Articles
Taking your place in someone else's grief
A couple of months after Kurt Cobain died, I came across an op-ed piece too far gone to retrieve that has stayed with me since. The editor noted that most articles he read about Kurt’s suicide began with some variation of:
I met Kurt when…I first heard Kurt’s music when…When I learned about Kurt’s death, I…
He was trying to point to the self-serving quality that presents itself when tragedy erupts. The way we want to get in on the drama. Take our place in the fray. It was a dark and dismal commentary on the human condition…vultures and buzzards feasting on the carnage of crisis. And a perspective that resonated and has stayed with me.
But I read something last year that has softened that somewhat. We all experience a myriad of emotions when learn of tragedy. And we need to put it somewhere. WHERE we put it…that’s the key.*
An article by Susan Silk and Barry Goldman called “How not to say the wrong thing” was widely and frequently shared on social media last April. (My dear friend Lauren Bacon turned me onto it and also wrote an incredibly helpful post on this same topic). The popularity of Silk and Goldman's article can be attributed to the fact that it demystifies the thing that paralyzes us when faced with someone else’s grief, trauma, loss or sadness, which is: HOW NOT TO SAY THE WRONG THING.
You see, Silk came up with a genius technique (called the Ring Theory) to help people discern what role they ought to play in someone else’s crisis.
It’s like this. Draw a circle and write the name of the person who is GOING THROUGH the trauma. The person who just lost a loved one. The one who’s just been diagnosed. This is about THEM.
Then draw a circle around that person, including the name of their immediate support (partner, best friend), and then another circle naming the next level of support (kids, friends, neighbours). Draw as many circles as you need to until you get to your “station” as it relates to that person.
The rules are simple. Your job is to comfort the person in the circle smaller than yours. If you have any sadness, worry, concerns, grief, rage, you are only to share it with someone in a circle larger than your own (their job is to comfort YOU).
Comfort IN, dump OUT, Silk says.
Beautifully elegant. And we need to know how to offer comfort.
How to comfort IN
Some of us are born with this ability. Most of us need to learn it. I've had to learn it. Messily. Ever messily. And here’s what I now know.
Comfort looks like safety
Imagine that the person you are trying to comfort is paddling in a small boat on turbulent waters. You are on the safe shores of the riverbank. And you have a long, sturdy rope and a super strong grip. You have two choices. You can try to swim out into the whitecaps and get in the boat with them OR you can throw them a line. (Hint: throw them the line).
Allow them to go through their own experience and process, safe in the knowledge that you are holding the lifeline, nice and secure.
Comfort looks like presence
You being there, holding the rope, not fixing, not placating, not reframing, not comparing, not lessening, not philosophizing, not rationalizing, not spiritualizing, not justifying, THAT’S presence. Presence doesn’t have the perfect words. It doesn’t need to. Allow them to find their own words and meaning.
Just BE there. Hold the person and their pain and grief and suffering in the light. If they want space, they will ask for it. And you will not need to make up that you’ve done something wrong. Presence allows for sands to shift.
Comfort looks like soup
Or pad thai. Or a shoveled walkway. Or a trip to the library with their kid.
What you can’t say in words, you can say in gestures. They will be appreciated, more than you may ever know.
How to dump OUT
Oh my Darling. I’m sorry if you’re in a ring smaller than someone else, then you are in it. You are in this crisis. Yes. I am truly sorry.
Ask for what you need. You are not a burden.
Keep asking as your needs shift and change. What you needed when the crisis was burning and the pain was acute will transmute as it becomes more chronic.
You have an unlimited store of karmic asks saved up. Ask. Ask. Ask. And ask some more.
Be as specific as your grief will allow. If you don’t know what you need, ask for help discerning your asks. Truly.
There are concentric rings of care around you, unseen, but there. Waiting for your ask.
The truth is this: none of us escapes grief, loss, and sorrow. Knowing how to be with each others’ tears softens the hardest places of our beings.
Will you please share in the comments what you know about comforting and being comforted? It helps.
++++++++
* I can't help but wonder if the writers speaking to the impact of Kurt’s suicide were inadvertently following this model… voicing their outrage to readers further removed from the epicenter of the crisis. Dumping OUT. And if frankly, that's what most writing it about. Still pondering...
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
It’s an illusion that you're in this all on your own.
You know the lesson that you are here to teach? The one you keep learning, relearning, and learning once more?
“We teach best what we most need to learn.” – Richard Bach
That lesson, for me, is:: “It’s an illusion that you're in this all on your own.” Time and time again, I hear myself say it to my clients. It showed up in this Cue Card last April.
It’s an illusion that you’re in this all on your own
In fact, it’s the very premise of my Board of Your Life offering.
Because IT’S TRUE. Just about everything I have ever, EVER created was made better or smarter, more easily, more pleasurably, more joyfully when I’ve done it in community. When I haven’t tried to muddle through on my own. When I’ve sought counsel. When I’ve invited support. When I GOT OVER the fact that it didn’t make me seem weak or less independent or LESS THAN because I wanted help holding all that I was trying to create. We all do.
I am surrounded by a stunning flock, to be sure. But it wasn’t something that just happened because I got lucky (though I am indeed, very very lucky). I’ve cultivated relationships. I’ve tended and tendered. I've helped and I've asked for help.
So when it came time to getting the word about the Step into Your Starring Role program in a wider and broader way, I knew that I would be required to ask for help again. And, I resisted. Because, once again, I bought into the illusion that I'm in this on my own.
Why? For all the same reasons my clients resist, my colleagues resist, YOU resist.
1) We don’t want to be a burden. 2) We are fiercely independent.
Let's unpack that.
We don’t want to be a burden.
Of COURSE we don’t want to be a burden. Nobody wants to be a burden. But when you make an ask of someone, ensuring that it is reasonable, specific, brief, respectful and CLEAR (oh please, let it be clear), then it rests in the hands of the person you’ve asked. They can say yes, if the ask aligns with their time, energy, interest, ability and capacity and they can say no if it doesn’t.
Remember though, that if you’re asking for something that is close to your heart and meaningful, then you’re asking someone who knows that to be true and wants it for you as well. Deeply. In fact, if you’re swinging out with your magnificence in any way, I know that they are thrilled for you. Because it’s an illusion that you are keeping all of that brilliance to yourself.
Others want to play a part. (If their time, energy, interest, ability and capacity allows).
Need a reminder? Just think back to any time someone you deeply cared for needed your help. Did you consider them a burden? Unlikely. You probably discerned if and how you were able to support them, and accordingly said yes, no or made a counter-offer.
You ask, and they answer. It’s a beautiful thing.
We are fiercely independent
Like the toddler who discovers he can stack his blocks all.by.himself, we want to feel free of anyone else’s control. We want to make our own decisions. We don’t want to be beholden.
I came across this yesterday::
"thing is... you need enough ego to act when everyone else says it's impossible, and enough humility to know that once you've made it happen, it wasn't about you." - Jonathan Fields
It’s rarely ever about you. That’s a sort of good news/bad news thing. Forces beyond you, WELL beyond you, are at play. You’ve felt it every time you’ve been lifted by an unseen hand. Angels. Devas. Luck. Stars. Serendipity. Whether you’ve named it or not, you have had those moments when you’ve felt that the universe in conspiring WITH you. It’s called pronoia and it’s the opposite of paranoia. And it’s heeding the call of your ego…which is very very good (in spite of the bad rap the “ego” gets.)
So yeah, it’s an illusion that you're in this all on your own. Because you’re NEVER all on your own.
May as well lean back into the glorious people in your life who want to see you thrive.
Which is what I did.
When there were aspects of the program launch that I didn’t want to do, or scared me, I asked for help. When I needed help spreading word wide and far about the program, I asked.
The support has been swift, stunning and humbling and so very appreciated with much, MUCH more coming over the next two weeks. There have been tweets, likes, shares. Every last one sweet like a kiss.
And these gifts of heart:
Erin, Amy, and Tania let me share their Step into Your Starring Role experience.
Tara Gentile took the lead in conceptualizing and creating the stunning sales page and has been a steadfast partner, friend, and collaborator, for whom I am deeply grateful.
Jen Louden and I had a fabulous conversation about the imposter complex and the pain of waiting.
Lauren Bacon wrote a post heralding this program and my work with the imposter complex that brought tears to my eyes (and included one of the most heartfelt disclosures about affiliate partnerships that I’ve seen.)
Chris Francoeur (brilliant coach, former participant, and I’m excited to share, the ASSISTANT for the program) spoke of the life-changing and EXPANSIVE impact of the program.
Ronna Detrick and I spoke about the spotlight, shining and what the soul wants. So good.
Erin Giles reminds you about the game-changing work you're up to in the world. And how Step into Your Starring Role helped her with hers.
Jackie Dumaine and I spoke about asteya and how NOT stepping into your starring role is actually a form of stealing as part of her Yoga Code Free Virtual Conference (our conversation is live TODAY).
And TOMORROW, brilliant light Annika Martins and I are doing a live call about Stepping Into Your Spiritual Authority. Being the star of your spiritual life - the queen of the castle of your heart. If you've been hiding or minimizing your spiritual beliefs (WHATEVER they may be) in order to make other people feel comfortable or to avoid judgement, this call is for you. Click HERE to sign up.
Yeah. It’s an illusion that I have to go this alone. It’s an illusion that YOU have to go this alone. (Tweet)
So…just ask. You’ll just may find the road traveled will better, smarter, easier, more pleasurable and far, FAR more joyful. In fact, you may even find yourself utterly blown away by the number of people who really want to see YOU step into your starring role.
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
The only difference between you and the woman you admire...
The only difference between you and the woman you admire is the fact that she decided she was ready. (You know the woman I mean. The one who's getting it done. Getting it right. Getting it.) She decided that she was ready to release the binary narrative of the Imposter Complex (that decreed if she wasn’t a complete success, then she was a dismal failure).
She decided she was ready to step into her starring role.
She decided she was ready to step into herself.
And her path wasn’t silky smooth. Sure, there were some gifts from the heavens. But moreover, it was challenged with twists and turns and shadows and doubts.
Her readiness precluded turning and her desires were bigger than her fears, so she asked her fears what they were here to teach her and she kept on going.
She gathered support when she needed it, putting past her life-long abhorrence of asking for help. In her travels, she came to recognize the gift she was offering the world in stepping into her starring role. And that she wasn’t required to go it alone. Not by a long shot.
When here were gaps in her ability, she filled them.
She kept going. She kept going.
When she got where she wanted to go, she rested there. She celebrated the decisions, the choices, the learnings. She recharged and she integrated.
And then she decided that she was ready for the next quest.
The only difference between you and the woman you admire is the fact that she decided she was ready.
And worthy of meeting her desires.
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
Upward spirals...the very best kind.
This is the first ever guest post here by my clever and talented husband Greg Sarney. One of my deepest wishes for him is that he own the writer that he is. I'm his champion, but not his Coach. He'll own it when he's good and ready. We’re on vacation up at our family cottage right now and I’ve invited him to retell the experience that the brilliant Tania Wojciechowski shared with me about the Step into Your Starring Role program, activating his storytelling mastery. I thought it would be valuable:: a) for you to experience his writing b) for HIM to experience his writing c) for you to hear his perspective on this program that he knows intimately well, but from the outside in and d) to honour Tania’s experience fully by handing her story to someone who can see it with a fresh and clean perspective. And to boot, he pulled in the yoga context…something he’s already written about.
And by the way, I am beyond excited to hear about what Tania's stepping into. She's my go-to for creating sanctuary. She may well be yours too.
+++++++
It’s wonderful when seemingly disparate parts of your life converge and complement each other. Our family is spending this week at a cottage, away from the bustle of the city and everyday life. Part of our routine is a regular yoga practice with an instructional DVD on the laptop, warm sunshine through the windows and a panoramic view of an icy windswept lake.
Part of the DVD commentary includes the notion of creating an upward spiral of positive energy through the combination of physical asanas and deep breathing. In the middle of a sun salutation, Tanya pointed out that this was the point of the Step into Your Starring Role program. She talks of it in terms of revolutions. One spin up the spiral gets you to a new place. Then you activate another revolution up the spiral. Up and up.
About an hour later, she received some feedback from Tania Wojciechowski about the program, which she shared with me. Serendipitous.
Tania's starting point represents a point at the base of her upward spiral—a vague notion of her desires but without the all-important direction, and theoretically, momentum.
In her words.
Before the program, I felt like I was flailing. I had recently quit my job, and I was taking some time to recover from burn out, while also jumping into entrepreneurship. I wanted to be a creativity coach without really knowing how I wanted to help people in real terms… I felt like a failure, like I couldn’t do it, like having a business maybe wasn’t for me. I did not feel “enough” – of a business woman, of a decision-maker, of a successful-quitter, of me, of anything.
Within the program, Tania was able to contain and focus her energy—this represents the middle of the upward spiral:
My initial shift brought me home to my role as a creator of sanctuary. I’d been creating sanctuary my whole life –whether I was making something, decorating my home, welcoming guests, or acting as peace-keeper and easeful space-maker in my jobs and my family.
Upon further reflection after the program Tania neared the top of her spiral:
I had been shying away from the role of interior designer, thinking it was too audacious to consider. I’m now ready to step into it. By helping people with the spaces they inhabit, and the patterns of life they create, I’m helping people create sanctuary, and I’m coaching people to have a greater connection to themselves. I am an “interior” designer in all senses, empowering women and giving them the tools to create their own authentic spaces… turning tea time, dinner time, resting time, into moments that heighten our connection to ourselves and our spaces.
Because I was able to come home to myself in this way through SIYSR, I have found the courage, the clarity, and the fire to help others in a way that most reflects the best of me, something I’d lost for a time.
Of course, the top of the spiral is the action Tania will take to live the life she envisions for herself, sharing her gifts and her positive energy with the women she’ll engage in her work. And then she'll her sights on the next revolution up the spiral. She has the tools. Powerful stuff indeed. And like a good yoga practice, this journey of self-realization happens mindfully, purposefully and incrementally:
You can make the shifts you need to make at the time, and then when you are ready, the work brings you to your next level, and then the next.
Upward spirals are the very best kind. Are you ready to do the work, feel the shifts, and create your powerful upward spiral?
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
On cooking shows, mystery ingredients, transformation and Amy Palko
Cooking shows are one of my guilty pleasures. Specifically the kind that challenge the chefs with mystery ingredients.Ooh…what will they do with that processed cheese and shredded coconut? Those morels and doughnuts?
Because, of course, the real question is, what would I do with the processed cheese and doughnuts.
The rub, of course, is that the judges expect the chefs to transform the ingredient into something symphonic…but not so very much that the essence is compromised.
This is where it gets tricky.
It’s easy to hide processed cheese in a mélange of emmental and kirsch to make a cheese fondue. Quite another to transform it in such a way that the, umm, 'integrity' and essence of the processed cheese not only remains in tact, but is in fact, highlighted. The star of the dish.
Tricky to be sure.
Stepping into your starring role, and frankly, ALL transformative journeys, can feel like a high-stakes version of this sort of cooking show.
I THINK I want to step into my starring role, but what happens when I go deep? Will I discover something that will compromise the essence of who I am?
Ah. Here it is. The essence of the soul cannot be transmuted.
[Tweet "The essence of the soul cannot be transmuted."]
And Step into Your Starring Role is about getting to the essence of who you are. The role you were born to play…THAT role is YOU.
Got that? Your starring role is YOU.
As the luminous luminary Amy Palko discovered. And thank sweet merciful heavens she did.
In her words.
Before Step into Your Starring Role, I was really in a place of confusion which was circling around feelings of invalidation. I was casting around for guidance on what the next step for me on my journey was, and I was coming up with nothing. I couldn't see even a fragment of a "big dream" that felt authentic to me. And so I was investing time and energy, albeit reluctantly, into dreams that I felt were "sanctioned" - dreams that I thought it was ok, even natural, to aim for. But they were a wrong fit. And so I ended up treading water, while in my heart of hearts, what I knew I really wanted was permission. Permission to want what I want.
The new reality is that my dreams are not someone else's dreams. And that my dreams and their dreams can coexist without cancelling one another out. That we can all want what we want, and that's a beautiful thing. I now see that my search for permission was leading me back to me, because I am the only one who can give it.
I can write poetry. I can do goddess readings. I can tell stories. I can commune with the sacred feminine. I can generate real and resonant connections just through sharing my truth, through sharing my heart. And that this can be enough. That I am a juicy creatrix, and that I can either deny that part of myself, or I can let it free… and life feels so much better when I let it free.
And if that were all not enough, I have also aligned with my values in a way I never knew possible. I have learned ways to deal with my critics, both inner and outer. I have found out that making the ask makes everything so much easier… and that ease is not a dirty word.
I have learned that my starring role is to be Amy Palko. And that I don't need external validation to step into that role. I just need to give myself permission to live it. And I do.
SIYSR has made it possible for me to stop pushing and start allowing. This looks like welcoming interns to help me hold the energy of my Goddess Guidance group. This looks like travelling to San Francisco to co-host a workshop on women's desire. (TG note:: if you're in San Francisco...you MUST check out Liberating Lilith...sublime. If it weren't the same weekend as my daughter's birthday, I would be there in a heartbeat.)
This looks like curating a new poetry collection. This looks like feeling out the edges of a larger writing project that is sitting on the cusp of articulation. All while continuing to deliver in my business. In fact, knowing that my business benefits exponentially when I take care of my number one resource – me.
Can you feel the deep sense of ahhhhhh in that? The essence of Amy Palko remains in tact, in integrity. The results? Deliciously symphonic.
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
What’s the axle around which your work revolves?
My daughter is learning about simple machines in school right now. You know...inclines, wedges, screws, levers, pulleys, wheels, and axles...that kinda thing. She's been arguing the case that without the axle, pulleys and wheels don't function properly, and as such, they're the most important. (Axles for the win, said very few people, ever.)
So, naturally, I'm thinking about axles. And how it relates to the core of what each of us does. How freeing it is to see and know the axle around which all of our work revolves. And how the work we do REQUIRES that axle for revolution. Circular. And stable. And guess what loathes stability? Yup. The Imposter Complex.
Take Erin Giles. She is a wildly brilliant new mama of two. She has a heart the size of all the Southern States (and a sweet accent to show for it). She is powerful and innovative and loves fiercely. My kind of woman.
Two years ago, she invited me to be a part of her End Sex Trafficking Day campaign. I was honoured and of course, keen.
She’s a woman up to incredible things. AND a former Step into Your Starring Role participant.
In her words.
Before SIYSR I considered myself a business owner, a coach a consultant even...but not a leader or a teacher. Tanya helped me see no matter what title I used or how good I felt about the work I did I wasn't fully stepping into my role because I didn't see myself as a leader. I felt like an imposter and it wasn't until my work with her that I realized just how important it was for me to claim my role as a leader.
So Erin’s axle is that of leader.
And when she started to recognize that she's a leader, when she got it, REALLY GOT IT, it’s made all the difference. And it informs all that she does.
Within months of claiming the role as a leader and teacher, I've been invited to speak at two engagements that last year I wouldn't have dreamed I would be stepping up on stage at.
I'm not saying I'm not intimidated still, I'm nervous as can be but I said YES. I'm stepping up and recognizing that the work I bring needs to be heard.
AND ohmygoodness it needs to be heard. Seriously. She’s inspiring entrepreneurs everywhere to take a good look at their own give-back style that sets them on track to creating social impact (and her free week Mission: Movement Maker starts soon…sign up here).
Her goals for this year
To welcome speaking engagements, offerings, and products that I know I need to say yes to and to be confident in doing so. What I'm really happy about is knowing that it's ok, normal even to be nervous stepping into my role, but doing it 110% in spite of.
As I type these words, Erin is hours of taking the stage at a conference. And she’s going to rock it. As she did on the TEDx stage last year.
So...what’s the axle around which all of your work revolves? Are you claiming it? Owning it? ‘Cause once you do, doors open. Promise.
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.