A New Week | August 2nd, 2021
How does worthiness feel like? And what does it have to do with my business?
I am back from a long, and needed summer break. My three sons, my husband, and I spent three weeks in Northern Italy laying on, splashing around in, and adoring the Italian lakes, seeing friends, enjoying a lot of good food, inhaling and exhaling deeply, and being reminded by our children that the wild life never stops.
After a long 1.5 years during the pandemic with three tiny humans, two growing businesses, nurturing a new community, many wonderful partners (this is how I call my coaching clients), and a personal desire to keep healing, renewing, and growing physically and mentally it was about time to stop. Stop for the sake of honoring my body budget: Sleep, mindful eating, reflections, time to exercise and move intentionally, immerse myself into the present moment with those that hold space for me (and vice versa) every day.
Today I want to talk about an experience during vacation that hopefully helps you too:
A few years ago unplugging entirely would have felt almost impossible. And even during this vacation the first week still felt like my matchbox car was lifted off the ground and it was still spinning its wheels.
What I have realized during this vacation during one of my centering practices though was that I have felt aligned to - even called in - to do the work of standing still, moving through the uncomfortable emotions and piercing impatience. De-sensationalizing my daily life enabled me to connect to my own power within rather than demonstrating my power to the outside world. It is one of those things that I live by, and yet I have found a new level of truth, honoring, and acceptance recently. It’s a feeling of deeper maturity that quickly embodied itself as a non-negotiable. For me this also meant to not talk to clients and celebrate their wins, hard moments, and breakthroughs; but instead truly making room for the ones I need to make to continue growing in my work as leader, mother, and partner.
What comes next might sound counterintuitive first, but bear with me. Join me in feeling this idea and write down what comes up for you.
What if all of the above has to do with creating a sense of belonging with my own self-worth?
During one of my partner sessions this week, I heard him saying: “You’re right, Franzi. Worthiness is not earned. It’s also not received. It’s a (my) right.“
We both looked at each other knowing that this was an important breakthrough.
One part of leading with authenticity - that is honoring and working with your truth - is that you understand that you are worthy of every single failure and success in your life. Leadership worthiness involves what you do to deserve to be in a position for others to follow. Worthiness in that way includes legitimacy, integrity; and the visible, relatable examples of always striving to become as complete a leader as possible.
Interestingly, this is impossible if we do not believe that we are worthy of working TOWARDS that leadership potential; and the deep commitment and actions of doing the work. We are - at all times - whole and worthy of the experiences and decisions we are making if we have given our best.
Read that again.
If many of us and you are able to step into that you will be able to lead with more questions, and less monologues. You are able to replace power towards others with curiosity of our own shortcomings helping us in turn to support others better in their journey at work and as a human. You understand that you are incompletely complete at all times and are always designing the next experience as a result, not judging the mistakes you have made in the past. Part of our ego will die, you will release tendencies of control and judgement, and move into a more harmonious flow with the highs and lows of your life.
For all of this to happen, you and I have to own what is in front of us. We have to be in touch (physically) with who we are, where we’re at, and what it is that we are looking for and find peace in our perfect imperfection. Only then we grow out of inspiration and feeling our own worthiness (=respect for ourselves) to create an even “better“ human experience (at work, at home, in our communities); instead of growth out of despair and pain only.
At each moment in time we are preparing for another insight, a new understanding of self, an improved way of doing things, a better way to create the future for our children. Is that also so exciting to you?
We cannot deserve anything, if we are not serving ourselves and others the learning, the reflections, the breaks, the deep work it takes to continuously renew our sense of self.
It separates power-insisting leaders from people-influencing, or people-centered leaders.
So instead of connecting to your proximity of power, connect to the power that is already inside of you. Nothing outside of us can make us feel more connected, more deserving of love, more brilliant, and more worthy than we already are. (Thank you to Chani Nicolas for inspiring this thought evolution)
And hey… your next vacation might just be the right time to start.
(For those in the same boat as I am with three kids… highly recommend chatting with your partner, relatives or some friends about some scheduled alone time ;) )
All the love, all the power
Franzi
Weekly Goodies, Celebrations, and Discoveries:
A somatic exercise:
If you feel stress in your body, where do you feel it the most?
What parts of your body do not feel the stress? And how can this part inform, support, or give energy to the stressed part?
Example: I sense stress in my shoulders and lower back. My feet and legs are usually at ease during that time. I learned to walk things off, stretch my legs (downward dogs in particular) to let the loose energy of my body evaporate into the rest of my body. Sometimes it also just helps to visualize the calm energy of my legs moving up into my shoulders. I usually see it as a white stream of energy. What do you see? :)
A reminder:
What are your non-negotiables this week? What’s a better reality that is one step or two steps away; not five?
Two quote from one of my sessions this past week:
Context: Investor relations and negotiations
”I want to be and am the person I want to negotiate with. I elevate my own character”
Context: Money as a proxy of worthiness
(paraphrased to turn it into a belief statement)
”Money is not a measure of your worthiness.
Loose everything and learn what you’re worth.
Stand in that. Grow from here. ”
A personal moment:
For many years, I worked on my own personal sense of worthiness to have a loving, respectful, growth-oriented, and joyful family. I come from a lot of conflict and inter-generational trauma; and I made the decision years ago that this trauma cycle stops with me. I am worthy of love, belonging, and happy children. I step into this space a lot when I need this reminder…. cause parenting and startup life is crazy sometimes ;). And because I am committed to my company, I am also committed to ensuring that my family nurtures that.