This year I am trusting Grow Your Depth, Nurture Your Brilliance to hold and direct the process for what happens in both my personal and professional lives.
The wisest parts of me know that I can trust that as long as I am holding my intention to grow my depth and nurture my brilliance, and showing up for both the inner and outer work, that the exact right thing will always show up.
Other parts of me really don’t like some of the stuff that has shown up already and would like for this whole thing to be easier.
Like last weekend, when Debbie Doubter showed up.
“You know what?” She said on Saturday morning, “You really have no business calling yourself a teacher.”
And before I knew it, Debbie and I were trying to figure out what else I could do, because this teaching thing is surely going to fail.
Never mind that I have training and accreditation as a spiritual teacher.? Never mind that I’ve traveled all over the place to learn from the best teachers I could find, how to become the best teacher that I could be.? Never mind that I have happy, grateful students.? Never mind that I’ve been making 100% of my living as a teacher for the past four years, and that I did it part time for many years before that.
Debbie doesn’t care about any of that.? “Who do you think you are?? Who are you to believe that you have anything to offer your students?”
So, I used my Grow Your Depth, Nurture Your Brilliance practice to work on my doubt and I started exploring.
What makes a teacher a teacher?
Training.
Oh, well I have that.? I was trained, I interned and I was accredited as a spiritual teacher and mentor.?? It took four years!? That’s not enough?
Well, you don’t have a University degree in teaching.
No, I don’t.? I do have a degree though.? And remember how awful some of my teachers at the university were?? Bullies!? I love my students and care about them getting what they want from my classes.? Doesn’t that make me a better teacher than those teachers?
But they were official.
OK, and they were teaching official stuff and I got an official degree from them.? What I’m teaching is not official in that way.? Do you think I’d be better teacher if someone else hired me to teach?? Like, because I built my own school that means I’m less than?
Well, yeah.? It’s not real.? Anyone can do what you did.
Anyone can do anything!
But it’s better when other people validate your work.
Ahh, there it is.? I made a conscious and deliberate choice to not have other people validate my work, to be independent.
(The irony here is that I made that choice so that I could have the freedom to be the best teacher I can be.)
I needed the freedom to build something that is in complete integrity with what I want it to be.? I do things differently than other people because of how much I care about teaching.
But you’re not a teacher!
Where is this coming from?
The truth!? It’s coming from the truth.? It’s a fact that isn’t going to change.
Who do you think you are? Who are you to think you have anything to teach anyone else?
OK, I can answer this for pages and pages, listing everything I have learned and all the ways I have developed my skills to the point where actually I have a lot to teach.
Not to mention the fact that teaching is how I learn, it’s how I stay on my own edge.? That I actually NEED to do this because it’s a part of who I am.
But that’s not going to change this conversation.? You’re not interested in logic.? What is it that you want?
For you to admit failure.
And then what?
(silence)
Come on, what happens if I admit I’m not a teacher?
Well, I’d be more comfortable.
OK, so if I admit that I’m not a teacher, then I get to live inside my own self doubt.
Yes!? It’s cozy here!
And the bubble bursts.? No, I don’t want to cozy up and live inside my own self-doubt.
Who do you think you are?? Who are you to believe that you are _____?
That voice is so insidious.? It shows up time and time again in my own work, and in private sessions with clients.
That idea that maybe we’ll be safe if we don’t stand too tall and don’t shine too bright and just kind of cozy into a really small story about who we are and what is possible for us.
It’s not true.? Not for me, not for you, not for anyone.
These parts of us become activated when we’re ready to trust ourselves and our dreams more, and believe in ourselves and our dreams more.
These voices show up when we take new steps towards our dreams.
It’s an energy pattern, and each time you are ready to shine a little brighter, you have to come into this energy pattern and alter it to make more space for your brilliance to shine through.
Otherwise, it’s just going to get sneakier about holding you back and dimming your light.
This is Grow Your Depth, Nurture Your Brilliance in a nutshell.
Explore deeper into your inner world.? Transform what you find there. Make more space for your brilliance to shine out and light up your outer world.
Debbie and I have more work to do here.
She keeps showing up, in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.
I know that she shows up when I’m ready to play bigger and brighter.? I know this is a part of the process.
But still, being in it sucks.
