducing!

Since publishing my first book, I can count on two hands how many times people have told me that I'm “inspiring”. Some of the context of the comments include":

“A lot of people say they want to publish a book or that they would love to do something but they never do it. You've done it. It's really inspiring.”

“You've inspired me to write my book.”

“I'm inspired that you've been able to publish a book while raising a baby.”

“So inspiring.”

I hadn't written these down until now, I remembered them without realising that I had consciously stored them in my mind.

I read that people are more likely to remember negative comments/information than positive information. Which leaves me surprised that I have been able to recall the positive comments so easily.

I know that it takes a lot of work to write, publish, market and sell a book. However, I still didn't think of myself as being inspiring for others before receiving lots of positive comments.

I realise now that I'm inspired by other authors, and I was before becoming an author, so it makes sense that some people believe that I'm inspiring.

Closing Thoughts

I want to remind you that if there is something you want to do or a feeling you want to feel, you can bring it into your reality.

I'm not saying that it will be effortlessly easy or that challenges won't come your way. I'm sure things will pop up.

However, I do believe that taking small steps and building your self-belief and trust can help you reach your goals and desires.