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    Back to Me: Authentic reflections, hilarious recollections, and hard truths on the road leading back to me
    Back to Me: Authentic reflections, hilarious recollections, and hard truths on the road leading back to me
    Back to Me: Authentic reflections, hilarious recollections, and hard truths on the road leading back to me
    Ebook145 pages2 hours

    Back to Me: Authentic reflections, hilarious recollections, and hard truths on the road leading back to me

    By Rachel D Fox

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    About this ebook

    The process of becoming authentic is not for the weary, but it pays off in the end. Over a span of 30 plus years, Rachel D. Fox has assimilated what it means to fully embrace all that she is. Back to Me is an eclectic and unfiltered memoir where you will immediately identify your crazy coworker, sister, homegirl, daughter, and mostly yourself to

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBright Communications LLC
    Release dateNov 12, 2021
    ISBN9781952481666
    Back to Me: Authentic reflections, hilarious recollections, and hard truths on the road leading back to me
    Author

    Rachel D Fox

    Rachel D. Fox has been empowering people to achieve their dreams for nearly two decades. Her unparalleled energy, humor, experience, and expertise have made her a trusted partner to individuals and institutions. She is a firm believer that nothing is impossible, and she is blessed with the opportunity to live out that belief daily. In addition to owning a business, Rachel is a motivational speaker. She is also the president of a flooring and remodeling company, which she cooperates with her husband. She founded You Go Girl, a non-profit organization dedicated to ending the cycle of self-doubt and low self-esteem in young women and girls. Rachel was named as a Greater Omaha Chamber Young Professionals Changemaker and was also granted the 2019 TOYO (Ten Outstanding Young Omahans) Award. Rachel was a top finalist for the Mrs. Nebraska pageant in 2019 and 2020. She was also the recipient of the Leadership Award from the Leadership Africa Summit in 2019.

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      Book preview

      Back to Me - Rachel D Fox

      PROLOGUE

      Iam fully aware that this has taken entirely too long to get out of me. I made deadlines. I posted pictures on my vision board. I made promises to myself and others, only to watch deadlines and commitments pass. I wasn’t lying. I had intentions to write and publish my first book in 2019. And, I did write. I just didn’t finish (story of my procrastinating life thus far).

      Here’s what I did do. I graduated from college. FINALLY! Honey, it took me 15 years to earn a four-year degree. But I did it! And excuse me, but 2020 came in like an unexpected period while on vacation, didn’t she? Wow! I can’t even begin to describe it but, you know. We all know.

      Some good did come out of 2020. I had a baby on the best possible day a person who loves Star Wars could. I can always tell my son, May the fourth be with you. And that will never get old. Ever. We also moved to a new place just before everything shut down and just in time for the new bundle of joy to arrive.

      I realized I don’t need as many clothes as I once thought. As it turns out, a nice shirt with a pair of leggings works well for any Zoom. I saved some money by not going out for coffee multiple times a week. Some other things I found myself doing during the Pandemic were:

      • Attending graduate school

      • Launching a YouTube channel

      • Starting a podcast

      • Becoming a homeschool teacher

      • Competing in a pageant

      All of this, and somehow I thought I would be able to write a book, too. Honestly, I was almost there. I was doing what seemed right. I had the perfect title, and I mocked up the book cover and the design layout. Then something happened. As I read through my work in the finishing stages, I realized I just didn’t enjoy what I was reading.

      Don’t get me wrong, it’s good stuff, and I might revisit it at some point. But it was missing something. Me. My authentic voice wasn’t in those pages. My desire to get it done was motivating that work more than my sheer love for writing. I wasn’t happy with it, so I stopped.

      I took some much-needed time to slow down. I stopped many things I was doing and began to do a self-assessment. I knew I couldn’t bear publishing something that I would cringe at later, almost like listening to the recording of me singing drunk karaoke on my 37th birthday. At the time, I thought I sounded like Whitney Houston herself. But in real life, it sounded more like Sexual Chocolate.

      So, there it is. It’s now 2021, and if 2020 was a bitch, this one is its evil half-sister. She could be nice, but she’s cranky and came in a little too hot for me. The world is opening back up, but there’s this false sense of security because our girl COVID has several close relatives. I feel like a beginner at in-person interactions after being indoors for over a year. I’ve forgotten how to dress or never seem to know whether to give a hug or an elbow bump. The mask is always on. Always.

      I’ve procrastinated a bunch. I can pretty much write an entire book about procrastination. Not on how to overcome it though, because I really haven’t, yet. I can write about how procrastination has produced some of my best speeches and breakthrough assignments, and how it also is the cause for many sweaty sleepless nights under pressure. It’s not fun.

      Sometime during the unsettling grounding that the pandemic placed me in, I began to evaluate my life. I wondered if I was where I wanted to be. I asked myself if what I was doing truly mattered. I was stuck. I felt there was more of myself to uncover.

      One night, I was scrolling through Instagram, and a live video was playing. I typically don’t listen in, but for some reason, this time, I decided to. Bozoma Saint John was with a friend talking about work, life, and some other things.

      If you’re not familiar with Bozoma Saint John, as of my typing this, she is the Global Chief Marketing Officer at Netflix and a total badass.

      Anyway, on this live show, her friend mentioned a book Bozoma recommended to him. He said it changed his life, and Bozoma returned the sentiments. The book was called The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. Immediately I searched Amazon for this book and purchased the bundle.

      Before my package arrived, I made a commitment to myself to go all the way in. I told myself that I would do whatever this book guided me to do. My motivation to rediscover my inner artist outweighed the daunting task of a 12-week program.

      I put everything on hold and got down to business. The business of knowing myself more. To face areas of my life that I’d hidden. To open valves in my heart that I’d shut off because of avoidance. To allow myself to dream again. I took myself on dates. I woke up every morning and wrote everything that was in my heart. I took no thought to who might read it. I just wrote.

      I went on a journey of self-discovery, and holy shit, I’ve written a lot. I’ve learned a lot. Now I’ve come to the place where I just want to share. Not preach or teach or self-help you, because the world has enough of that. Can I get an amen? Truthfully, I’m not quite sure if anything I’ve written will make much sense. But it will if you are the one meant to read this. I know that my words won’t hit everyone the same. And that’s okay.

      I’m banking on the fact that there is at least one person out there who feels like I did. Perhaps you are at an impasse in your life. You feel stuck. You want more, but you know something is holding you back.

      It is because of you that I wrote this book. When I started this new journey, I felt silly. What does a woman in her late 30s look like trying to discover herself? I’ll tell you what. It was the best set of steps I’ve ever taken, and my life has changed forever because I dared to do something silly.

      If you’re wondering if this book is for you, I’ll give you some hints. The woman (human) who reads this book is ready to embrace hard truths, sit with discomfort, and finally take ownership of her, his, or their own stories. I want the woman (human) who reads this book to say, If Rachel can, I know I can.

      If that’s you, read on.

      In this book, you will read my unapologetic truth, random thoughts, and funny stories that make up who I have come to be. Many times, I placed blame on things and people for situations in my life. That shaped the stories I would tell myself and others. As long as it’s someone else’s fault, I remained the victim. The most freeing action was to unearth the path leading back to me. When you can see your hand in your circumstances, you have the power to change them. That is precisely what I’ve done. I hope you can see yourself in my stories and find the confidence you need on the path back to you.

      LIFE DERAILED

      Afew people have told me that I am busy or that I’m doing too much. For a while, I rejected that notion. Haters. What do they know anyway? Plus, who wants to be called a busybody? Anyone? Not cool. However, as much as I hated to admit it, they were right.

      I was busy

      Busy building

      Busy connecting

      Busy growing my business

      Busy doing

      After all, that’s one of the reasons I jumped off the corporate ladder. I had to be free to dive into the world of entrepreneurship and chase boldly after my purpose. I needed the uninterrupted chance to try new things, set audacious goals, and watch myself crush them all. I had to be able to go after opportunities that propelled me forward without letting anything stop me.

      The other reason was very personal.

      In 2016, one of my children was diagnosed with a rare disease that currently has no cure. That gut punch completely caught me off guard and threw my life into a downward spiral. No one warned me that researching the latest developments, advocating for my child, getting tests, having treatments, and administering medicine would become the norm. I wasn’t prepared for it.

      The life I had grown accustomed to was over.

      I watched my daughter come uncomfortably close to death and rebound. She has suffered five relapses. That experience left a sobering message: Life is fragile. It’s these kind of things that keep me grounded. It is why I stay busy in a relentless pursuit of my true passions. Sometimes people will judge and speak to you from a different perspective. If you never knew why I chose to busy myself, you would assume that I’m just a busybody. That worked for me in that season of my life. Until recently, my life has been all about constant movement. Through success, failure, heart‐ break, tragedy, triumph, I kept moving.

      One year, I spoke at a conference, and I remember singing one of my favorite songs, I'm every woman! I wore this slogan boldly with my 11 children, husband, two businesses, nonprofit organization, teaching, acting, modeling, speaking, coaching, and whatever else I could do. I felt unstoppable, like nothing was impossible.

      Sometimes God has other plans.

      I remember riding my bike as a kid. In my neighborhood, there was a street that had a steep hill. Whenever I rode, it always felt like a roller coaster going down. The best part for me was the wind whipping me in the face. And oh! The feeling of being slightly out of control but being able to stop when I needed to.

      One day I was riding my bike down the hill with a friend of mine. I’m not sure if we were racing, but I recall that we were both pedaling fast down that street. As we reached the bottom of the hill, we collided. Off our bikes and onto the pavement we went. I couldn’t find the air to breathe because the wind had been knocked out of me. There was gravel in my hands, elbows, and knees. There was blood. This childhood experience is a replica of what has happened to me as an adult.

      2020 came, and I was moving full speed ahead as usual. I had a full schedule of speaking engagements, a baby on the way, a pageant to compete in, and I decided to go for my master’s degree because my schedule just wasn’t full enough. New Year, New Opportunities. I took every one of them as they came. When they didn’t come, I went looking for them. Each day, it seemed like I had something different to get involved with.

      My nonprofit organization, You Go Girl had taken on the Women’s Day March and planned to make a bold statement in celebration of International Women’s Day. The day of the march was

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