Choosing To Share My Private Journey – A Transparent Update

Privacy is a major concern for many people using social networks. Choosing how much of your personal life to spill into your work life through social networks is up to each individual.

In the context of how transparent to be on Facebook and Twitter, back in February 2008, I wrote about these three areas of life: personal, professional, and private. Today, for a specific reason, I am choosing to move the personal | private line:

When is it appropriate to share more?

For so many of us, our personal lives become inextricably linked with our professional lives. Who we are is our business, our business is us.

However, I always maintain we must still have a private life and choose only to share those things we are truly comfortable with: (1) being on the front page of the New York Times, (2) found in a Google search, and/or (3) proud for our children/grandchildren to see in years to come.

So, when is it appropriate to reveal more? …When your private life doesn’t feel completely congruent with your life in the public eye.

That’s where I’m at right now, and so this may be the most personally transparent blog post I’ve written to date.

I believe in authentic communication and I’ve recently undergone such massive transition in my personal life that it just doesn’t feel right not to share myself more openly with my community at large. One of the main reasons I’m inspired to write this post is to share with you my commitment to authentic, heart-centered relationships – on both a personal and professional level.

Over the past several months, I realize many of my network perceive I’m still living in a motor home traveling the country with my husband, Ty. I was. Up until about September of last year when we returned to Southern California after an 18-month tour of the entire western US and Canada.

My personal journey…

Ty and I met in 1999 not long after I came to San Diego from Scotland, and we married in 2001. We enjoyed many wonderful experiences together, most certainly our mobile lifestyle. But we discovered differences over the years in our outlooks, goals and aspirations. After we returned from our travels, we gave much thought to the future of our relationship.

As I continued to work on myself and grow personally, stepping more fully into my inner power, strength and light, my business success became greater and greater… and I began to see that Ty and I were simply traveling different paths.

Once it became clear our marriage no longer served either of us, Ty and I separated earlier this year and last month we divorced. We put effort into a responsible and caring separation, and we are amicable about the transition.

This has not been an easy choice for me, but it feels like a true choice for Freedom. Since I had experienced divorce with my parents as a young child, I was reluctant to travel that road again. Even though I’ve done a lot of personal and professional development on myself, I still had non-supportive beliefs and patterns impacting my choices.  I kept telling myself I was committed to a new standard of marriage. Now, I’ve realized I’m committed to a new standard of relating regardless of the form of the relationship.

Publishing personal changes on social network profiles

While I’ve been going through this transition over the past few months I kept wondering how I’d manage to change my relationship status on Facebook – and other social networking profiles – from married to single. (I did edit my privacy settings so the relationship change wouldn’t just suddenly go out in the News Feed of all my friends.)

Not only that, but I wondered how my network would respond to this news and, though I’ve shared with many close friends, I just wasn’t sure how to share en masse… or even if I needed to. But any time someone would tweet or write me through Facebook about my mobile lifestyle or husband, I didn’t know how to respond. So, that’s why I’ve chosen to write this post.

Given the very nature of social media and the times we are in right now, I just know it’s more in alignment with my truth and integrity to share this part of my journey with you now.

Resources that made a huge difference

I’m deeply grateful to many spiritual teachers whose work helped immensely to deepen my relationship with myself and bring out the higher meaning in my transition.

Ty and I were fortunate to have the support of Peaceful Divorce Expert, Belinda Rachman. She’s an exceptional mediator who specializes in “divorce-in-a-day,” based in Carlsbad, California.

There are also a few books that I’ve found most helpful not only in my marital transition but in embracing my success at a whole new level:

• The Big Leap – by Gay Hendricks. Incredible book about how we all have an “upper limit” of success, happiness, joy, love, finances and unconsciously sabotage ourselves when we reach that limit until we know how to breakthrough.
• The Secret Code of Success – by Noah St. John. Excellent book that shows how our fear of success is greater than our fear of failure and teaches specific steps on how to overcome this challenge. Great companion to The Big Leap!
• Spiritual Divorce – Debbie Ford. A book I bought years ago but was afraid to read. 😉 If you know anyone contemplating divorce, this is a superb book.
• How Do I Tell The Kids – Rosalind Sedacca. A beautiful storybook for couples with children; Roz’s book touched me deeply as an adult child of divorce, even though I don’t have children myself.

Letting our light shine!

I’ve always resonated with these beautiful, inspiring words by Marianne Williamson from her book A Return To Love, and they have helped me greatly most recently to really let my light shine:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness
that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves,
Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.

Your playing small
does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.

We are all meant to shine,
as children do.
We were born to make manifest
the glory of God that is within us.

It’s not just in some of us;
it’s in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.”

Another gem from Marianne (I saw go by on Twitter recently): “Every change is a challenge to become who we really are.”

How has this impacted you?

My hope for you in reading this post is to feel inspired to live into YOUR deepest truth more fully. To know how powerful beyond measure you are and to step up and play a bigger game in life and business. The world needs you!

I’d love to hear your thoughts – please share how this post impacted you in the comments below.