“Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.” ― Rumi
I read a beautiful piece by
on the other day and it really hit me.He talked of ‘becoming the best version of ourselves’
It hit me, because this has been my process too.
At 17 I was depressed and repressed and I didn't know where to go for help. The Doctor was baffled as to why I felt this way and to be perfectly honest, so was I.
But when I was a little more honest with myself and I stopped reaching for the quick fixes I realised, I wasn't doing anything that I loved. I wasn't growing. I had nobody in my life that was showing me anything other than I was already doing. But they seemed to be fine.
Life events and decisions I had to make helped me to see that transformation was my process.
A lot of it was about dropping the bullshit I thought about myself. A deconditioning process I suppose. In the short time of being alive I had managed to feel this sad and so I had plenty of time to turn it around and hopefully learn.
Even when times have been difficult the knowing this was part of my life's journey had eased the pain of sitting with it.
Call it what you will, the wounded healer, kundalini path, butterfly's journey. It doesn't really matter. I could make it as Instagammable as I like. But this is how it is and this is the part of my work I love the most.
Watching people let go, drop their own bullshit. The stuff they think they have to live with and become the best version of themselves is incredible and I find it a real honour to be invited to support them any way I can.
But I couldn't do it without living it myself.
I recently read (and am about to re-read) Radical Honesty. It's such a simple book but it has allowed me to step out of even more of my own bullshit and recognise where life could be even better.
This quote sums up where I was in my low level cold depression and how I effected some change.
“For my own good, I want to hang out with people who want to find out what it would be like to live in such a way as to leave no unspoken words, no unfinished business; I want to be with people who are hungry for the truth, who want to spend time learning and sharing what they have learned rather than defending their images or reputations.” ― Brad Blanton
I yearned for truth. For authenticity. But first I had to go first, lead the charge. Like the canary in the coal mine.
I had to make the mistakes, screw up and learn from all of it.
As Ryan stated he couldn't bill himself as self- help guru but he can help people transform by doing what he loves and what he knows best.
I simply do what I do in the ways that I do it, and allow people to change, transform and drop the stuff they have been carrying because they thought they had to.
To become that more fully expressed version of themselves.
“Your problem is how you are going to spend this one and precious life you have been issued. Whether you're going to spend it trying to look good and creating the illusion that you have power over circumstances, or whether you are going to taste it, enjoy it and find out the truth about who you are.” ― Anne Lamott
This is really nice, Emma.
(Thank you for the mention.)