Whatever you fear

what you are wary of

what you despair and lament

I lost a client yesterday. Funny, that is is almost as hard to acknowledge than to receive the email from the client in the first place. The truth is, I don’t do vulnerability well. Saturday I went for a walk with a friend who had recently returned from walking the Camino del Santiago and we were getting together to hear about her journey, but we ended up talking about me and my silence (safe to say, I’m usually the chatty one). As she did, I felt a heaviness come over me like a wet wool blanket. I stared at the ground as we walked, kicking gravel out of my way as my jaw slacked. And it dawned on me how much I silence my voice when I am feeling vulnerable.

It is okay

you are not alone

your feelings are known

I have a shadow that moves when I am feeling weak. It is the Warrior archetype and it moves in quickly to protect. It has done its job well over the years, and yet I find it serves me less and less these days. The absence of pain equates to the absence of healing, and I shut myself down.

In the depth of your anguish

remind yourself you are here for a reason

you matter

more than you can see, or hear, or touch

Interestingly, it is here where my work saves me, time and time again. In preparing for a group facilitation I decided to show the Brene Brown TedTalk on vulnerability (if you have not watched it before, I highly recommend it and have linked to it). I have watched Brene’s talk many times before yet I don’t ever seem to have recalled it when I needed it most. Until this week. When in deciding whether it was appropriate to include in the facilitation, I realized it was for me. Because I needed to hear it really bad.

Be patient

breathe

and in time your purpose

will be known to you

But, back to losing a client… The irony in this is I had been feeling for some time that I had lost their ear and what I was delivering to them was having diminishing value. Yet, as always seems to be the case, I depend on the retainer fee and the tension between those two polarities has had me frozen in inaction. Until this weekend when after my walk and talk with my good friend, I had decided to broach the issue of reframing the work or ending the retainer. As much as I feared that conversation, I felt empowered by the conclusion. Then I got sick, and while sleeping it off yesterday I received an email from that client that they were suspending the work due to financial reasons, etc. Reading through the lines, I know what lay at the heart of their decision because it had been my conclusion as well.

And your struggle, your moaning,

your aches and pains, and impatience

will be as echoes on the wind

And this is where it gets interesting. While I had already resolved to terminate the work if needed, receiving the email from them first triggered all kinds of emotions around scarcity, lack of self worth and shame. As crappy as I have been feeling, it was blessing that I was sick because my Warrior kept his shield and sword sheathed, and allowed me to experience the emotions without getting in the way. Raw, unfiltered lament. It sucked and yet was so necessary.

Nothing of consequence

nothing of gravity

is absent of suffering

 

All of which prepares me for the next journey, because as I have experienced time and time again, when the proverbial door closes, a window opens.

The only question to ask yourself is

what are you willing to suffer for?