While I am not a huge fan of sports, I find myself walking into a professional basketball stadium early on a Thursday morning. For weeks, I just couldn’t even open my eyes without seeing a TONY ROBBINS UPW NY/NJ Area! ad/blog post/banner online. Finally, I just had to do something about it. Having been thinking a lot lately about developing a more purpose-driven life, this came at just the right time for me to SAY YES.
Outwardly I am a very confident person, I think people would describe me as such. But today something felt a little different. There were so many people around the arena with such EAGERNESS in their eyes, they were nice, welcoming and freely handing out the HIGH FIVES. Honestly, it was overwhelming, I felt my body language crouching down and away. I’ve been to a few events like this and there is always a creeper, a weirdo, someone a little needy and too clingy and, man, do they find me and completely ruin my experience. So in order to combat this rampant problem in my life, I shut down, I don’t high five, I avert my eyes. But they just won’t quit. Everywhere you turn someone wants to ENGAGE with you. I text my friend. This is a weird idea. I just know that someone is going to try to sabotage my experience. I then tell myself, I can leave whenever I want. I high-five a few people.
So after the long gauntlet of high fives I am ready to enter the inner arena and find my seat. The lights are up, the stage is set and its incredible. The production is just impressive. I struggle to find my seat, mainly I can’t read the signage because of everything going on. A nice lady guides me to a spot at the same time that this other man is getting guided to a spot right next to me. He sits down and basically tells me how his morning went, which was a carbon copy of my morning, complete with reluctant high fives, not reading the signs and struggling to find a seat. I tell him SAME and he says – must be providence that we sat next to each other. OH BOY I FOUND THE WEIRDO. He goes into his bag to pull out his notebook and his Tom Ford glasses case falls out. I have the same case. He’s right. Its providence.
Moments later the dancers enter the stage. They are professional sports team dancers. They are good. They definitely get the crowd going and my mind goes in all different directions. WHAT IS THIS. Then the lights dim. Then the voice comes over and across the screen you see the text – LET TONY HEAR YOU. People go completely ape shit. Jumping, screaming. My new friend and I are just looking around in total awe. He pulls out his phone to document this wild experience. I try. I fumble with my phone and cannot even find my photo icon to try to take a video of all of this and then you see this silhouette center stage. Ladies and Gentleman please welcome to the stage…Tony Robbins! TURN DOWN FOR WHAT. He’s got these big sticks. He is banging them together with such HEAT and you can’t even help yourself from tearing up a little at everything happening around you. Something makes me start jumping up and down and SHAKING MY ASS like never before. Is it possible to change your life in as little as 45 minutes?
Fast forward 92 hours later, no food, no bathroom breaks, nothing but pure LOVE shared between Tony, his team and us. You feel it. You are changed. You have seen a light that didn’t exist in your life before all of this. I mean, I meditated and felt like I was floating at the ceiling of the arena. WHO CAN MAKE YOU EVEN DO THAT? Well its Master Ko, that’s who, and Tony. We get a final speech on reentry which you MUST hear because, having reentered, I needed those tools. But that is just 1 of many tools that I got to put in my new toolbox. I find myself describing my life ‘Pre-Tony’ and ‘Post-Tony’. And while that may annoy some people, I have found a peace in my life that I was searching for so desperately for so many years. Please let me share who I was pre-Tony and who I am post-Tony. I only want you to know that focusing on your personal development will get you to these aha! places and you will start to see changes that stick.
1. Physical
SARA PRE TONY:
I read all the books on eating right and exercising! I know all the stuff! I give all of the advice!
SARA POST TONY:
I DO the things that I read in the books! I have adopted a nearly all plant-based diet and continue to revise to find foods that give me energy and make me feel good! I don’t place unrealistic goals about exercise on myself anymore. Thinking that I have to go to the gym for an hour every day is enough to send you into a serious shame spiral if you cannot accomplish that. I’ve lost weight. I feel less anxiety. I am healing.
2. Emotional
SARA PRE TONY:
Outwardly confident and unshakable but what the world didn’t see was how much I was trying to be this version of myself was draining my energy and completely not authentic.
SARA POST TONY:
Believing in myself and trusting my intuition and capabilities rather than ‘fake it ‘til you make it’ Acquiring tools to use that if I revert back to the old ways I can completely take myself out of it and do only things that energize me. Stopped with the martyrdom. Set realistic expectations.
3. Mental
SARA PRE TONY:
AVOID, PROCRASTINATE, MAKE SOMEONE ELSE DO IT, HELL BLAME SOMEONE ELSE FOR IT
SARA POST TONY:
Using Visualization techniques to see myself on the other side. An old colleague of mine used to say, before we tackled a big project, imagine how future Sara feels now that this is done. WHY DIDN’T I LISTEN TO HIM. When you see yourself accomplishing a task, big or small, you move through it with ease
4. Spiritual
SARA PRE TONY:
God who? Universe how? I’ve attended Abraham-Hicks, read Eckart Tolle and studied Religion in college but I was DIVORCED from any belief system that defined faith. In fact, I vehemently reacted to anyone who tried to bring up God in any sort of conversation. I MUST BE HEARD. STOP WITH THE MAGIC SPACE LORD PEOPLE.
SARA POST TONY:
It doesn’t have to be a white man with a white beard, it can be your higher self. Having faith and trust in the universe is comforting and I have seen the real effects of believing in this order.
Through an exercise where you and a partner transferred energy between the two of you – two people who do not know each other – I felt her energy between us, above her head, there is something in the void and its beautiful. Its also a really nice feeling to not be alone and when you are working in conjunction with your higher self and you make a hell of a lot of better decisions when you ask yourself WHAT WOULD TONY DO.