I’ve been using this unique time as a crucible
To integrate what I continue to learn that helps me live my purpose and to create a Life of meaning
And I feel vulnerable in sharing this
But I once worked with a coach who charged an insane amount of money
And pushed me to do things waaaaay outside of my comfort zone
And I agreed
Because I had feelings of anxiety and insecurity
as I made my way through
the wilderness of working for myself
Of creating my own path
And realizing again and again and again just how challenging
This road that I thought would be easy
Really was
And in a way I wanted her to save me
I believed that working with her
Could guarantee my success
Knowing Now that she could never do that
Nobody can do that!
I bought into her confident Beauty and
Air of spirituality
And each session she would fill me up with her energy and inspiring words
And then send me out into the world to do my action steps
Without an effective way to handle
The inner obstacles that were raging to the surface
And since I had no real skills to
Handle what came up
I just relied on my ability to
White-knuckle it through painful and uncomfortable situations
As a result, there was no sense of aliveness or creative action in the process
—I wasn’t dialed into the deeper reasons for doing what I was doing—
And so I didn’t experience the vitality that’s possible even in the scary actions
Unable to be compassionate with myself when I “failed”
I got thrown off into the weeds of all the unhelpful things my mind said about
How I wasn’t good enough to do this work
And how nothing ever works out for me
And I spent a good deal of time trying to
Distract myself from the feelings of unworthiness and hopelessness that those thoughts created within me
And I suffered internal rupture after rupture as I persisted along my path
And I came to know that there’s a gift in every painful rupture
Even in the rupture of my time with that coach
There were in fact many gifts
~Along with being stretched as a human,
My time with her
Opened me fiercely to my Spiritual nature
And my Divine Feminine energy
~One the biggest gifts I received through the pain of those experiences
Was revealing
How I wanted to act as a coach
With Integrity
Compassion
Intimacy
Empowerment
To be fair and honest in how I sell
As well as compassionate in my pricing
~As I experienced myself floundering and making myself wrong because obstacles came up
I learned to honor where people are (including myself)
Not strong-arming them into doing what I think they should do
But showing them how to truly
Handle the obstacles
That will inevitably show up
As we take purposeful action
~In experiencing a coach who didn't show vulnerability
My mind began to believe that she was perfect
Inhuman almost
And my time with her felt even more painful
As I endlessly compared myself to her
In this pain I learned to
Reveal my vulnerability
To honor that as humans we are very similar
That we are all walking our own paths
And that we can get better and better and better at traveling them
And to deepen in our presence and enjoyment of the journey as we meet all manner of experiences and people
Who challenge us and help us grow
To do the very best we can do in each moment
While knowing, without judgment, that we can always do better
~The ultimate gift from that time was the struggle itself
If I hadn’t failed so hard and so often
I never would have continued to
Expand as a coach
And as a human
To persist in order find ways to be with—not get rid of—all the stuff that gets
Stirred up
As we are so bold to live this Life to the fullest
Through that pain
I learned to be my own coach
And to show others how to be theirs too 🙏🏻🙌🏻❤️
Photo credit: Tristan Woods