AN “AH HA” AND A “UH OH” - LIGHTBULB MOMENTS ON THE MAT
It was around this time last year that I was almost ready to relaunch myself into the yoga world with a new, shiny brand and website. I had spent time and money working with creatives and techies to build and design what I thought I wanted and needed. It was a wonderful and enjoyable process, I loved it……I have no regrets about any of that time.
……however then something happened which made it feel a little less shiny. I was listening to a conversation between two yogis and the conversation was around branding within yoga and the discussion was can we and should we brand yoga. As I listened to this conversation I had a sudden realisation that was hard to ignore. Unfortunately as I had this lightbulb moment there came with it an “oh f*@k” moment. The perfect example of what Leslie Kaminoff says “with every Ah Ha moment comes an Uh Oh”.
The wake up was the fact that despite being known by my name I was still refusing to use my name as a commercial entity and was instead hiding behind words and labels. And yet I had invested time and money into this project and so the inner voice told me to “shut up and put up”. I felt embarrassed to even feel this way and so it seemed easier to bury that thought and move onwards. However there was a voice in the back of my head that would not go away, it would not shut up. This voice was telling me that it was time to come out from under the rocks and to completely and utterly own my own story and that a huge part of this involved owning my own name.
In my confusion I felt I needed some help in finding the answers and I signed up to a 6 week coaching programme with the delightful Claudia Whitney (highly recommended folks) This involved a process of journalling and a weekly call. It was a lovely and supportive group of other women, we were encouraged to voice out loud our dreams and to visualise how we saw ourselves getting there, we were asked to explore our fears and doubts and to look head on at the things that were holding us back. It was during one of these calls that I voiced for the first time that I was feeling stuck, that I felt I had made a mistake and was unsure how to move through it. Over the next few weeks 3 key stumbling blocks became very clear to me and these were:-
I had spent money on a project and to cast it aside seemed a waste of funds that I did not have to waste, plus to make changes would involve more money. As I drilled further into this thought I felt a ton of shame well up within me, money was something to be looked after and not wasted.
I had launched the website with much fan fare and excitement, it felt awkward and embarrassing to admit that perhaps I had got it wrong. I could already feel the eye rolls from people as I, yet again, changed my contact details and put out a new email address and website.
I had planned to create a content rich site and ever since I had launched the site the to do list was filled with big ideas which never materialised, as time went by I felt irritated with myself for my lack of discipline and ability to fulfill all these ideas. Again, more shame.
You may wonder why the big deal? People get things wrong and people change direction all the time, no problem, move on. That is completely true but what struck me about this story of mine is how often we find ourselves caught up in spirals of shame which trap us with self doubt and fear. And of course when even the slightest amount of shame creeps in it keeps us from taking action, it makes us hide ourselves, or makes us numb the feelings of vulnerability and shame away.
The reality is my shame spiral was not about a new domain name, or a new website, or at least, not really. It was triggered by these events but ultimately the sense of shame and awkwardness that I was feeling was triggered by some deep, long held beliefs about myself and aside from buying a new domain name & building a new website, it was a really good opportunity to stare down some of these shadows that lurked within. You see according to Brene Brown the people who are most resilient to shame are the ones that:-
Know what triggers shame for them
Reality check their triggers
Reach out and tell their story
Share their shame
As I allowed myself to step back and gain distance I was able to see with greater clarity what really was making me feel so stuck. By speaking it out loud and then being met with complete understanding rather than judgement I felt listened to and understood. I felt able to make some simple changes and felt confident in why I needed to make them.
We all experience episodes of shame and so it seems to me that perhaps our daily work is not about eradicating our failures and demanding perfection of ourselves, but more about a continual exploration into our core beliefs and how they show up in our behaviours and lives. Because when we see our pain points reflected back at us we have a simple choice, ignore them or pay attention to them. To ignore is fine, sometimes even it is appropriate, but we have to accept that to ignore means that it will come back in some shape or form. It could be said that to pay attention means to shine a light onto the dark shadows of who we are and to bring out into the light the holes on the path that trip us up. Mindful practices such as yoga can help us to do this and so does telling our stories to others, sharing our experiences are so powerful as the chances are there will always be someone out there who will say in return “yeah, me too”.
So the work continues, the work of finding a way to live this human experience with greater ease and as part of that work I have decided to out myself as Charlotte Douglas Yoga - the logo stays the same, it is me after all, the lines drawn on the logo are me; the website though is new and is built entirely by me with Square Space (good bye Word Press, you are great but I don’t understand you); the content is also new and completely personal to me. Yes, it is my 3rd incarnation and yes perhaps I think about these things a touch too much, in fact I would not blame you if you were a little bored by these evolutions but if you have got this far in reading then please do take a look around and I really hope you like what you see.
In peace
Charlotte
“Our willingness to own and engage with our vulnerability determines the depth of our courage and the clarity of purpose; the level to which we protect ourselves from being vulnerable is the measure of our fear and disconnection”