Have you ever felt tired of doing it alone?
Are you feeling it now?
While it can be easy to feel frustrated, or even judge ourselves for getting depleted, or feeling a need for allyship, connection, partnership or support, the truth is, it’s a super positive, ‘right-direction’ intuition.
Especially when
- times are tough at home or at work
- when you’re growing beyond, or healing from, your past
- when you’re at capacity and lot more is being asked of you
Your current embodiment – the body patterns, mindset, energy, action-habits and emotional programming that make up “who you are” today – is the product of a series of earlier life and earlier career experiences that taught you how to cope with others, and the world.
During those moments you learned to respond to others in ways that won you approval, kept you safe, preserved your dignity, avoided pain and ensured your belonging. Those responses may or may not have worked well at the time, but they were the best strategies you had back then.
And, unless you’ve done the work to face, heal and fully rewire (i.e. upgrade) those responses, they are still the best strategies you have today.
When the time is right to grow beyond those old strategies, your instincts kick in. Feeling the need for better allies is an instinctive longing, and a positive sign that you’re ready for what’s next.
Since our embodiment is shaped through our relationships with others, we can only truly heal through connection, in community.
New kinds of connections = new experiences = healing.
Why? Because each time we are given the opportunity to connect, relate, be seen, or communicate in a way that’s outside the paradigm of our old habits, we rewire our brain to understand that new options are possible.
But here’s the catch – in order to open ourselves up to new experiences, we must feel safe to be met, seen, and related to in new ways.
Which begs the questions:
- How do we create depthful new connections in a way that honors the needs of our bodies, minds and souls?
- Where do we find a meaningful community that builds on the our emerging wholeness and supports us to grow, evolve and heal?
- And what are the relational practices that make true healing and growth more possible?
Practice at Home:
The first step on the path to finding and building more depthful connections and community is to open your heart to what (and who) resonates. It may sound cliché, but here’s what I mean:
First, set your intention: “I’m tired of doing it alone… I’m ready for – or I want…” Then, over the next week, start tuning in to the interpersonal experiences that show up. If you notice yourself numbing, pulling away, shutting things out – or on the flipside straining, reaching or grasping in any way – pay attention. Slow your breath. Allow your edges to soften. Not necessarily to let more of the other person “in”. But rather to let yourself feel the quality of the connection more clearly. Rather than taking or bracing, can you simply feel what’s there for you.
Does the sensation scare you? Excite you? Compel you? Repel you? What else do you notice?
And what do you make of that? Try not to let your mind get involved. Body up, does your system seem to want more or less of the ingredient this connection brings? And what IS that unique ingredient?
That’s it. For the next week, just pay attention. Take notes on what you discover. Before taking action, it’s important to slow down and truly understand the longing first. Then, you can take another step.
Get Support:
At Guts & Grace Leadership, we’ve designed all of our coaching, training and mastermind programs to create a space of psychological safety, where uplifting and empowering relationships are the foundation of our learning together.
If you’d like to learn more about how the Guts & Grace Coaching and Mastermind program could help you to re-wire old programs and upgrade your leadership
– while also building deep and meaningful community with like-minded women who are changemakers in their industries and organizations –
you can download our brochure HERE and watch a short (3 min) video on the program HERE.
We take applications every quarter. I’d be happy to jump on a quick call to help you take stock of your needs (for growth AND for community) and give you a brief introduction to how we could help.
Whether you apply for one of our programs, or find another avenue to get support, I encourage you to take the leap. It's way easier to get a need met BEFORE it's so urgent that you can't live without it.
Often, I wonder what prevents a woman who is SO ready for support from taking a next step.
I think it’s because having needs can be tender. And facing our real potential is scary.
Like… maybe it’s better to just go ahead and wait until next year. But then again, I trust your instinct for change. And, to be honest, any new, more aligned and meaningful relationships are going to ask you to face the same things.
If you’re feeling tired of doing it alone, and you’re hungry for a more supportive community,
then maybe it’s worth the risk?
