09/20/2024
Being Beauty
(A Poem)
About 6 1/2 years ago, I discovered I had trauma and hadn’t known it.
While I’d had a successful coaching practice for more than two decades, supported by a rich multi-disciplinary portfolio of training and experience, I was not trauma informed.
My trauma hijacked my strengths: a sharp mind, hard work ethic, the capacity to generate maximum output, and a fierce mama-bear compulsion for the caregiving of others.
At the height of my productivity, I was president and co-owner of an award-winning vineyard, a devoted wife and partner, owner and sole operator of my coaching practice, I wrote and published a best-selling book, was raising twins, volunteering at school, and caring for my mother with terminal cancer.
Fast forward about 10 years, I experienced a moment that would change my life trajectory permanently as I worked productively at my desk. My kids were now launched and in college, my mother had died, my marriage was over, and the vineyard was gone along with my assets which were lost in a concurrent divorce and contentious legal dispute.
About 8 months prior to this defining moment at my desk, I found myself crying inconsolably. While the unending pain and grief gutted me without relent, I couldn’t name its source. In desperation for understanding and relief, I was guided to work with Marshall Burtcher and discovered a world of depth regarding healing from trauma and codependency that I never imagined possible.
After one particular 3 hour session, we addressed a core wound in such a way that I knew I was changed forever. Marshall said, “I have a sense that your work will change and evolve as a result of this.” And, true to his wise prediction, it did.
I used to identify myself as a Law of Attraction expert and thought that my credibility and authority was based on my capacity to manifest amazing things against all odds. I thought my achievements defined my value and that the source of my power was in my productivity.
I also knew though, that when I wasn’t productive, or achieving great things, or my whole world was falling apart, I was utterly lost. I didn’t know who I was. And I felt like a piece of dirt.
What healed that day with Marshall, was that I found my internal sense of safety. The safety I’d always been seeking, but didn’t know it. The safety that comes when you know at the depths of your bing that you matter - simply because you exist.
That day a seed of awareness was planted in my psyche. The awareness that I am safe, loved and cared for by life. That I didn’t have to earn, prove, or achieve in order to be loved or valued. And the most mind-blowing understanding of all: That I could be productive and powerful by doing nothing.
That day at my desk, life gave me a vision.
I understood at the quantum level of my being how my presence is more powerful than my productivity.
It was a flower that showed me the proof and the way to experience, embody, and express this truth.
I was well versed and practiced in the Power of Doing. Yet, I knew nothing about the Power of Being.
But the flower knows.
She manifests all day long without lifting a finger.
Life provides for her every need without her asking, doing, or solving problems.
She doesn’t need to achieve because she knows how to receive.
Receiving is her super power. And life provides all.
She doesn’t have to sell herself in order to make an impact, for her gifts are distributed by life’s winds, waters, and supportive creatures.
She simply stands, stays, and shares her beauty.
I instantly knew how her power translates to my experience as a sentient being. And from that moment on, my work was redefined.
Today I help brilliant women to stop settling for less by making the tiny shift that brings huge abundance.
This simple shift lies in discovering how the power of your Being is the answer you’ve been searching for.
That day I wrote this poem…
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LbViG7wH6fxURK1pcSBT56duRMxMhqq-/view?usp=sharing
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