Change – Day 54

Sheyenne’s Story

I’m grew up in an environment where we were all involved in keeping the status quo and I’ve come to realize that I’m a change agent .  Learning to be who I’m meant to be has been quite an adventure!

I’m a person who definitely believes that we all have a very spiritual nature and we come to this planet with a mission and a purpose.  There are so many people right now, especially women, who feel they are called to do something.

It was 15 or 20 years ago when I spent a lot of time in meditation and prayer to get a sense of what I’m here to do.  It took a while for me to find some ideas and feelings.  As I started to take action I found myself in places that were incredibly uncomfortable for me.  I found myself diving into areas where there were lots of low income people and having these strong feelings that I had to help them find purpose and mission and find businesses. It scared the socks off me; I had no experience or basis for understanding them.

Then I found myself in another unexpected place, direct sales.  I was intrigued.  It gave common people ways to express themselves and make new income for themselves but I was also horrified by the stigma that the industry has; that anyone who’s involved in the industry is nothing but a badger; I didn’t want to be seen that way.

Everyone was beating a path to my door into that arena.  Everywhere I turned, I was being led into places that horrified me.  I wondered; is this what I was asking for?

It’s taken me on a journey over the last 15 years.  I never would have thought that I would go through bankruptcy and foreclosure and near splitting with my husband who didn’t understand why I needed to follow.

this path that, from a financial perspective, was pretty destructive.

Finally I came out to my husband and told him I’m being called to help others find passion and purpose.  I told him that I’d rather live in a tent than continue to see him burnt out and miserable and supporting the house and the cars.

It was a complete breakthrough for our relationship.

We started to create a business structure to support people to market their businesses at a community level.  It was a partnership with non-profits and to create what we call a for-profit community development corporation.  With all of the challenges that we have been going through we recognized that we’re just so close to the possibility of total financial collapse in this country.  For the people in low income areas, it would be so horrible.  We have come to depend on the government being able to continue to do what they’ve always done.

While we were putting this business model together I’d found all these compelling books about human potential and the power  we have to do more and be more.  It very much resonated with all we were doing.

Then I found a book written as a fictional story and it was a vision of how governance could be as a community.  I read the story and saw that he was describing business models that my husband and I have been building for the last decade or so.  It was all about how the political systems are holding people down and went on and on.  I looked at my husband and started crying.  I realized that here it is written it down; the scary part is that it’s tied to politics and I hate politics.

It was the most terrifying thing in the whole world.   Both of my parents worked for the government.  I know how much they hated it, how much they saw it was corrupt.  Once again I I was in the lion’s den, being led into something I don’t expect.

I got connected to a group of people working towards a more empowering form of governing for the people.  My husband is on board. We had a person visit and stay with us who ended up running as an independent presidential candidate.  My husband became inspired to run for governor and I can’t believe it.  More and more people are showing up and seeing how exciting it all is.

The bottom line for me is the difficulty of being true to oneself in a spiritual sense and being able to step into and embrace it even though it’s incredibly uncomfortable.  It’s been a 12 year challenge.  My husband’s decision meant that we were putting ourselves out there even though we are not the typical political people.

I panicked for most of the year until finally I learned how to work and live in this space.  As a result of the experience that we’ve had in learning about these systems and how we had to operate within them, we’re had to rebuild our business.  We need to help people understand that it’s a demonstration of the types of systems that can be built in government to put the power into the hands of the people.

He was unknown, we had zero funds. For us it was more about practicing being able to speak from this different place.  We learned huge amounts about how to position ourselves and not be part of the world that everyone’s sick and tired of.

Now we’re taking the next step to not be afraid to speak into that space, to let people know that there is a choice.  Our challenge is to learn to be at peace with what it is that we’re here to do.

It has scared me over and over again, it’s also incredibly empowering and exhilarating.  We’re walking the path we’ve agreed to walk.

We keep calling it un-political.  Right now there are small groups of people making huge decisions for the masses.  We now have technology that could put more back in the hands of the people.  If millions can sit in front of their TVs voting for American idol, there’s no reason why they can’t vote on things that affect their community.

We’re about entrepreneurship, small business; it doesn’t matter where you’ve come from, what you do, you can have the same opportunity as anyone.  My husband did that.  He came from low income, the projects.  He went to the Marine Corps and did really well in business.

It’s all about helping anyone to get started and start creating income in their business.  It’s all shifting and we’re so excited about it.  It’s taken so long to find comfort in the space where I can be of service. So much of it has been so scary.  Being a change agent in an arena where people are upset and disgusted with the way things are right now.

My dad and I wanted to be the un-change agents in the world.   I grew up hating change so much and he was the mirror for me.  He hated if my mother would move the furniture.  I was always right there with him!

Talk about growth.  Now I’ve become a real leader of change.

I guess I got what I asked for.

–   Sheyenne Kreamer can be found at independentvoters.weebly.com 

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