Use your Time Well
Sometimes it’s easy to feel like we are being swept down the river of life and we have no choice but to swim along. The only time we really step out of that stream is when someone is born, gets sick or dies.
Today is my mother’s 78th birthday. I wish so much that I could call her or give her a hug. She passed away two weeks shy of her 70th birthday from a disease called Multiple Systems Atrophy, It is a rare neurodegenerative disease with no remission and no cure. Watching her decline and being powerless to stop it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever experienced.
The loss of a loved one…it is hard to define what kind of seeds this plants in our hearts. We become a different person, we ask different questions. The intersection of my purpose was born from great pain. If I could step back and sum up why I created Early Riser Companion in 2019 it was to bring us back into remembering how fleeting this time is as parents, as humans here with healthy bodies and to use this time well.
Late in 2022, while on retreat in Taos, I made a list in my head of the things I wanted to call into my life. At the time, I was in one of the highest paid director positions at a global company working with a team of talented creatives (freelance and full time) that I had hand picked. I was so proud of what I accomplished there yet there was nowhere else for me to go. I hit the ceiling. At the same time, Michael and I had just partnered in starting a restaurant and I was struggling along, doing my best to keep afloat. I felt fragmented and constantly guilty. As a belated birthday present to myself, I decided to join my friends for the retreat. I stepped out of the stream of life.
For someone who believes so much in the cycles of the natural world, I sure was living unnaturally. I don’t consider myself a girl boss. I believe in the ebb and flow of life. Wall Street and investors care about profit. No matter what a publicly owned company says, this is the heart of their reason to be. It’s always the next project, next product, no time to catch a breath or plan thoughtfully. My days were consumed with churning out content, planning more photo shoots and meeting after meeting. I remember standing outside our casita watching a storm roll in over the beautiful mesa in Taos, so different than the zoom room where I spent the majority of my days, and knew that it was time for my next chapter.
“And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you achieve it.” - Paolo Coehlo
What I called in:
A like minded community at home and across the world
Continue to collaborate with friends on projects that light me up
More time with my family
Financial freedom
Service oriented trips
Creating all this with my sister and friends
My sister who I work with says it best - we can serve as big as we can dream.
In honor of my mother and myself, I called in this change. The world is suffering. We can all feel it. How do we alchemize our pain into something beautiful? How can we honor this vessel, our body, that we have been given to tend to while we are here?
So as I work on the next phase of Early Riser which will unfold in the coming months, I am proud to say that a part of it is partnering with doTERRA. The oils have offered me emotional, physical, environmental and spiritual support over the past several years of raising my girls. Their mission goes beyond profit and truly is changing many peoples lives.
My team and I hold free workshops every week on topics from immune support, inflammation/pain, sleep, and our microbiome. I would love to invite you to join. I have had a tradition of celebrating my mother on her birthday by giving a gift to others. I am going to send the first 30 people who email me a package with two of my favorite oils and other well loved doTERRA samples.
And just a little reminder, you can always course correct if your life feels out of alignment. I know it can be scary but so is the alternative. We only get the things we want when we say them out loud. Trust that the universe will conspire on your behalf.
With love,
Elizabeth