My Rules On When To Break The Rules

I can’t help but to think that in some way my subconscious mind manifested this whole thing! Who knew that when I took my daughter Siena to sell Girl Scout cookies in front of the gay bars in West Hollywood it would blow up & stir up such a huge reaction! (Both positive and negative)

In the past month, we appeared in the WeHo Times (3 times), which lead to an article in the The Advocate, Yahoo News, Drew Barrymore Show & GMA Digital! Plus a $1500 donation to Siena’s school and a personal invitation from the Vice Major of West Hollywood to present a Proclamation on behalf of the city! All for selling Girl Scout cookies in a predominately LGBTQ+ community which included a great photo with Billy Francesca the drag queen who bought Siena’s final 4 boxes of cookies, “So mom can go home and relax and have a glass of wine!”. We have been blown away by the love and support we received from the LGBTQ+ community!

But after two weekends of parading up and down Santa Monica Blvd. we were shocked to learn we were actually breaking a few Girl Scout rules. Those rules include not selling in commercial districts without permission from the business and approval from the Girl Scout council. And not selling in front of adult establishments.

Look I get it. The Girl Scouts is a huge company with a reputation to protect. They want to make sure cookie selling is both fair and safe to all the girls participating while also being respectful of other businesses. There are people that will find it inappropriate for kids to sell cookies outside of bars and some people in this country even have problems with kids being around Drag Queens. But not me! As a mother, I absolutely love what this experience has taught my kid.

I know how the subconscious mind works. And when kids are young, these experiences make an imprint. I love that Siena had such a positive experience selling cookies to the LGBTQ+ community. People fear what they don't know and what my daughter now knows is love, kindness, acceptance and feeling welcomed into a community with open arms. I love that drag queens and go go dancers will feel normal to my kids and not strange. It is creative expression, celebrating life, embracing the human body and feeling safe because she was safe.

Not to mention the entrepreneur skills that Siena was able to learn by actually being face-to-face with cookie buyers. She had the opportunity to learn sales & promotion by going to a place with low competition and high traffic. She talked about the different types of cookies, did math, showed gratitude to her customers. All important entrepreneur skills. So much more valuable than selling cookies online which lands completely on the parents to do all the work.

So it’s got me thinking. When do the rules need to be broken?

Here are My 4 “Rules” on when to Break the Rules:

1) If no harm is being done to another human or business

2) When the rules are created out of fear

3) When the rules create more harm than good

4) When the benefits of the rule breaking outweigh the risk

Let me know your thoughts.

I’ve never been one to follow the rules I don’t agree with. Whether it’s selling cookies in West Hollywood, or in high school - when we weren’t allowed to have water bottles in the classroom. But aren’t we taught to drink 8 glasses a day? When something doesn’t make sense I can’t just sit back and obey. I need to do something about it. Back then, I became president of the student council and got the rule changed. And today, I may have given an earful to the head of GS of Los Angele’s cookie program about how I feel about all these rules. I just can’t help but wonder if my subconscious mind was rebelling in the same way I would defiantly bring water into class when I wasn’t supposed to.

Our minds, consciously and subconsciously, always hold on to old rules or habits, ones that we pick up from parents, society, teachers or culture and religion.

When you reflect on the rules you have learned over the course of your life, are they still working for you? I had a conversation with a hypnotherapy client recently about what it would be like to create her own rules. Some of her old rules were creating discomfort in her adult life. As anxiety bubbled up whenever she felt like she was doing something “wrong” or against the normal expectation placed on her by society. Anything that didn’t fit the mold of what her subconscious mind was programmed to think is “right”. Much like some people have a problem with kids selling cookies in front of bars. When in reality, no one is being hurt, and everyone is having a great time. There is no issue, except for one imagined in the mind.

So I asked my client to come up with her new rules for herself. And I’d invite you to do the same. What if you could re-write the rules for yourself and how you want to live your life? We can shatter the old rules that are giving us pain, or anxiety, or they just plain don’t make sense and create new ones - rules that align with who we are today, who we want to be tomorrow, and rules that are true to our authentic self.

Are you ready to re-write the rules programed in your subconscious mind?
Imagine how freeing, uplifting and more fun life could be! Just ask my daughter, who had a blast selling Girl Scout cookies to the LGBQT+ community in West Hollywood!

And if you just need some help kicking your sugar addiction, hypnotherapy can help with that too!

Siena Levin sells girl scout cookies in West Hollywood with her sister and mom hypnotherapist Jenn Levin.