You Can’t Fuck Up At Being You

There are things I don’t talk about, really, or indeed ever, and that I guess you could say I’ve been hiding from you. Partly I don’t know how to express this … partly I am scared … partly, the shame. But mostly?

That sense of, well, I just didn’t do it right, and so I should just get the fuck over it already. And also … I guess it’s hard to admit, as someone who teaches ‘have it all’, that there are areas where I have at times actively essentially STOPPED myself even having a chance at having it all!

Do you ever have the feeling that there are parts of your life where the problem is YOU, and you are ‘doing it wrong’ and clearly have no business even TRYING to pretend you knnow what you’re doing?

I had this conversation last night on a speed coaching call for one of my #‎successmasteryshakeupschool‬ girls. Initially we got on the line to talk about what sort of products and programs she wanted to create, and her big vision for her biz and life. Usual stuff, right?! Except, no. Something deeper, it turned out, that had to be talked about first. Something … messy. And very VERY limiting, in terms of how she has been allowing it to dictate her outcomes, or lack thereof.

So like I said … usual stuff! And, as is the case most times, some necessary alignment and asskickery was in order!

Which we got to, and I’ll get to in a second because GOSH is it important, this concept of you actually CAN’T – even if you tried! – ‘be you’ wrong, but first something else that ties in to this.

Something I very rarely talk about … because women don’t talk about this stuff that much.

Even to each other.

Even if we are strong woman.

Because, you know, of the shame. And the guilt. And the what am I doing wrong?!

Fuck you shame!

So. A little story, a little more ‘this is who I really am’.

One of the ways I undermined and sabotaged myself, for years, was in how I allowed myself to be treated in relationships.

I have a history – repeated – of allowing my self to be abused, verbally … and okay VERY very minorly physically (ugh I so don’t even want to say that because it was, like, minor shaking … and even as I write that there are a million other justifications or things I want to say, but will stop, for now, on that).

And this is really really hard for me to write about … I don’t even know what to say … because as soon as I write that down do you know what my mind says?

You whiny little bitch. What the fuck is verbal abuse anyway, when it’s at home? What, you can’t handle someone YELLING at you, telling you to fuck yourself, ripping your head off in public … telling you what a bad person, bad wife you are, behind closed doors? Grow up Kat!

But at the same time, I had to wonder, as I repeatedly told myself it’s my fault, I AM too strong-willed, it IS me ‘making it happen’. And what I wondered was –

Is this really how it has to be?

Is this my lot in life?

But then I tried to fix things and make them right and not say the wrong thing or not rock the boat or not be TOO MUCH OF ME because hey! I know I am fucking full on, and I can be a bitch, and God knows I’m fiery and so it probably IS my fault! So I’d focus on the good moments we had together and how loving and charming he could be at times, and the happy memories, and I’d tell myself.

It will be okay.

It will be okay.

I can make this okay.

When I stood at the altar to marry my first husband, as we said our vows and the sweat dripped down our faces on the 40+ degree Melbourne day, I said to myself over and over –

It will be okay. It will be okay. You can do this Kat. You can make this work!

In the end … it wasn’t okay … I didn’t do it … I didn’t make it work, and, in fact, I broke it.

And in the destructive areas of my relationships I’ve so often felt: my fault. I broke it. I’m the one causing the problem here. I need to be more considerate, more compassionate, etc.

I definitely still believe that about myself, to this day! I think I AM too full on. But sometimes I wonder … was it really my fault? Of course it takes two, I know all of that. But maybe he really was just an asshole.

I don’t know.

I honestly don’t have the answer on that.

I do think it takes a particular kind of man to handle a truly strong woman, a driven woman, a high-level creator and entrepreneur, and I also think that many of us strong women marry men who try and beat the uber-ambition out of us.

Fuck knows why we do that!

But anyway … I’m not here to tell all of that story today. I still don’t really know how to, yet. But I do want to say this:

For a long time, in my relationships, I didn’t only allow myself to be yelled and screamed at and I SUPPOSE, technically speaking, even though I still feel wrong or weak or a failure in saying this, ‘abused’, I allowed myself something that – in my mind – is far more dangerous and destructive.

Namely, I allowed myself to believe that it wasn’t okay to be me.

That I had to hold back … didn’t want to upset him, didn’t want to rock the boat and besides – not worth it. Too much drama.

So I held back, and was careful, and, well, I conformed.

Sure I let the real me out at times and did the things that made my heart sing, but a lot of the time?

I played the good wife.

And even though I was never really that good at playing the good wife, I told myself – this is how it has to be.

This is just how it is.

I don’t know how to be another way, or I’ll make things worse. He won’t like it! I’ll wreck it!

This is just how it is … deal with it!

Have you ever found yourself saying something similar? You know I don’t just mean in relationships!

But the thing is – the ‘problem’, although thank fuck for that – the idea that maybe, just maybe, there could be more for me, wouldn’t go away.

And as much as I conformed, and did what was expected, and quite honestly allowed myself to be physically and mentally quicksanded and really lost quite a lot of my sense of self and personal power and TRUST in me, there was always this still small voice inside telling me –

This is not how it has to be.

There can be more.

You are ALLOWED to find TRUE love.

And in the times where I wondered if I was really just being a DIVA, and that of course sacrifice was part of any relationship, I always wondered straight back at myself – but are we talking compromise here, or are we talking compromise on BEING ALLOWED TO BE YOU?

Problem – the good problem! – was for me? It was the latter.

And I can tell you that I can take a fuckload of being screamed at and even a little of being shaken but when I realise – and I am thick-headed so it takes me a while! – that I’m allowing my sense of WHO I AM to be sucked out of me, that I’m being contracted and compressed and pushed DOWN, well.

I have my limits.

Eventually!

And that’s one of the things about us, isn’t it?

Our tolerance level is high.

Our pain threshold is insane. (Often phyiscally as well as emotionally!)

We PRIDE ourselves on making do, making things work, on DEALING with shit.

But honey?

You don’t have to deal with shit if it’s shit that’s telling you you can’t be you.

Not in your relationship.

And not in business.

And in business, I see it all the time.

Women who have a message to share, something deep and powerful and true that they believe so fully and KNOW people need to hear, and yet they just … don’t. They don’t get it out there, not fully and sometimes not even at all.

And for this client last night, when all is said and done, that’s what was going on.

This process, of telling herself, at times (even though knowing it was bullshit!!) that she can’t do THAT, can’t talk about THAT, what if it’s wrong, what if people judge her, what if it doesn’t work or WHAT IF IT DOES?!

When I was in a so-wrong-for-me but on the surface LOOK HOW LUCKY I AM relationship, I so often told myself this is how it is, deal with it, keep going, you’ll figure it out, you’ll GET there.

But the whole time? I knew it was bullshit.

And I knew that the only way to ‘get there’ and truly allow myself to fly?

Was to just take the mother-fucking leap off the cliff already. Namely, walk away from EVERYTHING I’d been compromising on being ME in, and instead start confidently, strongly but also just with calm and quiet certainty OWNING who I really am, what I really need, how I really desire to live my life.

In business, you really don’t stand much chance of stepping out as a leader if you’re not willing to own who you really are, be honest about what you need, stand up for what you believe in, and say it with PRIDE.

And for my client yesterday, that was the thing –

She knows her message.

Knows it matters.

Yet has been ALLOWING herself to push it down, because of ‘what if’. She even sees all the ways she is holding herself back, from fear and uncertainty!

Been there sister 🙂 

And so there comes a point, where we really just have to square up and do what needs to be done, doesn’t there?

Because if you know who you truly are … deep within –

And you know what you believe and stand for –

And you know what truly MATTERS to you –

And you can FEEL how good it could be, and you know it is possible –

And your heart is screaming for more –

And you can even SEE precisely where and how you are boxing yourself in!

Well then honey?

C’mon!

There’s really nothing left to do except fucking DO WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE!

And no, nobody said it’ll be easy, but you know what? It’s a helluva lot easier to walk towards the right life and way of being, even if you have to shed some shit along the way, than what it is to keep holding at bay the real you, and trying to stuff yourself into a never-will-fit hole.

And we can talk alignment and asskickery till the cows come home, and we can paint the picture of how amazing it COULD be, and we can discuss all of the considerations of what may or may not happen if you really DO this, and we can set our intentions and goals and clear out our old beliefs but in the end you are still going to have to DO WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE.

For me, trying to wriggle a way into ‘fixing’ the situation of not being me in my relationships instead of just doing what needs to be done, meant that for over 10 years I was unhappy, and STUNTED, a bird with clipped wings. Telling myself to deal with it. Pushing away feelings and fleeting thoughts of how it ‘could be’.

In the end the only thing that could FIX it was to do the practical work necessary, namely: leave.

In business, for this particular client, we could talk about it for SURE till the cows come home.

But she knows it all.

Sees precisely what she’s doing to herself.

And even why!

So at this point, really? Nothing left to discuss.

But plenty to do.

And what it starts with, honestly? Is realising that you can’t ‘do it wrong’ when we’re talking about being you.

You can’t fuck up at being you!

Not in your relationship.

And not in business.

Not in any area of life!

So if right now there is something you’re holding yourself back on …

An area where you know you want so much more, and where you have so much more you could be giving and BEING …

And you’ve been trying to find a way not to ‘do it wrong’ …

Simply this:

It’s okay to make mistakes.

It’s okay to fumble.

It’s okay to make a fool of yourself putting yourself out there, whether for love or money or anything at all!

But what’s not okay?

Is to shove down who you really are, and what you really believe in.

Go do what you need to do sister.

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