How I Subconsciously De-Valued What I Do
Dare I say that each person who has decided to take the entrepreneurial route, has based their business on helping people, in some capacity or another.
When asked what I do, I respond, “I help people move forward after grief.” Which can sometimes be met with a pause, as they process the word grief.
More times than I expected, I have had to explain what grief is. And quite often I’m told how admirable it is— to do what I do.
I’m no stranger to grief and loss.
It was when I found myself at a loss (of tools), to support my daughters in 2015, five and a half years after the death of their Dad, my husband. I was compelled to take grief specific training. Early in the process, I quickly understood that I was their Mom first, not a coach, to my girls.
It’s been invaluable.
And is a complementary addition to the other things I had in my coaching toolkit at that time, so I began to share about what I would be focusing on, going forward, on social media.
Turns out, not everyone thought what I was doing, was admirable.
Quite the contrary actually.
Open Season on Social Media
I don’t have that much experience fending off internet trolls, however I did receive a message, from someone (whom I’m aware of), who shared their unsolicited opinion, that went something like this…
“Now you are going to make money off your husband’s death?”
Which threw me off kilter.
In one way I can see they aren’t completely wrong—the reason I took this path had everything to do with my late husband’s death. While logically, I know that my having experienced grief and multiple losses, learnt from it and want to help others go through it more easily—isn’t literally me cashing in on being a widow.
Overall, their opinion on anything about me or my life means ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to me, yet it took a while for me to let it go.
And every once in a while the memory pops into my mind, and can still take me a minute to shake it off, years later.
Because it stuck to a part of me, personally.
Charge What You Are Worth
A person had inquired about working with me via my Facebook Page. They wanted to know more about how this worked, so I sent them a link to book a discovery call, so we could discuss it.
They just wanted the details, so I complied, sent them a message with an overview, complete with pricing.
I received a response back that was along the lines of…
How despicable I was—expecting people to pay for grief help, when they don’t have any money, and why wasn’t I doing this for free, for everyone!?
Can I see her point of view? Sure.
No matter what business you are in, there will be some people who are unable to afford your services.
And my inner Amateur wants to do everything for free! While on the business side—I’ve invested in Myself + My business for those I help to have a qualified and quality experience, my pricing reflects that.
However, this also stuck to part of me and has at times made me doubt my worth.
Personal Life vs. Professional Life
There can be aspects of being an entrepreneur, that are more emotionally challenging than anticipated.
Which may have influenced how you showed up in your personal life.
Along the way some personal life events, have impacted you and therefore your business.
The crux of the situation may be that the overlapping and weaving of emotions from the personal to professional and back again, may need untangling.
~Excerpt from I Ghosted My Dreams
Versus is the key in my story.
There were significant personal life events that happened simultaneously, while in the beginning stages of starting my coaching business. Even after those events had passed, their impact influenced what I valued and believed was possible for me, personally and professionally.
But it wasn’t until a year ago that I had become acutely aware that what I valued in my professional life, and in my personal life were incongruent.
Values:
Like the operating system on your computer or phone, values run in the background of our lives and are essentially the "why you do what you do and want what you want".
So when I received the unsolicited opinion and it stuck to a part of me that was self-doubt about what I wanted to do, followed by another questioning my integrity for charging for my work—those two (and there were others) reinforced a belief that I couldn’t or shouldn’t—do what I wanted to do or want what I wanted.
Beliefs:
Their job is to act as an unconscious filter for your mind to either accept, modify or delete information that we take in through our senses.
That’s why it was so easy for me to ghost my dreams, since I was subject to whichever beliefs were in the forefront, acting as a filter.
It wasn’t until I questioned what my values and beliefs were that these parts of me truly had a voice.
And rather than trying to eradicate or banish them from existing, I have spent the last year, befriending them, which has allowed me to reconnect with my voice.
Inquiry
If there have been instances, experiences or events that made you believe that silence was safer, how have you handled that?
How have you handled negative comments or trolling? Did it feel personal?
What have you learned since then? Is there something you would like to tell that part of you that is holding onto those memories?
This resonates with me, and the whole view of knowing your worth. It is amazing how many people are happy to pay money to huge corporations for trivial material crap, but begrudge paying those who can make a material difference to their lives.
Strange, how on-point this is for me right now. My publishing company is about to release a truly gorgeous book of poetry from an incredible author. The poems are about his healing from his wife’s death, and the deaths of so many of his friends as he ages—and how he heals the idea of being one of the few remaining. I want everyone in the world to read this book, because we all grieve. Yet it feels strange to me to try and sell to the grieving in us all. (Or that’s how my inner self puts it, at times.)
So. Thank you for this perspective on working with your own inner incongruency.