On Sunday night, something happened that left me completely gutted. We had just finished the final leg home from our incredible two-month slow travel adventure in Thailand. Our hearts were so full and our minds overflowing with all the wonderful memories we had made.

After a long 24 hours of travel, we hopped off our bus transfer at 10.30 at night, in the freezing cold, and went to reclaim our luggage, only to discover that our hand luggage – with my laptop and portable hard drives inside, my prescription glasses, all three of them, my husband's camera with all of his photos from the trip we hadn't even seen, jewelry my husband bought me in Hanoi, our personal paperwork, and so much more – well, they were nowhere to be seen.

Find My Macbook Pro revealed that they had been stolen from the bus luggage hold three hours away back in Barcelona. My friend, they were gone. And suddenly, we found ourselves having to head back to Spain to file a police report. Which was challenging to say the least, because if you've been following along, you'll know that Spanish is not exactly my forte. We finally crawled into bed at 4am this morning.

My week this week was supposed to be about settling back into home life, working on this week's podcast and feeling the afterglow of our travels. But instead, I've been navigating the fallout, the endless paperwork, the changing of critical passwords, and waves of anger, frustration, and devastation. Honestly, to say it's all a little overwhelming is an understatement.

And yet, feeling all the feels, feeling extremely tired, and still piecing things together, I wanted to show up for you this week, even if it's not in the way I left in draft mode on my stolen laptop. Because if there's one thing I've learned, it's that life is not about having nothing less than perfect moments. It's about embracing the human experience that comes with every moment. The good, the bad, and the downright ugly.

And I believe there's something valuable to share from the messiness of my experience. A reminder that even when life breaks you open, there is still strength to be found in choosing what you can do with what you do have.

So, join me and let's talk about allowing the human experience while still moving forward when life throws those inevitable curveballs.

Welcome to The Self-Creation School podcast, for women who are ready to ditch mediocrity, step up and get more of what they want, and finally say YES! to a life that sets their soul on fire. I'm your host Leanne Letica, Self-Creation Coach, founder of The Self-Creation School AND Queen of YES!. If you're ready to play life by your own personal rule book, and give yourself permission to say YES! to yourself and your wildest dreams, this podcast is the place for you.

Today I'm coming to you raw and real, my friend, because while I may have had a plan for this week's episode, life had other plans. And sometimes we need to let go of our plans and just go with what is. So, I thought I'd share with you how I'm doing exactly that.

If I'm honest, I feel very vulnerable to share that right now I am a complete mess. But I know that these moments, the ones where I don't have it all together, are just as important to share with you as my triumphant ones. And since I've had to dig really deep to practice what I preach right now, it is a perfect opportunity for me to share with you a real time example of doing this work.

So, first things first. This is probably going to be a much shorter episode than I normally deliver and despite my perfectionist self potentially feeling like I'm letting you down, I am showing myself grace. And for me, grace is always the place I start when I'm faced with the messiness of life.

Grace allows me to let go of the urge we often have at times like this to push through with business as usual and I'm not just talking about commerce here. I'm talking about the business of getting on with our everyday life when the reality is, life is anything but ordinary.

My day today is not an everyday experience, thankfully. And it is just so important to acknowledge when this happens and give yourself the grace of time to deal with it and to process all of the messy feels that come with this out of ordinary situation of the worst kind.

The truth is, life will throw curveballs and some of them will hit hard when you least expect it. And when that happens, it's all too easy for us to slip into this toxic kind of positivity that ignores the human experience we are having. We tell ourselves to be strong or stay positive, to put on a front and just get on with things. Because this is what society tells us we should do, right? But deep down, we are hurting.

And simply sweeping aside what is a completely normal human reaction to a traumatic set of events, and putting on a brave face, really doesn't serve us on any level. So, I have given myself permission to feel all the feels right now. To feel the frustration, the sadness, the anger, the unfairness of it all, the anxiety of our personal information maybe falling into the wrong hands.

And I want you to know if you are experiencing a roller coaster of emotions for any reason right now, that it's okay for you to do the same. I know it may sound a little contradictory, but part of taking control of your life experience means allowing yourself to fully experience all of your emotions, including the messy, complicated emotions that sometimes come with living life on this earth.

But it's not just about feeling the emotions. It's also about meeting those emotions with grace. Because let me tell you, I could beat myself up right now with stories like, “Why didn't we secure the luggage better?” “Why didn't I log out of my password app on my laptop?” “Why didn't we back up those precious photos from our camera?” But grace says, “You did your best, and that's enough.”

I could buy into the story that, in maybe being a little late with this week's issue of CREATED for the women on my weekly VIP list, that I am failing to live up to my promises. But grace says, “Do what you can, and trust that it's enough.”

I think we often forget to show ourselves the kindness we so freely offer others in their times of need. But we simply cannot grow, heal, or thrive without it. Listen, grace is the bridge that carries us from all that self-doubt and self-judgment that often plagues us when life doesn't go to plan, to a place of self-compassion. And with self-compassion comes the breathing space you need to be able to choose how to move forward.

In last week's episode, I spoke about gifting yourself the feelings you want to feel by choosing what you make everything mean and taking charge of your stories. Now, I could go with any number of stories that are running about inside my head right now. Disempowering stories of blame towards myself and my husband, the bus company, the thieves. Stories that make me feel all these intense negative emotions that I am feeling. And the kind of stories that most of us will respond with in times like this because we are human, and this is a perfectly normal human response.

But with self-compassion and the space to breathe we can work through these stories with so much more ease and clarity to clean them up and replace them with the kind of empowering stories that put you back in the driving seat of your life experience.

For me, that might look like the story of doing what we thought was best at the time in the circumstances we were placed. The story of the bus driver doing his best too and making what is, in all reality, a non-malicious human error. Who hasn't made one of those, right? And the story that those thieves were simply doing what they do best too, even though I might not agree with their actions.

At the end of the day, I cannot undo what has happened, just like you cannot undo the traumatic and hurtful events of your past and perhaps your present. But we can always choose what we make them mean, and in turn, how we respond.

You can focus on what you've lost, what something has cost you, and stay stuck in all of the messy negative emotions that do not serve you in the long run. Or with grace and self-compassion for what is, you can create the clarity of mind to focus on what you still have. And we always have the power to choose better stories that create more positive feelings and empower our actions moving forward.

The second thing I did as all of this unfolded, was to ask myself this question. I might not have our luggage, and I may be powerless to get it back, but what can I do with what I do have right now in this moment? That is the kind of question that opens the door to solutions. And what I know is, the faster you can open that door, the faster you can deal with both the circumstances you face and the stories causing you to feel all of those messy feelings.

Honestly, this one question in the heat of the moment truly saved me because it meant that I was able to solve the very first problem of my language barrier in making that initial police report. Which was to type out the situation, translate it into Spanish and take a printed copy for the police to read.

It seems like such a small thing, right? But when you are in the grips of chaos, it is these kind of small things that help you place one foot after another to keep moving forward and to not add fuel to the fire. To not make an already dramatic experience even more so because you don't know which way to turn. And taking any step forward, no matter how big or small, really does help you to stand in the power you do have in situations where you might feel like you're powerless.

On that note, and I also talked about this last week, let's talk about the drama because what I want for you to understand is that the drama is of your making. I know that sounds tough, but I say this from a place of tough love, my friend.

My lost luggage is a neutral event. It is simply something that happened. The event itself does not cause me to feel all of these messy emotions. I can pretty much guarantee that no one else really cares about my lost luggage. And it becomes a drama for me only through what I make it mean and what I make all the individual things I now need to deal with mean. All of that, without meaning, are just events. Events are neutral.

And if you haven't listened to last week's episode, I highly encourage you to go back and take a listen to this to understand this concept on an even deeper level.

What I will say today is that, once again, it is completely normal for these kind of challenging times to feel dramatic. But you can take control of your life experience by choosing not to stay stuck in that place of drama. And you can do that by doing what you can do with what you do have. What you do have is It's the power to choose the meaning you attach to what is an otherwise neutral event.

And the reality is, for all of us, me included, is that this work to take control of our life experience often happens on the run and we do not always get it perfect. Listen, life doesn't wait for us to have everything figured out and everything in perfect order. It's messy, it's hard, and it often doesn't go to plan. But that's what showing up for yourself and doing this work that I share with you here on this podcast and in my weekly emails and through my coaching, that's why it matters just so much.

I don't suggest that any of this is all that easy, especially in the heat of the moment. But it is doable, and it will positively impact your life if you choose to do it. By allowing yourself to have what is a normal human experience – without beating yourself up, sweeping your feelings under the carpet, and focusing on what you can do, instead of the cost or everything you've lost – you can and will reclaim your power to create the life experience you want.

And isn't that what saying YES! to ourselves is all about? It's not about perfection. It's about presence. Being present in every moment and choosing intentionally how to create the moments that follow. Sometimes life's detours remind us to slow down, to be present and to reassess what truly matters. They're not here to derail us. They're here to teach us.

And while I'm still reconciling all of the lessons in this particular detour, I know that saying YES! to life means saying YES! to the unexpected and the unpleasant with the resilience of a woman who creates the life experience she wants.

Here's what I want to leave you with today.

When life goes off script, let it. Give yourself permission to feel all the feels that come with it. Every tear, every pang of frustration, every flicker of sadness. Meet those feelings with grace. And remember that even in the trauma of your chaos, you have the power to choose to release the drama and you can choose how you move forward.

And with that, I'm bringing this week's episode to a close.

Thank you for holding space for me today to share this with you. If you've faced a curveball recently, or you're dealing with one right now, I hope this helps you in some small way and serves as a reminder that you are not alone in this beautifully messy human experience.

I'll catch you next Wednesday, same time, same place.

Until then, be the woman who says YES!

Hey, want to know what's stopping you from saying YES! to you and a life you love?

Head over to https://selfcreationschool.com/yesblock and take my FREE 60 second quiz to find out what's standing in your way today and I'll send you my Self-Creation Shift process for shifting it.

That's https://selfcreationschool.com/yesblock. I’ll see you there.

On Sunday night, something happened that left me completely gutted. We had just finished the final leg home from our incredible two-month slow travel adventure in Thailand. Our hearts were so full and our minds overflowing with all the wonderful memories we had made.

After a long 24 hours of travel, we hopped off our bus transfer at 10.30 at night, in the freezing cold, and went to reclaim our luggage, only to discover that our hand luggage – with my laptop and portable hard drives inside, my prescription glasses, all three of them, my husband's camera with all of his photos from the trip we hadn't even seen, jewelry my husband bought me in Hanoi, our personal paperwork, and so much more – well, they were nowhere to be seen.

Find My Macbook Pro revealed that they had been stolen from the bus luggage hold three hours away back in Barcelona. My friend, they were gone. And suddenly, we found ourselves having to head back to Spain to file a police report. Which was challenging to say the least, because if you've been following along, you'll know that Spanish is not exactly my forte. We finally crawled into bed at 4am this morning.

My week this week was supposed to be about settling back into home life, working on this week's podcast and feeling the afterglow of our travels. But instead, I've been navigating the fallout, the endless paperwork, the changing of critical passwords, and waves of anger, frustration, and devastation. Honestly, to say it's all a little overwhelming is an understatement.

And yet, feeling all the feels, feeling extremely tired, and still piecing things together, I wanted to show up for you this week, even if it's not in the way I left in draft mode on my stolen laptop. Because if there's one thing I've learned, it's that life is not about having nothing less than perfect moments. It's about embracing the human experience that comes with every moment. The good, the bad, and the downright ugly.

And I believe there's something valuable to share from the messiness of my experience. A reminder that even when life breaks you open, there is still strength to be found in choosing what you can do with what you do have.

So, join me and let's talk about allowing the human experience while still moving forward when life throws those inevitable curveballs.

Welcome to The Self-Creation School podcast, for women who are ready to ditch mediocrity, step up and get more of what they want, and finally say YES! to a life that sets their soul on fire. I'm your host Leanne Letica, Self-Creation Coach, founder of The Self-Creation School AND Queen of YES!. If you're ready to play life by your own personal rule book, and give yourself permission to say YES! to yourself and your wildest dreams, this podcast is the place for you.

Today I'm coming to you raw and real, my friend, because while I may have had a plan for this week's episode, life had other plans. And sometimes we need to let go of our plans and just go with what is. So, I thought I'd share with you how I'm doing exactly that.

If I'm honest, I feel very vulnerable to share that right now I am a complete mess. But I know that these moments, the ones where I don't have it all together, are just as important to share with you as my triumphant ones. And since I've had to dig really deep to practice what I preach right now, it is a perfect opportunity for me to share with you a real time example of doing this work.

So, first things first. This is probably going to be a much shorter episode than I normally deliver and despite my perfectionist self potentially feeling like I'm letting you down, I am showing myself grace. And for me, grace is always the place I start when I'm faced with the messiness of life.

Grace allows me to let go of the urge we often have at times like this to push through with business as usual and I'm not just talking about commerce here. I'm talking about the business of getting on with our everyday life when the reality is, life is anything but ordinary.

My day today is not an everyday experience, thankfully. And it is just so important to acknowledge when this happens and give yourself the grace of time to deal with it and to process all of the messy feels that come with this out of ordinary situation of the worst kind.

The truth is, life will throw curveballs and some of them will hit hard when you least expect it. And when that happens, it's all too easy for us to slip into this toxic kind of positivity that ignores the human experience we are having. We tell ourselves to be strong or stay positive, to put on a front and just get on with things. Because this is what society tells us we should do, right? But deep down, we are hurting.

And simply sweeping aside what is a completely normal human reaction to a traumatic set of events, and putting on a brave face, really doesn't serve us on any level. So, I have given myself permission to feel all the feels right now. To feel the frustration, the sadness, the anger, the unfairness of it all, the anxiety of our personal information maybe falling into the wrong hands.

And I want you to know if you are experiencing a roller coaster of emotions for any reason right now, that it's okay for you to do the same. I know it may sound a little contradictory, but part of taking control of your life experience means allowing yourself to fully experience all of your emotions, including the messy, complicated emotions that sometimes come with living life on this earth.

But it's not just about feeling the emotions. It's also about meeting those emotions with grace. Because let me tell you, I could beat myself up right now with stories like, “Why didn't we secure the luggage better?” “Why didn't I log out of my password app on my laptop?” “Why didn't we back up those precious photos from our camera?” But grace says, “You did your best, and that's enough.”

I could buy into the story that, in maybe being a little late with this week's issue of CREATED for the women on my weekly VIP list, that I am failing to live up to my promises. But grace says, “Do what you can, and trust that it's enough.”

I think we often forget to show ourselves the kindness we so freely offer others in their times of need. But we simply cannot grow, heal, or thrive without it. Listen, grace is the bridge that carries us from all that self-doubt and self-judgment that often plagues us when life doesn't go to plan, to a place of self-compassion. And with self-compassion comes the breathing space you need to be able to choose how to move forward.

In last week's episode, I spoke about gifting yourself the feelings you want to feel by choosing what you make everything mean and taking charge of your stories. Now, I could go with any number of stories that are running about inside my head right now. Disempowering stories of blame towards myself and my husband, the bus company, the thieves. Stories that make me feel all these intense negative emotions that I am feeling. And the kind of stories that most of us will respond with in times like this because we are human, and this is a perfectly normal human response.

But with self-compassion and the space to breathe we can work through these stories with so much more ease and clarity to clean them up and replace them with the kind of empowering stories that put you back in the driving seat of your life experience.

For me, that might look like the story of doing what we thought was best at the time in the circumstances we were placed. The story of the bus driver doing his best too and making what is, in all reality, a non-malicious human error. Who hasn't made one of those, right? And the story that those thieves were simply doing what they do best too, even though I might not agree with their actions.

At the end of the day, I cannot undo what has happened, just like you cannot undo the traumatic and hurtful events of your past and perhaps your present. But we can always choose what we make them mean, and in turn, how we respond.

You can focus on what you've lost, what something has cost you, and stay stuck in all of the messy negative emotions that do not serve you in the long run. Or with grace and self-compassion for what is, you can create the clarity of mind to focus on what you still have. And we always have the power to choose better stories that create more positive feelings and empower our actions moving forward.

The second thing I did as all of this unfolded, was to ask myself this question. I might not have our luggage, and I may be powerless to get it back, but what can I do with what I do have right now in this moment? That is the kind of question that opens the door to solutions. And what I know is, the faster you can open that door, the faster you can deal with both the circumstances you face and the stories causing you to feel all of those messy feelings.

Honestly, this one question in the heat of the moment truly saved me because it meant that I was able to solve the very first problem of my language barrier in making that initial police report. Which was to type out the situation, translate it into Spanish and take a printed copy for the police to read.

It seems like such a small thing, right? But when you are in the grips of chaos, it is these kind of small things that help you place one foot after another to keep moving forward and to not add fuel to the fire. To not make an already dramatic experience even more so because you don't know which way to turn. And taking any step forward, no matter how big or small, really does help you to stand in the power you do have in situations where you might feel like you're powerless.

On that note, and I also talked about this last week, let's talk about the drama because what I want for you to understand is that the drama is of your making. I know that sounds tough, but I say this from a place of tough love, my friend.

My lost luggage is a neutral event. It is simply something that happened. The event itself does not cause me to feel all of these messy emotions. I can pretty much guarantee that no one else really cares about my lost luggage. And it becomes a drama for me only through what I make it mean and what I make all the individual things I now need to deal with mean. All of that, without meaning, are just events. Events are neutral.

And if you haven't listened to last week's episode, I highly encourage you to go back and take a listen to this to understand this concept on an even deeper level.

What I will say today is that, once again, it is completely normal for these kind of challenging times to feel dramatic. But you can take control of your life experience by choosing not to stay stuck in that place of drama. And you can do that by doing what you can do with what you do have. What you do have is It's the power to choose the meaning you attach to what is an otherwise neutral event.

And the reality is, for all of us, me included, is that this work to take control of our life experience often happens on the run and we do not always get it perfect. Listen, life doesn't wait for us to have everything figured out and everything in perfect order. It's messy, it's hard, and it often doesn't go to plan. But that's what showing up for yourself and doing this work that I share with you here on this podcast and in my weekly emails and through my coaching, that's why it matters just so much.

I don't suggest that any of this is all that easy, especially in the heat of the moment. But it is doable, and it will positively impact your life if you choose to do it. By allowing yourself to have what is a normal human experience – without beating yourself up, sweeping your feelings under the carpet, and focusing on what you can do, instead of the cost or everything you've lost – you can and will reclaim your power to create the life experience you want.

And isn't that what saying YES! to ourselves is all about? It's not about perfection. It's about presence. Being present in every moment and choosing intentionally how to create the moments that follow. Sometimes life's detours remind us to slow down, to be present and to reassess what truly matters. They're not here to derail us. They're here to teach us.

And while I'm still reconciling all of the lessons in this particular detour, I know that saying YES! to life means saying YES! to the unexpected and the unpleasant with the resilience of a woman who creates the life experience she wants.

Here's what I want to leave you with today.

When life goes off script, let it. Give yourself permission to feel all the feels that come with it. Every tear, every pang of frustration, every flicker of sadness. Meet those feelings with grace. And remember that even in the trauma of your chaos, you have the power to choose to release the drama and you can choose how you move forward.

And with that, I'm bringing this week's episode to a close.

Thank you for holding space for me today to share this with you. If you've faced a curveball recently, or you're dealing with one right now, I hope this helps you in some small way and serves as a reminder that you are not alone in this beautifully messy human experience.

I'll catch you next Wednesday, same time, same place.

Until then, be the woman who says YES!

Hey, want to know what's stopping you from saying YES! to you and a life you love?

Head over to https://selfcreationschool.com/yesblock and take my FREE 60 second quiz to find out what's standing in your way today and I'll send you my Self-Creation Shift process for shifting it.

That's https://selfcreationschool.com/yesblock. I’ll see you there.