Welcome to Love Notes from Rhonda.

And today, let's talk about the idea of trusting your process.

When you understand your process, how you process feelings, how you process fear, how you process your needs, how you process how you work, then you will no longer be tricked, confused, overwhelmed.

You will no longer be, you know, void, deny.

You will actually begin to trust not only your process, but trust yourself.

So when you hear a certified fearless living coach or a certified fearless trainer or myself talk about trusting your process, that's what we mean.

We mean we want you to trust that your process is uniquely to you.

And how you process, no matter what that looks like, is okay.

We want to make it more aligned, alive, embodied, awake.

But we all process differently.

So, for instance, when I have a big, giant decision to make, me, Rhonda Britt.

When I have a big decision to make, for instance, quitting drinking, I knew I had a drinking problem five years before I quit, right?

It was tickling my brain, tickling my heart.

It was like, oh, maybe you have a drinking problem, you know?

But I was like, no, I don't, right?

But it was nudging me for five years.

That thought nudged me.

I would take quizzes in Cosmopolitan and Glamour magazine, like, do you have a drinking problem?

And I'd always fail the quizzes.

And I'd be like, well, everybody will fail.

Cause it was like, you know, maybe 10 questions, and if you said yes to two, then you have a drinking problem.

I was like, well, come on, everybody's gonna answer two.

So I denied the answers to the quiz, right?

I avoided.

I rejected.

But those quizzes and other things in my life make me go, huh, what if I do?

The fact that I blacked out, I always say, what makes me an alcoholic?

I blacked out and I didn't care, right?

Most normal people, when they black out, go, oh, I better stop my drinking or I better only, you know, better watch it.

And they do.

Cause they don't wanna black out.

I just blacking out was part of drinking.

And I didn't think twice about it.

It did not stop me from anything.

So I have noticed.

It took me five years, and then five years, I finally put myself through a process, which I'll talk about in another love note.

And when I put myself through this process over 30 days, I was able to surrender and say goodbye with a lot of like, oh, why?

But I did.

I knew that it was time for me to put down my drinking.

Put down, as they say, your childish things, right?

And become more of who I'm meant To be.

But it was a five year process.

There are other things that have taken me five years or two years or three years.

I've been thinking about this book that I'm writing for going on actually 10 years, and I write it, and then I don't.

And then I write it, and then I don't.

And then I write it and I don't.

And I ask myself, what is it that's stopping me from finishing this book?

Because all my other books I wrote in, you know, four months.

There's no book that I've written that took me more than four, four and a half months.

And so that this is so fascinating because I've been writing, not writing, writing, not writing, writing, not writing over 10 years.

This is so not quote, unquote, how I normally work when it comes to writing books.

Yet what I know to be true is when I ask myself, what is it that is stopping me, holding me up, et cetera, et cetera, is I tell myself, the story isn't finished yet.

Right now I feel I'm on the other side of it yet.

For those 10 years, it was like I wasn't done with what had to.

I wasn't done with the unfolding in order for me to write the book I knew the book to write.

I just didn't get to the ending yet.

So most of us go through life going, well, I shouldn't be sad about this, and what's my problem?

I'm sad, or I know I should quit drinking, so why aren't I quitting?

What's my problem?

Right?

Like, we judge and berate ourselves and put ourselves down comparing ourselves to some perfectionistic pathway or competitive comparing mindset that doesn't allow us to figure out how we work.

Some people have to say no first.

One of our coaches, Geralyn, she, in the past was on the core team.

She actually ran the life coach certification program years back.

And she's somebody who always has to say no before yes.

So I always made a joke with her.

I'd say, hey, Geralyn, go ahead and say no.

She's like, what?

She's like, what?

I go, just go ahead and say no.

You know you're gonna say no, so just get it out before I say what it is.

Just go ahead and say no.

She's like, no.

I go, great, awesome.

And then I would say it, but I knew, like, I didn't go good.

She always says no.

No.

That was her process.

She needed to say no.

She needed to have autonomy.

She needed to have authority.

She needed to have that processing time and making a quick decision and deciding something like that.

It was always a no.

And I would say half the time or even more than half the time, it became a yes.

But she needed that time to process.

And so many times we get mad at ourselves or mad at other people because they have to do it in the way that works for them in order for them to make the shift.

And we want them just to shift or we want to just to shift, but we have to go.

We have to move through different, I'll just say different stages.

I always like to think of a train and, you know, to go from the engine to the caboose.

You know, if you're at the caboose and you want to get to the engine because the engine is, you know, where you're going to make the change.

You know, you have to go through all the different cars and the different cars are different lessons, different awarenesses, different connections, different things that make you go, aha, aha, aha.

Now some clients will say to me, yes, but I've been doing this for 10 years.

I've been doing this for 20 years.

I'm just avoiding.

What's the difference between me trusting my process and avoiding?

Well, there is a difference and we can talk about that in another love note, but this is what I want you to hear, and this is what I told a client who asked me this question recently is that regardless of whether you are, quote, unquote, avoiding or processing, being gentle with yourself is the answer.

Talking poorly to yourself, putting yourself down, thinking it should be faster, quicker, better, does not support you to process and, or stop avoiding it actually increases it for most people.

So if you are gentle with yourself as you're going through either of those things, one driven by fear, one driven by freedom, you are going to get to the answer faster, quicker, and more aligned with who you really are.

So when we talk about trust, the process, it's about building the awareness of how you work.

Do you have to say no like darlin first before you can say yes?

Do you get nudges of knowing the changes that you have to make and need time to get it in your bones and put your toe in and take your toe out and put your hand in, take your hand out, and then you finally do it.

Because I look back on my life and I do finally do it.

I do do it.

I know that I will eventually do it.

I know it, I've seen it, I've looked at my life.

I eventually do do it.

Whether it takes me 10 years, two years, or five years, I will do it.

And sometimes and lots of times I make very quick decisions.

But anything that's really big, that's really transformational in my life takes me time to embrace body, suss out, poke holes in.

That's how I work.

The question is, how do you work?

How do you work?

Look back at your life and ask yourself what has been your process to make the changes that you've wanted to make in your life?

Write it down, start paying attention.

I promise that it will lower your negative self talk, it'll increase your self esteem, and it will allow you to move forward faster.

Until next time, be fearless.

I love you.