What I learned from my divorce

5 years ago I left a marriage to a beautiful man named Eric. He was a landscape architect. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done to leave him. Harder even, than starting my business…

We are talking excruciating pain… as many of you know who have lost a loved one.

Eric & I had bought a home together, envisioned our life together and landscaped a gorgeous yard together. When I re-invented my life in California, I rented places close to the Ocean with very little landscape to deal with. I potted a few succulents. I couldn’t stomach having a yard to landscape… with no Eric. ☹

I planted my own garden instead. I tended the garden of my business. I grieved and I cried and I danced and I trusted. I had to find a new version of “home” inside of me. Eric had always represented home to me.

It was very hard. Sometimes, I didn’t know if I’d find my happiness again.

As my business grew, so did my love for the women I work with. I realized that love takes many forms… I fell deeper in love with my commitment to bring women’s values back to Entrepreneurship.

My business became successful enough that I was able to purchase my own home by the ocean. Now, I was faced with… a landscape of my own.

At first it was PAINFUL. I considered what to plant in my yard and it made me cry.

Eric, who is still a good friend, offered to help, and his offer made me cry harder. The yard remained empty … it was just a pile of dirt for months. A trusted sister helped me go INTO the pain rather than around it.

I began healing at an even deeper place, surrendering to the wholeness that was emerging in me. I hired an amazing Landscape Architect named Elizabeth who patiently stood by me while I found the strength to choose a plan that felt right to me.

I came home yesterday, to a gorgeously landscaped yard, complete with a Buddha head that I picked out from my favorite Teak store in Santa Cruz.

My gorgeous home and yard is mine. I created it. Toward the end of the project, I was walking around my yard pointing at things like a queen saying “YES! I like this, “NO! I don’t like this, let’s move this over here.”

My divorce wound is continuing to heal. When we lose something big, it opens us to a grief inside that is much bigger than the thing we lost.

We have to grieve. We have to move through it. We are the messengers. In facing our feelings, we deepen our capacity to be alive and to serve.

Our future clients are counting on us to do our own work and to face the fear we have of getting out into the world.

Just like I rose above my fear and grief, and hired Elizabeth to help me with my yard… I encourage you to find the colleagues and the mentors who can help you face your fears of building your business. As you know… your clients are waiting.

I know you’ve been through things you never should have had to go through that leave a residue of disbelief and even self-doubt in you.

Today, I ask you to rise above it.

Nothing would make me happier than getting to know you more intimately and seeing you reach greater levels of success.

Thanks for being on this journey with me.
So much love,
Sage

P.S. Life transitions are hard. Loss and grief alchemize us into the messengers we are here to be… but we have to rise so we can teach others to do the same. The easiest way to rise is to have women rising alongside you. Let’s do this… together.

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