“So we can agree that you already suck then, right?”
It was 2011. I was in my early 20s and at a day long yoga and wellness festival being held inside a convention center, getting what is called an “access bars” session. The facilitator and I began talking, her asking deeper and deeper questions to see what areas of life I felt blocked in.
Looking back now, this may have been my first unofficial coaching session.
The woman looked at me with compassion, her fingers on my head. It was my first time getting any sort of “energy work” done and I was undoubtedly skeptical. But she had a low enough intro price, and she felt genuine. Besides, I’d been curious about all this talk of “energy work” for a long time now. The only thing I had to lose was $15.
Looking back now, it was the combination of the energy work mixed with asking the right questions that shook my world.
Hence why I use the recipe in my work with clients today.
Coaching + Energetics = Alchemy
I end up telling her how I had taken a yoga teacher training, but hadn’t gone through the final test, a one on one exam with my teacher where she would review my teaching style and decide to pass or fail me.
It was the only thing standing in the way of me becoming a certified teacher.
Because I was afraid. What if I failed the test? Or what if I passed, started teaching, and no one came to my classes? What if I totally sucked as a teacher? I didn’t even realize how much I had been avoiding my teacher, getting distracted when I thought about scheduling the test, or finding some kind of excuse for why I couldn’t take it.
I wasn’t aware of it at the time- but this pattern of avoidance has been deeply embedded in my subconscious, and often shows up in the wounded feminine. Many of my clients have held the same pattern. Luckily there is a way to heal this so we can move forward in our lives, but the first step is to have the awareness of it.
I didn’t want to fail, so I came up with a million excuses to push off the test.
But this wise woman pointed out that I sucked MORE for not trying at all then trying and risking failing.
A lightbulb went off that day for me.
NOTHING you show up for is a failure.
The only failure is in not taking action in the first place. (Click to tweet)
To heal a pattern takes a combination of awareness, willingness, releasing the energy surrounding it, and then replacing it with a new, more fulfilling pattern. I have reprogrammed it with a new pattern. The motto is “action kills doubt.” Because getting to the core of the pattern, I realized it was coming from a place of self doubt. And the only way to alleviate self doubt is to take action. This helps build your confidence and also helps you trust yourself, because you actually show up for yourself. It’s also extremely humbling. It’s been a huge relief for me to make taking action a habit, and I still have to be aware of when the old pattern of distracting myself arises, but it becomes more easy to find the shadow patterns as you do this work. I recommend finding someone to hold you accountable, as well as ask the right questions, so you can become aware of the little excuses and blocks you might have placed in your way.