Having my own experience with people not showing Up

So here we are last month of the year. The final push.

What I offer myself during this time is the gift of slowing down. In a time that demands and pushes it can be a challenge to slow down and to be patient. it is a different practice but one I have chosen to embrace over the last few years and it feels good. It feels good to choose stillness even when everyone else around me may be choosing busyness.

It is the practice I have learned to embrace the most and that is owning and having my own experience. How did I know I wanted stillness over busyness during the holiday season?

I experienced it for myself. I stopped listening to what someone else told me or how their experience was and I leaned into my own fully and completely.

So as we roll into the end of the year I am getting completely honest and raw because I know how important it is in showing up. Sharing my thoughts on having my own experience and what I have learned from people not showing up when I wanted or expected them to.

Having this experience over and over again has been a great teacher.

I will be honest I have had my fair share of this.  I remember when I started teaching yoga I would arrive early, have my class planned and wait and wait. I had this amazing sequence it felt good in my body people needed to feel it.

Or just recently I shared with you this FREE webinar I was offering how to be your own best money advocate.  I truly loved this content and felt so connected to what I had created I really thought this could be a great tool for people.   I was excited to put it out there. 

And guess what no one showed up.  And it is hard for me to share. 

All the questions:  Why?  What did I miss?  And how do I continue to want to show up after this?  

This first thing for me has always been honesty.  I can’t say that I have always been in this place of being willing to be honest about it, but now I am.  Before I used to lie or say only a few people or just leave out the fact that no one came.  And it hurt.  And it never felt like it happened to anyone else or it least I didn’t hear about it as much.  I just saw all the things people were doing and promoting, assuming that everything was in perfect flow.   

It’s never easy admitting it didn’t work. And so I am here sharing with you my own disappointment my own process and my own humanness   Not because I have an answer for you to avoid it, simply because it is bound to happen if you are taking risks and being courageous.

I want you to put yourself out there and have no one show up not because I want you to feel sad or defeated. Our experience tells a story that only we can understand.  We must have our own experience to learn our own process.

Listening to how it affected me or someone else and ways to prevent it before it happens are not even comparable to the experience of it happening to you directly.  And let me share a little secret it is okay for it to happen more than once.  Each time you are learning and discovering.  I wouldn’t say that it has to happen forever and always.   And yet the possibility always exists when we choose to create.   Whenever we choose to create and to put something out in the world we are choosing to be seen.  We are saying here I am, do you like it?  Do you want to give it a try?   And we know we hear it all the time it is not going to be for everyone.  There are always going to be people that don’t like it, but when no one shows up what does that mean?  What is that saying?

I have noticed for myself I start with hope and faith and trust and move into sadness and anger and then turn to doubt and shame.   So how do I handle this process.  How do I avoid the sadness, anger, doubt and shame?

I lean into them rather than trying to avoid them.  Part of your experience is having your own emotions and you are not going to know what they are until something like this happens.  And guess what it is not all about just the positive ones. 

Instead of running from it run towards it.   Feel into and let yourself move through your own cycle.  Discover the places you are stuck or stagnant in your own cycle and choose to walk yourself through.   And it may take having the experience more than once.   

What I have learned for myself in this process is that over time I have given my emotions less control.  I am learning to walk in acceptance of no one being present not as indication of my worth or value.   Yes I do believe it is worth questioning and understanding as best I can why if and then there is an element of letting go.  Of being willing to try again and not have a clear answer to my Why.   Of being willing to ask the question of what else could be present for me in this moment and the next.   

Let’s face it putting yourself out there and embarking on something you have never done before is hard.  It is much easier to dream and to talk about it and to criticize others.  To actually be willing to do it is different. 

And when we don’t get the results we wanted it is even more challenging.   I don’t believe it is how many times you can put yourself out there and not have it go as planned as much as it is your own inside job of understanding yourself in the process.

I am sure there are many tools and workshops out there to purchase to prevent this from happening to you and of course there is the number one way to prevent it just don’t do it.  Don’t put yourself out there or try something new.  

And my heart tells me this:

Have your own experience no matter how long it takes .  I want you to stop searching for the experience of another to be your own.  To be patient.  To take risks and to feel into the spaces of not being chosen and to compassionately understand yourself along the way. 

What I have learned most this year is that my vulnerability to admit and share the times that didn’t work allow me to be seen fully and completely.   There is a rawness and a humanness.  Not from a place of trying of convince rather from a deeper place of connection and truth.  

Don’t be afraid to dive into the experiences, to take the risks, and see what it feels like when no one shows up.