I’m prepping to teach a small group of committed entrepreneurs how to host a profitable retreat. We are covering everything from how to market and fill it, how to decide what to teach, what to do after the retreat, and importantly, what to do to move the room.
I’m covering a powerful concept that I want to share with you that will help you in leading your own mastermind. (BTW, there is still time to register HERE, but not much!)
It’s based on the quote, which is not mine but I cannot find where to attribute, that goes like this, “What you cannot be with, will not let you be.”
If I could impart any piece of advice to you, that will improve your business, your love life, your finances, and your personal happiness, it’s this: Learn to be with everything.
What does this mean?
To be with something is to be able to hear, receive, or experience it without judgment. This means you do not get triggered or hooked by it, and you are not letting your own past experience keep you from truly hearing someone else.
Being with does not mean approving
Being able to be with anything makes you powerful. You can stay grounded in who you are regardless of what anyone else does or says. This does not mean that you endorse or approve of what they say. In fact you are going to be much more able to speak your Truth and challenge what someone says when you are grounded, rather than triggered. You can challenge from a place of love rather than defensiveness.
Being with is an energy
It’s harder to impart the lesson in text, as being with is an energy you can feel when in person. This is part of why I’m an advocate of the retreat model. But being with is less of a prescribed action and more of an energy. When you can be with something, you have no need to reject it, shut it down, or distance yourself from it energetically, because you are not afraid. You can connect with another person’s energy, get it and learn from it, without having it threaten your own value system, beliefs, or knowing of yourself. It is the only energy from which you can take in new ideas and grow.
If something triggers you, you will instantly put up an energetic shield that keeps you from connecting with the other person and their ideas. The moment the shield goes up, you are no longer free. You are instead limited to the space of your shield.
They will mirror you
Understanding this dynamic is important in leading a room. When your energy is open, and you can be with anything, your room is open, and real transformation can take place. Your room will mirror you.
If you get triggered (scared) and feel the need to put up an energetic shield… someone challenges your authority, someone shares something you judge as ‘tragic,’ someone is dealing with something you haven’t dealt with yourself… your room will shut down. They will sense your discomfort, and the safe space will disappear. Your energy as the leader transmits to them. If you are in fear, they will be present to all of their fear. If you are holding space with love, they will see themselves and their work in the room through the eyes of love.
It will not let you be
So what’s with that last part of the quote. “What you cannot be with will not let you be”?
When it is time for us to embrace or heal something, it will show up everywhere. It will not let us be. We will attract those people into our world who will share what we resist and push our buttons. (They are angels on our journey by the way.)
Here’s the great news! You don’t have to go seeking out the things you cannot be with as they will find you. And if you are committed to growing, you will notice the energy field around you, and commit to clearing it. (This is a lot of the work I do with my clients, especially in retreats).
It makes you a bad coach
If you don’t commit to seeing the things you can’t be with and resolving them, you will be a bad coach. I say this with love, and I have made mistakes (I’ll share one below). There are a lot of bad coaches out there. And I don’t mean just people giving bad advice, though that can happen. AND, a lot of clients are LOOKING for bad advice so they have a good excuse for failing (that is another article). I’m talking about coaches who are wanting to help or save people from experiencing pain, because they cannot be with someone else’s pain because it reminds them of their own, and so they steer them to avoid the pain, rather than getting the lesson of it.
HINT: Let your client decide consciously whether they choose to avoid a situation or dive right into it for the lesson. Help bring awareness, not avoidance.
What I could not be with
Several years ago I was coaching a client who is a coach in the realm of sexuality and sexual empowerment. She is now doing very well, but at the time she was struggling to own her value. She was transitioning from teaching more in academia, to bringing her message to the public. And her fears were coming up.
This was at a time in my personal life that I was living as a straight woman, with a Match.com profile set to attract the “Ideal Man.”
(I am now engaged to my marry my “Ideal Woman,” and much has changed!)
Back to my client. As we were creating her offerings for her upleveled business, she voiced a concern to me that should have been valid. She said, “I am just concerned that because I’m a lesbian, straight women may not feel comfortable with me.”
In less than two seconds I responded with, “I don’t think you have to worry about that,” and I literally shut her down.
Why? Because I could not be with her concern. As a straight woman who did not yet realize I was gay, the concern was highly threatening to me. So I shut it down.
Now, this all happened just about 2 weeks before I had a mentor suggest that I examine my sexuality, and that question did not let me be until I faced it. (I was 38 years old by the way).
This is a perfect example of how our ability, or lack thereof, to be with what is affects our effectiveness as a coach. I didn’t allow that client to work through a perfectly valid concern because of my own discomfort.
When I did come to terms with my own sexuality, I called that client up and shared it with her and apologized for not being able to hear her concern at the time. It was great education for us both!
You don’t need to be perfect, you do need support
As you can see by the above example, you can still have a great life and a great business and make a difference without being perfect at this whole energy thing. Yet it is impossible on your own. We can’t see what we can’t see, and we need help and guidance, and in my preferred format, coaching, to help us to be with a greater and greater array of the complexities of humanity. My request to you is that you don’t do it alone.
You can check out my upcoming coaching retreats at www.alignedentrepreneurs.com