Discomfort

Almost a year ago, my dear friend Nikki offered me the gift of joining her program, VIBRANT. It was a life changing and expansive experience. One where I allowed myself to be seen in ways that I never had before - like, sobbing in front of people I didn't know…over Zoom. The 'story' below was the first time I allowed this to happen.

We were to write out our "Story" in one page and then read it aloud to those in the group. This seemed simple enough, aside from the fact that this was something I had tried to do many times before, and it just never felt right. This time, though, I had to show up with something. I just didn't know that it would forever change my capacity to be seen.

I began to read and realized quickly that things were beginning to unravel. I paused to breathe and think about just how the fuck I was going to proceed. In the past, I would have made a joke, derailed, deflected, or done just about anything to make this expression of emotion STOP. But this time, I heard, "You must keep going". I sobbed through pretty much the entire thing, perplexed by my own reaction and WTF had just happened.

It wasn't until later that I could more clearly understand the importance of that moment. The importance of allowing myself to be seen in such a vulnerable moment. It was important for many reasons, but the one that was most profound to me: this is what happens with my clients. Many people have an emotional response, sometimes as soon as they sit down. And that emotion is SO wonderful and SO important because it tells me that they feel safe enough to express! This is huge. Important. It is part of healing.

AND it was something that I was not really allowing myself to do. That, I realized, was a bit inauthentic. How could I expect for my clients to show up and be vulnerable if I wasn't even willing to do it myself?

The moment changed many things - and is a constant reminder that when I see my old friend, Discomfort, to lean in.

10.1.2022:

I've written my story at least 50 times and each time I take a different path, I start from a different place, and frankly - I tell a different story. It wasn't until recently that I realized the tone in which I WANTED it to be told.

For a long time, I told it from a place of (ultimately) trying to process things myself, but also from a place of arguing for my limitations, victimhood, justification, and pity - even if it was small. Maybe I still wanted you to feel for me.

Even though I always knew that things happened for a reason, now I see and believe it.

I remember a lot from childhood - the push and pull, the breaking, the desire to fit in and to be loved…I remember the force…and I remember the moments when I showed up as me, or I expressed something that I felt was authentic and it being met with disapproval or shame…and I remember in those moments, actively choosing, deciding, realizing…that it was not safe to be ME. I had to fit in. My survival depended upon it.

A vivid moment of sitting in the bathtub as a child and realizing that one day I would die, that my parents would die - I sobbed. I couldn't have been older than 4 - and for a while after that I was obsessed with how precious life was and on every piece of art I made or card I always wrote "I hope you have a good life" LOL It felt like I was on a mission to help people see, 'hey, this time here is precious, we need to enjoy it!!'

There was a deep softness, an empathy, for the human experience…but I didn't know then that it would slowly but surely become suffocated by the "real world". I learned the moments and situations where I needed to harden, and with whom. It became more and more over the years. Shut it down, don't feel, it really doesn't matter WHO you are, WHAT you think, etc…I became very skilled at this, and by the age of 15 alcohol made that even easier. Numb. Now I don't even need to be bothered by my feelings, by the truth that keeps trying to creep in.

I rode that wave for a long, long time…10 years or so - into an extremely toxic relationship.

During that relationship something prompted me to read The Secret - I'd had the book for a while but hadn't read it. It hit my soul, the same way the book "as a man thinketh" had done years before. There was something so undeniable about the words in it.

That was the catalyst.

It still took me a while to fully shift from a state of being where I wanted to feel nothing to learning how to be with my feelings, to be in my body, to allow love in.

Age 26/27 - I moved out to Utah - I was in a corporate sales role that I was good at but never really enjoyed. Calling people in the middle of their day to ask them to buy something they don't need. How stupid - at least that was my thought.

I quit and fully embraced the ski bum life - helping manage a small teahouse in the mountains and working in a ski shop - it gave me space - WHO do I really want to be in this world, what really lights me up?
Health and wellness - something that, now, I think is the only thing that kept me grounded - it was the only time I felt good - through all of the damage I did to my body, I still attempted to stay active and eat well. People often asked for advice.

It allowed me to really think about how I could lean into it.

I started a journey in holistic wellness coaching - and I began to go IN on getting to know and understand myself. Understanding the full person.

What makes them tick?

What makes me tick?

I craved going deeper and deeper.

I was searching, seeking - how can I go deeper with my clients…but really, how can I go deeper for myself?

January 2021, the universe answered that question for me. While skating - I hadn't been on the ice 30 seconds, my skate caught in a crack, lurched my forward and slammed me back down onto my tailbone - so hard that I popped back up onto my hands and knees. When I think back to that moment, if felt more like something or someone had grabbed me by my shoulders and said, "SIT DOWN".

Everything shifted. Some people talk about a spontaneous Kundalini rising from a hard tailbone fall, and if that's it, I'll take it.

I randomly asked my boyfriend if I could try to do some kind of energy work on him and the rest is history.

I'm in. Fully now.

I'm just learning to embrace me more.