Sunday, September 4, 2011

Whatever It Takes..

There are folks among my network of family and friends that would think me crazy for putting myself “out there” like this. They believe that there’s always someone waiting to take advantage of vulnerability or to exploit weaknesses. They would have me believe that I must always present publicly as though I’m totally together and that “there’s nothing to see here”.
I disagree.
I am here to lead you as a coach and mentor, to help you to achieve your greatest success by sharing with you the tools and methods that have worked for me. I’m also here to share the tools of others from whom I have learned and continue to learn, to direct you onward to them or enlist them to help us both should a problem arise that I feel ill-equipped to address. I don’t know everything. I can’t. It’s not possible. And to act as though I do and give you false information is far more detrimental to your growth and success than it is for me to be willing to say the words, “I don’t know.”
One of my mentors has a saying, “Leaders flash first”, which is something that I have chosen to live by within my own leadership. How can I possibly expect you to follow me anywhere that I have not already been myself or that I am not willing to go right alongside you? Would you follow a guide into the Australian Outback who’d never been there before? Heck no! That would be nuts!
Each of the challenges I ask you to face, I have faced personally. Each of the obstacles I ask you to overcome, I have overcome personally. Each of the demons I ask you to stare down and conquer, I have stared down and conquered personally. I will never ask anything of you that I have not done or am not willing to do myself.
I believe that it’s incredibly important to stay human. Always. We MUST be human with one another. It is essential to our individual health and happiness and to that of our communities, our tribes if you will—for we ARE a tribal culture and we do not thrive when we attempt to take on the world all alone. I want you to know that you are not alone. It’s important for you to be able to relate to me if you are going to trust me with your process of transformation and growth.
To change oneself can be one of the most terrifying things a person chooses to undertake. It takes courage. It also takes faith. In order for you to have faith in me, you must be able to relate to me on one level or another. I must stay human in order for you to remember that I too am fallible, I too have weaknesses and rough days and experience times when I want to just toss it all in the air and crawl back into bed. I need you to know that I still cry tears of frustration and self-pity now and again so that you don’t feel weak when those moments arise for you, so that you remember that from your vulnerability you will grow and emerge stronger and wiser than before; your greatest mistakes will give way to your most magnificent achievements.
I am asking you to embark on an incredible journey. I am asking you to be willing to get messy before you get sorted out. I am asking you to understand that taking your health into your own hands is about more than just drinking a couple of protein shakes a day and choking down a handful of supplements. This is about YOU defining you. This is about you writing yourself into a new story. This is about you being the author of your own success in EVERY area of your life.
You see, one of the things I learned in my Gestalt Psychotherapy training that really stuck with me is this: how you do ONE thing is how you do EVERYTHING.  
If you’re not taking very good care of your Self, physically, emotionally, spiritually, ask yourself where else that is showing up in your life. How are you treating your intimate relationship? Your relationship with your kids? Your relationship with money? Typically, if a problem exists in one area of your life it also exists in other areas. It may be loosely disguised as a different issue, but I’d BET that if you dug a little deeper you’d discover that the same patterns and habits that are contributing to your less-than-perfect health are contributing to other less-than-perfect circumstances in your life.
The good news?
If you change one area of your life, you change them all. If you change one relationship (most importantly the one with your Self) you change them all. When you change, the world has no choice but to change in response. It can no longer interact with you as your old self because you no longer ARE your old self. This is when you truly begin to understand accountability and how you truly ARE 100% accountable for each and every moment in your life. YOU define your own happiness or lack thereof.
I learned this “How you do everything.. “ in Gestalt and it is a mantra that has shown up over and over again since that time, most recently in each and every one of my Isagenix training experiences, only proving to me that I am in exactly the place that I belong in my life in this moment. I trust these things beyond a shadow of a doubt. I have learned to trust my instincts, to trust the signs that show up all around me and to trust the process. And, now I am asking you to trust me only if I have proven myself trustworthy, but to trust yourself implicitly, trust the wisdom that brought you here and trust the process that will get you through.
You may, by now, be asking yourself,  When does she get to the part about putting herself out there?”
The answer?
Now.
As you step into this experience with me and allow me to serve as your guide, it will be tempting for you to make up excuses and stories about how and why you cannot do it. It will be tempting for you to look at me and think or say, “She’s so together, she’s so happy, she’s so strong, she’s so _______________ (fill in the blank)” in order to let yourself off the hook and fail to achieve your goal. I want you to hear me when I say, LOUD and CLEAR that if that’s what you’re thinking, you’re wrong. At least partly.
The truth is that NOW I am pretty together. I am incredibly happy. I am stronger than most people you know. And I do have a whole lot going for me. But, those things haven’t always been true. I’ve been where you are and, in some cases, far, far worse places. I have been weighed down, miserable, addicted, depressed, suicidal, anxious, riddled with insecurity, angry..really, really angry, irresponsible, dishonest, self-destructive.. shall I go on? Instead, why don’t I offer you a glimpse into the way things used to be?
Take a moment to read this blog post: That Was Then
Now, I don’t want to spend a whole lot of time getting into all of the gory details. I prefer not to direct my energy and attention toward negativity. Suffice it to say, those weren’t the happiest years of my life. That said, here and now, I am willing to be COMPLETELY transparent with you. All you need to do is ask. I will tell you EVERY gory detail if it will help you to see that you too can overcome whatever struggle you may be facing and come out whole and happy on the other side.
You want to know what it’s like to lay face-down in a prescription drug overdose coma for two days and awaken still angry at the trigger that put you there? I’ll share the details as best as I can remember. You want to know what Toronto’s underground drug culture is like? I’ll share my experience of that too (without revealing the names of others I spent time with there). You want to know how it feels to wake up one day and realize that you have ostracized the very people that love you the most and that have been desperately trying to help you, leaving them ill-prepared to do so when you really need them? I can tell you just how much that hurt—me and them.
I’d prefer to inspire you from where I am now.
My point is, I’ll do whatever it takes.
My question is, will you?

No comments:

Post a Comment