The Don’t Stop Sign
Way back in 2018 I decided to get little more “out there” with the work I did. This post is an early post I made on a blog I was writing to track my journey with the whole “energy healing, intuitive stuff, and reading people.” Recently, I returned to reading some of my old work and decided it was still relevant enough that posting it here for inquiring minds to read could be helpful. So, you’ll see many old posts in the blog section that are from a time gone by. But, they help to show who I was, who I am and how I went from A to B.
This post is from January of 2018 and back then I was hiding what I did through a second floor studio that went strictly by word of mouth. I didn’t have to be so open with what I was still trying to figure out how to describe to people. “What the hell do you do?” Back then I just said I was a mom, a writer, a writing instructor. Until I decided it was time to come out of the closet.
The Don’t Stop Sign
By Marisa McFadden
January, 2018
It’s a scary prospect to put yourself out there on any level. As a writer, I’ve been able to hide a lot of my fear behind a byline or a title page. Writing, publishing, means I can put a lot of ideas out there and not actually have to stand right next to them while people eye them and decide on their value.
Man, that’s been a safe space for me.
Before Creative Spirit, I started putting myself out there publicly- in physical form- when I began officially offering energy healing and intuitive reading services to the public. I took my metaphysical show on the road and left the safety of my friend and family circles behind when I made a sign and literally and physically stood by it.
The sign said it all: “Energy Readings By Marisa.”
If you didn’t know what my beliefs about the unseen and spiritual are, you would get a pretty good sense from this sign that I had gone off the Roman Catholic reservation. Standing there essentially beckoned an instinctual human response of assessment from the passersby.
“Cool!” “Huh?” “You do what?” “Are you for real?” “Do you have any openings?”
The 12 year old girl in me had to work hard to stand by my sign and not cower in fear of a host of 12 year old things (rejection, condemnation, skepticism, disdain, anger). In my mind I referred to the sign as the “Don’t Stop” sign. This sign could bring me to places I knew I was supposed to go if only I could withstand the pain of inviting in judgement and enduring the experience of it.
I’m grateful that the 12 year old in me didn’t cut and run! 12 year old Marisa, with her turquoise eyeliner and Hypercolor T-shirt that was changing colors because of my skyrocketing body temperature, stayed and endured. She didn’t stop.
Standing by “Energy Readings by Marisa” time and again I (and my inner child) grew confident in myself and probably just a little bit desensitized to the fears (sometimes I wonder what the difference is!).
And now, here I am, in my third month of running a successful business rooted in my ability to “read energy” and my life has transformed in some of the most beautiful and profound ways.
I have grown spiritually by giving into fear. And I continue to each time I post something on social media- a platform that feels like the virtual sandwich board sign I stand by each day.
I have grown emotionally by knowing that fear, like everything else, has a season and seasons come and go. I’ve lived through winters before and springtime has always come. It will again.
And, I have grown in my power. I can proclaim who I am, what I do, and say I’m really, really good at being Marisa McFadden, mother, friend, energy healer, intuitive guide, artist, contributor to global healing.
And I don’t want to hide anymore.
More than success and more than acceptance, the gift is the desire to stand by my sign no matter what and declare my truth…no matter what.