After the ugly crying stopped, I remember looking up and seeing everyone look at me the exact same way they were before I told them this. They were comforting, encouraging, and treated me no differently. I realized in that moment that I had so much shame around my debt that I was punishing myself – that I thought it made me a “bad person”. That I thought people wouldn’t respect me the same way if they knew. The only way to make me feel better was by giving and giving and giving to people as that made me a, “good person”. I realized I was in a vicious cycle of not being able to accept and keep money in my life. I was also not attracting it.

This is all so personal for me to share but I want others in this same position to know that if you stick to Sue’s teachings, you can turn this around. That if you forgive yourself and move on, this can be turned around but you have to do the work. Sue talked to be about debt that was servicing me vs debt that was causing me to shut down. And of course, it all came back to personal blocks and bad money programming.

Today, just over a year later, I have my own studio in a small but significant sized town in northern BC, Canada. My business is now incorporated and I just hired my first employee. I am now reaching $20k+ monthly sales and I just closed my highest monthly average ever (all portrait sales, no weddings!). I’ve also just booked in my 57th client for the year and my goal was 70. This would have never happened for me if I hadn’t had broken down in front of Sue and everyone that day.

I wanted to say that as of my wedding day in a few weeks that I will be completely debt free but I still have a bit of work to do. With the growth spurt of my business since that day, it also required me to invest. The difference now is that I have the work in front of me to be debt free in the next few months along with savings and more work ahead. I have a business that I’m proud of and excited about – one that has a future. I shifted my mind frame around having debt and got it to serve me vs me serving it. I’ve done the personal work, I’ve set myself up and now it’s a matter of wash, rinse, repeat. I’m steering the ship and it excites me beyond measure! AND I feel no guilt, no shame. I’ve forgiven myself and it has turned me into a service machine.

So for anyone out there that is stuck in a financial rut. Please own up to it, take responsibility, and forgive yourself. You are not a bad person, there is just work to do (there always will be).You never know where you could be a year from now if you take responsibility today! What helped me the most on Sue’s Education site was: The Money Wheel of Misfortune, all of the self value videos, and the Sales & Marketing Intensives.

Many of you probably feel like me in that we will never be able to give back to Sue what she has given to us. But what we can do is be vulnerable, be brave, build incredible businesses, and then share our success stories with others so that they can also trust, and benefit from Sue’s education.

Love you Sue! xo

Emily”