I’m so happy to introduce you to my friend, Tree Franklyn, in this Shared Wisdom Guest Post. Tree is a contributing author in our latest book, 365 Ways to Connect with Your Soul, and I have loved getting to know her better over the last few months. She has such an honest and open spirit, which you’ll see in her post below. I’m continually inspired by her authenticity and loving heart.

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As I reflect back on the closing year, I’m overcome with immense gratitude and joy over the sheer beauty of life. With all its pain, sorrow, joy and laughter, there’s a sense of divine orchestration and perfection in its mysterious plan.

Who would’ve known that I’d be sitting on my cozy bed this morning feeling completely at one with myself, empowered and connected to the earth that grounds me, and deeply in love with the life force that planted me here.

Just a few years ago, I sat on this same bed, in a different house, looking out at the same bright moon, tears streaming down my face, wondering how I would possibly get through the day. My then-boyfriend had fallen in love with another woman.

I could hear their grunting love moans through the wall.

In a series of strange, synchronistic events that I still can’t explain, she had moved into our home. I moved into the guest bedroom and she was sleeping in what used to be our master bedroom, in what used to be our bed, on what used to be our 1,200 thread count organic Egyptian cotton sheets that I had splurged on for us the previous Christmas.

But there was no longer an “us.” It was now him and her.

And me, on the side.

Only a few months prior, I had watched my dad die after his first chemo treatment for leukemia. After they took his pale body away, I crawled up in the same bed in the same exact spot he took his last breath, closed my eyes, and tried to breathe in the last remnants of his physical energy here on Earth.

Needless to say, it was not a good year for me.

But as life would have it, no challenge is without meaning. Everything life throws at us is an invitation to go deeper. To stretch beyond our zone of understanding and comfort. To reach deep within ourselves and see what we’re truly capable of.

While my dad’s death gave me the permission I needed to swim around in sadness and sorrow, it also opened my eyes to how absolutely precious and valuable life really is. I had been beating myself up for an endless buffet of reasons, many of which usually accompanied a failed relationship; but more so, I felt like I was living life on the side, as an eternal guest in life’s spare bedroom, never quite invited to the master bedroom. 

There was life, and then there was me, on the side.

I had gone through the motions of life, day after day, year after year, with an underlying sense of emptiness inside me, an aching pit of meaninglessness gnawing at my gut.

It wasn’t until life gave me a big hard loving smack across the face that I finally woke up to how numb and mindless I had become. My life had become routine. Work, pay bills, eat, sleep, repeat. There were moments of fun, laughter, and spontaneity interwoven in between, but they were only accompaniments within the bigger picture of a monotonous complacency.

I decided that if life was giving me a wake-up call, I’d better wake up. If losing my boyfriend, our house, our joint business, and my dad all in a matter of months wasn’t enough to wake me up, I feared what life would hurl at me next if I didn’t listen. So I literally woke up. I set my alarm for 2:30 every morning and devoted my mornings to rediscovering myself and figuring out what life wanted of me.

After nearly three years of waking up early, I know now that life just wanted me to show up. Fully. Not just to life, but to myself. I had been sleepwalking. I thought I was awake, but when I look back, I can see that I was mostly asleep through life. I wasn’t paying attention or fully present in the here and now. Being highly sensitive and constantly overwhelmed emotionally, I had somehow numbed myself so I wouldn’t feel so much, as a form of protection. I had hopes and dreams, and I was going after my aspirations, but it was from a place of disconnection, of not truly understanding who I am, why I’m here, and what I’m supposed to do.

My early-morning rituals awakened the sacred part of me that I’d shoved aside because I was too busy trying to make life work. Going after the next shiny new object, working to pay the bills, checking things off my endless To-Do lists, I told myself stories about how life should be, who I am, and what I want. All the while, the authentic part of me was screaming out to be seen and heard, to be expressed and lived and experienced. It was that old gnawing empty ache in my soul, crying out to me to pay attention to it.  But I wasn’t listening. I felt it, but I didn’t know what to do about it.

Until I discovered the magic of sacred mornings.

I showed up fully to my life. And, in return, life showed up for me, too, in profound ways. Since I started my early-morning quest, my life has transformed completely, externally and internally. My income reached six figures. Arianna Huffington herself accepted my submission to be a contributing blogger for The Huffington Post (after six previous crickets attempts to the editors). I also blog for Elephant Journal and Mike Dooley’s TUT. Six months ago, a publisher “stumbled” across my work and invited me to write a book, which should be released next year. Just last month, our collaborative book that I was blessed to be a part of with Jodi, 365 Ways to Connect With Your Soul, hit the #1 bestseller spot on Amazon in its self-help category. I met and talked to two of my favorite authors in person, Brené Brown and Dr. Elaine Aron. I have a budding new soul-centered business that’s in alignment with my deepest calling, a devoted and loving partner, a family, and a beautiful home with an incredible panoramic mountain view of the sunrise and sunset.

And best of all, I now sleep in the master bedroom of my life. 🙂

If you’d like an exclusive inside look at my early-morning rituals and the top 10 actions I take, you can download it free here.

In love and light,

Tree

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Tree Franklyn is a bestselling author and creator of the popular, whimsical TreeDoodle art, starring unapologetic and incessantly happy Stick Girl. She teaches soul-centered empathic women how to manage their overwhelming emotions so they can reconnect with their authentic selves and lead lives fully integrated with their deepest values and core purpose.