#12: Unleashing your greatness and getting what you truly desire is found by first stepping into your truth - and Just Being Seen as Liberated.
#12: We all have voices in our lives that weigh heavily. Perhaps it’s a parent. Or a mentor. Or, like it was for me, it might be your spouse. And while it’s certainly not wrong to value the opinions of others, especially those close to us, making other people the authority in your life or business might cause you to take action that’s out of alignment. When you’re operating in opposition to your intuition, unleashing your greatness and getting what you truly desire is found by stepping into your truth - and Just Being Seen as Liberated.
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Shauna VanBogart 0:04
I'm Shauna VanBogart. And this is Just Being Seen. I would not be where I'm at without a very close, trusted air quotes board of advisors, finding people who are at a similar place in their business is a super powerful outlet for me. And when I find someone who gets it in the way that I get it, who is on a similar trajectory yet also challenges me, I prioritize cultivating those connections. With one of my business colleagues, we meet every month, the first week of the month for an hour, and we get to show up and we get to talk about our businesses without feeling like we need to filter ourselves without feeling like we need to hold back on numbers and what our revenue is. And we just get to be ourselves. And we get to share any of the mental hurdles and even the strategic hurdles that we're working through. And it was during one of our calls where I was sharing that I was feeling a desire to create a new offering. And I had reached a level of clarity within myself of realizing that I was holding back for some reason. And so I was sort of working this out out loud during this call. And what came out of me is, I feel like a sellout. It wasn't so much the words, as I felt this very potent zing of energy. When I said that, that made me feel like I wanted to start crying. I was surprised. And I said that to her, I said, I don't know what this emotion is. But obviously, obviously, there's something here. This is the power of talking things out. Because you never know when you're gonna get that zing of energy, you never know when you're gonna get that zing of emotion. And I felt this potent energy moving through me, as I said that. And when you get those moments, you know, that's a nudge, something to discover, something to reveal, and usually something to release, that is necessary for you to go where you're saying you want to go.
So after the call, I went through my practice of discovery with myself to get at what that was all about. And it still wasn't quite coming together for me. And so because I'm committed to no force, even in this capacity, I thought, You know what I could just let this be, I'm going to ask for any signs, I'm going to ask for any clarity, I'm going to ask my co creator for help here, send me any kind of communication, to help me get at what was that all about. And I'm just going to move about my day. Later that evening, my husband and I were just relaxing on the porch, my daughter was in bed, and I felt a prompt, I felt a nudge to share with him that I was experiencing some resistance in my business. Now this is unusual for me because I don't normally go to my husband to talk out stuff in my business, not because he's not supportive. But there are certain boundaries that I know within myself that hold me back. And part of the reason that I don't go to him is that his opinion weighs very heavily to me.
Shauna VanBogart 3:07
I know myself, so well. And I know that I respect his opinion so much, that there are just certain times when I can tell, I'm not going to be able to stay in my empowered energy to be able to hear some of the feedback that he might want to give me. Like I just know, sometimes like, this is not worth me doing. Because I don't know if I'm going to be open enough to hear it. Because I weigh his opinion very heavily. So this was unusual for me to show up and talk through something that was going on in my business in that way. And also, frankly, I think it freaks him out a little bit when I have shared certain moves that I was going to make, which by the time I share with him, you know, there's a lot of thought that's gone into it, because so many of the moves that I do make don't make sense, like so many of the moves that I do make are incredibly intuitive. They're very intentional, but they feel risky. And sometimes maybe they look irresponsible financially, or they look crazy. And he's not going to get it. And even though he's the kind of person that knows and believes that he doesn't need to understand it to trust me. I know that I just don't want to put that burden on him right so like, I am too much of a people pleaser.
Shauna VanBogart 4:30
I know that part of me exists and I know that it gets flared up around someone like him because he's my husband and so I just don't go to him with a lot of stuff. But I kept feeling the nudge like speak up, speak up, speak up, share. He's just sitting there like on his phone like scrolling or whatever. I'm having this massive moment internally within myself like sitting in the chair next to him and I very timidly speak up kind of quietly. In fact, I'm so I'm feeling this resistance in my business about making this certain move. And then his attentions kind of perked. And then we get into it. Well, as we're getting into it, I realize that the emotion I felt earlier, when I was on the call with my business colleague about feeling like a sellout was a motion from business baggage in the past that I had not released yet. And a lot of that emotion and the circumstances from the past, the dynamics there were specifically about the opinion that he held of me. And thus I held of myself. And so what's so beautiful about this example is not only was I listening enough to myself and seeing myself enough to know, hey, there's some trapped emotion here that wants to come up and out, you need to explore this.
So number one, I caught that number two, I didn't force it. And I trusted, there's a very specific way that this needs to unfold. And by this, I mean the clarity of this. And I also listened and trusted myself there. And so as this unfolded in conversation with my husband, I realized that this needed to be talked out with him specifically, because the very lesson and wisdom here and clarity here was that I was weighing his opinion of me, but very specifically his opinion of me or perceived opinion of me in the past, in a way that was affecting me now. And preventing me from stepping into spaces, places, conversations and pivots that I needed to make in my business to grow it. And what a beautiful moment to be able to talk that out with him. And to know that I'm safe in that moment. And to be able to hear anything that he wanted to say about the me who was in business seven, eight years ago, and this baggage that existed there. And what came out of it was realizing for me that not only was it not as much about his opinion, as it was feeling him validating during that time period, where I was at within myself, which was shameful and feeling like a sellout and feeling like a failure. And he kind of felt that way to not add me per se, but about what I was doing.
Like your partner knows when you're doing things that are out of alignment. I felt it in his career as well, like you can feel it and it's hard to watch your partner struggling and solving problems in ways that don't make sense for them. Right. And so of course, I was feeling all of that. I was deep into figuring it out mode, I was deep into avoiding failure. And he could sense that. And so no, you know, like when I had this conversation with him that night, and I shared with him, you know, I'm realizing now this emotion is that I didn't feel like you were proud of me, which was really hard to say out loud. There was some truth in that. There was some truth in that because the bottom line was, I wasn't proud of me. And his opinion just meant so much to me. And you got to remember based on the previous episodes and everything I've shared, we get our validation externally. And we oftentimes outsource that permission slip that validation, that like stamp of approval to a very small select group of voices in our life. And our spouses voice tends to be a pretty heavily weighted one for us, especially if your spouse is also a business owner. And especially if your spouse has a totally different approach, which they likely do because they're not you. And so it's it's an interesting dynamic to say the least being in a marriage being in a partnership with another business owner who is completely different from you about their approach. Where I was at seven, eight years ago, was not the place of conviction that I needed to be at in terms of my work. I didn't believe my value. I hadn't done all of the self work that I have now done. And therefore, of course, I was seeking any kind of validation externally that I could get my hands on. And I definitely weighed my husband's opinion heavier than most anyone else's. It meant so much to me, that he was proud of me.
Shauna VanBogart 9:21
What was happening currently was I was desiring and offering that somatically like in my body in my heart felt like a genuine desire. But I wasn't letting myself go there. I wasn't taking the action steps to allow that to unfold, because the container and the idea of it looked very similar to something I'd done in the past. And so I was associating the container and the idea of it with this baggage and all this emotional baggage from the past as well. There was a very specific reason that I needed to unpack this with him in conversation because I Not only needed to heal it within myself, I also needed to heal this dynamic within my marriage, I had to recognize the receiving of my own work, the efforts of my own work the results of my own self work in that moment, by feeling how grounded I was by feeling how deeply connected to my purpose I was, to feel as I talk this out with him my sense of self trust. And to be able to see there was a separation between that old me that me before in business and the mean, now, it had to be talked out with him, for this to be a full circle moment, because it wasn't just a me thing that needed to be healed, I needed to hear certain things from him, he needed to hear certain things from me. And I needed to be able to experience the communication back and forth between us around these things in a way that was going to be totally different than how I would have handled it in the past. Because as I said, in the past, I was way too caught up in making him proud in avoiding failure in his eyes, where I'm at now, that's just not the case. I know what I'm doing. I know my stuff, I'm in my zone, I trust myself, it's a completely different scenario.
Shauna VanBogart 11:27
This is why I love working with seasoned business owners so much, because I love to unpack the business baggage, we like to think that a lot of our wounds come from childhood. And yes, I could argue where this dynamic maybe stems from from childhood. But there also is just some real business baggage that occurred in all of the years of business that needed to be cleaned out. It's
Shauna VanBogart 11:46
spring cleaning, it's why in module one and two of mynd over matter, this is one of the first things that we do, you know, is edit, is clean, is get things out of the way, you don't need to be a seasoned business owner to do that. But you've got to make space before you step into the next iteration you step into those next desires that you're wanting.
So my question to you is, whose voice are you weighing rather heavily in your life? And is there any business baggage from your past that is preventing you from taking the action steps to show up and be seen in the ways that are rightfully aligned for you. Now, when we look at who we're making authorities in our lives, and I was making him in authority, you have to realize that you don't respect them per se, because they're better than you. You respect them, you create an authority energy around them, because they carry a deep knowing within themselves, they have a conviction within themselves that is very attractive, that's very appealing. Oftentimes, we blur the lines between when that knowing within themselves is for us or not for us, we take that deep sense of knowing that energy that we feel off of them that we find really appealing and attractive, and that we want to say they know something that we don't know, or they have something that we don't have, and we create meaning out of it in our worlds, we deeply internalize it, we can make it very personal. And we throw the sort of blanket attitude over it as if like they are an authority they know best. And whatever they say is right. And however I'm feeling if that's in contrast to that, then I must be wrong. This is all unconscious, you might not even realize to the extent that you're doing it. And you also again, have to realize that this likely happens with just a small handful of voices in your life, a small handful of authorities in your life.
Now, yes, thought leaders, experts, they have something to say because they have something to say like there's wisdom there to be gleaned, there is something potentially for you. It's when we create an imbalance of that when we outsource our power to a level where it is preventing you from trusting yourself because you're acting from a place of needing validation from this one person, one person, one opinion, one perceived opinion, one circumstance from the past almost a decade ago, that was getting in my way, currently, from taking action steps that I know are right to take. This happens all the time. And we tend to overcomplicate these problems by meddling and things that really aren't the issue in the first place. Trust me, my mind wanted to go in all kinds of directions to circumvent this challenge, this internal dynamic that was happening within me, this resistance that was occurring, I wanted to bypass it in all kinds of ways strategically and mentally. I mean, I even did it earlier that day where I wanted to work it out in my journal if I didn't listen to the nudge if I wasn't at a certain level of self trust, and I would have missed it completely to just pause. Just wait the moment to unfold this and unpack this will happen Some of you are doing this thing in your business where you are going through the motions, you're taking certain action steps, you're doing a lot, but you have a deep knowing that it isn't going to work.
Now, that could be from a place of, you don't think anything's gonna work because nothing's been paying off in the way that it should you've got this dynamic of like, there's a force working against me. But it could also be because you're not trusting yourself. And you're weighing too heavily, some outside opinion. And so you're going through the motions based on what that outside authority is telling you. But you know, you know, this, isn't it. And you know, this isn't resistance, you just know, you just know these moves aren't going to make a difference. Can you give yourself the permission to trust that knowing and recoup some time, energy and perhaps even money? Sometimes we can get too far into process, that we lose sight of power, our own internal power, and we get too far into process.
When we attune outward. When we attune to the external, and we fall out of balance within ourselves. Can you trust that you know your stuff? Can you trust that you will be prompted if you need to hear something, just like I was prompted initially on that call with my colleague, where I felt that wave of emotion totally unexpectedly, let yourself be prompt when necessary, you don't need to seek it, you don't need to go out and find it. Trust yourself. As I've sat and I've reflected on this, I see that all of my best moves, all of the best inspired creative ideas that I have had, every single one of them have come from a place where I was already in a state of empowerment or gratitude over what was currently occurring. Meaning, my best ideas, my best moves that I've made in my business did not come from a place of scarcity or lack, my best moves did not come from a place of pressure to figure things out, because I'm avoiding failure. Now I have achieved from that place, I have created things from that place that have been profitable, that have created and made six figures in revenue. However, there was always a disconnect between the doing and how I felt behind that doing.
When I say that all of my best moves, all of my best ideas have come from a place of gratitude and abundance and being in a state of empowerment and just being in a state of acceptance, and isness. It's ineffable, it just is like, that's the place that I'm in, when I get that nudge when I get that next step. And I'm really good at following it. I now know enough to know that if I'm ever and it happens almost on a daily basis, because we're human, in a place where I'm in scarcity, or worried about some financial thing, or in a place of lack or in a place of challenge or I'm in that place of figuring it out. I know not to make decisions from that place. I know not to try to force creativity, I know to actually stop solving the problem and get back to receiving it back to acceptance. Get back to everything that's working. And I tip my internal state back into a state of gratitude into that place of acceptance. And then I organically move from there.
That's exactly how my certifications and hypnotherapy came about. I did not decide to go become a hypnotherapist because I was in a place of feeling like I needed a credential for people to take me seriously. That is not where that was inspired out of. I was in a place where everything was working so well. I was so happy about the flow. Of course, I was still desiring more. It's not a place of complacency. It's just a place of things are going so well. And I know there's more to come. And it was from this place of how good can I get? And how much better can I make this? That's when I got the hit of like, oh, this hypnotherapy thing sounds amazing. And you know what happened? It unfolded so effortlessly, in front of me. My mentor was local, we knew each other. We met up for coffee, we both needed things from each other. And so this beautiful relationship was formed where we both got to serve each other in ways that were needed for both of us at that time. I got to spend a year mentoring under this woman who's amazing at what she does and provided me with the additional skill sets that now my clients get to benefit from, which are those of all of the hypnotherapy tools that I acquired during that time.
Just as Michael was saying in the last episode, in the very end of it. He was talking about this just being and allowing yourself to be inspired and nudged when you're supposed to be moving but you're not seeking If you're not in positions where, Okay, what's next? What do I need to do next, you're not in a place of lack or scarcity, you're in a place of I am where I am right now acceptance, you're tipping yourself into the realm of abundance and empowerment, you're leaning into that direction. And you know, you will be nudged when you need to be nudge. And you also know, you're not going to miss it. You also trust enough that when it hits you, you're going to know what it is, and you're going to know how to pay attention to it, and you're going to know how to move through it.
Shauna VanBogart 20:30
This is about knowing how to see yourself, how to acknowledge yourself, how to get clear within yourself, when things aren't working. We want to manifest and we want to play with the universe to attract things into our life, you know, which essentially means we want to be seen by the universe, we want the universe to send us things. But how can we do that? If we're hiding from ourselves? How can we do that when we can't even admit to ourselves that we want certain things? The example that I'm giving with this business move I wanted to make, I was afraid to even admit that I wanted that. And the fear was coming from what is my husband gonna think the fear was coming from, but is this going to make me a sellout, the fear was coming from? Well, I didn't feel like he was proud of me in the past. And so I don't want to be in a position where I have to just tune that out or create a boundary or not feel that pride from my husband. So I wasn't even allowing myself to go in there because I had all of this baggage and fear from the past. So if we're afraid to admit that we want certain things, if we're afraid to admit that we want to make certain moves, if we're afraid to admit that we want certain desires in our life, we're essentially hiding from ourselves, we're shying away. So how can the universe see us if we're not even willing to see us?
Shauna VanBogart 21:57
So I had a client who had gone on to an entirely new level of revenue for herself and in her business. And one of the friction points that was coming up now, along with the receiving of this new level of revenue was that she was having a challenging time maneuvering around existing people in her life. So she was talking about how she went on a trip with several old friends. And before they were all at the same income level will now she's at a totally radically different place. And so there were things that she wanted to do, or things that she wouldn't have thought twice about spending on or, you know, not looking at prices on the menu. And that wasn't the case for where her friends were at. And so there was a lot of friction, this time around the vacation when before that didn't exist.
And this is the thing about receiving this is why we don't allow ourselves to admit we want certain things because there are some legitimate fears here, you do sometimes feel like you're leaving people behind, or you do sometimes feel like you're gonna make people feel bad. There's change that comes from receiving, there's a change in dynamics with relationships that comes from receiving. And so she was in this place where she was feeling this friction that did not exist before because everyone was on the same level. And now because this one element in her life had changed. She was picking up a lot of emotional dust about this and creating a lot of narratives about this. And a lot of sensing of wanting to retract. It made her very difficult to relax into her own being because she felt like she was walking on eggshells, and she didn't want to offend anyone. And she didn't want to talk about certain things about ourselves. She didn't want to wear certain things. She didn't want to spend certain things. And so it was just an uncomfortable trip for her. She was in a place where she felt very confused about what to do, like, do I start paying for stuff for everyone, so I can enjoy myself without feeling bad and bring them along for the fun? And like I have the capacity to do that. So should I do that? Or is that going to be offensive to them or it was just confusing all around. For her. It's just change. It's just different. Things change when you go to different levels. When you expand, some people may not like it.
Now, that wasn't necessarily the case here. It was not that anyone was saying anything. It was more discomfort within herself. But the reality is, there potentially are going to be people who just won't like it. So we hide from our power. We hide from our power, we hide from our gifts, we shy away from ourselves, because it's disruptive. We put certain gifts in a box because we know how powerful they're going to be. And we know how disruptive it's potentially going to be. And we hide yet. On the other hand, we're toiling away, trying to figure out how to manifest, excited about this whole like law of attraction thing and calling things in and you're expecting a universe to see you when you're hiding. The other reason that we're afraid to call out What we want, how we want it in ways that we want it, is because we have been profoundly disappointed in the past. And a lot of times, we've been profoundly disappointed in the past because we were totally different people, perhaps without this kind of self work under our belt, so we didn't know better, but we want to say we should have known better. So then we get in all kinds of like shaming dynamics, and other people let us down, you know, trust has been broken. So there's very real disappointment that holds us back.
When we manage our disappointment. It looks like tempering ourselves. Don't get too excited, like don't get too excited about that potential book deal. Don't get too excited about that potential launch. Don't get too excited. Just be in the middle, don't completely kibosh it before it starts. But don't allow yourself to get excited, just in case you're disappointed, it will kind of ease the pain a little bit. If you've been in mind over matter if you've been in any of my programs, if you're in high minds, you know what I'm about to say here, which is that when you manage away your disappointment, you manage away your desires, there's absolutely no way that you can be in the full power of desire. And there's a lot of freaking power in being in desire, especially for women, this is their like, major gift universally,
Shauna VanBogart 26:23
when you are tempering yourself, when you are managing your disappointment. You're not even allowing yourself to go into desire, just desire it a little bit, but not too much, not too much just in case you cannot create from that place of managing your disappointment. At some point, you're gonna have to release that dynamic. You manifest and you attract from a place of worthiness that requires seeing yourself as worthy. And at a certain level of your self growth journey, you're going to realize that you're done fixing yourself. And you're going to realize that instead the work becomes sorting out and releasing anything that doesn't allow you to see yourself for who you really are, which is human, whole and worthy. It's kind of like I don't journal to work things out anymore. I journal to get at what is preventing me from seeing the truth of this. I don't journal from a place of I'm broken, something needs fixing. Here, I journal to get back into my abundant mind. I journaled to get back into my empowered state around the thing I'm experiencing friction around, I journal to get clarity on what needs to be released, what is unnecessary for me moving forward, I journaled to get clear on what is that baggage that I can let go of, and I no longer need to carry forward with me through the door into the next dimension of my business, my life myself.
And so you have to manifest from a place of worthiness, you have to create from a place of worthiness, your best ideas are going to come from a state of mind, where you are accepting. And you are in a space within yourself where you do feel worthy of more. It's this fine line of you're not complacent. But you're absolutely grateful for what is right now. And you know, it's okay to desire a different sensation, a different experience a different reality. And there's a sense of detachment about it as well. It's pure desire. It's just desire for the sake of desire, because desiring is fun, you don't manifest because something out there granted it to you. When you do that, from that space, it insinuates that you're in this energy of lack, because when you're looking for something outside of you to grant it to you, you're saying I don't have and you can't manifest from an identity of not having right, the entire point of receiving the entire thing I teach in mynd over matter, this is the Crash Course to stepping into this exact thing I'm talking about the entire premise of it is that to have you have to be a hammer, and so many people are focused on attracting and I always say okay, attraction is one thing, but what are you going to do when you have it? Are you going to be able to step into it? Are you going to be able to receive it? Are you going to be able to face the potential discomfort that comes from having it because guess what, there's a lot of discomfort that comes from having, and a lot of stuff that you're not even knowing to look at, because we get bright, shiny Stars In Our Eyes over certain things that we want.
And we're not dropping into a certain level within ourselves to kind of expand a little bit wider. And also just recognize the elements that come along with transformation and change. We've talked before about how the universe seeks to make you right. So if you're saying I don't Have the resourcefulness to get this myself, universe manifest this for me, the universe goes, you're right, you don't have the resourcefulness to get this for yourself, universe works through you, it only works to your capacity to receive. This is not to be heard through the lens of hyper independence, where it's all about doing it yourself, and you don't depend on anyone. This is about where you're coming from, when you pray, when you ask when you work with your co creator, are you coming from a place of knowing you're worthy? Are you coming from a place of you're broken, and you need that validation, you need that permission slip, and you need a universe to do it for you.
Shauna VanBogart 30:40
Remember that this doesn't have anything really to do with a positive attitude. Because there have been many times where I'm not in a positive attitude. But being in a positive or a negative attitude says nothing about my worthiness, nothing, I can be in a bad attitude and absolutely know that I am worthy of anything, the universe wants to flow through me and flow into my world. So this says nothing about oh, you have to be in a place of worthiness, which just means like, you just adore yourself and love yourself all the time, there have been a lot of times where I look in the mirror, and I'm like, I don't love this thing about myself. But that doesn't change anything about my worthiness, they're completely separate, completely separate. It's about recognizing your value, your worth asking for support from that place and understanding that that's alignment. That's integrity. That's the truth. No matter what my mind wants to tell me or what stories it wants to spin up about any kind of circumstance I'm in in the current moment, you can't send conflicting messages. If you want to utilize your power to manifest, you have to step into your own power. If you want the universe to see you, you have to see yourself.
Shauna VanBogart 31:57
We touched on this before, that a lot of times, you're not in your worthiness, because you're too fixated on those voices, who are seeing you as not enough or you're perceiving them as seeing you as not enough. So you're just in a perpetual state of not enoughness. And what can happen from that place of not enoughness is that you over function. And so you don't see how much output you have in your life, you don't see how much output is occurring. You can't see how much you're giving everyone around, you can point to you and go she's doing a lot, she is showing up a lot. She is giving a lot. You could in fact, be intimidating people by your capacity to give and making other people feel like they're not enough because they're watching you and you're over functioning, just give give give to everyone around you, except yourself. And what this dynamic can create. And this can be a tough pill to swallow what I'm about to throw at you. What this dynamic can create is a sense of entitlement. Because you're doing a shit ton of work. And you think that if you just do a lot, it will be enough. But it's never enough. And you keep getting evidence of it never being enough. And the evidence is that you don't get the same input as the output, you're not getting the kind of receiving, you're not getting the kinds of results, your needs aren't being met, your desires aren't being met, and you feel like all parts of you are going out. And so you feel entitled to the universe to just hand things over. Because you're over functioning to a degree and you're exhausted. doing the work. And doing a lot of work is not enough, I'm just going to be honest with you. Because you simultaneously have to step into receiving, you cannot be all output and expect input to just flow in.
Now, sometimes it does, right? But what I'm saying is you have to have your arms, your feet, your eyes, your ears open, you have to be open, you have to open up to receiving no one is going to open your arms for you and drop a silver platter into it. You have to step up and declare I require more. I require input, I require receiving, I require certain things coming into my life, you have to claim it, you cannot wait to be told that you're worth it. And that's what's occurring when we're in this dynamic of all this output. All this doing all this giving because it's coming from a place of not enoughness. And so you're waiting unknowingly perhaps to be told externally by someone or the universe or God that you're worth it. That's never going to happen.
That is our responsibility as humans our responsibility is to step into the worthiness. But you got to take the step, you got to raise your hand to go, I'm going to do the work to step into seeing myself correctly. So what are you doing for yourself to ensure that you are seeing yourself clearly, that you are seeing yourself as who you really are, which is a whole human who's worthy. Because once you realize that, once you realize that I am worth this, and no one's going to drop the silver platter into my arms, I have to take the steps to receive, you're going to realize my friend, that you require a lot. Because you're given a hell of a lot in this life. And you, knowing that you require a lot, but not asking for it, and not stepping up to claim it. That is an act of self neglect my friend, you have to declare it, you have to claim it for yourself. I am worthy of receiving unconditional love in this lifetime. And anything, the universe, frankly, wants to give me an anything anyone wants to give me because I have worked my ass off to be a person who loves unconditionally, myself. I give a lot. I show up. And I lived in an entitled state for a really long time waiting for someone to give me their permission and to tell me that I was worthy to receive the things I was saying I desired. No one was going to do that for me. And I had to realize that and I had to claim it for myself. Because the other truth of this is I wasn't willing on a certain level to stop performing. Because that's not who I am. I am someone who does show up. I am someone who does give a lot. I am someone who over functions, and I need to balance that and I need to work on that I need to take care of myself. But if I am deciding that this is who I am, I have the capacity for a tremendous amount of output, then yes, I require a lot. And I claim it for myself
Shauna VanBogart 36:57
we watch the show This is Us. Gosh, it's an emotional show. Like we're always puddles after every single episode, I feel like there's an episode. It's episode six, season six, I encourage you to go watch because I'm gonna give you the outline of part of it because it's so freakin powerful. This episode zones in on one of the characters her name is Beth. And Beth was an aspiring ballet dancer when she was young. And so the entire series are sort of showcasing her evolution of her career and of herself. And when she was young, and she was in ballet school her father had passed. And when her father died, she wasn't able to perform the way that she could. And you know, there's some other dynamics at play. But essentially, she did not become the ballet star that she wanted to. She had this mentor during that time who was really important to her. This mentor was her authority. This mentor was her voice, this mentor was the one she was looking for to point at her and say you're it, you're the star, you're worthy, he was her permission slip. And when her father died and she wasn't able to perform, he just kind of dropped her. And so this moment is devastating for her. Now fast forward in life. She goes on to have a corporate career, they showcase that they showcase the exit out of that, and then they showcase her rediscovering a part of herself, which is ballet, and they show her rediscovering the passion she has for this, and the leaps that she wants to make, especially in contrast to her husband's career. And it's risky. There's some risks that they kind of highlight along the way.
But eventually she becomes the student recruitment and Development for the City Ballet of Philadelphia. This is like her dream job at this current stage of her life. And so in this episode, there's a performance at the end where the students that she's hand selected, she's recruited, are being showcased. And there's one student that some other colleagues of hers are very hesitant about. But Beth is kind of like, Nope, I'm convicted, I'm confident about the student, just trust me, just trust me. And then behind the scenes to her husband, she's kind of freaking out because like a lots riding on this. And a lot riding on this because there's a lot of emotional baggage that she's kind of carrying from the past, this failure of not being able to become a ballet star herself. And so it's like it's all coming to a head in this episode during this performance of her students. And because she's hand selected them, it's a lot of pressure that falls on her. And this one student that everyone's hesitant about, and she's just convicted and confident about gets on stage. And Beth kind of needs the student to ace this performance, like to kill it. And unfortunately, she falls and of course the entire auditorium, there's a huge audience, kind of gasps, gets quiet. And you watch Beth walk out on stage and mentor her. She sits down on stage right next to her and she empowers her to get back up. She inspires her. She says I'm going to sit here with you on this stage until everyone in this audience gets bored and tired and leaves one by one, or you can get up, and you can start again. Either way, no two things. You can't disappoint me, and I ain't going nowhere.
Shauna VanBogart 40:14
So everyone in the audience is just waiting, just sitting there watching this, including her husband and her daughters. And her husband turns to the daughters during this moment. And he says to them, you're going to forget a lot about these years. But look at your mother right now. And remember this, don't you ever forget how incredible that woman is. Alright, so if that's not like, emotional enough, right?
What really got us, as we're watching this episode is then, Beth’s at home, she has a quiet moment to herself. And she decides she's going to call that mentor of hers from school. That mentor that is associated with failure, and one of the worst moments in her life. The Authority and the voice from her past that was preventing her from taking steps in her future steps towards her desires, steps to reconnect with herself. And so she calls him, he picks up and she says, You were like a God, to me, if I'm being honest, it meant so much that you chose me out of all of the other girls to be your favorite. That confidence that you had in me meant everything, I was ready to be your star. And when my dad died, and I couldn't perform to your standards, you just tossed me aside. You've literally replaced me without any word of comfort or explanation. And he says, well, it was my job to give you the technique that you needed to be a star. And she says, Yeah, you're right. And I probably reached my peak. But when I think about that moment, that failure, it turns my stomach, like I'm on a roller coaster. It's the part of me that made me feel so small. And it's the part of me that I tried to hide from my husband, and hide from my girls. It's the part of me I hated. And she goes on to say I thought I was going to be dancing on the world's biggest stages. But I've learned that there is power in waiting in the wings, and being there for the dancers that are stars, and being there for the ones that aren't. And for so long, I had put a part of myself away. And you took that from me. But now I'm taking it back. I know who I am. And I know what I was meant to do. Now, you have no idea how many takes I had to do in getting this part of this episode recorded. Because I'm falling apart. Even just retelling the story, just go watch the episode, you'll be bawling your eyes out. And so I asked you, what was taken from you? What are you hiding from your best friends, from your husband, from your family, from yourself hiding because you're too focused on living up to someone else's standards, trying to meet someone else's expectations of how things should be, and perhaps even an old vision of your own that went unfulfilled.
Where are you not stepping into your power and ultimately, your impact, because some baggage from the past is needing to be released. Because you, you have the capacity for greatness. But perhaps it's not in the way that you previously thought. And so you need to be honest about it, and release it. Because you're being called to be bold, and you're being called to show up. And the universe is waiting to see you to gift you to provide for you. But it can't do that. If you first don't allow the light in to see yourself. You are who you are, there's no denying certain qualities and gifts that you possess. This is the permission to release the fixation on where you fall in short in the eyes of other people and to realize that you've given away your perspective for other people to own. So now is the time to take it back. Know who you are to step into it. More to come next time on just being seen.
Shauna here, hoping that you’re coming off this episode of Just Being Seen feeling inspired and challenged to see how good it can get for you in your journey to showing up and being seen in your gifts. If you want the crash course to deepening into the truth of who you are, you’ll want to get on the waitlist for the next round of Mynd Over Matter. Head on over to ShaunaVanBogart.com/MOMWaitlist to put your name down.
If you’re loving this series - guess what? There’s bonus episodes, behind-the-scenes video, and other discussions happening over on the Just Being Patreon community. Join in on the fun at patreon.com/justbeing.
Just Being is produced by Jeremy Enns and the team at Counterweight Creative. Special thanks to the variety of people who had their hands on some aspect of this creative piece, including my featured guests. And to the right-hand women I am honored to call my team, Kelly Elizabeth and Jess Butler, I see you, I appreciate you, and know that your support in this work is changing the lives of women around the world.