Sometimes I catch myself comparing myself to others and feeling like I 'should' be more professionally active and imagining how successful I could have been if I had stayed facilitating full-time.
Maybe... but one thing is for sure and that is that I would not be a well-rounded, integrated person, had I continued.
I feel like I took to facilitating groups like a fish to water.
The first time I did it back in 2010, it was like I had always been doing it and I surfed a long wave of opportunities and doors opening and sold out workshops. Many of you reading this will have attended some of those workshops.
What I didn't realise at the time was that for every way I was suited to it and had an intuitive gift, the other side of that coin was a wound.
Of course.
I think that’s the way it works with all of us.
It has only been through pausing, that I realised the extent of how my hyper-vigilance was benefitting my facilitation but that I had completely normalised (and further ingrained) this trauma response.
I had always felt safety in being an outsider and different and being a facilitator affirmed this on a daily basis.
I felt safe being dominant and being in leadership positions nourished this.
I got to revel in my scarcity wound for years on end, holding space for others to be intimate and have fun and then go home alone.
I got to constantly feel special and receive special treatment and then so often feel alone and disconnected from the world.
I normalised being dysregulated, consistently went over boundaries by saying yes to all invitations, had times where I only felt comfortable being around other humans when sitting in circle!
It is painful to feel the depth of my calling to facilitate groups and to know with every cell in my body that that's not what I need to be doing right now. At least not regularly. It is so disorientating to see the world move on and to feel my identities stripped away.
And it is so, so right!
One day - God willing - I will be back. But for now, I'll be following my inner compass, which is taking me exactly where it needs to take me.
Our work can heal us (and mine has also most definitely done this) but in certain ways it can also prevent our evolution and healing.
And I don't think we talk enough about this.
We need to normalise taking sabbaticals and pauses, shifting gears and prioritising our mental/emotional health, putting our own balance and integration before our notions of success.
The idea that we’re all meant to be on some kind of linear trajectory towards “success” is totally outdated.
Can you imagine how different the world would be if we prioritised balance and wellbeing above financial growth, status and accolades?
And yet I do believe things are changing. There are conversations happening about what lies beyond the GDP index. Generation Z is thought to have a totally different relationship to success, defining it from the inside out.
I’d love to hear more people talking about the relationship between their wounds and their gifts. Think of all the need for validation potentially driving the most ‘successful’ people.
Bringing more transparency here would also normalise how the people we might look up to the most are not flawless, but have their own stuff going on.
None of us are above the mess of being human.
What you share is hauntingly close to my own experience of being a facilitator and space holder. I had to face it years ago after a burn out and brought more consciousness to why and how I do this work and yet the pattern is still there to some degree. Still digging deep to get to the root of it. I often take breaks and only step into this work when I am clearly called into it. Thank you for naming it...
I appreciate all your posts. They help me. Today, I realized I was making a descent into the underworld again. There wasn't as much resistance. More a realization. Thank you Ruby!
this darkness is familiar
i have been here before
entered from a different door
it served me well
the depth uncovered hidden shores
unafraid
to stand alone
i have a map
as i unfold
i surrender to the unknown
in the underworld i find invisible gold
deeply deeply
i dive
uncovering the greatest treasures
of my soul