 Hi Rockstars! Omg I feel like I have not spoken in this way to you in forever! I love dancing and video blogging live so much that I forget to blog sometimes! That's what she said. I know that made no sense! Deal with it. So I wanted to ask you if you have gotten your hands on my book hot sizzling book Awakening The Heart yet? I ask because the reviews it is getting on Amazon is amazing! If you did not order it yet... here is chapter 1 and 2 to give you a little taste of my story and book! This shift will change your life and awaken your heart into action! Awakening the Heart By Carolyn Rim Copyright © 2017 Carolyn Rim Chapter 1 Taking the Leap “You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.” —Zig Ziglar October 12, 2014 I sit in my cube, staring at the computer. I am researching bridges to jump off. I have just turned 30 and I realize how much I hate my life—okay, not just my life, I hate myself. All I seem to do is wake up, go to work, eat dinner, and sleep. Don’t get me wrong, there are a few moments that are fun and exciting but most of the time I am miserable. I do not have any big life goals—hell, I don’t have any goals. I want to die. The chatter in my mind never ceases. Constantly criticizing, contradicting and abusing me. “You’re a joke. You think you can change the world? You are nothing. YOU will be going against the whole world. You will never make it. Look at the past—all you are is a high school graduate with a bad reputation. A whore. Used goods. You are nothing.” I have a good voice and a bad voice in my mind. I cannot help but feel overwhelmed and unhappy most of the time. The bad voice was constant and the good voice tried, without success, to convince me of my inherent worth. I have been at my job for six years and I have moved up the ladder quickly. Up until about a year ago, I was the firm’s number one sales rep four years in a row, but I still feel unfulfilled and unhappy. A year and a half ago, the company took a turn for the worse and my salary went way down. I went from making $120,000 a year to $50,000 a year in seven months. I have been in a car accident and my neck injury is killing me too. I am going to the doctor every week. I smoke a pack of cigarettes a day. I eat unhealthy foods. I work out a few times per week, but my terrible eating habits and smoking cancel out my efforts to be healthy. My peers are not encouraging. Anytime I spoke about my dream to be something more than what I am, they would tell me not to do it because it’s just safer to stay where you are than to go for it and fail. People around me are not going after their dreams. When I told them about this dream I had where I was in front of thousands of people, they would tell me there was no way I could do that. I feel trapped. Stuck. How did I get here? Back to staring at the screen. The peer group and friends in my life, joke about killing themselves and although of course I don’t like that, I joke as well. We have a running joke. “Meet me at the bridge and I’ll bring the lipstick.” Talk about an unhealthy peer group. But, seriously, I would rather die than have my energy dwarfed and locked in this cube for another 10 years. All my light was trapped within the walls of this grey cube, with nowhere to expand. Hot tears stream down my face. I try desperately to mask my emotions at work. I feel like I am speaking a language that no one can understand; they just say I am weird or crazy. Then something happens. I snap. I am done. No more. Not another minute do I want to spend on this earth. I stare at the screen, unhappy, unfulfilled, unchallenged. I wait for the phone to ring. I decide I am going do it that day. I am going to kill myself. I hate myself. I decide I am going to jump off a bridge. I close my eyes and visualize leaping into the air and finally being able to spread my wings and fly. That’s always what I wanted to do. Fly. Fly into the air, soar like an eagle, even if only for a few seconds. I would feel the wind against my face and plunge to my death, away from pain. No mean voice could reach me. No taunting, horrible memories of my past could reach me. No more of this feeling like I will never be enough. I am staring at a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge. I would go out there and jump off. No one could get to me out there. I look up the stats on the bridge on how many people jumped from it. I watch the horrible videos of someone actually leaping to his death. Leaping from the bridge and hitting the water at speeds of 70mph is like hitting concrete. They stopped counting the numbers of jumpers. I think of my little girl, KK, and get tears in my eyes. I think, she is the only reason I am still alive right now. The Voice of the Heart Then I have my first conscious experience with grace, the first time I heard my heart so clearly speak to me. Call it my heart, source, God, divine intervention—whatever it was, it was all around me. I could not see it, hear it, touch it, but I felt a magnificent presence all around me. Almost as if angels were surrounding me. The world around me went into slow motion. As if my fingers were guided, I stop looking for bridges to jump from and type the name Tony Robbins into YouTube. I watch two minutes of a video of him at one of his seminars and I see the people in slow motion jumping up and down, smiling. Real smiles. Not this fake-smile peanut-butter-fluff I saw from others all day long. These people were authentically happy from within their beautiful souls. I realized at that moment that I needed to go see this man. I quickly call the number. It rings three times and then a woman answers. “Hi, thank you for calling Tony Robbins Company. My name is Kelly Phillips. How can I help you today?” I clear my throat, “Hi, my name is Carolyn Rim and I want a front row seat to see Tony Robbins. How much will that be?” “A front row Diamond Premier seat is $2,997. The next event is 12 days away and almost sold out,” she says. I hesitate and think for a moment. I don’t have $3,000. Sensing my hesitation, Kelly said, “I also have a few general admission seats available for $500.” I think about it. I could take the $500 general admission ticket however I am anything but general. I am Diamond Premier all the way. I say to Kelly, “Hold that Diamond Premier ticket. I will call you back in an hour.” I hang up the phone. I pull up my bank account online to see how much money I have. I stare at the number on the screen. $36. A measly $36. How the hell am I going to pull this off? I close my eyes for a moment. I take a long inhale in through my nose and a long exhale out through my mouth. I call my sister Marie, who had gone to an Unleash the Power Within seminar years before and said how amazing it was. She had been texting me that day to see how I am. She knows I am struggling but she also knows I am meant for greatness. I text her and tell her what I am planning to do. She texted back, all in caps, “NOW IS THE TIME. GO FOR IT, KID.” That is all I need. I don’t call my husband, who I know would talk me out of it. I don’t call anyone who will try to talk me out of going. I call the bank and took out a $5,000 loan. For the first time in my life, I am going all-in on me. A magnificent energy streams through me and my heart is racing. I have never done anything like this. A few faxes and signatures later, I have $5,000 transferred into my account. I call Kelly Phillips back within a half hour and tell her with a smile, “Book my Diamond Premier front row seat, please.” I book a flight and a suite at the Aloft hotel in Dallas. Within just a few hours, I am booked for the Unleash The Power Within event with Tony Robbins and 7,000 other souls. I inhale this beautiful feeling, as if each cell in my body and my soul is awakening. I still feel like something is missing, but in my heart I know I have taken a huge leap of faith, and that ignited something within me. Instead of leaping from the bridge, I have leapt out of my comfort zone with child-like faith into uncertainty. It is the first time in years my heart spoke to me—or maybe it was the first time in years I have listened. That night I go home and told no one but my little girl, KK. We are snuggling underneath the blankets in her bed, reading with a flashlight. I say, “Baby, Mommy has to go away by herself for a couple of days. Do you think you can take care of Daddy?” She chuckles at the thought of her taking care of her daddy. She looks at me, “But Mommy, I’m going to miss you.” I place my hand on her heart and then I say, “Remember, all you have to do is put your hand on your heart, think of me and send me love. I will get your message of love-energy, baby, and send a light beam of swirling-twirling-love around you. I love you more than all the stars in the sky and no matter where I am, I am always sending you my love, KK. Mommy has to do this, because for the first time, baby, I am allowing my heart to lead me.” KK smiles her sweet smile and says, “Okay Mommy, I will take care of Daddy while you’re gone.” We stare at each other for a moment. Looking deeply into my little girl’s eyes, I can see the whole universe in them. I instantly feel magic and love when I look at her. A few days later, I know I need to tell my husband, Mike, before my trip but I am so scared. That night, I tell him I am going away for a few days and he didn’t know what to say. “Are you still not happy?” he says. He is upset, but I explain that for me to be happy, I have to do this. He is so mad at me that he refuses to look or talk to me at all. He just is in silence staring at the floor slowly shaking his head at me. Then he says, “Fine. Go. Do what you want.” I tell my family and prepare for take-off toward my destiny. My heart is heavy and sad about Mike but I still know I am on the right road. I stop second-guessing my intuition and decide to start listening to my heart, which says go for it. October 22, 2014 It’s the day before the event and I am nervous. I am at work and have not gotten any sales all day so I am stressed, tense and irritated. I am holding back tears in my cell. My cube. This jail. My phone rings and breaks my thought pattern. “Hello,” I say, trying my best not to sound like I am on the verge of a breakdown. “Hey Carolina,” my friend says in his usual playful voice. “Hi, Joe,” I say and my voice cracks before I can even get out another word. Instantly Joe picks up on my energy and says, “Are you okay?” I tell him I am leaving tomorrow for Dallas to see Tony Robbins and I am nervous and sad and scared all at the same time. He asks me what time I will be at work until. I tell him 5 p.m. “Okay, I will see you at 3 p.m.” He hangs up before I can protest. His engagement pictures with his fiancée are today. How could he be thinking about anyone else on this day? I stop overthinking it and continue to stare at the computer screen and the phone rings. “Thanks for calling Medical Alert, this is Carolyn Rim. How may I help you?” The woman on the phone says, “What? Speak slower, won’t you? You young people talk too damn fast.” This is my life. I speak to seniors and sell the “Help, I have fallen and I can’t get up” buttons.” I have been on this call before, 1,000 times before. I feel like it’s the rinse and repeat cycle over and over again. I start to get tears in my eyes. My train of thought is interrupted by Brad Lovitz, who stands up in his cube and calls my name. “Hey Carolyn!” he says. I sit around all men except for a beautiful black woman named Faith who sits behind me, whose smile lights up the room. I stand up. Now if you’re looking at this and imagining it in your mind, think of whack-a-mole game—we all stand up in our cubes to talk and then go back down. “Hey, Brad.” I tell the few people around me I trust that I am going to a Tony Robbins seminar tomorrow. I have to jump through hoops at work with my boss to even make this possible. I had to get honest and tell my company that I was really depressed, contemplating jumping off a bridge and I needed some time off. They had me fill out a Family Medical Leave Act form. Thank God for FMLA. Bing. A text message on my phone breaks my train of thought. It’s my friend Joe, and he is here. I grab my cigarettes and coat and run out the door to meet him in the parking lot. We instantly give each other a big bear hug. I love this guy. I worked with him 10 years ago in a telemarketing place, and we have been friends ever since. I feel like he understands me more than anyone in the planet some days. I love his wife, too. She understands that Joe and I are friends. They are the most attractive couple I know. I am a bridesmaid in their wedding next year. A Kindred Soul He hands me a book, Unlimited Power, by Tony Robbins. “Joe! I didn’t know you liked Tony Robbins!” “I have been reading and listening to him for years,” he says with a smile. I take a cigarette out of my pack and light one up. I take a long drag and watch the paper on the cigarette slowly singe. Joe and I walk around to the smoking area of the office building and find a place to sit. Just being next to him I feel safe. I say, “I am petrified about tomorrow. Going to Tony Robbins, leaving my family, being in a place I have never been before. Who knows what’s in Dallas? I know in my heart that I must go through with this though, no matter how scared I am. I feel like I am called to it. Like almost pulled by a cosmic force I can’t explain or see, I can only feel it in my soul. I know one thing is true right now. I just don’t want to feel like I am dying anymore.” Our eyes meet, and he says, “You will always succeed, no matter where you go. Think about it. The last place we worked, you were number one booker five years in a row. Then, here, you’ve been the number one sales rep four years in a row. Everywhere you go and everything you touch, you make better.” I have a hard time taking that compliment and I instantly start to look through the book to deflect his compliment and I realize, he has read the whole book. As I flip through the pages, I see he has carefully underlined passages he’s loved, especially certain parts about stepping into the person you want to become. I glance up at him and smile. It doesn’t surprise me. He is the smartest person I know, and his wife is the sweetest and the nicest. I am jealous of them sometimes because I see the love between them and I wish that for me and my husband. I get teary and say, “Thank you, Joe. Thank you.” He gives me a huge hug and we talk for another 20 minutes. We get up and start walking back to his car. He is on his way to meet the love of his life for his engagement pictures. He is glowing. He turns and looks at me, “This is just the beginning for you. Call me or Cherie anytime, day or night, doesn’t matter, we will be there.” As I watch him get into his car, I realize how grateful I am for his friendship. I run to the car before he pulls out and I knock on his window and get one more hug from him. I tell him to have fun with his beautiful bride-to-be, and I mean it with my whole heart. I turn and walk back into the office. I have chills. I am holding a book, and tomorrow I am going to see the man who wrote it. My life is going to change tremendously. I am all in, I say to myself. I then say it out loud: “I am all in. I am ready.” I feel the presence again in that moment. I feel like I’m not alone. There is a force much greater than me at work behind the scenes here and I feel its grace and love. Flying Solo That night I lay awake in my bed, feeling like a child on Christmas Eve. I am so excited and scared that I can’t fall asleep. I start to wonder about what lies ahead for me tomorrow as I take off toward my destiny, to Love Field in Dallas. I have never been there. Actually, I have never been on a plane by myself. I lie next to my husband, listening to him breathe. I wish we had more of a connection. Most days I feel like we’re shouting at each other from two different worlds and our messages get scrambled along the way. We had fought earlier about my going. He couldn’t believe I took out a $5,000 loan. He couldn’t believe I am going away for four days. He said he wanted me to make him number one. He said he didn’t need this “Tony Robbins bullshit.” Our marriage has been one of turmoil. Sure, we have had our amazing moments when things were picture-perfect but somehow we would always end up here, going to bed angry. I think back to five years earlier where I am putting on my wedding dress. My sister is helping me. I’m looking in the mirror and my sister intuitively knows something is wrong. She is giving me a concerned look. I move away from her and stare out the window, my back turned to her. I stare out the window in my handmade lace wedding gown. “He isn’t the one,” I manage to say. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. I love him very much, he is great man and we have a little girl together but I feel like my heart is telling me he isn’t the one.” My sister says, “Carolyn, you don’t have to go through with this. You can cancel everything. People do it all the time.” I turn and look her in the dead in the eyes. “It has to work. We have a child together. Plus, he takes care of me, like no one else I ever met. I will make him the one.” I walk past her and say, “Come on, let’s go get married.” With a small, sad smile on her face, she grabs me and hugs me. She says, “I love you no matter what you decide. I just want you to be happy.” I hide a tear that rolls down my face, quickly wiping it away. “Let’s go,” I say. That was five years ago. Mike and I have had many amazing magical moments and many dark moments. I don’t think anyone liked us together. Not his family and not my family. And when your family tells you that the person you’re with isn’t right for you, sometimes they are right. They can see something that you may be blinded to. The uncertainty of losing my husband and then being alone—well, that is the most frightening thing in the world. I have never just been alone. I have always had some type of boyfriend or someone I was sleeping with or just having sex with. But I do love Mike immensely. I didn’t know love until I met him. He vibrates my soul at times and other times I wonder how we made it this far. I love the man sleeping next to me with my whole heart. We had this sexual synergy that is to the moon and beyond. We were magnets for each other. But, as I prepared to change my life, all he wanted to do was watch TV and chill. I want more. I want to grow, expand, learn and love. I want to fly. My sister Marie told me a story once. A husband and wife were in a house that was burning down. The man just stood there looking around at the fire and the woman went and found out a way out. She came running back into the house and grabbed the man’s hand. He looked at her blankly and sat down on the ground. She said, “What are you doing? Get up! Get up please! I found a way out of the fire.” The man stared blankly at the floor and shook his head no. “I do not know what is out there,” the man said. “GET UP!” The woman pleaded. “GET UP! PLEASE!” She shouted again and again. She looked at the only exit out of the burning house and then she looked back him and started to cry. She was so in love with him that she sat down beside him with tears flowing. She said, “I would rather die in this fire with you than to go out into the unknown world and face it without you.” They held hands as they died in the fire. I do not want to die in the fire. My mind races with my heart. Why? Why can’t Mike understand my dream? I have this burning in my soul that must be satisfied or I will combust. I cannot pretend anymore that I am okay, that things are just fine. That’s the problem. I want to be better than just fine. I want to unleash my fucking soul. I allow myself to take a few deep breaths. I am pulled towards a moment from a few hours ago. Mike and I are facing each other in the kitchen. He asks in desperation, “Why can’t you just be happy with what you have?” I take a deep breath before I answer. “I am dying. I can feel my body and my mind and my soul dying. That’s why I am going to see Tony Robbins,” I say, defending myself. He still doesn’t get it. I can tell from the way he is looking at me. “When was the last time you did something for the first time?” I ask him, desperately wanting him to understand. He glares at me. He says, “I can tell you exactly how it’s going to go down. You are going to lose your job, then stick me with all this debt. It’s ridiculous. This is all your fault. All of it. In fact, I want nothing to do with it. Don’t ask me to take you to the airport or pick you up.” He turns and walks away. I don’t know how to explain what’s happening within me. I feel amazing change is coming and if I don’t start taking action I will miss this opportunity to unleash and awaken my soul. I come back to the moment and just breathe. I listen to Mike breathe in and out. I finally close my eyes and my racing thoughts slow, sinking into my mind’s deep ocean of swirling thoughts until I succumb to the darkness of sleep. |
Spark Your Rockstar
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