‘Everyone who studies natural medicine is here to heal themselves first.’ That’s what my lecturer told us on our first day in naturopathy college, and I could totally get it.
Long before I started studying natural medicine, I’d been interested in herbal medicine and food as medicine. I was also finally starting to feel myself coming out of a few years of poor body image and the ups and downs of dieting. Of course, I wanted to help other people, but I also wanted to help and heal myself.
Years later, having witnessed huge pivots in my business, passion and body of work, I still believe that we teach what we most want to deepen within ourselves. And on some level, no matter what you’re creating, no matter what you’re working on sharing, this is true for you too.
As you begin to deepen your confidence in using your voice, you need to understand and accept this, so you can use it as a tool to expand, and possibly even share and teach your work.
The more you accept it, the more you will feel connected to your bigger picture, and the more real, vulnerable and approachable you will be to your clients, customers, colleagues, readers, audience and tribe—whoever needs to be in your orbit.
And this is how you’ll build and expand the energy of your creations, business, career and body of work.
Your clients are less likely to support you if you’re a cookie-cutter wellness guru; or a personal trainer who seems perfect; or a business owner (or human in general) who always has everything altogether. If you’re a health coach and all you do is talk about green smoothies, chia seed pudding and kale, your clients won’t feel connected to you on a deeper level. So at the end of the day, you’re the one who’ll miss out on both cultivating deeper relationships with others and supporting your clients in the best way possible.
Of course, you can talk about all of those things if you want, but be real about it! Talk about the smoothie you made for breakfast, but also about how you then dropped it all over the kitchen counter as you ran out the door late for an appointment. Talk about the lessons you’ve learnt and how we might learn them too. Tell us what’s not working for you, and what you’re going to do about it.
Trying to show up as being perfect is a recipe for dissatisfaction, because you can never achieve perfection. And you won’t resonate with your most loving and ideal community, if they think you’re so far removed from their reality. Your community want to know the real you.
However, that doesn’t mean you have to overshare or tell us your home address. It doesn’t mean you have to share in a way that makes you feel uncomfortably vulnerable. It doesn’t mean you have to share while you’re in the midst of your pain. Instead, it asks you to share the parts of you that are going to touch the hearts, minds and souls of the people you’re here to serve most, when you’re ready to, and in a way that feels good to you.
(On that note, I prefer to process how I’m feeling, before opting to share it publicly. In this way, I am less emotionally charged and can rationally decide what is helpful to share, and what needs to stay within the private pages of my journal, the private hallways and chambers of my mind and heart, or in private conversations with family, friends and healers.)
Your community, audience and tribe (whatever word you want to use) want to know that you’ve felt what they’ve felt, that you’ve seen what they’re going through, and that you’ve shared their struggles, frustrations, pain and overwhelm.
How do I know this? Because back when I started my business, I used to worry that I wouldn’t be taken seriously as a nutritionist, because I thought I wasn’t skinny enough. I thought I would be judged, ridiculed and laughed at, because it looked like I hadn’t ‘got my sh*t together’. I was nervous that if a client came to me for weight loss advice, they wouldn’t trust me.
How silly (but totally understandable) of me. My clients loved me more because I had felt their pain; they could feel that, when we spoke about their pain. They could feel it when I offered up gentle suggestions, and when I shared stories of my own to help them on their path forward. It helped them feel understood. Most importantly, they didn’t feel alone in their pain and struggle to find body positivity.
The same goes for clients who came to me with anxiety, depression or fatigue. I have felt all of those things in my life, which made all the difference in how the prescriptions and suggestions I offered my clients supported them.
And now the same goes for my clients who are feeling overwhelmed in their businesses, lives or creative endeavours; who are wanting to align their energy and call in what’s next; who are wanting to connect with themselves on a deeper level; and who are wanting to clear away perfectionism, procrastination and comparison and anything else that might be holding them back from loving what they create in their businesses and lives.
I’m not saying you always have to have gone through what your clients are going through—that’s not true all the time. And you are not always your own ideal client, and that’s more than okay.
But it’s highly likely you’ll end up attracting a community, clients and an audience (also friends!) who are going through what you’ve been through in your life—something you’ve already deepened within yourself, or something you’re still (and always) deepening.
Think of how a beautiful pearl is created: an irritant enters an oyster; to protect itself, the oyster secretes mother-of-pearl, coating the irritant in this protective mineral substance, which eventually forms the beautiful pearl.
Just as an irritant creates beauty in an oyster, your pain can create your purpose.
Months before my first book, You Are Enough, was published, I read an article by a well-known author who said that when you write and publish non-fiction, you’ll be called to live your message. I remember thinking to myself: Hmm, that sounds interesting. I wonder if that’ll play out for me too.
And then … right about the time my book was published, my skin broke out with the most horrible adult acne I’d ever experienced. This was the absolute worst time for a severe breakout. I had to call on my self-confidence and know my worth, even though my skin made me feel incredibly self-conscious. I had to remember that I was enough. I had to live my message; I had to keep showing up, anyway.
Fast forward to the months leading up to the publication of It’s All Good, and I was called to live my message again. Much of what I’d written about came up again in my life: lessons I had already lived through; fears I’d already looked at; thoughts I’d already cleared away. I had to let go, trust and surrender. I had to live my message; I had to keep showing up anyway.
It’s happened again with this book. Throughout the writing process, I’ve had to deepen every single thing I’ve written about. I’ve had to live my message over and over again, in order to keep writing this book, in order to finish this book. I’ve had to keep showing up anyway.
Since I’ve become aware of this, I find it often happens. If I’m about to launch something, speak about something, teach something or write about something, I’ll be reminded of it. It’s not always a painful reminder—it can be joyful too. But it’ll be a reminder in some way, shape or form of how far I’ve come; of what I still need to deepen within myself; of what I must remember in order to teach this work better; of what I can still release, clear, heal, activate, embody and transform within myself.
So if you find yourself going through something now, let yourself go through it, knowing you can use the experience as fuel for later. Know you can absorb these lessons and transform them into teachings. Know this could become fodder for your next project, meeting, book, artwork, course, program, or just your next girls’ dinner.
Let yourself go through it first; let it deepen within you, so that you can share it with the world. After all, how can we reach for the stars, if we aren’t grounded in our truth?
If it comes back again and again (as it may), let the old lessons wash over you, let yourself see it with new eyes, a new perspective. Let yourself learn it all over again, knowing it’s for your highest good … and that it’ll make a great tale around the campfire Instagram.
It can feel difficult to go through lessons sometimes, especially when we find ourselves having to relearn lessons we think we’ve already learnt. However it’s always worth it, if you can use this knowledge to deepen what you’re learning and teaching yourself, and by extension of this, what you may wish to share with others.
By deepening what you most need to learn, you can then teach it in the best way. And that’s how you can create, call your power back to you, and find stable and secure ground on which to build your dreams and activate your self-trust.
I’m aligned to deepening my inner wisdom and knowledge, so I can best share this with the world.