Radiance Before Results

There comes a time in every truly effective journey I’ve been on with a woman where she realises, and truly owns, her responsibility for how her life feels...

Most of the smart women who work with me come into our coaching relationship believing that they are taking responsibility for their lives.

And they ARE, on a level.

They’re working hard. They’re doing the things that need to be done. They are showing up.

And, they (maybe you?) also need to realise, that no amount of showing up for creating the results and maximising productivity and performing the required-of-you tasks will ever move the needle in a meaningful and lasting way on how you feel.

See, to change the feeling tone of your life – which I believe, is your experience of your life – it requires a different, much less linear, somewhat messier and less predictable path.

It requires a willingness to surrender some of that carefully crafted control and stop striving for perfection.

It requires feeling some vulnerability that you’ve perhaps been avoiding.

And it requires that you reorganise your priorities and really allow yourself to value yourself and your experience of your world.

Radiance Before Results.

This is the piece of the puzzle thats missing for so many ambitious, driven, successful and hard working women who feel overwhelmed by the responsibilities of life, stressed and dissatisfied.

And no one else can give this to you.

It can be very easy to look to your kids being difficult, relationship problems, issues at work and other “problems” and stay focused on the gap between where you feel like you are and where you’re ‘meant’ to be.

This belief that you’re meant to be somewhere other than right here becomes fuel for your striving, because surely if you can achieve that next milestone, get your kids to behave differently, your husband to show up more and all the things, then you’ll feel better, right?

Nope.

Feeling good is right here.

Radiance lives in treating yourself like something good and precious, now.

Even while they kids are having a meltdown. Even when your spouse is imperfect, that staff member has let you down again and your body doesn’t look the way you’d most like it to.

This now moment is SO often imperfect, and being with THAT is categorically hard.

But as one of my great teachers Gillian Pothier says, “The masculine needs to do good to feel good. The feminine needs to FEEL GOOD to do good.” (I believe this quote actually came from someone else, but I’m crediting Gillian because thats how it came into my world!)

I’m all for women having access to brilliant masculine qualities, but I also believe that too many ambitious, capable women these days are operating far too much from their ‘inner masculine’, causing themselves all kinds of pain in the process.

So, if you’re a woman who’d like to feel better while also doing the work thats meaningful to you, here are my questions for you;

How would you most love to feel? Separate from the results in your life, the way other people show up and all those things, how do you want to experience your life?
Where do you outsource responsibility for how you feel? What stories do you tell about the ‘problems’ in your life, and how do those stories impact your feelings?

Next time you notice yourself telling one of these stories, rather than rushing to ‘fix’ whatever is going on, see if you can take a few deep breaths, drop below the noise of your mind and connect with how you’re feeling.

Move your body in a way that feels helpful, put on some music, be kind to yourself. Interrupting the cycle like this is a wonderfully radical act of self care, and new possibilities flow from this place. ✨

Never underestimate the power of your past. Because it’s not in the past. It’s here in this living moment with you – woven into your responses, choices and perceptions; baked into your nervous system and psyche through and reinforcement and repetition.

That doesn’t mean your past has to define you, not at all.

Though, you’re lying to yourself if you say ‘its in the past’, yet have done no work to clear the ripples of that past from your system to create space for something new.

Yesterday, in a session with my coach, I went ‘back in time’ to the end of 2020, when I went through an experience that was somewhat challenging for me.

Here is a sublime example

Despite acknowledging the challenge at the time, I realised looking back that I hadn’t fully resolved or digested what happened there.

Part of me stayed frozen in that experience, and on the subtlest of levels, I have gotten in my own way unconsciously ever since.

That past experience was with me in every moment. It informed my capacity and energy levels, choices and perceptions.

And this is how the past shapes us – you have experiences that your system ‘learns’ from, and you then – often completely unconsciously – adjust accordingly to avoid repeating painful or difficult events.

We are such clever adaptive creatures.

But, those ‘adaptations’ will inadvertently shape your behaviour, attitudes, thoughts and feelings in a way that can begin to inhibit your ability to fully show up for your business or career, relationships, and life in general.

If you bring the process of ‘learning’ from these past experiences into consciousness, you gift yourself the chance to mine the gold from the past, get the learnings and gifts link example: and then move forward with your life.

„ QUOTE DESIGN: I CALL THIS PROCESS ‘DIGESTING’ YOUR PAST EXPERIENCES, AND HAVE SPECIFIC PRACTICES I TEACH TO SUPPORT YOU TO DO THIS.“

I call this process ‘digesting’ your past experiences, and have specific practices I teach to support you to do this.

The challenges of the past – and your adaptations – can become like a cage you find yourself living in if you’re not aware, but this digestion process ensures your continued liberation…

Which past experiences do you need to free yourself from?

We are such clever adaptive creatures.

If you bring the process of ‘learning’ from these past experiences into consciousness, you gift yourself the chance to mine the gold from the past, get the learnings.