A letter to a friend who compares herself to me, unfavorably.
Dear friend,
I don’t want to make you feel small. I notice that I will dumb myself down around you in order to stay feeling connected with you. I will sabotage my business and keep myself in a struggle so as to not upset the status quo of our relationship.
It’s not just our relationship, but all of my relationships. I have a deep fear of being ostracized. I’m certain it comes from many years of feeling that way growing up. Of being a bit of a weirdo, even among my siblings, and especially among my peers. Once I started getting backlash from people around me, I decided it was a bad idea to be uniquely me, and I started the difficult work of being a chameleon for others. I tried on every personality I saw in tv and movies, trying to find one that made everyone else happy.
This worked for me, in a way. I got to experience the sensation of being loved and respected. The trouble is, I was getting love and respect for being fake. The real tragedy is that I got GOOD at being fake, and lost who I really was in the process.
In the last 6 years, since I became a coach and started doing a lot of “work on myself,” one of the biggest things I’ve understood is the depth of disconnection I have with my true self. I have made leaps and bounds in this area, but there’s one place I’m holding out: really getting and owning that I am a force to be reckoned with.
I’m a leader who doesn’t do a whole lot of leading in the world. I’m a stellar coach, who keeps her practice fairly small and manageable. I’m a performer who no longer gets on stage. And my soul feels lackluster and sad, even as I am making more money than ever before in my life and am surrounded by more people who love the real me than ever before. Soul is still sad.
I’m still playing out this dynamic of not wanting to be who I truly am. I am still being a chameleon. I am lowering my own expectation of myself to match those around me.
And so… when I do something great… when I show what I’m capable of… and you, friend, reach out to me and say that you feel small next to me… it feeds this thing I’m doing.
It also breaks my heart because I see myself in you.
I don’t want to fix the way you feel. I don’t want to relate to it as real. I don’t want to invalidate it, either.
Instead, I want to call you forth. I want you to get that our boats are tied together. When the tide comes in, all boats rise. Me being great doesn’t actually diminish you, because you are my partner.
I need you to step up and realize that I’m not looking down to find you. I’m at eye level wondering where you went.
Please come back up here with me. I need you to. And more importantly, you need you to.
Together WE can step into the next level of our leadership. We can change the world if we get out of our small conversations and put something at risk.
Are you with me?
Keeping an eye out for you at eye level,
Michelle
