When Wounds and Worth Meet: Healing From a Painful Pivot

Yesterday, I had an incredibly healing experience I didn’t even know I needed. 

I had a meeting at the local coffee shop with Josh and a local business owner Amy about our amazing vision for an upcoming collaboration and a long-term opportunity to expand how we support and teach breathwork practices to yogis. It was a beautiful, divine synergy. 

Our meeting was short, mainly because our little humans get off the bus at 2:45 p.m. and with temps below zero it would not be a good look to have forgotten to leave the door unlocked for them to get into the house #workingmomprobs -  but we accomplished a mountain of work in only 45 minutes. I came prepared, with a list of ideas written out so we could really hit the ground running. And run we did. It was a kind of soul work. 

Coming Face to Face With a Work Wound

I left the meeting to race home and unlock the door for the boys and Josh returned home later. As we recapped the discussion after I left, he shared something that shook me.

He said how Amy had remarked about my approach to getting shit done and how fast I am able to execute tasks that would take others HOURS to complete. 

As a human who values efficiency to my core, this was the ultimate compliment. 

Josh continued by sharing how he told Amy that it was one of the strange responses to my work at the firm I co-founded and later exited (I’ll spare you, dear reader, the reasons why I left and let my attorney handle on-going business divorce issues…#notfun #butnecessary). He said he told Amy that some folks simply couldn’t comprehend the ENORMOUS pile of tasks I accomplished on a daily basis as the person handling both case work and every. single. operations. task. And he shared that he told Amy something to the effect of how my former partners chose not to understand, let alone appreciate, the work I was doing because I make it look so easy. 

Cue hot tears. He actually SAW ME. 

I realized at that moment that I thought because of how unseen the firm and operations work was and how others behaved before and after I gave notice that my work was actually not valuable, had no impact, and was therefore actually meaningless. But I realized with his acknowledgement that the mean girl voice inside me saying those awful things was merely my work wound talking. 

Awareness Is the First Step to Healing

I was deeply touched by what Josh shared. I then spoke the actual truth out loud - I worked my ass off for the firm well before the firm’s launch when others were working at another firm, during my time at the firm, and I sought with all of my abilities to ease the transition with four months of support even though my transition plans and strategies were largely ignored and in some areas outright rebuffed. 

It was after this discussion that I was truly aware of how I need to heal this deep work wound so that I can move forward in ways that aren’t about me chasing admiration and approval of my work. I must find and believe in my own inherent worth in my work because otherwise I’ll only be striving for others’ opinions and let me tell you, those change like the wind. The span of time between when I was praised constantly for my efforts versus when I was belittled for my work and contributions was, as they say, a New York minute. A simple change in the wind and poof! 

Allowing the Wound to Meet My Actual, Inherent Worth

Despite outside influences, how I felt and how it impacted me is all on me. That is and was my choice and my responsibility to change. It was shaky and thoroughly unstable ground to build my worth yet again in my work and even more so to base my worth on how others perceived the value of my efforts. 

With the conversation yesterday, I became aware of how I need to heal this work wound by allowing this painful work wound to meet MY ACTUAL WORTH. Not the worth that others decide about me, my contributions, my approaches and my strategy. Just me. I am worthy. I matter. My work matters. Regardless of whether anyone else believes that. I need to believe it.

Allowing my work wound to meet my actual worth enables me to bless and release others’ opinions of it. Because I know deep down that what I do matters. I get to rewrite and reprogram the story and did so with journaling and breathwork. And this is what I now know without a doubt:

I launched a brand new firm with the sufficient infrastructure to handle a successful first year and the expansion to 7 people plus countless vendors. I handled thousands of small and large operations, finance, tax, marketing, billing, invoicing, banking, lending, insurance, benefits, payroll, and other tasks for the seven-figure business and kept those matters off my fellow partners’ desks so that they could focus on client work. I had amazing client relationships that supported our tight months, and I bankrolled our launch with contributions of my money, time, attention, and energy many times that of my fellow equal partners. It all mattered and it was valuable. End of story. 

Now onward, with certainty of belief in myself, my inherent worth, and my business - Executive Unschool.

It is time.