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Kori Gouge

True Wealth Mentor for Rebel Entrepreneurs, Denver

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Stories (Blog)

Addicted to Self-Help? It’s Time to Disrupt that Cycle.

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I have to admit that I, too, was a total self-help addict. As with most things in life, more is not necessarily better, especially when it comes to self-help. I share my story below in hopes that you see parts of yourself in it, know that you’re not alone and that it is all actually perfect.

The Self-Help Obsession/Addiction

I was sure I was broken and nothing and nobody could fix me. Yet, I sought out solutions from everyone and from everywhere. What? Oh boy. A sure recipe for remaining stuck.

It started in high school when I developed an eating disorder. It was my first foray into the self-help world. I knew something was off with me and I was determined to find the solution. I devoured self-help books the same way I did food, hoping to make some sense of my deep hatred for my body and myself. I went on antidepressants briefly, attended group and individual therapy, journaled, excavated old wounds.

The funny thing is that what eventually healed me was the exact thing I was avoiding and the exact thing I didn’t want to do. I was avoiding myself and being with myself and all my emotional states. The second part was acceptance. I was convinced I had to beat myself into submission in order to improve and that was the complete opposite of acceptance. Acceptance was counter to everything I believed about healing. Yet acceptance was and is the only way.

You have to break the obsession with the problem which means you don’t actually have a problem – that you are ok exactly as you are – and commit to loving, honoring, and accepting yourself completely. That is where healing begins – disrupting the lie that there is something wrong with you.

Given my proclivity to spiral into disordered thinking, I eventually replaced body issues with men/relationship issues and then with business/career issues.

I went off the deep end – consuming multiple self-help books at a time. I was once again proving to myself that something was fundamentally wrong with me, I needed fixing, and surely someone outside of me had the answer and surely I didn’t.

It screwed me up. I was always working on myself. It was exhausting.

It started to destroy my relationship with myself and with my boyfriend as I became as critical of him as I was of me.

This was a big wake-up call for me. I had to pull my head high enough above the monstrous stack of books to look around my life and see that despite all the exhaustive work I had been doing, I kept creating more problems that required solutions instead of seeing where my life and myself had improved. I never gave myself a break, a moment of acceptance and appreciation for who I was right then and acknowledgment of how much I had changed over the years. I couldn’t see it because I was so focused on the next thing – the next problem, issue, or challenge I needed to address.

No celebration of a milestone or growth – only onward, keep going, keep improving, don’t stop – and better make sure everyone around you is too.

I had to make it stop before it made me crazy with depression which is where this inevitably leads because all you can see is continuous work on yourself with no end in sight, which sends you into despair. And this is exactly what was creeping around – apathy, boredom, criticism, frustration. I had been down this road before and it didn’t go well.

I knew I had to do something different – I had to stop this cycle of addiction and insanity. I had to let go, release my hold, step back, and accept. Be in the moment. Let go of any outcome and do what I felt called to do in that moment without judgment or attack or second-guessing and instead, love, accept, and appreciate it. I had to return to the place of play, joy, and pleasure – not as a goal – but as a lifestyle, as a way of being, as the true me.

Once you realize and acknowledge that everything is perfect just as it is, no matter what it looks like, you allow it to shift and change. It doesn’t change when you hate it, abuse it, or criticize it. This is readily apparent in childhood yet we lose sight of this as we grow up.

Your energy system picks up on what you are putting into it – love or fear – and responds accordingly. When you are in problem mode, you are putting out the energy of doubt and distrust and thus you create more problems.

When you are in creative solution mode, you are putting out the energy of faith and thus you create endless possibilities.

The trick is you have to BELIEVE in the solution, you have to TRUST that everything is indeed working out for you BEFORE you will see the solution or the change you desire. This is critical. You cannot create something that you don’t believe.  You must believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that what you desire is already yours and live from that place – the place of love, trust, faith, and unwavering belief.

And, when you are struggling to believe, this is where a powerful mentor comes in – you get to borrow their belief while you build yours. They believe in what you desire to create and know it is already yours and as you work in that container of belief, your own trust in yourself grows.

If you are struggling with self-doubt and are tired of being stuck wanting more but not getting it, I am currently accepting two people into my 90-day mentorship program. Borrow my belief in you while we work together to bring you into alignment with your heart’s calling, your soul genius, and your true, authentic self.

Simply contact me and we’ll set up a call.

 

Believing in you,

Kori

Disconnection with your soul is the root of all addiction

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At the core of distraction is an unwillingness to be with yourself, a deep desire to check out because the discomfort of being with yourself, undistracted, present, and aware is too much – it terrifies you, though you would deny that.

You know yourself, you say, you’re fine, you just like to have a few drinks or watch a few shows on Netflix or scroll Instagram.

The problem is it isn’t just a few and this distraction becomes your default operating system. Instead of pausing to check in with yourself, connect with your soul, use the silence to allow yourself to listen to your intuition, you reach for something outside of you; it becomes automatic, unconscious.

So you go through your days, numbing yourself ever so slightly, enough to loosen your hold on your dreams, enough to shake your ability to take 100% responsibility for your life and your decisions.

As you numb yourself, you numb your desires. You fear you can’t really have what you truly want. You fear disappointment so you inadvertently create a life of perpetual disappointment.

What you ultimately fear is being you – you fear that it’s not enough, that you’re not good enough to live the life you dream of.

Yet you also fear realizing your dreams – what will that require of you? You don’t know if you’re up for it, best just to watch another episode, have another drink and think about it. And your dreams slowly fade away, your discontent grows so your distractions increase and so the cycle goes.

All of this demonstrates a deep disconnection with your soul, your truth, your true you. At your core, you know the truth – you’ve just kept it buried under lies and illusions.

That truth is that you are worthy and valuable just as you are without having to do or be anything to prove it or earn it. At your core, you know exactly what you want and you know when you connect with your true desires, nothing will stop your from getting them.

You have to ask yourself, are you willing to do whatever it takes, no matter what?

Are you willing to be uncomfortable, face your fears, release your distractions and listen, honor, and act on your soul’s guidance? No matter what?

What is it you want your legacy to be? That you got by? Or that you took risks, you went after your dreams, and you truly lived in your fullest expression inspiring others to do the same?

It’s always a choice. In every moment. What will you choose?

Your Dreams Chose You. It’s Time to Claim Them.

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Something feels off – there is a gnawing in your soul, a craving for something more. Yet, despite this longing, there is something inside that keeps holding you back. You default to playing small and limiting your success – not only in your career but also with your health and in your relationships. The litany of self-criticism that is the ticker tape of your mind ensures compliance with discontent bordering on despair.

 

Maybe this is it, you think. It’s not that bad, you say to console yourself. However, this feeling that something is missing, that you are not living your truly desired life won’t go away.

 

This old programming will continue to keep you in this place of playing small, sabotaging your success, and limiting your experience of satisfaction, happiness, and significance. The only way out is through. You must topple these old paradigms and unhook yourself from the lies that limit you. It’s a precise surgery of the mind, heart, and soul to remove these toxic tumors. When you do this, you free yourself from the chains of self-oppression, mental slavery, and self-loathing. You see with new eyes. You operate at a completely new level which makes all that you desire and beyond available to you.

 

You become deeply connected to yourself and your soul, you always know exactly what to do, you always have the exact right words, and your trust yourself completely. This is a radical shift from where you were.

 

You started a revolution within. You stood up for what you wanted and claimed it as yours. You became the fullest, highest, most authentic and unapologetic version of you. You have never felt so free, so grounded, so passionate, and so on fire for yourself, your work, and your life. This is when everything changes. Everything. Your finances. Your love life. Your health. Your career. Your relationships. Why? Because it all comes back to you. It always begins within. Always.

 

Can you even begin to imagine just how powerful you truly are? Imagine how different your life will look when you deeply and completely love, honor, accept, and respect yourself. Imagine that feeling of unwavering belief and trust in yourself and what that makes available to you. What will your life be like when you embody unshakeable confidence and courage as you go after what you want with gusto, knowing you will do whatever it takes to live in true alignment with your soul and your highest truth?

 

Divine. Powerful. Pleasurable. Playful. Limitless.

 

Are you ready?

I invite you to reach out to me to chat. 

 

To the true you,

 

Kori

The Wake Up Call of Truth (It Stings!)

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Who the hell was born just hoping their life would be one long list of disappointments, unmet desires, unrealized dreams, and unfulfilled hopes? Who has always wanted to live in a constant state of lack, frustration, and self-hatred? No thanks. Screw that. Yet, how often do we get stuck in this exact place, the cycle of despair, over and over again?

 

Struggle makes you inner-focused. There is no connection to others or to the world. It is all you. The only thing you can hear and see is that you are fucked up. You think the way to fix it is to isolate, analyze, and focus on you. It doesn’t work. It just shows you more of what you don’t want to see. You have to stop focusing on the shit show and finding evidence and proof for why it is a shit show and how that goes to show you are a piece of shit, which spirals you back into self-hatred and despair. You can’t heal yourself from there nor can you see the way out. There is no creativity in that place, only resignation and self-beration, which is what you’ve done for most of your life and look where it’s gotten you – miserable, broke, suicidal, unhappy, discontent, and apathetic. Yep, it sure has helped, hasn’t it? Feckin Hell.

 

You have to shift your focus OUTward while healing what’s inside.

 

The thing is just as you created your current shit show, you also have the power to create something entirely different – the exact opposite – where you realize your dreams, fulfill your hopes, meet and exceed your desires AND allow it, love it, accept it and honor it.

 

You have to do the exact opposite of what you’ve been doing. The exact opposite. Everything you do, no matter how small, messy, or fucked up, is perfect. Thank you.

 

So specifically, what does the exact opposite look like? You light up every room you walk in. You are magnetic. Your energy activates and ignites everyone you come into contact with. It is powerful. You destroy all shoulds, rules, and expectations and do whatever the fick lights you up. You deliberately choose to experience pleasure each day and become aware of it. You play every day and appreciate it. You laugh every day and love it.

 

You give love to your business, appreciating it. You stop using your business as a whip to make you feel like shit. You accept great money for your services with great joy and appreciation. You no longer look to others as having the answer. You have the answers. You have all the answers. (You just might need guidance uncovering them but they are indeed, there,) You ask provocative questions. You say exactly what you mean. You don’t hold back. You don’t sugar coat.

 

You disrupt your own patterns. You challenge yourself to do one thing every day that terrifies you, to break up your routine, and to throw your world and ideas upside down. You let go of any expectations of others as you are the only one capable of bringing yourself happiness, success, and passion. You do the uncomfortable thing, have the uncomfortable conversation, take the scary risk because you deeply trust yourself at last. You know that the first thing that comes to mind is the thing to do, always. You stop the fecking overanalysis and do the goddamned thing already. You are all in on whatever it is you are doing or you are not in at all. No more wishy-washy, half-assed, mediocre bullshit. You bring and do your best in every moment, even if it’s a mess –  as long as it was your best, you’re good. If you held back, you adjust, make amends, rewrite that part of your story, and go again.

 

It’s your story and you get to create it to be as terrible or as magnificent as you desire. And you always get to begin again and create a whole new story – a story of triumph, victory, power, passion, and freedom.

 

All that you desire is waiting for you at the simple turning of a page.

 

Are you ready to create and live the most incredible story of your life?

 

Let’s begin.

 

To the true you,

 

Kori

 

Release the Pressure. Let Yourself Begin Again.

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My energy has felt heavy the past two days. Perhaps it is matching the change in weather from warm and sunny to cold, gray, and drizzly.

Yesterday, I knew my energy was low. I incited truth rants, moved my body, checked my head but it wasn’t having it. The low vibes were holding on. I had planned to go to a beginner aerial dance class that evening. As I was changing to go, I was grumbling under my breath – I don’t want to go, I just want to go home. I’m irritable. I marched myself down the street to the studio, aptly named the Circus. Joining a circus is exactly what I needed to get out of my funk – to go someplace where I can be me and do something crazy and fun.

The class was challenging. I have only done one or two aerial classes before and that was years ago. I consider myself strong but this was a whole new level of strength. I was definitely the beginner. I felt uncoordinated and weak. It was perfect.

The pressure to have it all figured out, to know exactly what to do, and to look like you have it all together can be oppressive. Doing something that puts you back in the seat of the beginner allows you to take the pressure off. You can fall, stumble, and mess up and it’s ok because you are learning. That is the best way to learn – playing with it, seeing what different levels look like, noticing your desire to achieve that next level, and then checking your commitment to doing the work to get to that next level. The trick is to keep it fun, keep it exploratory, keep it playful. You will be much more willing to keep going if it’s fun, exciting, and you enjoy the challenge of advancement.

This is key to your business as well. You begin your business full of excitement and passion. Then you start building up the pressure to achieve and soon you notice that the work that used to bring you so much joy is now bringing you down.

Instead of beating yourself up and feeling down when you haven’t advanced as much as you would have liked, recommit. Ask what you can do differently. Check to see if you are putting too much pressure on yourself. Then, make adjustments. What can you do to make it more fun? How can you add fun (instead of pressure) to the challenge of progressing?

Come back to the place of heart. Remind yourself why you started your business to begin with – embody that feeling again. That feeling of excitement, purpose, and passion. What led to you losing it? What can you do to realign and come back to you? You are what make your business. It’s not your product or service, it’s you. When you have lost touch and connection with you, you lose your business. It becomes something outside of you, something to judge yourself against, something to use to prove you aren’t good enough when you aren’t progressing as much as you would like, it becomes your whip instead of your wand.

Begin again. Step into beginner mind. How would you most like to share your message today? How would you most like to serve your community today? What is your soul longing for that you’ve been denying? It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t matter if it isn’t related to your business. What matters is you showing up as the most true, authentic you there is. That is what people want. That is what people will pay for, not some fancy system, complicated strategy, or sophisticated philosophy – you in your divine power being unapologetically you.

It might sound crazy but it’s true. Your energy is everything. When you are deeply connected to you and your soul genius, all the pressure and anxiety fade away. You come back to your power, grounded and centered, trusting everything is working out in your highest good, always, no matter what. External circumstances have less effect on you because you know everything comes from within. When you cultivate that deep inner knowing, your inner wealth, worth, and wisdom are released and activated bringing you all that you desire and beyond.

Let go of the pressure. You know what you need to know. Stumble, Fall. Get back up. Be curious. Learn. Adjust. And most importantly, play. It’s all a game and you get to make up (and break) the rules all you want. Have fun with it. It’s your life after all.

 

 

P.S. I currently have an opening for two ready-to-bust-out-of-the-funk in their business and life and come back into alignment with their soul genius, rebel entrepreneurs. If you’re ready to get off the struggle bus for once and for all and live your life and business as a true reflection of you, let’s set up a time to talk. 

 

 

Autumnal Equinox, Labyrinths, and Ladybugs – the Call of your Soul

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I sat serenely on a weathered wooden chair, encircled by seven pine and cottonwood trees. The wind whistled as it rustled the leaves of the trees indicating the onset of autumn. The sky shifted from indigo to cerulean as a bright red ladybug nestled on a branch in between the thick, dark green pine needles mirroring my quiet contemplation.

 

This is my office. This sacred space with no walls, no doors, no ceilings, or borders is just as much my office as my office at home. Why? Because there is no separation, no division among work, life, and love. They are one in the same because they are me. Recording a video, writing an article or post, walking a labyrinth, performing improv, teaching, coaching, sitting in the center of a cluster of trees – they each contribute to my work, my relationships, and my soul. I am present to every moment, knowing that in that very moment, everything is perfect because what determines the moment is the state of my soul. The energy – the space of me – I bring and hold is what makes each moment.

 

My soul needs this – the wide open sky that feels as deep as the ocean, acres of open land, spaciousness – no constraints or limitations, simple freedom. The wind alternates between gentle and powerful as the sun shifts from warming the body to burning and reddening the skin. No worries, no cares, no attachments. Free and supported, guided, provided for. The cycle of creation and destruction and rebirth is unfettered and unbound. A tiny yellow bug with black polka dots explores the arm of the wooden chair, its antennae waving in the wind.

 

So many paths, some taken again and again until you realize, hmm, I’d like a different path now, none “better” than another, simply different as comparison and judgment fade. There is no destination. There is, and always will be, only the journey. It will shift and change directions. You will have different companions. Yet it will always be exactly as it is meant to be. No comparison to others’ journeys because there is only yours. You are always creating it. A chirp of a bird awakens me from my reverie, asking, what are you choosing here and now? Here and now. What are you choosing to believe, to think, to do, to be?

 

Grounded, rooted, strong, sturdy. Something amazingly unbelievably beautiful is happening right now. An awakening. An alchemy.

 

Are you brave enough to bare your soul? To invite others on your journey however disjointed it may feel right now? However messy it may look, you are still walking your path with grace, awareness, attention, and appreciation. It is the experience of how you’re choosing to show up for it – even in the most intense storm, you can remain the eye – calm, centered, unshakeable, alert, and responsive. It is the experience of every moment that makes up your life; how you choose to experience each moment is what matters.

 

Your life can change in an instant because you can change in an instant. As you invoke your divine sovereign power and tap into the kingdom of riches that resides within you, you are magnetic, transformative, purifying, disrupting, alchemizing, elevating, and captivating. The body as art, your work as art, your life as art, you as art. You are creating a masterpiece, moment by moment, hour by hour, day by day.