Remember in college when a “walk of shame” was actually kind of awesome? You know… walking across the quad on a Sunday morning in the outfit you wore Saturday night because you spent the night with your boyfriend, girlfriend, or crush?
I just had one of those weeks where I was in a kind of walk of shame, but it didn’t feel good at all. It wasn’t the result of some fun evening or spontaneous experience, and it’s been feeling kind of crappy.
Here’s what happened….
As you know well by now, I offer a series of workshops in San Francisco. My workshops have always sold out, but for some reason, this most recent one was selling very slowly. This of course caused a whole variety of self critical voices to arise- “Who do you think you are, teaching other people how to sell out their events when you can’t sell out your own?” or “Nobody cares about this anymore, ” or “Everyone is sick of this event! Stop doing it!”
And the worst part was when (because I was in panic mode) I sent a note out to my SF based friends and colleagues letting them know the workshop was happening since many of them don’t get this weekly newsletter. I got one rather angry note from a friend who called me “fake and salesy,” taking the language from my workshop description. It’s exactly what I teach people NOT to do. That one burned and touched a deep part of me- the part that can easily criticize me or make me wrong.
I wanted to crawl in a hole. And I did for a period of time. I stopped promoting it. I was so embarrassed. I wanted support but I didn’t actually want anyone to know I was failing or that maybe I had overdone it a bit with reaching out to my contacts. Have you ever been there?
But I knew I couldn’t stay in the hole for long or my workshop would actually suffer because of my negative mental space, and that would make me feel even worse.
So….I reached out to the most supportive group I know– the women in my entrepreneurs group. I feared being met with “You should have done _____” or, “Maybe you need to _______.” Instead I was met with complete love and acceptance. We all make mistakes and mistakes are part of the entrepreneurial journey.
Even though I can admit that I could have done things differently, it helped so much just to be witnessed in my shame. It helped release the grip it had on me. I can own the things I did “wrong” or not in the “best” way but still move forward and do better next time.
When we can honor and name our experience, it loses its power over us.
Is there somewhere you are hiding in shame? Could you feel better by just sharing it with someone you’re close to who has the capacity to listen and respond with compassion?
Thank YOU for witnessing me on my journey! As always, you know I love hearing from you.
Sending lots of love,
Emily
p.s. If you haven’t yet seen it, I highly recommend checking out Brene Brown’s TED talk on shame.
p.p.s Remember how I said I need to be witnessed and just move on? Well! Here I go promoting another event! My advanced networking workshop will be in SF on March 12th. Save the date! More info coming soon. It’s super participatory and the attendees have just been extraordinary. It’s worth coming just for the people that attend. I hope to see you there! xoxo