I have been busy in my work, the work of my own being and becoming. I have been reading and taking in and listening and absorbing the wise voices of other women and men, soaking them up like a sponge, feeding on them and knowing the truth as it resonates with me.
This feeding comes and goes for me. There are times when I open myself to all the outside voices and then times when I shut them out completely so I can allow them to settle and integrate and I can come back into my own being and hear again my own voice.
This is what I want for the women I work with too. For them to absorb what feels good and right and then to step away, allow it to settle, to integrate, and to listen to their own embodied wisdom. I have mentioned in several of my circles that my entire goal of working with the women I do is for them to not work with me anymore, because they don’t need me, because the tools I have offered them are finally a part of their own being, because they can listen to and trust and honor their own inner voice.
I’ve been told this isn’t a very good marketing strategy. That I have to keep one step ahead and keep the people who work with me wanting more and more and more. I’ve been told I could never be successful in business by encouraging my clients to seek and listen to other voices, other perspectives, other ways of healing.
To which I come around to saying, sometime immediately, sometimes after I stumble around a bit: fuck that. I don’t want women wanting more of me – I want each of you to want more of your Self, your voice, your wisdom. I’m not in this work to “keep ahead” or “keep you wanting”, I’m in this work to guide you to YOU, YOUR voice, YOUR body, YOUR Self, YOUR wisdom.
A woman who has been participating in my circles for a few years now wrote me yesterday saying she needs space, to listen to her body and her wisdom, and to not participate in Awakening. I was so excited to read her words. Yes, I am saddened she won’t be in circle with us, and she will be missed, AND… and my work of guiding her to listen to her own needs and to HONOR them has settled into her. I am ecstatic. I have no idea if she will be a part of my circles in the future (I suspect she will), and this step into honoring her own embodied wisdom feels so big and beautiful and so filled with so many YESES to me.
THAT is why I do this work. Not to keep you wanting me. To guide you to not wanting me, or really anyone else, to tell you how to be; to connect to, to listen to, to honor your own embodied knowing.
Yes, it does make marketing a bit tricky. Perhaps that is point. Perhaps we are all tired of being “marketed” to, of being “targeted,” of being just another number in someone’s “funnel.” I know I am.
Still, this work is how I pay the bills (or honestly, don’t pay the bills yet). This work is what helps support my family, and so how do I spread the word of what I do, with integrity, with honesty, leaving my own fear and anxiety in the backseat and trust that as in months past we will continue to make ends meet somehow and that in time I will connect with more and more women who are ready for this journey into their own Self?
I have no idea. I’m still figuring it out. If you have the answers, please, please let me know. 🙂
One piece of it is, or maybe it’s the whole of it, is connection. When I started my business back in 2012, that was my guiding value and word for my work. Connection. And now, three and half years later I am circling back to it. I am reaching out to other women and inviting them to give their voice to my circles. I am collaborating on projects with other women that make my heart croon and howl and sing. I am focusing back on connecting, expanding my connections, deepening my connections, strengthening my connections – to other women and to my own Self.
Part of this is listening to the voices of others. I am in a place to do this now, knowing their voices won’t drown out my own. Knowing what I absorb will resonate with who I am and that I will innately reject anything that doesn’t. This is likely change and I will retreat again for a while and then venture back out. This is the ebb and flow of this work, both personally and professionally.
Connection. Expansion. Retreat. Allowing all that swirls within to settle. Giving us space to rest. Giving us space to grow. Honoring our own voice and wisdom while honoring the voice and wisdom of others. To respect the voices of other as theirs and to only take in the parts of their voices that harmonize with our own. Or even the ones that cause dissonance and us to vibrate in discord, to expand our own perspective and to bring us closer again to our own Self and embodied wisdom.
Did you enjoy this? It’s from a love letter I sent out in February 2016. If you’d like to receive future love letters from me, you can subscribe right over here.