Today’s guest post, by Justine Brooks Froelker, is another example that there are all kinds of ways to find success after infertility. Thanks, Justine, for sharing your story!
Rising Ever Upward
by Justine Brooks Froelker
My alarm goes off at 4:14 am. I am one of those people, it must be set on a 4. Just one of my things I suppose. Admit it, you have at least one of those too.
I do the affirmations of my morning routine despite it being so early and my early flight looming. I figure I can read and meditate on the plane. My eyes feel heavy and my stomach is already growling, both quickly combining in me becoming one hangry person.
“You got everything?” my husband Chad asks as I am sitting on the floor getting as many puppy cuddles as I can before I leave for 5 nights on this first leg of the my tour.
“I think so,” I reply as tears fill my eyes.
4 am alarm.
Hungry.
Goodbyes.
A dream full of risk and knowing realized.
All making for me feeling all the feels.
I have been in the mental health field for 18 years, the last 10 of those spent in private practice. Just a few weeks ago, I all but closed my practice to head out on tour to 8 cities nationwide over the next two months offering my Rising Ever Upward workshops and intensives based on the research of Dr. Brené Brown, shame and vulnerability researcher.
I have been a Certified Daring Way™ Facilitator (CWDF) for over 3 and half years, meaning I am one of only about 1500 CDWFs worldwide who are trained and allowed to do Dr. Brown’s curriculum. For the first two years of the work I guided my individual clients through the curriculum. For the last year I have held small group intensives in my office. And now, I am taking the work on the road in what many would call the biggest risk of my career. Risk or not, to me, it is my calling and an obedience to my truth, God’s plan, and the power of this work.
It is also only the beginning.
Justine Brooks Froelker
The work of Brené Brown is all about living, loving, leading and parenting in an authentic, brave, and wholehearted way. In other words, it is the engaged life we all yearn for but aren’t quite sure where to start. This work saved me five years ago after my own failed infertility journey of tens of thousands of dollars spent, three lost babies, and an ending no one wants, dreams of, plans or paid for. This work has given me the language and the skills to dig my way out of a darkness I never thought I’d see the light of day from. This work lives in me, has settled into my bones, and is in every cell – modeling it and teaching it to others is an honor, privilege, and something I simply cannot not do, especially in and for the infertility community.
Most of all though, this work is in honor of my story and of my three.
Last week, I kicked my tour off in St. Louis, and already, the ripples of people showing up, being seen, and living brave are changing the world. See for yourself in Michelle’s testimony:
IF you’ve ever struggled with feeling stuck, or on the cusp of something good or even great, but unable to take the next step, unsure of how to muster the courage to move forward;
IF you’ve struggled with shame or been frozen in place because of fear of what others will think, or fear of failure, or fear of rejection;
IF you’ve let your past define your present or limit your belief in your future;
IF you’ve ever played a tape in your head that says, “I’m not good enough, thin enough, smart enough, young enough, strong enough.
IF you want a new story for your life and you’d like to be the author of that story;
Then Justine Froelker’s Rising Strong Workshop is for you. It’s life-changing, transformative – the real deal.
Like millions of people, I’ve read Brene Brown’s work and listened to her renowned Ted Talks on shame, fear, courage, vulnerability and living a whole-hearted life. And each time I did, I thought: I would love a blueprint to implement those ideas and that research into my life. And then I quickly went back to my old ways of thinking
In this workshop, Justine takes Brene’s work and helps you apply it through a process that you can implement immediately to your own life, and then apply it over and over again. You literally write a new story.
Within days of finishing the workshop, I stepped out of my comfort zone and took action on my novel in progress. I pushed through the fear of what others will think and pulled the trigger on some things that will help me bring it to fruition. And I’ve implemented some simple (not easy, but simple) daily actions that are already changing how I interact with friends and family.
Those self-limiting tapes, that crap playing in my head, keeping me from chasing my dreams with all I’ve got and limiting my connection with others? They’re not completely silenced (yet), but now I know where the damn mute button is.
~Michelle C.
If you are ready to live more wholeheartedly, love more deeply, be more engaged in your relationships, and more brave in your business, come see me on tour this summer, I still have 5 cities left.
And, make sure to follow at www.daringinstl.com and www.facebook.com/justinebfroelker for future St. Louis dates.