DELETE.
A post on deleting ties to the New Age, the fluff I was hocking, and the women I'm showing up for now.
This weekend, I went to my website, and I took down all the testimonials from clients I’d worked with years ago.
They’d been removed once before, only to go back up when I thought I needed them for “street cred.”
But really, they should have stayed off.
It’s not that I didn’t do great work for these clients. I did. I showed up, I delivered, and I got them results.
(I supported women-owned online businesses in the New Age self-help industry– mostly life, health, and business coaches.)
But at this point in my life?
I was hanging onto things written by women who I don’t resonate with anymore. Women who sell things that, I now see, could be doing more harm than good.
And out of the 11 testimonials I had up, with everything I’ve learned about the industry I was part of, there was just ONE woman who may be walking her talk and building a service-oriented business with some ethics and integrity.
One woman. And that’s a maybe.
(And nope, she’s not a best-selling author, doesn’t have a zillion followers on Instagram, nor does she have a feed full of selfies. Food for thought about how we don’t need all of that to serve and make lots of money.)
Which says a lot about who and where I was back then.
Who was I actually helping if nearly everything I did just added more… fluff to the world? If there’s not many who I can look at today and feel all that inspired by?
Sure, I can pin-point some things I did that added more light and goodness to the world, but for the most part, I’ve had to accept that a lot of it was just a bunch of feel-good fluff without any substance.
Yet I was hanging onto those testimonials “just in case” I needed “proof” that I did indeed have a semblance of a career before I transformed my life from the inside-out: found Jesus, got sober and divorced, changed my first and last name, moved far away, started over from scratch– the whole shebang.
So I put them back up, but I “at least” kept their names off. Because I didn’t want to endorse their work. Yet even that felt off.
Yeah, a lot of their feedback showed my true self peeking through, which was helpful to reflect on– that I’d always been working to show up, hold space for, and support other women. But ultimately, it was time to let it all go.
If I’m here to be in the true business of personal development, I don’t need social proof from women whose values go against the very notion of self-help and female empowerment to begin with.
Things like popularity vs. principle, doing what’s trendy vs. doing what’s right, and selling the most vs. selling what works.
All while pretending to themselves and to others that they’re “the good guys” (or girls). That they’re “making a difference” and “empowering women,” that they’re “being the change they want to see in the world,” and “creating a life they love,” and blah, blah, blah…
Of course, there were and are shades of women helping other women (and men helping other men). But in the grand scheme of things? So much of that industry is, in large part, the blind leading the blind.
It’s Life & Business Coaches talking success in money and marriage while pretending their own cash flow and love life aren’t failing behind-the-scenes. (How much can someone truly help, how wide and deep can they really go, when they’ve never actually mastered what they’re teaching?)
It’s Psychic-Mediums who think they can abuse their mind, body, and spirit and still keep their gifts intact. (As if smoking weed, getting drunk, and eating garbage would allow a person to receive clear and accurate messages from the DIVINE.)
It’s “Health Experts” who teach about holistic healing and alternative medicine in one breath only to support Big Pharma agendas like the “vaccine” and “gender-affirming care” in another. (Because fear of criticism, wanting to be liked, and making money is more important than speaking the truth.)
Just to name a few examples.
And I was nearly just as blind. But not anymore. Not since a couple years ago when I walked away from the dark side of the self-help industry for good.
Well, almost for good– until I told myself I needed the praise from my past to create the dreams of my future.
But with the click of a button, that’s now gone.
It’s time to trust that I already have everything I need to keep moving forward.
Any woman hocking fluff and fairytales truly deserves an amazing life and business built around her gifts, talents, and skills– her clients and customers deserve this, too.
But for so many, our egos can become stronger than our desire to actually do, be, and have better.
My own ego tripped me up for a time, too.
Which is why, when I got quiet, began to heal my life, and stripped away everything that was fake, I realized there was almost nothing real left.
That can be a scary thought for many women– to think about the fact that they, too, may be living and selling a lie. And that, if they truly want a better life, they may have to start entirely from scratch.
Yet starting from scratch gives us the opportunity to have a chance at actually creating something solid and stable vs. building upon a house of cards.
And to, for once in our lives, be as RAW and REAL as God intended us women to be, while finally giving ourselves the self-help and personal development we truly needed all along.
So, who DO I resonate with now?
I resonate with the woman who wants more.
The woman who’s been getting nudges and is ready to listen.
The woman who wants to feel better and find out WHY she doesn’t.
The woman who knows deep down that what she’s doing isn’t working and wants to go a different way.
The woman who wants to write a new story for her life instead of living and telling the same one she’s been living and telling for years– one she’d actually want to read herself.
The woman who doesn’t know if she’ll want to burn it all down but is willing to light the match– even if she has to blow it out and strike another. And another.
I resonate with the woman who knows she was born to fly and is finally ready to spread her wings. Even if it looks and feels a little awkward at first.
Because she knows that looking and feeling a little awkward for a little bit sounds way better than never knowing what it’s like to soar.
– Malana
This is so on point! I feel this so much. I have blown up my life a few times and it’s always scary. But looking back I know that’s what needed to happen. Such a great piece about getting real. 🙏
Oh yes, there's so much junk, noise, and distraction in so many of those fluff hocking industries.
Way to keep lighting those matches! 🔥