Going Back to San Diego (And What I'm Ready to Receive)
Next week, I'm getting on a plane to San Diego. Again!
Back in May, I wrote about everything I was packing for my first trip there. The grief, the fear of being seen, an identity still under construction. I went as a student, still in the middle of my training with Samantha Skelly, the founder of Pause Breathwork. I came home more present and more joyful than I had felt in years.
This time, I'm going back for Women & Wealth, two days with Sam and a room full of women building something of their own. And I'm going back as a different woman than the one who boarded that first flight.
Why I'm going back
In May, the retreat was all about energetic work: breathwork, energy healing, reconnecting with my root. This time, Women & Wealth is centered on business. Strategy, money, the nuts and bolts of building something that lasts.
If you had told me a year ago I'd be flying across the continent for a business event, I would have laughed. I'm a violinist! For most of my career I was paid a salary. I showed up, I played, the cheque came. I never had to put a price on myself and say it out loud.
Now I do. Every single time someone asks what a session costs.
Since I got certified in August, Attuned has gone from an idea to a real practice. 1:1 Attunement Sessions. Tune In, my Sunday group. A program for musicians, running right now. The Attunement Deck. I love this work with my whole heart. And building a business around it has been the most humbling thing I've ever done.
As Sam says, being an entrepreneur will stretch you and show you exactly what you need to work on energetically. I didn't fully understand that until I lived it. Every launch, every quiet inbox, every "maybe later" has pointed straight at something in me that still needs tending.
So it makes perfect sense to go back to her. The business side and the energetic side aren't two separate things. They never were.
What I'm bringing with me
Once again, an overpacked suitcase. This time I have a good excuse: six Attunement Decks are coming with me, tucked into little black tins. Fifty-two cards, each one a breath for a specific moment, from racing thoughts to grief to joy. I can't wait to put them into the hands of the women in that room.
I'm bringing proof. Proof that I can actually do this. Since May I've welcomed my first paying clients, watched musicians walk into their auditions with a new relationship to their nerves, and breathed with my first Tune In founding members every Sunday morning. The numbers are small. The people are real. Both of those things are true.
I'm bringing what I learned last time about rejection. In May I discovered that my fear of being seen was really a fear of being rejected. Well, since then, I've had plenty of practice! Someone told me my rate was too high. Kind messages saying "this was amazing" that never turned into a booking. Launches I poured my heart into that landed with barely a sound. I survived all of it. I'm still here, still breathing.
And I'm bringing a tender spot around money. The quiet voice that asks, every time I share a price, is this really worth something? I know the answer when I'm in a session. I feel it in the room when someone finally lets go of their walls and releases years of repressed emotions. It's harder to hold onto when I'm alone at my desk, looking at a quiet inbox.
What I hope to leave there
The belief that my work is somehow purer when I give it away for free.
The urge to explain, justify or discount before anyone has even asked.
The idea that wanting this practice to thrive financially makes me less of a healer. I can care deeply about the people I breathe with and want to be paid well for it. Those two things can live in the same body.
The need for everyone to say yes. Not everyone will, and that's how the right people find me.
In May I hoped to be cracked wide open. This time, I hope to come home ready to receive. Clients, support, abundance, all of it. For someone who has spent most of her life giving, that might be the biggest stretch of all.
Why I'm telling you this
Because I don't think I'm the only one. So many of us, mothers especially, can name the value of everyone else's needs in a heartbeat and struggle to name our own. If you've ever felt that, I see you. We're working on it together.
I'll be sharing stories from the event on Instagram, and I'll write about what I bring home once I've had time to land.
If you're curious about what a breath journey could move in you, I'd love to guide you through one. A 1:1 Attunement Session is 60 minutes on Zoom, shaped entirely around whatever you arrive with that day. Book your session here.
Or come breathe with the group. Tune In meets online every Sunday at 10am ET, and I'll be home just in time to breathe with you on November 8. Founding members pay $33/month, a rate reserved for the first 10 people to join. Join Tune In here.