It was Thursday afternoon, I was coming off a total high from my Thriving Moms event and I got an email from someone I consider a friend and totally respect in business.
It said “Kate I want to meet in person to talk about your wrist wrap”.
I just knew as I read this message that something wasn’t sitting right with her. My heart dropped. Relationships are so important to me and I suddenly realised that I may have hurt her unintentionally. We set a time to meet on the upcoming Monday.
Initially my mind jumped into the future, playing through the conversation we would have (all from speculation), making assumptions and spinning around.
You know that thing you do right? When you’re worried about a possible confrontation and you ruminate in your head about it over and over and over again.
I stopped the spinning thoughts and had a heart-to-heart with myself. I knew that running over the conversation in my head wouldn’t change anything. And sharing my side of the story with anyone wouldn’t help, it would just take away from my own inner knowing. I took a few deep breaths, let the stories go and reconnected with what I knew, which was who I was being and my intention in all the moments leading up to this email. I chose in that moment to put it to rest until I could actually deal with it on Monday.
It was Easter weekend, I wanted to be centered and present with my family. To surrender and trust that everything always unfolds just as it is meant to.
10 years ago I would have approached a similar situation very differently. I would be obsessing, speculating and over thinking, feeling stressed and emotional. I would be bouncing between second-guessing my intentions, making myself wrong or looking for evidence to make the other person wrong. My ego would be running the show and repeating the story to all my close friends looking for support or evidence to build my case.
To be honest choosing to be with a situation and process it internally without the feedback of others can initially feel more uncomfortable. But from experience and continuous practice I know that in order to cultivate the muscle of my inner wisdom it starts with heavy lifting.
As the weekend went on I realized this experience was offering me a number of opportunities to integrate some of my own teachings.
In order to truly love yourself you must extend compassion and trust. Your ability to trust in yourself gets watered down the minute you share an experience with someone else to either get their opinion or look for validation.
When Monday morning came I asked myself “What are the tools I have to support me to be centered in my heart and grounded when I meet with her today?” I chose to do a meditation. As I was walking in to meet her I asked my guides to support me to share from my heart, listen with an open heart and have the best possible outcome arise.
As we sat down I wasn’t feeling totally at peace. I was in my head a bit but I reminded myself to trust that everything would turn out just as it was meant to. I didn’t know where the conversation was going to go, what I did know was that she is a beautiful soul, who owns her power, is extremely self aware and has been a yogi on her path for years.
She shared from her heart how she felt hurt that I had chosen to create and gift wrist wraps to the Thriving Moms attendees because she has invested a lot of time, energy and branding into the wrist wraps that she offers with her jewelry line.
I shared where I was coming from and my intentions which were to leave attendees with a token to reconnect with the teachings from the evening. And that I didn’t realize the idea of wrist wraps were exclusive to her I thought it was an idea others were using too.
We both shared our learning’s from the experience and went on to have a great connection as we have had so many times in the past.
As the conversation went on my heart felt at peace. I had a strong reminder that uncomfortable conversations approached with an open heart create space for deeper understanding of each other and a greater outcome for all.
You cannot go wrong when you choose to stay connected to your heart and speak your truth.
Hi Kate,
I really enjoyed your posting and I can relate with it a lot. I praise you for the courage to confront the situation and make the best of it. It is so easy to hide and keep assuming the worst. Thank you for the advice on how to prepare for uncomfortable conversations. -Shanti.
Love this sharing of boldness and vulnerability, Kate. Keep ’em coming!