Teaching the Teacher and the Illusion of "Having it All Together"
Recently, a leader I was working with asked me how I felt about being “led” when I’m so used to doing the “leading”.
The truth is, I am extremely comfortable being “led”. I enjoy being the student as much as I enjoy being the teacher, and what I told her, is that I would be in no position to lead others today had I not reached out to so many other people to teach me and guide me along my journey.
A few short years ago I was in an extremely dark and sad place. It was the result of the culmination of years worth of poor self-esteem, negative beliefs around my own value, and trying to live up to idealistic expectations in multiple areas of my life. I would NOT be here today to help women better their lives had I not reached out and been supported by sooooo many people: my husband, my doctor, my public health nurse, my friends, my therapists, my life coach and my family. The fact of the matter is that, I very possibly wouldn’t PHYSICALLY be here today had I not reached out. I am forever grateful for my journey and where it has led me, but I don’t want anyone to mistakenly believe I’m one of “those” people who have it all together. I have a message to share and a passion for helping women lead their best lives - but I’m not here to be perfect, I’m here to be REAL.
There is SOOOOO much value in being a student in life. As a student, we allow ourselves to be vulnerable, and when we are vulnerable is often the time when the most amazing connections happen. I do believe that we intuitively “know” the answer to many of the questions we have, but in reaching out for support and guidance, we are ASKING for someone to be part of our journey. We ALLOW ourselves to be supported and held when we need it, and we are REMINDED that we are NOT ALONE.
I’ve always been scared of riding horses. As a child, I tried again and again to love it, but I was just TOO SCARED (story of my childhood, lol). This winter, the opportunity came up to join a riding group, and I signed up. The first two times I showed up, I literally had to talk and breathe myself off the ledge of a panic attack JUST at the idea of getting ON THE HORSE. A couple days ago, I half got dumped off of and half fell off of my horse, but you know what? The falling off wasn’t NEARLY as scary as the GETTING ON IN THE FIRST PLACE. And I got back on, and my teacher and I practiced. We practiced starting and stopping and just working on re-connecting my horse and I. We worked on the messages I was giving him, and we worked on me tuning into the messages he was giving ME. Riding horses is a big lesson in TRUST and teamwork and LETTING GO.
You might be wondering why on earth I signed up to learn to ride when it scares me so much? Well, the biggest reason is that I have a horse-crazy 8 year-old daughter. We are in Light Horse 4H and I want to be able to be more knowledgeable and comfortable around horses for HER sake. Also, I want us to be able to ride TOGETHER in the future. I want to be able to share that with her. And, I think at the base of it all, is the desire to push through a fear to do something I always WISHED I could do, but was too scared to. There are plenty of things in my life (i.e. downhill skiing!) that I’ve tried and am terrified of and have zero desire to do ever again in my life, hahaha. But when I’m not doing something I WANT to do because of fear…well, that’s just different. I have a different kind of motivation to work through it.
The moral of this really long story is that NO ONE actually has their shit together as much as we think they do. For some reason most of us have this habit of putting other people on pedestals and believing that they have it waaaaaaay more together than we do. The fact of the matter is that we’re all on a different journey, and we’re all at different places on our journeys. When we stop trying to “have it all together” and start simply reaching out and allowing ourselves to be vulnerable enough to learn and be supported, life starts to be a new kind of awesome. The hard stuff still exists and shit still happens, but it no longer feels like the shit is ruling our lives. And then, we get to a place where we can return the favour of guiding and supporting the people in our lives who reach out to US.
With so much love,
Elsa
PS - Are you having trouble figuring out what you're *I never ever want to do it* afraid of and what you're *I'm afraid but I think I want to try it* afraid of??? (I get an A+ on grammar for that one for sure!) Well, it's your lucky day. I made you a Fear Assessment Worksheet to help you figure it out!
