Part 1:Superheroes, Being of Service and Self care

I feel like I should start to untangle the story of how I became a self-care coach for Healers.

My being-of-service comes honestly.

Before I was conscious of it, my grandmother was my original superhero.

She could do it all.

When she wasn’t making the world’s best everything as a baker in a federal bank’s cafeteria, she cooked rock-star level meals from scratch at home.

I dare you to make a better tea cake.

If it was Wednesday, she went to bible study.

Sometimes on Friday nights, she played cards with friends.

On Saturdays, she cleaned the house, went to the farmers’ market to prepare Sunday dinner for a small tribe. Depending on the Saturday, in the afternoon she went to choir practice.

Sundays, she talked to friends on the phone before Sunday School. She served in many church leadership roles. She helped in the kitchen during special church occasions.

It was like she never stopped moving.

My mom is the same way.

To see my grandmother sick and eventually pass away from cancer is a feeling without enough adequate words.

How do you describe the guilt of coming home to visit and struggling to recognize someone you’ve known your entire life because a disease took their fiery energy and personality?

For a long time I didn’t recognize what I felt was guilt.

It showed up as grief, anger, resentment, confusion, depression, hopelessness, addictive behaviors, a deep, deep desire to escape….

I Am fortunate I had people around to help me fall apart and not lose myself completely to the grief.

After my grandmother passed away I felt a strong sense to be of service, as she had. I saw it and still see it as a way to honor her memory and answer the Call to be a Healer as she had.

My journey to get to where I am now started out ugly.

I went through feeling exhausted, resentful, needy, and taking things personally, while I healed from addiction.

yay

I felt a strong sense of survivor’s remorse.

I’d lost friends to rejection, violence, chronic illness, social diseases, and severe mental breakdown (2 friends had to be institutionalized and one friend took her own life).

Yet here I was alive and healthy.

For a very long time I had no idea why I was either alive or healthy and that bothered the hell out of me. I’m amazed I survived and remember any of my twenties.

Survivor’s remorse felt like an odd kind of gratitude to where the sadness of the guilt outweighed the good of the gratitude.

Surviving and thriving messed with my head so much that, to make up for being alive, I felt like I had to help everyone I could.

Everyone.

I had advice on everything to make everyone’s lives better.

“Yeah, I’ll help you with that.”

“Sure, I can help with that project.”

“Yes, I’ll be able to come to that meeting.”

“Absolutely, I can do that for you.”

“No, I don’t need help. I can do it myself.”

“I can do this.”

“I can do that.”

“Yes.”

"Yeah."

"Mmhhm."

“Sure.”

“Okay.”

“No problem.”

In the back of my head I’d convinced myself I could help everyone because I remember my grandmother helping everyone.

2 major things happened.

1, I became resentful, and pissy because not a lot of people were listening to all this stellar advice I was giving them. (Pfft. The nerve.)

2, I never got to do a lot of things I wanted because I was busy helping everyone with their stuff and then I blamed them because I wasn’t doing what I wanted to do.

Newsflash: Neither of these are self-empowering.

What I didn’t realize until after I started to take better care of myself, say “no” more often, and start to pay attention to my relationship with addiction did I come to understand that when I made myself last I lost.

It shouldn’t be a surprise, but how often do we make ourselves last and then we do it again and again and again, until it becomes our habit; our addiction?

My rationale for acting this way weakened when I realized, while my grandmother was self reliant and did some things on her own, she had help on the things she didn’t do on her own.

Most importantly she ASKED for help.

A close second to this is she had no problem asking for help.

She took naps when she was tired.

She drank tea in the afternoon.

She watched soap operas when she got home from work (It was not a good idea to call when her “stories” were on.).

She enjoyed watching Tom Baker's Dr. Who. 20 million cool points!

She said and meant “no” when she said “no.”

She had no problem expressing herself and living her life with passion.

She connected strongly with Spirit and it kept her going during some potentially soul-crushing times.

She loved fiercely and adored babies and had some very old-school, rational advice on raising kids.

She is a powerful example of being of service and the balance between giving with receiving.

So I had to let go of the guilt of not being the same level of superhero as my grandmother.

She would have wanted me to be my own superhero.

She would have wanted me to be passionate about what lights me up, but also rest so that I could do the things I’m passionate about.

She would have wanted me to be brave and have faith in myself, and respect and be proud of myself as she was/is proud of me.

I must remember to embrace consistent self care and let go of what isn’t serving me and my Highest Good and to show up powerfully and honestly.

In the following blog posts, I’ll write more on why many of us struggle with consistent self care, habitually make ourselves last and suggests some ways to support our healing and growth.

To find out more about me and who I Am, visit my site mckinleycoaching.com.

Imbalance

"…And you will say that you're making headway and put it in overdrive but you're mistaking speed for getting what you need and never even noticing you never do arrive…."

–Aimee Mann, Driving Sideways, Magnolia Soundtrack

I've been thinking about how to describe the work I do.

It was a struggle because to me it's as natural to talk about what I do as if describing to you how to get from my den to the bathroom (walk through the kitchen take a left and it's the 2^nd door on the right).  

I live in the south and I was surprised that some people didn't know what Reiki was.

Well bless my naïve little heart.

So I had to take a step back and look at what I do.

It comes down to imbalance.

Let's talk about driving.

Think about the last time you drove your car at night.

At highway speed it's harder to see potholes, harder to spot highway police parked in speed traps and, without looking at a clock, it's harder to gauge how long you've been driving because there's no sun to follow.

Deer really dig the night life.

Think about a night where you were driving on the interstate and traffic had come to a halt and you found yourself behind a tractor trailer with its brakes engaged.

Red brake lights lit up like Christmas.

The lights were so bright it was probably hard to see anything else.

Pfft. Forget about being able to see around the tractor trailer.

Your eyes stung from the glare and you had to turn your head away or flipped down the sun visor.

Cars came up behind you and their lights reflected in your rearview mirror.

Into your eyes.

Fun times.

Up until this point you were probably eager to get to where you wanted to go, but now…

Now you're only thinking about how long you're going to be sitting still.

Worried about how late you'll be arriving to your destination.

Worried if you're going to run out of gas.

Worried if you do run out of gas how much will it cost to have your car towed or to hitch a ride to get gas.

Blaming yourself (or someone else) for not leaving on your journey sooner.

So you sit there.

In the car.

Possibly getting irritated.

Probably getting mad.

Probably thinking about the missed opportunity to go the bathroom at the gas station.

Thinking about the guy in front of you at the gas station who took too long to count out his change to buy cigarettes.

Yeah. This is all that guy's fault.

You've been so focused on being angry that you're not focused on solutions. You're not thinking about how this could not be that bad (all things considered).

I'm not going to get into the physiological effects of what being angry for prolonged periods of time does to your body (I'll save those gems for another blog post).

Think of the tractor trailer as an issue you have that you knew you've been aware of for a while, but have been avoiding or thought was "no big deal."

Now you have no other choice but to face the business-end of what's keeping you from your goal.

With people I talk to it's never just 1 big issue. It's usually 2 to 3 in-your-face issues and at least as many "hidden" ones.

That's where the imbalance is the most obviously not obvious. 

Let's use the example of advertising your business.

That's communication. It's speaking your truth about who you are and your business and what you do.

Are you reluctant about sharing what you do? Why? How confident do you feel about your business? How much value would you give yourself in your business? How's your creative desire looking these days?

Are you worried about paying for advertising? Are you always worried about money? Have you always worried about money? Do you trust yourself to make choices you feel good about, that serve you and move your business forward?

Worried you're making the right choices in getting the word out about your business?

Do you have a support system in place to bounce ideas off of and get non-intrusive, constructive criticism?

You're so distracted with worry you don't think to take a step back (turn off the ignition) and figure out other solutions.

If you hadn't done so already, I would suggest turning off the ignition to save gas.

Yeah, that is the obvious thing to do, but sometimes when you're in the middle of being mad, making obvious choices are akin to working a miracle so I'm not going to get judgey if you didn't think to turn off the ignition.

I use "judgey" a lot.

As a coach I'm going to point some things out to you to help you get your thought process going in a positive direction.

I'm going to give you the accountability you need, action-oriented exercises to develop your consistency muscle and southern sass when I sense you're playing small.

The world doesn't need any more playing small and you know it.

Beating your chest with regret is not going to serve you, so work with me to unlearn doing it.

Together, we're going to find ways to help you serve your business best. 

Ways that feel good to you. 

Ways you trust. 

Ways that nurture the part of you that knows the WHY of what you do.

So while you're behind the tractor trailer, you may want to get out of the car and see how far ahead the traffic is. 

While you’re waiting, if the sky is clear, finding familiar constellations (you're just sitting there. Why not?).

Turn cartwheels in the middle of the road.

Start conversations with people in other automobiles.

Finish and send an email to a prospective client.

Jot down ideas for future projects and people you'd love to work with.

Create a spreadsheet to keep track of how many and where you send out pitches for speaking gigs or to guest blog.

Write a list of all the things you're grateful for.

Did you look at your goals today? If not, now would be a perfect time to re-read them.

Do you have written goals? If not, now would be a perfect time to write them.

This is the work I do. 

I help you get out of your own way.

If you'd like to be a part of a community of other small business owners and entrepreneurs where you can connect, brainstorm with and share your road trip stories, please join us here.

Thanks for reading this.

Begin. Again.

This won't take long.

I've heard many of my coaching teachers/mentors say,

"When you talk to everyone you talk to no one."

I heard it, but I didn't HEAR it.

I thought it was clever and one part of my head knew it to be true, but some other part of my head didn't think the rule applied to me.

It was the equivalent of,

"I can make this 3 inch wide star-shaped peg fit into this 2 inch wide octagonal-shaped hole.

Yeah. I can do that."

No, special snowflake.

You can't.

It was then I realized that fear called the shots on who I chose to serve and gave it the appearance of absolute progress with an extra measure of acceptance.

Pfft. No.

Between the YouTube posts, a retreat and a host of other recent experiences, I have discovered a lot about what is possible while sliding into who I am and who I serve.

I am a healer in a world with other healers.

I serve heart-centered small business owners and entrepreneurs.

I serve those who serve others.

I serve those who serve others, but feel off balance.

I serve those who serve others, but tend to put others' cares before their own.

I serve those who serve others, but, who struggle with trusting themselves, do not feel confident or have a difficult time speaking their truth about their business. 

How much is your uncertainty, exhaustion and feeling overwhelmed costing you?

How much is it affecting the relationship with yourself?

How about the people closest to you?

Is it worth it?

So my focus is now, truly, heart-centered work. My core tribe is the healers of the world coming from a place of love, who feel they need to make changes in order to show up powerfully in their work.

Over the next few weeks I'll talk about this more. Since I've come to the revelation of who I specifically serve (4 days ago) it feels like I am learning a new language that is very familiar but different. 

Thank you for reading this.