You are the Hidden Gem

Getting comfortable with discomfort takes bravery and willingness.

Bravery to embark on doing something new.

Stepping into uncharted waters and being a beginner again and again.

The willingness to grow and change.

What you learn about yourself and what you’re capable for is found in the doing of the unknown.

While you may have a goal in mind to achieve like leash walking your dog or teaching your dog a new trick or you, or learning a new skill, what you take away from the experience may have much more to do with you uncovering parts of yourself that were hidden.

Stretching yourself in doing something new, exposes those parts of yourself where you can become more curious and exploratory about what’s showing up without giving up.

When those moments of stretching become too much, take a break and allow the lessons to wash over you while you begin to make sense of their meaning.

Achieving a goal like leash walking isn’t just about your dog walking with you on a leash, but rather your desire to feel more confident and connected with your companion animal and about becoming the person you want to be in that relationship.

Be the person your dog already knows is inside of you even if you haven’t met her yet.

Support is available to you when you give yourself permission to receive it!

Sitting with Discomfort

Breakthroughs in understanding oneself happen in the midst of being pushed to our limit.

During more turbulent times, opportunity exists to tap into the energy of the chaos and find out the messages the messiness is trying to tell us when we are poised to listen.

Last week, I spoke with my colleague that “I’m at my limit”, “My bandwidth is low” and “I’m running out of steam”.

My colleague turned to me and asked me if I could do “more”.

My body crumbled and I replied, “no, I can’t do those things she was asking”.

My colleague pushed and asked me if I could do other things.

In this moment, I gave up my agency, my control of standing firm in what I could handle and I told my colleague, “yes, I can do those other things”.

What transpired was that there was more tasks apart of what I “agreed” too which mirrored similarly to what I originally said no to and I became angry.

I sat with the anger and I was reminded of this quote, “anger is sadness’s body guard”.

I realized I was sad that I gave up my personal control and allowed someone else to influence my decision making.

What I did with this energy, renewed understanding and empowerment was to have a conversation with my colleague.

We spoke candidly and transparently about the situation.

I came to understand that she saw how impacted I was and how burned out I was and she recognized that she could have paused and reflected back to me what she saw.

I said, “yes” that would have opened the door even if I wasn’t clear on what I was experiencing in that moment.

I know I would have been relieved she saw my humanness.

Strengthening your inner trust, understanding your inner critic and healing parts of yourself that you didn’t realize created ingrained beliefs can lead to freedom.

If you’re struggling with getting to the other side of troubled waters, reach out for support and you can see how you can build your bridges with loving support.

A Small Choice Leads to Powerful Change

A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to help out a colleague with her workload.

While she felt guilty for “needing help”, I reminded her about a discussion we had months ago about how our lives are more important than work and how work will always be there, but we won’t.

She quieted and said that she had a lot of personal things come up for her and it was hard to deal with all at the same time, but declined to discuss further. I reassured her and said, regarding her case load, “it is what it is” and we will work together to close these things out.

She shook her head and then we discussed how I can support her.

Fast forward 2-3 weeks later, the job was done and I looked for her in the office.

She smiled and said, “I have never been down to this number of cases before”.

I shared with her that she seemed relieved and lighter with this new reality.

She agreed.

I then said to her, how happy I was to help her out and to see her so relieved.

We both wanted to celebrate!

She then said, she felt her spark reignite to do the job again.

She chose to make a change.

Rather than feel guilty because she wasn’t doing all the things assigned to her and not ask for help which would plunge her deeper into an increased workload.

She instead, leaned into support and she transmuted feelings of guilt into inspiration because she had the support she needed to feel accomplished.

If you’re feeling burned out and exhausted and feeling like you don’t know which way to go, this is your opportunity to ask for support!

Having someone in your corner can give you the boost you need to change something in your life and to light the spark to keep you moving forward.