The Ritual of Showing Up as More of Me
It's often a side giggle between solopreneurs & small business owners that running a business actually has nothing to do with the skills of business & everything to do with the skills of self-exploration.*
ALL of your shit comes up & either you ignore it or you get curious.
Often, I get curious.
I also often stomp my foot, pout, & ignore things.
Which is why, after 6+ years, I keep coming back to the ritual of being a small business owner so I can practice getting curious about what gets me to stomp my foot.
When I do carve out time to get curious about the shit that comes up, I soon find myself on the other side of a threshold.
A threshold of growth.
Expansion.
Discovery.
Unlearning.
The past few years I've been wrestling with an inner desire to "show up as more of me."
It's been a sensation that has felt nebulous & everchanging.
Never a clear understanding of what actions or choices I need to make so I could "show up as more of me."
I leaned into the MORE part of the sensation, thinking [key word right there. ha!] that I needed to DO more in order to achieve my desire.
Well, that just resulted in me burning out.
Which paradoxically also resulted in my ritual of Intentional Invisibility & I couldn't be more grateful. Life is strange.
With the help of my current mentor, I've started to get curious about the word SHOW in my desire to "show up as more of me."
The curiosity evolved from What can I DO to show up as more of me? into the question: What am I hiding?
Come to find out, a lot.
We all have parts of ourself hidden & that doesn't make any of us less-than, broken, or as Resmaa Menakem says, "defective."
Our cultural, ancestral, & personal traumas require us to hide aspects of ourself so we can exist in the world.
Often we must continue to hide parts of ourself our entire life.
Sometimes though, we can uncover hidden parts & have the opportunity to share them with the world.
Throughout my life I've felt comfortable at the edge of "mainstream culture," yet still able to tend to my needs of acceptance & belonging.
Even in my prime fitting-in years during high school, I managed to express myself in ways that were outside the Boxes of Conformity.
During my 20's I embraced my hippie roots, grew waist-long dreads, hitchhiked the States & Canada, & ate lots of psychedelics.
Through my 30's I continued my edge-walking life by deepening my involvement with festival production, hosting witchy moon circles, & exploring ways to resource myself beyond the typical 9-5.
Now in my 40's I proudly identify–& make money as–a queer Ritual Witch, I continue to practice ethical nonmonogamy while in a 18 year relationship, & I'm experiencing the edge of intentionally not having kids.
My understanding of The Edge might not be the same as your edge.
All of our edges of comfort are different. What might feel easy for one, is really uncomfortable for another.
Same with the parts of ourself that we've kept hidden. We might feel like our part is shameful while someone else might not think twice about it.
No matter where your edge exists, I firmly believe it's worth exploring & discovering what magick might reside there.
Through my biz training & study, I internalized the belief that I could only be ONE thing to be effective.
So I kept parts of me hidden so I could be "successful."
FUCK THAT.
I'm tired of hiding parts of me.
I want to be seen in ALL of my brilliance.
I want to be ME.
I'm ready to discover the magick at the edge of (dis)comfort within my biz.
I'm writing myself a permission slip to share the parts of me that I've hidden so I can now show up as more of me.
* h/t Kelly Diels who writes about how business brings up ALL the shit & Jessica Lackey: “Entrepreneurship is the self-development course we never asked for.”
Inspired?
Here are a few prompts to support your exploration & discovery:
What have I kept hidden that is ready to be shared? Why now?
What part of me am I ready to embrace? How will this ripple out into my life, work, & personal practice?
What edge am I ready to explore? Who &/or what can support my edge exploration?
