Week 38 - Vulnerability

I wanted to share another learning from the Women’s Retreat again this week: the power of vulnerability.

So this retreat was about shedding our old selves and stepping into our current self and who we want to be moving forward. So needless to say that there was a call for all of us to be really vulnerable.

Really early on everyone admitted that it’s hard for them to be vulnerable. And I nodded with them in this coach-like way that I do as if to say “yea, you and all my clients, I get it.” Like as if I have it all figured out🙄

But by Day 2 I realized that everyone else had been vulnerable except for me! I know vulnerability has always been hard for me but I guess I thought I was better at it by now and I’m not.

And what I came to realize is that there is still this part of me that thinks I need to have it all together. If I’m coaching others, then I must have my shit together. Who would believe me if I didn’t have my shit together??

And that is some next level ego stuff.

Because what was soooo powerful at this retreat is that from day 1 the two leaders shared vulnerably about their own fears and expectations around this retreat. They proceeded to divulge how unsure they felt, how they needed support, and how support would look like for them. And I was STUNNED. I couldn’t believe that these people that are supposed to be our leaders are telling us how insecure they feel!

My judgement brain went off thinking things like ‘what am I going to even learn from them then?’ ‘Can they actually DO this work?’ and other shitty judgemental thoughts.

And yet, here they are teaching me the greatest lesson of all! I don’t have to be perfect. Leadership can look like “not having it all together” and still be powerful and effective. Being vulnerable was SUCH a gift to me personally and yet when we’re the one’s that are called to be vulnerable, we think it’ll be received so poorly, that we’ll not be taken seriously. And yet the complete opposite was true. It made me respect them more and it turned a mirror towards myself to question “am I showing up as vulnerably as this?”

A lot of my clients want to be coaches, which is so natural. When you get coaching, and you fall in love with the results that it creates in your life, you want to give that gift back to the world. And because a lot of my clients want to become coaches, this calls on me to not pretend I always have my shit together because how that's typically received is that people feel they don't measure up to that standard and so they opt out of trying. And that's the very thing I want most in the world! For people to get out of their own way and make their dreams come true.

And so it starts with me and it starts with vulnerability. Which in this moment feels like letting y'all know that I feel so frazzled and not present to myself and my business because I spontaneously adopted a puppy on the weekend. And I've never had a dog before! So I'm so far out of my comfort zone and so consumed with how to raise this puppy that everything is taking a back seat. And it feels really scary to say that to y'all. But my hope is that it'll serve those of you who are trying to do it all: trying to be everything to everyone and thinking that you need to do it perfectly. I hope you see this and can give yourself a break today. You don't have to be a superhuman. Just being a regular, sometimes annoyed and sometimes annoying human is OK.

So...where can you let yourself off the hook this week?