I once sent out an email to my mailing list and got a FULL PAGE response back from one of my subscribers.
“Why did you sign this, Love, Julie? You don’t even know me! It is incredibly rude and insulting!”
…was the gist of the email.
This subscriber was ANGRY and I was the outlet of her upset for that moment.
Almost every time I send out an email to my list, or post a post like this one, I’ll have some anxiety wash over my body.
There have been many times when someone hasn’t liked what I had to say, disagreed with me or was somehow personally offended by my sharings.
In the case of this one subscriber, she didn’t take the easy route by simply unsubscribing because she didn’t like the way I jam… instead she wrote a full page response back to me!
Did it bother me?
Of course!
I re-read my email to see if there was something in there that I could attribute to being insulting in some way.
(If there was, I would be happy to apologize and take responsibility)
I couldn’t find it.
I then reconsidered my approach. Why AM I signing off my emails: Love, Julie?
The answer… BECAUSE I WANT TOO! I like my subscribers to know that I care about them. I like them to know that I do this as a business, but also as a labor of love and service. I actually give a shit about the people who I serve! My emails are sent with LOVE.
So… many years later I’m still signing-off my emails in the same way.
Many years later I still have that wave of anxiety. Sometimes I still have rude comments and haters.
But you know what?
It’s totally okay.
This may or may not happen to you, too. You may have a message that is controversial or stimulating or brings things UP for those you serve.
That’s amazing!
Having haters and people attack me for seemingly simple things like the way I sign my emails has become PAR for the entrepreneurial course.
It’s taught me to stay deeply rooted within myself. It’s taught me to listen to my own heart. It’s taught me to rest in my own integrity and let others do the same. It’s asked me to surrender time and time again when any controlling part of me emerges and wants other people to have any different experience of me than they are. I surrender that and come back to myself – letting them have their own experienced and trusting that it’s more a reflection of what’s happening within them, and less about me.
It’s also invited me to get really really clear. Am I sharing or doing something that isn’t a true reflection of my heart? Maybe sometimes I haven’t clarified my message yet and it’s coming out diffused in some way. I take any and all relevant (key word = relevant) feedback as an opportunity to adjust course and dig even deeper into my own truth.
One of the biggest fears my clients and other professional healers share with me is that they are terrified to be seen.
There is the potential for rejection.
There is the potential for someone else’s misplaced attack.
Someone may call you out or suggest you’re a fraud!
If you’ve felt this way, you are not alone.
My invitation to you is to challenge the fear and resistance and find the deepest trust inside of you that you can 100% rest in.
Share from that place.
“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.” – F. Roosevelt
Expressing yourself, sharing yourself, being seen. These things require courage. They require a deepening trust in yourself and your resilience. They require a willingness and desire that are bigger than your fears.
If you have some message or medicine to share with the world (and I’m sure you do because you’re here!) then it’s my belief that it is your kuleana (Hawaiian word for sacred responsibility) to share the gifts you’re here to share.
It’s more painful NOT to step forward into your brilliance than to risk some temporary rejection or misplaced anger from someone else.
I invite you to take the risk to share yourself.
I invite you to experience the fulfillment of being yourself fully. Not perfectly, but fully!
Sending all my love to you on this healer’s journey! <3