The first conversation happened in the context of an appointment. A friend had highly recommended me to book a free session with a coach and so I did. Emails between us flew back and forth and he wrote "I will set aside 2 hours and we can dive into all the ideas and challenges you might be facing and see if we can send you off with a breakthrough. (I would not charge you for this Becca)." I had high hopes going into our time together that it was going to be a knockout experience. And boy, did it knock me out, like a sucker punch to my stomach.
As usual I was being my candid self and freely sharing with him what was happening in my life. Somehow I brought to his attention that in January, I asked the universe to manifest $500 in my life and was awestruck that I received so much more! It wasn't in the form of cold hard cash but free opportunities that would usually cost hundreds of dollars. Then I told him because of this experience, I am asking for $2000 in February.
This was when things started going sour. Suddenly he was in a hurry to wrap up our session and didn't know what other help he could offer. Our session ended up being less than 40 minutes and what's worse, he cancelled the Facebook friend request he sent me just prior to our appointment! It was a big blow to me to be treated this way and I felt really bummed out. It seemed like he was only interested in my money and when he realized I didn't have much, he dropped me like a hot potato.
A few days later I told my mom about this incident. She reacted by saying "why do you have to keep on meeting new people and going to so many different events?" She was saying this because her protective mama bear instincts were showing up, but to me, it felt like she was trying to keep me safe in a box when what I love to do most is explore and interact with the world.
So I started retreating within and wondering if I should keep going to the new communities I had recently joined, groups that brought much joy and encouragement to my life. Now I felt guilty going to those groups because my mom did not approve of these outings, thinking I may get hurt again. I stopped attending meetings and being active on Facebook, whereas before I would constantly share quotes or information I found interesting or inspirational. This has lasted over a month and today is the first day I'm breaking the silence.
My lesson this February is that I still have a long way to go in my journey of holistic mental wellness. I continue to struggle with the mantra "don't take anything personally" and there is much to learn in developing better emotional hygiene so I don't keep on picking the wounds that need to heal. Writing out my experience in this blog post has helped me process it more and understand myself better at the same time. The way the coach and my mom reacted to my words had more to do with their worldview than my own. Something I said triggered their fear and one decided to run while the other jumped to protection mode. My own reactions reveal that my fear continues to lie in what others think about me. I need to drop this burden and and start living on my own terms instead of everyone else's. There's no magic wand to make this happen instantly so I promise to be patient with myself and learn from my mistakes (which are really lessons in disguise) every step on this road to wholeness.
