Ever since I sent my last email, I have had a loose plan to do a final wrap-up of the Awareness Journal launch. I had a couple of emails planned around awareness (in general) and living without regrets. I’ve started drafts for both. Then I planned to send the standard last chance emails – 48 hours left, 24 hours left, etc.
I didn’t end up finishing them because I was on a beautiful camping trip with my family, immersed in nature and good company.
The best of times. 2025.
Then, by the time I got home, I was busy with unpacking, taking care of sick kids, food shopping, and reconnecting with myself. Camping holidays with kids are not a time to be strict with self-care. They’re an opportunity to surrender and live in the present – the purpose of all the self-work, anyway.
Days passed, and with each one, I told myself that I “should” finish and send those emails, or at least write one final chance email before closing the cart.
But these days, I mostly ignore the “shoulds” and instead trust the feeling. Truth be told, I haven’t felt like doing any of those things.
Instead, I’ve felt like going to the beach, getting a consistent breathwork practice back, practising yoga, cooking the foods I’ve been craving, relishing time with my babies, reading fiction novels, and catching up on my sleep.
I’ve known and trusted that the spark of motivation will return, and the emails will get written when the timing is right.
If you’ve followed along on this journey, you may know that I’ve struggled significantly with marketing the journal.
On the one hand, I have a considerable amount of sales and marketing knowledge and experience. I’ve sold and marketed courses, events, brands, tours and destinations for years.
I know the challenges that marketers face – getting people’s attention, using the correct sales terminology, providing enough “touch points”, and giving people an incentive to buy now, rather than putting it on the back burner.
On the other hand, I haven’t wanted to do any of it. Wait, let me rephrase that. My MIND has wanted to do those things, but my intuition has not.
I have a level of self-honesty now that prohibits me from doing anything that doesn’t FEEL right. It hasn’t FELT right to treat you as potential customers only. Doing so cheapens the depth of the relationship I have with many of you on this list.
I don’t want to convince you.
You have a responsibility on this planet to be the most powerful, most aligned, most joyful, most loving (of self and others) and most authentic version of yourself.
You deserve to be the weirdo that you are and to be filled with gratitude for the life you’re living. You deserve to be free, expressed and pursuing the work that gives your life meaning.
Many of you know this. Many of you are on this journey. For those that don’t, and aren’t …
You deserve to show up in life with complete honesty of self. You are here on earth, a miracle, to discover who you are and to become that person. That is, in fact, your only job.
When I employ aggressive marketing tactics, sales psychology, and industry-standard messaging, I am using a form of manipulation that, in essence, robs potential clients of autonomy and self-responsibility.
I know that the work I’ve done on myself is deep, profound and life-changing. If you can’t feel that from me, then you haven’t been paying attention. In many ways, I feel like I have discovered the secret of human happiness.
And I don’t need to convince you of that, secure sales or achieve a single thing to make it true. It is already true.
Yesterday morning, I spent two hours on the beach reflecting on this journey. In particular, I was letting go of the expectations my mind had for this launch.
I thought the package would walk out the door. I capped the launch at 100 packages and imagined I’d reach that goal well before the month was up. $555 for three months of deep diving on the most important and profound work you can do – the work of figuring out your own human experience. It seemed like a no-brainer to me.
Instead, I sold five packages. And please, don’t feel sorry for me. I sold five packages, learned about myself, courageously put my creation out into the world, showed up with integrity, sat with discomfort and allowed my ego to die a thousand deaths. I wouldn’t change a thing.
I actually couldn’t be prouder of myself.
Had I done all the things I mentioned above—more marketing, more effective sales copy, a scripted sales video, stronger calls to action, and urgency messaging, etc.— I might have sold the 100. But I would have done so by betraying my instincts. And I wouldn’t have learned a thing.
I am showing up as the change I want to see in the world – presently, intuitively and bravely.
As I reflected on all of this and went through my breathwork yesterday, I hoped to gain some clarity on my next steps.
I explored the idea of closing the cart, guiding only these five people through the practice and then letting go of selling the Awareness Journal.
Suddenly, instantly, I was filled with relief. One word came into my mind – freedom.
Post-breathwork clarity. Freedom.
It couldn’t have been more perfect. This experience has again solidified my understanding of the distinction between mind and body.
My mind could have pursued the selling of this practice until the end of my days. I could have made this the cornerstone of everything I do.
But my body knows this is just the beginning.
The Awareness Journal is not the thing. Or at least, not in its current format at this current time. So I’m letting it go to make space for what is.
Here’s something else that I’ve finally been able to articulate.
There are two ways we can veer off track and fuck up our lives.
One is to sit in fear and inaction.
I sat in fear and inaction for three years after closing my last business. I didn’t have the heart or capacity to put myself out there again. I was paralysed. And it didn’t feel good. I felt purposeless, adrift and insignificant in the world. I didn’t feel like I was fulfilling my potential or being all that I could be.
Losing myself. 2023.
Our minds love to fear things. It is quite literally the ego’s job to convince us not to try anything new. To keep us safe. But our souls yearn for more. The discomfort many of us experience in life stems from the constant push and pull of these two conflicting experiences. The mind constantly stopping us, the soul yearning for more.
Once we learn that putting ourselves out there, failing and falling, and trying again, is the only way to stumble across the ‘thing’, there are no more excuses.
If I hadn’t finally launched the Awareness Journal, I would have never realised it wasn’t the right thing, and I would have always, always wondered, “what if?”
So don’t. Don’t sit in fear and inaction. Do the things your soul yearns for. Don’t wait. Don’t let fear win. Be bold with this one, miraculous life.
Try the thing. Let it fail. Learn from it. Try something else. Put all your weird, awesome creations and ideas out there. You’ve got nothing to lose and so much to gain.
The second way we can veer off track and fuck up our lives is by ignoring our instincts.
It would be so, so easy for me to keep selling The Awareness Journal. It is a creation that I believe in. I use the practice every day. I know how to sell. I know how to market. If I continued to tweak things, used some best-practice, ran some ads, automated some shit, it would sell eventually.
My ego would get to feel good. For what that’s worth. Haha
But putting my energy into that would mean ignoring my intuition and closing myself off to the other, bigger, better things that are out there for me.
My mind thinks that this is as good as it gets, my body knows otherwise. I can’t ignore that.
If we were all capable of letting go of the things that aren’t for us, without drama and attachment, imagine the gifts and miracles we would all have access to?
I’ve let go of things in the past. Phhnix is a notable example. I KNEW that that business was not for me. My body knew. I knew that I had veered off track. I did, bravely in fact, let go of that.
But I did not do so without attachment. And it took me three years to work through the ego death of leaving and put myself out there again.
Had I stayed in that business, it would have been successful. It already was. I would have continued to have the money, clout, success and credibility that my ego desires.
But I would not BE the person I was put on this earth to be. I would not feel true to myself. I would not be open to miracles.
Feel. Don’t think.
Thoughts lie. Feelings never do. What is your body telling you to let go of? What is your body pulling you towards?
Don’t sit in fear. Don’t ignore your instincts.
Follow your heart. Don’t be afraid to let ideas go.
What you yearn for can be yours. Release anything that blocks your path to it.
Move unapologetically towards the life you deserve.
(And if it’s clarity around that that you lack, use practices like breathwork, meditation, cold-exposure, being in nature, yoga, energy clearing and somatic movement to bring energy from your head down into your body.)
The Awareness Journal cart is now closed. I am not extending the deadline.
Thank you to everyone here for bearing witness to this experiment. I love you.
Lauren X
**Originally published to my email database on the 29th of April, 2025**
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