Girl Band days. Santa Barbara circa 2003

* This is a bit of a long one so if you don’t want to read the whole thing…scroll down to the bottom to find out about a super cool 40 Day Challenge I’m running*

Carrying on…

I’m not sure if it was the Bangles “Manic Monday” (my favorite song from when I was 9) that came on Pandora, or the fact that I found an old box of photos from my childhood all the way through my band years that had me feeling nostalgic.

But I found myself sitting on the cold cement floor, on a trash bag to protect me from the dirt and oil, smiling, and reminiscing as I looked through a falling-apart box of pictures. “Wow I looked so young/fresh/thin/beautiful back then!” and “Wow I remember that crazy drunken college night with my roomies where I ended up at the beach in a fur jacket,” or “why did I put olives up my nostrils again?”

I also looked at those photos in honor. Honor of the person I was back then who was creative, full of possibilities, unafraid to ask for a position in a USC Masters program without applying for it and move to Los Angeles to join a rock n roll band with four guys I barely knew.
Honor of the person who went to the thrift store and cut up a leotard to make an off the shoulder crop top layer for my band outfit and who used rosaries as a belt and human hair extensions for a skirt. And who wore red eye shadow and used lines like “don’t you know who I am?” to cut in line at the bar (not my proudest moment, but still my best friend’s favorite memory of me in my 20’s). The girl who would walk right up to Tommy Lee and Slash and sit down at their table, as though I belonged there, because in my mind, I did.

And then I wondered…what happened to her? What happened to that girl who was always creative, painting her walls bright purple and practicing her makeup for the upcoming show for an hour at night. Who was bold enough to ask for a position at the table. Who felt like she deserved to have the one bartending spot at the coolest bar in town. What happened to the girl who shaved part of her head and dyed an apple into it or who put feathers in her hair or painted one fingernail a different colors years before that became trendy?

All of these moments I’ve mentioned have been turning point and life-changing moments. Ones that led to the next like a string of events making up a LIFE. Where I met all the people in my NOW life, along the way, each one changing the story a little bit and contributing to the story.
It’s been almost exactly nine years since I saw that exact person.

Nine years ago, in an act that shook my world in more ways than one and changed the course of my next phase of life, my singer of my (then) band left. Left the band, left me, left our friendship, left the life as I knew it. And I’m not blaming him…that chapter was bound to be closed.

But what happened in that moment is that I stopped being the girl I saw in those pictures on the cement floor of my garage. I stopped trying. I stopped being creative in that way. I stopped asking for my place at the biggest table in the room for awhile. I stopped wearing over the shoulder leotard onesies and sequined hot shorts because…well…where on earth was I going to wear that now?

I threw away my red eyeshadow and embarked on a 9 year journey of a different version of myself. One where I would eventually come out a lot stronger, softer, gentler, and kinder, but also one that completely erased the memories of the former one.

I have gone through several different identity shifts in these last nine years. From rocker bartender guitar player, to touring musician with famous friends, to life coach, to traveler entrepreneur cowgirl huntress in Montana, to quiet, soft family girl, and now…to homeowner with a rhinestone on her tooth. And since I’ve landed at my literal “home” I feel the metaphorical homecoming as well.

Have you felt this way too?

Numerologically speaking, we are currently in a “9” year (when you add but 2 + 0 + 1 + 6 you get “9”). I am also in a personal “9” year (the current year in addition to my birthday year) and what that means is that I and we are at the end of a 9 year cycle.

In numerology, there are 9 years in a cycle and each year signifies a different theme. A 9 year is all about endings, closing chapters, letting go. In 9 years we tend to see a lot of breakups, deaths and changes. But it’s also the end of a 9 year cycle, which means that whatever thing or “theme” you were meant to learn in these past 9 years, should be coming to a close soon, so you can start on a whole new chapter in your “1” year of 2017.

For me…looking back on exactly nine years ago, I can see the theme forming, and then playing out throughout this phase. I began to doubt myself and my worth as I wasn’t “Sally Hope the bass player in Poets” anymore. I began to think that my value was tied only to my career, band, coolness level, relationship. I joined “other people’s lives” instead of purely creating my own as I had done previously.

Don’t get me wrong…in these past nine years I’ve also done some amazing things. I traveled while building my business, living in Costa Rica, Austin, Santa Barbara, my home town for short periods of time and eventually moving to Montana, gone on multiple RV road trips while building my business from the road, built up Wildheart and reached all my monetary and business goals, fully gave my heart over to and happily risked everything for love, and now…bought my own house with my own money.
I feel like these last few years especially have been really challenging. Maybe it was the ramping up of the lessons I needed to learn, or the chapter beginning to close. As a Scorpio, I tend to gravitate towards the underworld experiences. The tragedies, the difficult and heartbreaking situations, the digging up all of the roots to see what’s planted in the ground. And so it’s no surprise that this past cycle has been heavy.

In my Kundalini yoga practice I’ve been doing a lot of work on excavating my fears of the future, and letting go and detoxing what is there. But as I was thinking about this I realized that I was doing a lot of “underworld” letting go type stuff and hardly any visioning of what I want the future to be like. And when I look back on my last nine year cycle, the one that led me into being in a band in the first place, that’s what I used to do.

I’d say “I want to work in a cool boutique and have dreads, and have them play loud music” and BAM…that would show up.

I’d say “I want to be in a band and be a bartender” and BAM that would show up.

I’d say “I want to move to LA and tour with a big band” and BAM that would show up.

It’s like everything I decided I wanted, I got.

But I realized lately that with so many doors closing, I haven’t been taking the time to work with the “I wants” and the vision and the dreams. A part that I think we skip over when so much letting go and dusting off and closing chapters are happening.

So…that’s what I’ve decided to do and I want you to come with me.

We have only 58 days left of 2016 which means we have 58 days to wrap up whatever we need to from this past year and past 9 year cycle and envision what we want to start fresh with in 2017.

And I know myself and unless I have some structure around that, I’ll just forget about it. So I decided to embark on a 40 day Sadhana (which means “daily spiritual practice” and in kundalini 40 days is significant because it’s the amount of time it takes to change a habit) in which I do a meditation every day that is for the sole (soul) purpose of envisioning and bringing about the exact life I want. And not only will we envision it, we’ll bring anything that is blocking that vision to “zero” or non-existent.

And I want you to come along just in case you’ve been missing yourself too, and have been feeling the heaviness of your last chapter, and are ready to start your new one.

I haven’t announced this anywhere else yet. I haven’t created a sales page for it, but I wanted to invite you, right now, to do this journey with me.

Starting on November 21 all the way to December 31. We’ll do a daily meditation, the same one, for 40 days straight. We’ll have a private FB group with a daily accountability post, live stream Q & A’s and videos to keep you on track, and journal prompts and we’ll see how much magic we can create in the last 40 days of the year. But more than any of that…we’ll be super clear on what we want and literally manifest that into existence.

I have been doing these kundalini meditations regularly for a couple years now and can say that they are powerful and completely game changing. One I did where I intended to bring in unexpected people and things in my life, I got gifted a motorcycle. When I worked on releasing fear of the future, my dream home showed up and was cheaper than I had budgeted. This stuff works.

I have a goal that we all manifest at least one of the things we envision during these 40 days in 2017 and I KNOW we can do it. I’m hell bent on it.

Only $87  for the 40 days. This is an early bird price. It will go up next week. You in?

Doors to this close on the 17th. So get in now. Limited spots available.

What is it you want? Let’s go get it.

Click here to grab your spot or reply to this message with any questions. I’m telling you here first but will send this out publicly next week.

Let’s do this

Cheers to the next chapter,
Sally