In 2008, I started to dip my toes in business. The following year, I registered and officially started VLV Photography, LLC. For the next six years, I ran a boutique photography studio. I had a high-touch business, where I conducted in-person ordering, provided finished photo art, and custom designs for my clients.

From start to finish, when I worked with my clients, I held a very high standard for myself. I started out shooting weddings, which is literally equivalent to running a marathon when you shoot solo (or so it feels like). At least, for me, I needed two days to recover because I expended a massive amount of mental and physical energy to keep up with the demands that photographing a wedding requires.

A few years in, I discovered that my first favorite was shooting high school seniors. I saw myself in so many of them; a zest for adventure, excitement for the future, and unbridled energy that felt both scattered and channeled. There is just something about being 18. It’s a year of transition that’s filled with so much emotion and, being in their energy was just that – energizing. Weddings created the same kind of “adrenaline high,” but on a much larger scale that was energizing at the time, but depleted me when it was over.

That’s all great, but get to the point, right? Lol!

I do have one. However, I think it’s important to understand that through all of those years, I was a griever. Through the highs and lows of entrepreneurship, I was grieving. And, despite the “high” being a photographer gave me, it was kind of that – an addiction. I was addicted to learning everything I could possibly learn about photography, equipment, software, business, etc.. However, I gave little interest in learning about myself. I wasn’t interested in digging internally to discover why I was struggling in the areas of self-worth, self-criticism, focus, motherhood, and then some. In hindsight, I was using photography as my STERB (short-term energy relieving behavior).

Despite having young children when I launched my business (all were in diapers, and the youngest was six months old), I poured everything I had into that business – less into myself, and, if I’m honest, being present around my children. I was neglecting what was really going on internally.

I had experienced post-partum after our second daughter. To add insult to injury, she was a November baby. Within two years, we had our youngest, a February baby. And, after having the youngest, the post-partum was so bad I went to my nurse practitioner, shared how I was feeling, and I left with a prescription.

I was never asked what happened in my life up to that point. I wasn’t asked if I was getting enough rest, or if I had support at home (which, I often didn’t because my husband was often gone a week at a time). I tried that pill for two weeks before I stopped taking it on my own. I never once received a follow-up from the doctor why I never refilled it. I stopped sharing how I felt to doctors from that day forward. What I needed, at the time, was a good life coach, someone to help me dig into my emotional shit. And, I know now, not just any life coach, one that specifically addressed grief. Grief was the most bottomless hole I was finding myself impossible to crawl out of on my own.

How Grief Showed Up In My Business

I would have days where I couldn’t get myself to do a darn thing. I had days where I questioned everything I was doing. I second-guessed myself ALL.THE.TIME. I looked to others to validate and give me the affirmation I couldn’t find within myself. I did not understand what intuition was or how to tap into my own. And, I had a pretty intimate relationship with constant low-grade anger and procrastination.

These feelings and struggles continued for another five years. FIVE YEARS! Oh my gosh! Ask me if I experienced more grief after going through the grief recovery method, and it’s a resounding yes because I realized what had been the missing piece for me all those years. And, I was filled with the regret of not finding GRM sooner.

Since that time, and since completing GRM and becoming certified in helping others in their grief, I’ve spent a lot of time digging into what was truly going on with me. I’ve processed a lot of the emotional baggage that was hindering my ability to grow and scaling my business in a way that exceeded all of my expectations. And, I’ve learned that wisdom only comes from experience.

Those early years of entrepreneurship laid the foundation for the business I have now. So many of the skills, lessons, processes, and internal work I’ve completed since have made me a more level-headed, knowledgable, and wiser entrepreneur today. Eleven years is a long time to commit to being an entrepreneur. Many that attempt it often don’t survive beyond three years. It’s taxing work. And, I argue, it’s often taxing because we don’t give one thought to who we were before entrepreneurship, and the ways our experiences have negatively impacted our lives and then address them, so they don’t hinder us.

The Disconnect

How we have learned to process our loss at an early age, and throughout life, have a direct impact on how we treat shortcomings, failures, or anything we perceive as negative in our business. Many entrepreneurial-geared programs and coaches focus on what needs to change in business because it’s easier (and sexier) than addressing the inner-work.

Also, the connection isn’t made that the issues we see in our businesses are a reflection of ourselves and the climate in our hearts. If you feel as though everyone is out to get you, life is unfair, people don’t respect you, and everyone is a cheap-skate; perhaps look in the mirror. Ask yourself if those are thoughts you are having being reflected back to you by external experience as a result of your internal one. Could it be because what’s at the heart of it is that:

• You don’t trust others.
• You have unresolved anger.
• You have self-worth issues.
• You lack boundaries.
• and more

due to, you know what I’m going to say – you guessed it! GRIEF! Grief causes us to feel all of these things, depending on what we experienced in our lives.

If you’re reading this and you’re not an entrepreneur, I bet you can still apply this message to your working life and the relationships you have with colleagues, as well as with your friends and family. I can only guess how much revenue grief caused me all of those years, and how much it has cost you in your business. Or, how much your grief has caused your employer, too, in lost productivity and focus.

It causes me to grief, to this day, having the awareness that I never met my potential for what was possible in my photography business either. So, I choose to look at it all as a stepping stone and part of my journey through grief. And, there’s still some gunk to unpack there, too, as it relates to my relationship with my children.

The blog post photo is an excellent analogy for entrepreneurship and life. Many entrepreneurs are walking on a shaky foundation. Many of us, including non-entrepreneurs, feel as though we’re walking on a rickety dock that is our life. At the end of the dock, however, is a small boat. You don’t know whether to trust the boat, though, either. That too appears to be in rough shape. Not to mention, will the waters always be calm? Surely they won’t be; we expect some waves, don’t we? Suffice this to say, the only way we know where life can take us is if we have hope, and faith in ourselves, that we can do hard things. For me, it was facing decades of grief. If this post resonates with you, grief is likely your culprit as well. However, you may not have perceived it as such until now.

You’ve walked the hard walk. Perhaps it’s now time to get on the boat?

What do you think? Do you think an undercurrent of grief may be the root of issues and inner-conflict you are experiencing in your business?

Have you become a master at busy-ing yourself in your business to avoid how you’re feeling. Or, are you aware of how you’re feeling is a problem but haven’t even considered that grief is the culprit?

Let me know in the comments below, or do you see the handy dandy “Leave a Message” button to the right? You can leave up to a five-minute message, and, if you enter your email, I can respond directly to you! Pretty neat, eh?