I am not afraid

When I started my own business seven years ago, I felt like diving off a cliff. That I was going to dive was inevitable, but the idea of slapping mercilessly on the surface of the water did keep me up at night. Nevertheless, I threw myself off.

Hard slaps

Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before I hit the surface of the water hard: my first rejection to a big offer. And I had worked on it into the wee hours of the morning! The dent to my self-confidence in the process was substantial. “I obviously can’t present this proposal to my supervisor," the manger told me.”

I was dumbfounded. The tender in question was almost bursting at the seams with options, thoroughly backed up with scientific documentation and validated with a case study.

“Why can’t you submit this,” I asked the person in question. ‘Well all the hard facts are in it, you are undoubtedly an expert in what you do, but the most important thing is missing: Where are you in this whole story?” 

Ouch…

I licked my wounds and climbed up again, preparing for the next dive. And again I came down with a smack. Again I climbed up, the same way.

After a few blows, I was quite blue. Without really being aware of it, I was still avoiding the cause. I only focused on the customer and mostly looked at how they where charged by their past, which largely determines how they run their business today. But instead, shouldn’t I have focused on how I showed up as a founder, on how I was charged? 

It turned out to be a question I had explored a lot more thoroughly with my clients than I did with myself.

Time to face the music

After 6 months of ‘hitting several walls’, I decided to take the journey inward, that specific journey I had apparently so callously put off.

Almost immediately, I saw the person who was really standing on the cliff.

Brave but naive, flexible but overly loyal, tough on the outside, but on the inside always looking out for a reaching hand. “Don’t speak too much about your feelings,” was the motto in our family home. It prompted me at a young age to always work hard, but to make sure I would keep myself out of the equation.

I finally understood what the universe was trying to tell me al along with “all walls” I encountered: I had forgotten to bring myself into my work. Was I healing my wounds through the wounds of my clients, by letting them travel inward, instead of me?

The realization was a profound shock and at the same time a wonderful release.

On my inward journey, I discovered something that changed everything: my own unique ability. This ability was hidden in the same source as my fear: turning the light on myself.

Until then, I had put others, as well as reason and analysis, at the center. This coping strategy served my for a long time to avoid the mirror. 

I jumped off the cliff once more, and this time had the courage to discover what I had been ignoring: being comfortable with my vulnerabilities and feeling confidence in my own uniqueness. I didn’t need confirmation from outside, I needed confirmation from the inside. To me that was the point of no return, it truly lifted me up. 

I discovered that my deep need for affirmation turned out to be the engine under everything. It determined the triggers I had resonated with, how I had perceived the world around me, the feelings I suppressed and how I had responded. I had outsourced what I neglected to own up to. 

In the people around you, you meet yourself

During this period, I met countless entrepreneurs and professionals who similarly had outsourced their pain; to their loved ones, friends, co workers, partners, even to the way they build their businesses. 

In particular, I saw how much loss and waste was created by ignoring their core pain.

In them I met ’the fighters’ who kept sabotaging things to avoid their own responsibility, the ‘pleaser’, who liked to hold others responsible for their own discomfort. I met ‘diplomats’, who preferred to color outside the lines, except when they were being judged, in which case they were the moral knight. And there was the ’the joker,’ who couldn’t take the seriousness of the matter and preferred the comic relief.

It was a motley crew and in some archetypes, I also found myself. I realized we shared a similar pain and grievance while ignoring our genuine self. Maybe we didn’t meet ourselves yet. 

Looking the lion in the mouth

Pain can echo for decades if its not resolved. Digging a little deeper through my ‘ancestor corridor’, I finally arrived at my core theme: the fear of being alone and to surrender to the unknown. I had been often alone as a child, I think I was searching for a safety net. 

I gave that fear all the light and love it deserved, which unfolded into deep compassion about how I survived. 

My biggest fear finally manifested as my most valuable source. I was not afraid to be alone any longer. I was not alone; I was with me. Once I started to surrender to that feeling, it slowly transformed into my infinite strength. 

Fear and authentic power come from the same source

I learned how much energetic power lies beneath deep relaxation once you surrender to it.

From this pure source I could now genuinely understand my own pain, as well as the pain of others. I faced my fear, which allowed me to finally tap into my own unique source: a keen eye for that which lies out of sight. My deep fear had transformed into my true power. 

Since then I have had the joy and privilege of working with beautiful changemakers around the world. Accompanying them as they face their own unique stories, release the charge from their past, and discover the fuel of their unique and pure source, igniting others around them in the process.

***

For more inspiration join a special circle with Barbara next weekend. Scaling Deep Instead of Scaling Up. More details and RSVP info here.