05 January 2026
Turning the Lights Back On in My Pinball Machine
2026 is the numerological year of 1. It is about the self, new beginnings and new growth, and I have been renewed even this very afternoon.
It struck me towards the end of last year why the unceremonious coaching session from 6 YEARS AGO with a pair of business coaches had damaged me so drastically. I am the golden child. The one who is always upstanding, reliable, dependable and capable. Never in my entire life has anyone thought to use the word “disappointment” in association with me. And yet here they were, saying exactly that. Saying that I had wasted their time by being in their company, seeking advice and then seemingly not taking it.
I took the advice that worked for me and left the rest, as you do, but I thought we had a friendship. I thought we were colleagues. Apparently not. They sat me down and tore apart my dreams thread by thread. "You shouldn't try and be famous", "Acupuncture is where you belong", "There's no money in writing".
They weren’t happy until they had me in tears.
Even now, as I write this first post of the year, I realise that the only one holding me back was myself — but I was doing the best with what I had. You can’t expect a beaten inner child to not blame themselves for their pain. If they were just better, faster, smarter, nicer, or more, then maybe they wouldn’t get hit and berated. Maybe they’d be worth loving.
Well, I say to you now: let this be your reminder that you, your inner child and your self in all forms, are worth loving. You always have been worthy of unconditional love at all times. Your body is worth loving, your mind is worth loving, and your soul is worth loving. We’re all made of love.
To my inner child: You are so bright, so fun, and I love talking to you. I love your cuddles and I love all the art you make. You’re the friendliest person in the room and you make everyone feel welcome. You can achieve anything you put your mind to. You are limitless.
If you need help, I’m here. I know it’s hard to ask, but I am here and I see you. When you need to rest, rest. When you need to play, play. Life is full of wonder and, as Grandma told us in the words of the amazing Jo Dee Messina, “When you get the choice to sit it out, or dance; I hope you dance.”
As I sat up straighter in my car, because the self-imposed weight of the guilt of disappointing others melted off me like butter on summer tarmac, I felt my pinball machine kick back into life. The lights rolled on like a wave of suppressed creativity and I stood at the helm, hand gingerly over the plunger.
My pinball machine definitely looks like the old early-2000s computer game that came with the family PC and sat next to Minesweeper and Solitaire, and I was finally ready to play!
I stopped creating things that I wanted to and started thinking that I should create them, or that I needed to make certain things. The joy of my pinball focus bounced into a dark, single-spot-lit machine with one path, and if you strayed for any reason, you’d be forcefully shoved back into line.
I had done to myself exactly what they had tried to do to me, just in a different lane. Then, as penance for disappointing them, I hurled myself into non-profit volunteer work and went into every shoehorned path I could get into, desperately wondering where my creativity had gone.
The weight off my back and the sense of lightness. The freedom from that control! As I realised that their disappointment is their own shackles, not mine, I was suddenly free.
One of the key things that happened when I felt the building guilt from disappointing them with my career choice was that now every action had to be measured and weighed. If it didn’t yield results, it needed to be cut immediately. No matter how fun, how joyful, how much it meant to me and my audience — if it didn’t translate to dollars and work, it was useless. What a sad way to view life!
After the first time I read any Louise Hay, I stopped taking responsibility for other people’s feelings, and I didn’t make my feelings anyone else’s fault. Clearly, I’ve slipped back into that way of thinking over the years and I needed a solid but gentle reminder of what I already knew.
Them feeling disappointed in me actually has nothing to do with me at all. It is their perceptions, their sense of scarcity of their energy, and their own personal fears leading them to seek control over others.
And they were saying that I was wrong and selfish and a disappointment for wanting to do just that.
Well, this epiphany that has brought all of this to a cleansing end came in the car today. I’d just picked up anxiety medication for the cats to stop them from peeing where they shouldn’t and to help them put on some weight. Lilith was in the back seat, and Louise Hay was speaking spiritual nourishment to the confines of my battered red Hyundai.She didn’t even say it directly, but the message came through clear. I’m not responsible for their feelings of disappointment. I’m going to say it again for me. I am not responsible for their feelings of disappointment.
Recently, I aimed to read The Power Is Within You by Louise Hay because I needed some softness and care. I needed less masculine energy. For six years I tried the hard, hustling, unforgiving masculine energy. All it did was burn me out and built this mound of guilt that sat on my back. It was important to find gentleness to finally heal from their attack on my very identity because if I didn't now, than who was I going to be for my daughter? But, in true Rhiannon fashion, I have the book sitting there and I haven’t opened it. Instead, I found a YouTube video of the audiobook. Probably not legal, but this way I was able to listen to it in my car and around the house while I’m tending to my baby. I hope Hay House is getting the money for the views at a minimum.
In the chapter where she starts talking about anger and how to let go of those who have harmed you, something profound happened. Initially, I knew that what they had done was attack my identity. It attacked a core part of me, but what part? But then I realised that it was my fear of disappointing others.
I had never disappointed anyone before in any capacity that I couldn’t amend in a “win win” way. What they were asking was for me to stay in acupuncture even though I was completely burnt out from it. Managers I couldn't mesh with, the extra work involved, the sameness, the constant giving — I couldn’t stomach it any longer. I wanted to pursue my dream. A dream I’d held ever since I was a child. The first career path my soul ever called me to. To be a fiction author. To create.
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