This is how I became a changemaker

Ten years ago, I had my first and only out of body experience. And it forever changed the course of my life.

It began like any other day.

I’m almost 29 years old. A wife, a mother of a 4 year old, and a woman who has tried and failed to make half a dozen careers work.

I wake up and get ready for the day. While my husband drops our daughter to nursery, I drive to my part-time, soul-sucking marketing job. A familiar sinking feeling settles into the pit of my stomach the closer I get to work.

I park the car and mentally psyche myself up to walk into the building. When I arrive, I’m the first one there. I like arriving early so that I can get a few introverted moments to myself before my colleagues arrive. A few moments of silence before the computer keys start clacking, the phones start ringing, and the people start talking.

In the rare quiet of the open plan office, I open up my laptop. And then it happens.

I don’t know how to explain it. One minute I’m sitting at my desk, booting up my laptop. And the next, I’m floating up to the ceiling, out of my body, and looking down at me. Looking down at the sad, purposeless, resentful-because-I-know-there-is-something-better-for-me-out-there me.

Now there are two me’s: Sitting Me and Floating Me.

Floating Me is hovering up in the ceiling looking down at Sitting Me sitting on my chair, and suddenly, she is laughing. Laughing hard, and gleefully, and knowingly. And it’s a laugh that takes Sitting Me by surprise.

While she’s laughing, Floating Me says to a bewildered Sitting Me:

Hahaha! Don’t you see how funny this is?! You’re here at this job that you hate! In this life that isn’t fulfilling you! Spending all your time doing things that aren’t yours to do. That’s so funny!

Don’t you know?? This isn't your life! This isn’t your job! You’re living somebody else’s life, and right now you’re sitting in somebody else’s chair, at somebody else’s laptop, getting ready to do somebody else’s work.

This isn’t where you are supposed to be! Your life is out there waiting for you. Your purpose is out there calling you. This isn’t where you are supposed to be and it’s funny because it’s so ridiculous that you think it is! It’s hilarious that you think this is where you’re supposed to be!

Your life is so much bigger than what you can even imagine, and you’re sitting here living somebody else’s life. Hahahaha!

And then laughing, Floating Me floats back down into Sitting Me, and my whole world shifts. And I smile the biggest smile that I have smiled in a really, really long time. 

I say to myself, Oh my God. This is not my life. My life is out there waiting for me.

I let these words settle into me, and I know they are true. I’ve always known they are true. Ever since I was a little girl I’ve known this was true. 

I wasn’t a flaky jack of all trades who couldn’t make any career work. I was a woman who was searching for her purpose in all the wrong places. 

And when I couldn’t find it I gave up and settled for a job that gave me flexibility and a sense of security, but absolutely no joy or purpose. I had given up on my life. 

Then Floating Me showed up and shook me awake. Wake up, Layla. There’s real work to be done. Stop role-playing in somebody else’s life. Go claim your own.

In that moment, when the two Me’s reintegrated, I made a commitment to myself: When the time is right, and I’ll know when that is, I will quit this job and I will commit myself to building my real life.

A short time after, I found out I was pregnant with my son. I stayed at that job through my pregnancy. Two weeks after he was born, in between late night feeds and nappy changes, I start working on my first ever coaching website. Not long after that, I quit my job and committed to being a full-time solopreneur and making it work, no matter what.

Ten years later, and here I am. This week I turn 39 years old.

A decade has passed since that weird, hilarious, and miraculous out of body experience. And what a life I have lived!

I have become an internationally recognised and respected bestselling author, educator, speaker, and thought-leader. I have created a life where I get to do what I love, with people I respect, creating offerings that help to change people’s relationships with themselves and with one another. 

I have completely transformed the relationship I have with myself, from one of internalised self-loathing and self-doubt, to one of internalised self-love and self-appreciation. 

I’ve learned to value myself - all the things that make me who I am. I have said goodbye to imposter syndrome. 

I’ve built incredible relationships with my family, friends, and team members. I have stopped trying to figure what I’m here to do, because I figured it out and I’m doing it. 

I stopped living my pretend life and started living my real one.

I am living the life that Floating Me said I would.

And now that I’m about to turn 39 I realise that Floating Me was actually who I am today. Because 39-year old me knew what 29-year old me could not. And 39-year old me gave 29-year old me the gift of insight and knowing. 

She got me out of that job and life that were eating away at me, and got me to claim the purpose and life that were mine. 

As I reflect on the past decade of my life, I am grateful not just for what I have achieved, but who I have become. I am grateful that I got to be a good ancestor to myself, reminding myself to live a life of healing and liberation. 

Ever since I was a young girl, I have always felt older than my years. I remember saying to my sister-in-law this year, “I’ve always felt like I’m catching up to my ‘real age’. I think I’m almost there now”.

My 40s and beyond have always felt like my ‘real age’. And I can’t wait to get there. But in the meantime, I can’t wait to live out this last year as the 39 year old Floating Me who came to me 10 years ago. She was full of joy and laughter and knowing, and now I know why :) 

I want her to live this next year up - celebrating everything she inspired me to create.

I haven’t had another out of my body experience since then. But this year I received a new message. I had a dream about a Future Me. Maybe she is 49-year old me?

Here’s what I remember:

I am sitting and a woman walks over to me. She is wearing beautiful white robes, and has long, chest-length, blonde locs. She is me. She has been waiting for me. 

She is smiling serenely. Knowingly. She is happy to see me. She reaches out her hand to me, smiles even more lovingly, and says, ‘I’m so glad you’re here. You made it. Let’s go. We’ve got work to do.’

I don’t know what that dream meant. But not long after I decided to bleach and dye my locs blonde. I am not her yet, but I am already becoming her. And I am excited for what the next decade of my life will bring, and beyond.

To our healing + liberation,

Layla 

P.S. Overcoming imposter syndrome was a huge part of my healing and liberation journey over the last 10 years. I believe that what I will be able to accomplish and who I will get to become over the next 10 years will be even more amazing because imposter syndrome no longer holds me back.

If it’s something that’s still holding you back, I’d love to invite you to watch my workshop ‘Say Goodbye to Imposter Syndrome’. 

Imposter syndrome can’t be the thing that stops you from living the life you know is yours, and having the impact you’re here to have. Just imagine what the next 10 years of your life could look like without imposter syndrome. I can hear a Floating You laughing with joy now :)