Business Lessons from a Gall Bladder
Posted in "Fly on the wall" coaching moments on 01/03/2012 05:45 am by Therese Skelly
This is a very personal story, but in it are some powerful truths for running your business.
Well that was pretty weird. Here I was 7 days before Christmas sitting in an emergency room being told that I needed to have my gall bladder out and would be admitted to the hospital for a surgery the next day. Maybe some people are quite stoic and super-troopers when it comes to these sorts of things, but trust me….I’m not! I kept thinking of all the things I still needed to get done. Clients to see, gifts to be wrapped, presents still to buy, and shopping for Christmas Eve dinner. And who knew what kind of shape I’d be in for the big holiday post-surgery.
Yikes. This one was a bit tough to swallow.
But in that moment I didn’t think I had a choice, so said yes to getting admitted and was immediately wheeled up to my room. No food, no liquid, and no other option that I knew of.
Luckily while in the ER I had my smart phone, a good friend, a great VA, and GOTOMYPC on my computer so my assistant could start clearing out my clients for the next few days. (Lesson – always have a team to support you and technology that allows for that.)
So sitting up in that hospital room, alone, scared, starving, and sorta freaking out I did what I knew to do to make sense of what was about to happen to me.
You know the stuff in your life or business that you just don’t want? Those not so pretty or very sucky things that slow you down, derail you, or just cause problems? As hard as we try, we will all have our share of these in our lives. As I was in the hospital bed, what became very clear was that I had to first accept and surrender to the situation, even if I wasn’t happy about it.
Maybe there are things you are dealing with that you are fighting. I see clients every day handling ‘life stuff’ that does drain their energy. But instead of waving the white flag and admitting that it’s causing some problems, they merrily go along and then beat themselves up for being exhausted, not on their “A” game, and a bit overwhelmed or distracted. So “Business Lesson #1 from the gall bladder is just that….if you have something ‘up’ for you, don’t deny it. Actually bow to it. Honor it. And understand the impact it’s having on you at this time. It’s in resisting that we waste more energy. Think of trying to hold 8 beach balls under water. Imagine how hard that would be. Yet in our lives we have things that we are trying too hard to manage, control, and NOT experience. Sometimes you just have to surrender and allow what is to be.
After I got okay that I’d be undergoing the knife the next day, I then moved into research. “What the heck does this mean” in terms of the symbolism was my question. Part of me just wanted to blame the gall stones on a high fat diet! But that level of looking at the problem would not have allowed me to transform anything. Maybe there were some elements of my consciousness that were not allowing the ‘sweetness of life’ in. Or perhaps there was something else in my energy I wasn’t looking at. I was faced with seeing some things that I didn’t necessarily like. So I began doing the deep diving into discovery. Here’s how I shifted it and where “Business Lesson #2 from the gall bladder” comes in. Since I thought that the gall bladder would be taken out the next day, I decided to allow every hurt, every disappointment, and all things crappy that I have experienced in my life or business to just be ‘housed.’ in my gall bladder. I literally imagined that when the gall bladder was taken out, the energy of those less than desirable things and feelings would be gone.
This got me thinking that at the end of the year we need some sort of a ritual. You see, we are ‘meaning-making’ creatures. That’s lesson #2 – to make meaning out of what’s not working. The business application here is that I’d encourage you to review your year. What worked? What didn’t? What gave you joy? What caused you pain? What lessons do you not want to repeat? All those things should be written down and then released. This is where you can really honor the learning. If you don’t do this piece of it, you are very likely to repeat patterns and old habits that didn’t serve you. Take the time to do this inventory work, learn what you need to, and let it go. (Hopefully without surgery!)
Step three in my late night hospital experience was to call a prayer line. Maybe this isn’t for everyone, but I needed to be grounded in a different Truth than I was able to access when I was kinda in shock about having surgery the next day. I don’t remember all that was said, but I do remember these words… “You are ALIGNED with health and healing.” That instantly shifted me from a scared patient to a person who knew that I could turn this around in a powerful way. So “Business Lesson #3 from the gall bladder” would be to align with what you want to create and NOT with what you don’t want.
This can be tricky when what you are seeing are things you don’t like! Lose a few clients, have some prospects tell you they can’t afford to work with you, and it’s easy to get aligned with lack, fear, and doubt. The secret is to call on something higher. This can be a spiritual understanding of your Divine Purpose. It could be ‘borrowing’ a coach’s belief that you are on the right track and can make your business work. Or it could be surrounding yourself with literature and positive stories of others’ success. However you do it, just make sure that you “Choose Higher” when it comes to the vision you have for your life and business.
After surrendering, creating meaning, praying and aligning myself with a greater truth, I actually became really calm. (Again, I’m a total wimp, so the level of calm surprised me!)
This is where “Business Lesson #4 from the gall bladder” comes in.
I may have gotten a few hours of sleep, and then the surgeon came in the next morning. I fully expected to be instructed about what would happen in surgery, but instead, HE LET ME GO HOME! I was no longer in pain and had no fever, so he told me that in his opinion I’d likely need surgery some point down the road, but it was now my choice if I wanted to have it done or not. No longer was it an emergency. Now we were looking at an elective procedure.
This to me was beyond belief. So lesson #4 is to expect the unexpected and look for the miracle. I don’t have much experience being a pre-surgery patient, but I’d imagine that usually if they have you in a bed, they’d do surgery! But that wasn’t the case so now I get to use natural medicine and diet and exercise to correct my unhappy little gall bladder. (I really feel like I got a Christmas miracle with this one!)
Now let’s relate it to your business. How many times have you had something you could have never predicted come up and ‘gift’ you with a better result? Maybe the perfect client was at an event you didn’t think you’d go to, and so you ended up signing them up on the spot. Or money came your way that was unexpected.
Imagine if you knew in your bones that the Universe is conspiring to support you? What would it be like if you saw EVERYTHING that happened to you as a gift and a blessing and something designed to take you to the next highest version of yourself? If you had that as a foundation, things would be easier, wouldn’t they? No sweating the small stuff, right? Going with the flow, right? Living in gratitude, right?
That’s my New Year’s wish for you. That you begin to see that it’s all working out for your good. Even when it seems like it’s not! You are being guided to the next right thing and sometimes even if those may look or feel kinda scary, just go with it because it’s all working out in the most amazing way possible.
Thanks for reading. Know I’m here for you, holding the truth of your greatness…..
