YOU are standing in your own way.
I spent this past weekend in a Cape Cod beach house with 10 other female entrepreneurs. It was invigorating, scary, confronting at times, and exciting. Friendships were created and strengthened.
No one trains you to be a business owner in social work school. No one trained me how to run a business but I got a shit ton of training in how to provide support to people. How about the support for ME? The fact of the matter is, you can’t fully show up as someone’s therapist until you feel secure in yourself and your business. You need to know how many people you can comfortably see a day in order to fully show up for them. You need to figure out how to meet your own needs before you can be there for someone else’s. That’s the other side of the business. And it’s an important one. Only one that I can figure out. So what is standing in my way?
As I sat in a session this morning, I realized how much that weekend away with amazing like minded people invigorated my ability to sit in front of my client to help her do her work. I can only be as clear about my clients as I am about myself. It matters a lot to me to have people get a whole me instead of scraps. So it’s becoming increasingly apparent that it is time I really commit to doing these retreats at least every quarter. I’m not sure if I would have this same clarity if I had not been immersed in a retreat setting for the entire weekend.
If you think about your own needs, what are they? Do you have a thing that you do that brings clarity to you? Do you do it enough? I think it’s super important to be with people that SEE you. That push you. That encourage you. It’s so helpful to take a time out in order to slow down and notice what you need. It’s hard to find out what you need if you aren’t allowing yourself to notice it.
Here are some questions to help you:
What have I been actively avoiding lately? Is there something that is on your to-do list everyday that you find yourself avoiding?
What brings up emotion for you? What is left undone or still lingering?
How do you hold resistance in your body? Do you often have neck pain? Does your back hurt? What is behind these aches and pains?
Who are you avoiding and why? What about them is hard to be with? Is it possible that it’s hard to be with in yourself?
What can you do RIGHT NOW to care for yourself?
What is one small thing you can do today to start to deal with something you are avoiding?
I hope that is helpful.
