REINSTATE YOUR WINGS

By Indi Havana

INDI HAVANA HAS A PASSION FOR FITNESS AND WELLNESS AND ENCOURAGES PEOPLE TO SUCCEED WITH THEIR GOALS IN LIFE. 

She offers her wealth of knowledge through fitness sessions and wellness/holistic coaching. After opening up her own business, she endured a very difficult couple of years involving an abusive partnership with a narcissist.&n

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shawline Publishing Group
• Release date: Sep 25, 2022
• ISBN: 9781922850102

Indi Havana

Indi Havana has a passion for fitness and wellness and encourages people to succeed with their goals in life. She works through her business soul, body coach to work on mindset, holistic health, wellness coaching, fitness training, nutrition and mind, body and spirit work.

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Reinstate Your Wings © 2022 Indi Havana.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

This is a work of nonfiction. The events and conversations in this book have been set down to the best of the author’s ability, although some names and details may have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals. Every effort has been made to trace or contact all copyright holders. The publishers will be pleased to make good any omissions or rectify any mistakes brought to their attention at the earliest opportunity.

Printed in Australia

Cover design by Shawline Publishing Group Pty Ltd

Images in this book are the copyright of Shawline Publishing Group Pty Ltd

Illustrations within this book are the copyright of Shawline Publishing Group Pty Ltd

First Printing: September 2022

Shawline Publishing Group Pty Ltd

www.shawlinepublishing.com.au

Paperback ISBN 978-1-9228-5005-8

eBook ISBN 978-1-9228-5010-2

Acknowledgements

My gorgeous friends, you all know who you are, thank you

for your support through the hard times I encountered.

I am forever grateful for having you all in my life.

Free Falling

As I proudly stood in the office of my brand-new business, I breathed a sigh of relief that finally my long-term dream had come true. All the tension and build up I’d had to endure over the past three years has paid off. As I sat down at my desk in my office, I attended to my daily duties. I had a smile from ear to ear when, all of a sudden, the office doors burst open. It was my business partner and he has stormed into the room and closed the door behind him. As I looked up at him, all I could see was a very angry man, sweating and shaking. He yelled at me, ‘What have you been doing? No one is in here. I have been told you have been showing family and friends around and not doing your daily duties.’ I was stunned. He was yelling at me like I was his property.

I could not believe what I was hearing. All I could think was, Is this really happening? What the hell have I got myself into? My blood was boiling; I yelled back, ‘Excuse me, you don’t get to talk to me like that. We haven’t even been open a week and I’m trying to find my feet in here.’ I stopped myself from saying anymore as I wasn’t going to let my business partner Rodney treat me like I was his possession, so I stormed out of the building with tears streaming down my face. I walked up and down the road, taking in deep breaths and pinching myself, hoping this was a bad dream and that a very angry man hadn’t just verbally abused me. I hadn’t seen this side of him before. I had committed so much of my heart and soul into this business and I definitely did not financially sign up with someone who thinks they can abuse and have authority over me. I called my husband at the time to come and pick me up. He had dropped me off earlier that day, as our little baby was due to go home for his nap. I was so upset, I got into the car and said I couldn’t believe he had just done this to me. Mac wasn’t happy either, but we talked and after I calmed myself down, off I went back to work to carry on with my day.

Before opening the business, my business partner, Rodney Ham, wanted his friend Becky to come on board to teach and work in the business, as he thought she would be ideal. Well, she was very lovely and friendly until the doors officially opened.

I worked extensively with Becky for two months prior to opening doing pre-sale. Lots of exposure around town marketing the opening of the club. I knew a few business owners that were more than happy for us to put posters and flyers in their businesses and helped spread the word for us.

Three years prior, I was six weeks pregnant attending our first official meeting with a potential landlord. As we approached the building, a lady named Meg, personal assistant to Dane, the landlord, greeted us. I introduced myself, as did Rodney and we sat down to officially start the meeting. As we pitched our proposal, Dane didn’t seem that interested at all. His main concern was another business like ours, which had recently opened and was very popular. He was unsure that a little town could cope with another business like ours at this stage, however; he did like the fact that we were both local with young families and my husband played football with his son.

A week later, Mac attended the second meeting to meet Dane. After much consideration, Dane was open to hear more details about our Health Club. Dane agreed to build and lease his land to us. This was a massive tick for us to accomplish. We were set and all very happy.

One year went on and nothing much was happening as we had so many holdups with the council, the architect and planning. These holdups were out of our control and I didn’t mind, as I was so busy at home with my three children. My healthy baby boy arrived that year just before Christmas three weeks early, so we were blissfully happy. My three children included a newborn, another one starting preschool and one starting school, so it was going to be a busy year for me. I was grateful the business was a little way off so I could be at home with my children.

I am a big believer in things happening when they are meant to and the universe always sending us beautiful messages. You just have to consciously be aware of them and take them in.

My second week in the business and I was full of excitement at finally being a business owner.

I was in one of the offices sorting out stock when I had my employee Becky Reid come in and burst out saying, this business is going to go under because Rodney and myself are not in here enough and it’s unprofessional. Clearly, she was hired, as we do both have families and can’t be in there six days a week. That is why we hire staff. I was gob-smacked again thinking, Who are these people? Thinking they can just have outbursts at me whenever they feel like it. Clearly, I have a sign on me saying yell at me to make yourselves feel better!

It was as if it was my fault we were having a quiet spell. We were never expecting lines of people queuing up at the doors, but clearly Rodney and Becky were. After my business partner and employee had outbursts at me, my intuition was telling me something was not right here.

As I walked upstairs to Becky’s fitness class that I had decided to book into that morning to try out, as she was one of my instructors, I was thinking, Ok, I’ve been a mum for the past six years at home and now I’m out in the real world dealing with all kinds of personalities. As I set up for the class, I was starting to wonder what the hell had I done to these thick as thieves, hotheaded pair. I was thinking during the class, her eyes were like the green-eyed monster yelling at me and I swear there was smoke coming out of those ears of hers.

On the drive home I kept thinking, Is it jealousy? Is she envious that I have this business and she wants to destroy my dreams? I had a strong feeling Rodney and Becky had brought some very bad energy into the business and they were two partners in crime.

I needed some good energy flowing back around me, so my girlfriend came on board. She had been made aware of all that was happening, so she was my wing girl. It was so nice to have Greta working for me, as she is a mother, too. A little break is always nice to have when as a mother, we are always busy with our children and never have time to cater for our own needs. Sometimes it’s nice to acknowledge that we can do it all and not just assign ourselves to one task. Greta was a god-send in the business, as she could see what exactly was going on and voiced her opinions to Rodney and Becky when she thought it was needed. It wasn’t a great situation to be in at this stage, but I was already so deep in, there was no turning back now, only moving forward.

We were on the hunt for new staff as Becky had brought her two girls in from her previous business, but also needed coverage for office hours, as all the staff had children and couldn’t work the evening shifts. I came across Leanne, who ticked all the qualifications needed for the role and conveniently was happy to do office hours, too. She was a breath of fresh air, so positive and easygoing. I could already feel the two split sides in here. Becky thought she was the boss and organised everything her way, including her staff. She had definitely worded them up about me, as the communication I received from them at the start was just plain rude.

I was always a happy, fair boss to them, but unfortunately, it seemed she wanted what I had and she was going to play her game whilst working in there under Rodney’s thumb.

That week I caught up with a girlfriend for a cheeky Sunday afternoon wine, when she was telling me she was having a coffee with her girlfriend yesterday morning. Becky stopped and chatted to her friend. After she left, her girlfriend said, ‘Oh Becky is one of the owners of the new club we were just talking about.’ My girlfriend replied, ‘Absolutely no, she is not the owner, my girlfriend is.’ Her friend went on and said, ‘Nope, pretty sure it’s Becky’s. She told me.’ When my girlfriend was telling me this, I was stunned! ‘Oh right,’ I said, ‘now this makes sense.’ All her little games she has been playing to try and make me feel like shit and running me down to Rodney. It actually was getting to a stage where she was talking to the members about me saying I’m never here and slagging me off. Every time I walked into the office, she was full of smiles and killing me with kindness. Asking me, ‘Oh love your hair, where do you get it done? Oh, your leggings are great. Where did you get them from?’ Things were getting kooky.

At this stage, I was bluffed. Seriously, why can’t people just live their own life and not try to live it through someone else’s? I’m such a big believer that if you manifest something long enough and believe in it, it will come true. Dreams do come true. We just have to not give up hope, because as soon as we lower the frequency of our own vibration, then we are not opening up to the universe to deliver us magical things in life. I believe anything is possible. The world is your oyster and dreams do come true if you believe in yourself one hundred percent. Everyone succeeds in life, no matter what they do. They are making a difference somehow. It is a dog-eat-dog world out there unfortunately, but we don’t give up.

The Narcissist

So the annual luncheon was coming up for the school that my children attend. All local businesses around the area can sponsor a table for the event to raise money for the school. We sponsored a table and gave away a voucher for them to raffle off. My girlfriends were geared up to jump on my table, so when the day arrived to book online, as I got onto the booking page, my business table was all sold out. ‘How could this be? I only just got online.’ There was no way my table could be booked out. I called my girlfriend to tell her about the situation and she said, ‘Call the committee and complain that it just went live and a table is already booked out.’

I called one of the ladies on the committee that I knew and told her about my situation and she said, ‘Last night at rehearsal we did a practice run of the booking system and apparently a girl called Becky drove the truck on this and got the ladies from the committee to book it out for her and her friends.’ Becky’s kids didn’t even go to the same school as my children, so how did she get access? So my business partner’s ex-wife’s friend was on the committee and she told her to book it out.

I was not happy. I said, ‘Well I think it’s not fair they got to book out my businesses table the first year we are open and not even consider how I might feel about this.’ The lady I was speaking to from the committee was lovely and said, ‘I agree. I am going to move them onto another table, as this should not have happened.’ My table was now free to book for my amazing friends. I was always allowing a spot for Becky on my table, but now I was not going to let her ruin my annual day out with my girls.

The next day I was sitting at my local coffee shop with two of my girlfriends when I was telling them about my drama, trying to book tickets for the event. They were so disappointed and angry at Becky and said, ‘Right, this is not on. You need to go and ask her why she would even consider doing this to you.’ I thought, Right, yes I need to confront her. I really do dislike confrontation, but she went too far here to let this slip past me. Off I drove down the road to the club and there she was, full of smiles, sitting on her laptop again. This was a frequent thing she used to do and I was always curious why she brought her laptop to work, as it was not needed. Rodney would always comment, ‘Becky is such a hard worker; she brings her own laptop in to do work.’ That’s why we have a computer with all our systems on it. Anyway, I entered the office and politely said, ‘So Becky, with the school event coming up, why did you not even consider that I may like to sit at my own business table?’ Her face went bright red and yep, there was proverbial steam coming from her ears. She stood up and said, ‘How dare you move me onto another table. I will not be attending now because of you.’ I quickly said, ‘That is my table and you sneakily booked it out, without including the business owner, me on it. How rude!’ She slammed her computer down and said, ‘I’m out of here!’ I replied, ‘So you are quitting because of this?’ and she replied she was and walked out. I called Rodney to explain what had happened and the whole story