I’m noodling around with a workshop I’ll be contributing to in a few weeks. My section is about setting and working towards our vision of our best to align with our purpose. It’s no accident that I’m leading the section where we discuss concrete steps we might take to stay in alignment with our vision. Because this is exactly where I am in my own life.
As we align with our purpose we all need assistance.
Initially, I thought I could do everything myself. But I need assistance with legalities, forms, and fresh eyes looking at my content, among many other things.
The perfect person always shows up at the perfect time.
Even the ones who don’t seem so perfect. There are all kinds of support. Beautiful support from who I can’t so much see but I’m tremendously benefiting from as opportunities and people are sent my way.
Then there’s the support from people who unknowingly are challenging me. They’re teaching me to stand up for myself or whatever the lesson may be. Those are the most surprising and often uncomfortable relationships. These people pop into my life for only a short time until I learn what they’re showing me. Sometimes it takes me a while to figure out what it is they’re showing me. At first, I might even go kicking and screaming into what’s there for me to learn. But I don’t want to speak up. I’m comfortable with my people pleasing inauthentic behavior. It’s more difficult to share my truth and be myself. And I look away until it becomes so uncomfortable that I have to pay attention. Ok, what is this about?!
All I can say is, if something doesn’t feel right, it’s a good idea to take a minute to try to figure out why. Because it’s there to learn from, however uncomfortable it feels.
Speaking up in the moment has always been a challenge for me. It’s pretty wonderful that in moving forward into more purposeful work someone pops up to teach me to speak up.
For example, one person I recently hired was with the intention of receiving help to become more succinct on my website. I soon learned our business relationship was more about teaching me to speak up for myself, though she has no idea she’s teaching me this. This person is reminding me to pay attention to my feelings and to my intuition asking do this person’s suggestions align with my vision or not? I’m learning to manage our business agreement…are we still focused on the initial goal? Am I getting what I paid for?
I used to fold and follow from a lack of confidence. I worried I might hurt someone’s feelings if I disagreed with them. Perhaps they wouldn’t like me if I expressed myself. At this time in my life, I don’t want to fall back into my old habits.
Our recorded meetings provided a lot of insight.
I listened to our recordings and learned. I was very surprised at what I was saying and projecting outwardly. It wasn’t how I really felt.
I heard myself agree when I disagreed. I heard myself say “yeah”, “ok”, lot’s of “yups”, and “thank you’s”. But I really wanted to say “no”, “why are we talking about this?”, or “I don’t feel this is working out for me”. I cringed when listening to those recordings because I was so disingenuous.
