The Impact of Vulnerability

by | Oct 21, 2022 | 0 comments

Lorree Appleby | Top 10 Speaker Slam Impact

We have all been in the position of feeling vulnerable which can be extremely uncomfortable. We feel exposed being in the deep feelings, which is why so many people resist it.

It also makes an impact in our lives because it shows our rawness and realness, it pulls on our heart strings and connects us to our truth.

I publicly told a vulnerable story my family experienced which was pivotal to my healing journey of codependent relationships in my life. 

I am grateful for the opportunity to have been able to speak alongside some amazing speakers in the Speaker Slam competition on Impact last month.  If you didn’t hear my story you can find it here. (under 6 mins.)

I felt an inner calling to ‘go for it’ so I decided I would place in the top 10 in this competition and I did out of 65 participants. I set this intention to prove to myself I can do hard things and show up vulnerably as me.

So besides writing, re-writing and practicing my speech, I visualized my accomplishment happening, I felt how it was going to feel when I gave my speech, and I acted as if I had already did what I set out to.  

Along the way I had to muster up a lot of courage to keep moving through the discomforts that came up, and because it was a competition I committed to, it held me to task.

Upon reflection, the experience was therapeutic. To dissect the past all over again and weave the lessons learned throughout my story while making it relatable and still be able to tell it authentically took digging deep into my feelings. 

It was a powerful growth process because I found closure to a part of my life I was ready to let go of. I was also able to inspire a lot of people in my community and beyond, which is really what encourages me to share my stories the first place.

Known or unknown, each of us make an impact in each others lives in some way, and these are the gifts we get to give and receive.

What challenges have made an impact on your life now that you look back on them?

What did you learn and what has changed in your life from the experiences?

These questions are good to ask yourself every now and again, because life is a journey we continue to travel, and from an expanded perspective it’s our Soul Adventure to be on this journey.

Meaning the deepest essence of who we are at our core wants to experience it all, the joy and the sorrow, the good and the bad, the hero’s journey of challenge, hitting rock bottom and the climb of rising back up victorious, stronger and wiser then before.

So getting uncomfortable and vulnerable with our deepest truths is not easy but very worth it, because we grow from the experience, and that’s what life is all about. Evolution. 

Evolution just so happens to be the theme for the final Grand Slam competition on on November 19th, 2022 in Toronto, Ontario.

Find out more here and don’t be surprised if you are encouraged to be more vulnerable and feel a desire to make an impact in your life.

It’s a little contagious, in a good way!

Besides impacting the lives of others to ‘be real and love life’ the most powerful thing about the work I get to do is the reflections of the teachings that come back to me. I always receive some type of wisdom, healing or blessing from the experience, whether it’s a private, group session or a speaking event.

Whatever the message is that I’ve conveyed I am somehow reminded of how it applies to me as well and it guides me towards the next stage of my growth.

Being aware of the subtle messages that are being sent to guide us forward is very empowering.

Last weekend at the Soul Full Day conference, I guided a group of 70 women through a visualization meditation to identify and let go of a fear story holding them back from what they truly wanted for their life, freedom to live their love story.

It was remarkable to witness them releasing the fear and claiming their love stories, seeing and feeling themselves living in the higher potential of their dreams.

This week I’ve been deeply reminded of the fear story that I’ve been carrying, ‘not being well enough to live a fulfilling life because my digestive health is failing’.

This is the same story my grandmother carried, and she died in fear with this story in her which was unconsciously passed on to me, and I accepted it.

For 8 years now I’ve been having various challenges with my digestive health. I’ve seen many different professionals and tried many different remedies and lifestyle changes. Some have worked and some haven’t. Over time things seemed to have mostly settled, then just a month ago the issues flared up again in a bigger way.

This brought up the old fear story for me as I prepare for a trip of a lifetime. I’m going to Egypt on a sacred pilgrimage to the visit the lands and ancient sites with 13 other women. This will be my first trip overseas and I’ve always been fascinated with Egyptian history, never thinking I would get the opportunity to visit until it showed up to me. I was very drawn to go, and decided I was going, even though it felt way outside my ability to be able to take such a trip.

Worries and a wide range of emotions have been coming up for me since these flare ups have been happening. My mind races and makes up stories based in old fears.

What if I am not well enough to fully experience this trip? What if I am stuck in my room and miss the tours, or what if I am not able to digest the food there? All that disappointment and money spent if I might not be able to full experience it.

These stories are very similar to what my grandmother used to tell herself. She was afraid to go far from home, let alone on a plane to another country. Everything centred around her digestive limitations and she was petrified of having an ‘accident’ while out in public. These fear stories debilitated her and she became a hermit and was very lonely in her later years.

I will never forget seeing her in the final days of her life living in fear. I visited her almost every day and seeing her like that was very sad because there wasn’t much I could do other than comfort and reassure her that she would be ok.

What it did do was motivate me to face my own fears and not go down the same path as she did. In this regard, she was a great teacher to me and not long after she transitioned I was divinely guided to take the Radical Forgiveness Master Coach 10 day training in Atlanta.

It was a huge step for me, and again way outside my comfort zone, but in the end it was one of the best things I could have done for myself because it set me on the trajectory of facing my fears, and the journey of living my love story.

I am eternally grateful to be on this path of self-forgiveness and self-acceptance just as I am, and in time I have learned to love myself. I’m still on this healing journey however this year I’ve had some major shifts in this area of my life and feel truly worthy and deserving of this love for myself because I have freedom from the fears.

Numerology 9

This is where the synchronicity comes in again.

It just so happens that this Friday, the day I fly to Egypt, is the 9 year anniversary of my grandmother’s passing, and it’s a full moon!  You just can’t make these things up. I didn’t realize the mysterious alignment of these dates until just a few weeks ago.

In numerology the number 9 represents endings and completions and I have a strong intuitive feeling that this trip is going to be transformational for me as a new beginning.

The other day when I was dancing my grandmother came to my mind, she was dancing with me, and I know she is leaving me these breadcrumb signs to follow to complete this stage of my journey. I made a promise to her that I was going to end the cycle of fear she carried and commit myself to healing into wholeness.

I have no doubt that this is all happening for me, rather than to me.  And unlike my grandmother, I will face my fears and take this trip and I will trust in the divine unfoldment of it all.

I am reminded that everything is always working out for me, even if it doesn’t seem that way and she is cheering me on all along the way.

These are the same phrases I spoke to the women when I was on stage just a few days ago and they echo loudly in my mind as the beautiful blessings of having the freedom to live my love story.

If you would like to experience the guided visualization for yourself listen to the audio recording so you too can be free from your fear story and claim your love story.

In my next blog I will share about my travel adventures so stay tuned, and if you would like to be notified when I share it you can join my email Love Letter list at the bottom of this page.

Until next time… thank you for being here.

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