Been recording new episodes for my Hope Motivates Action podcast the last few weeks – man, the stories shared by these inspiring people is just incredible. Also reminds me that you really don’t know a person’s history based on how they’re showing up in the world today – whether their past is good, bad or otherwise, how they show up on a day-to-day basis is definitely a product of hard physical and mental work and I’m damn proud to be associated with these folks.
One of the coolest experiences that happened during the course of planning these interview sessions is when one of the inspiring people reached out to tell me that she’d like to reschedule our interview because she just didn’t feel like she had the capacity to show up as her best self that day.
Didn’t have the mental capacity.
I love that. I love that she recognized that her mental capacity wasn’t what she wanted it to be, that she was struggling internally with things she wasn’t prepared to deal with quite yet and was brave enough to talk out loud and put herself first.
I love that.
We don’t do it often enough.
We talk about self-care and many of us are getting better at it, whatever our personal definition of self-care is. For me, this conversation was exactly the definition of self-care…recognizing that the self wasn’t feeling so hot and taking action to take care of self.
It’s scary to express those things out loud. You run the risk of disappointing others or breaking promises you fully intended to keep. There’s the real possibility that others won’t understand where you’re coming from, that they’ll judge or condone you. But there’s also the real possibility that you’ll be received as strong and brave and supported. That people are moving themselves up the self-awareness continuum and responding with kindness and curiosity and compassion.
I like to think I responded in that way (please tell me otherwise!) and we’ve rescheduled to a time that works better for her. And we can keep rescheduling until capacity has opened up…if it even does.
This is hands-down the best part of my work, my job, my passion. Getting to hang out and get to know these inspiring humans who inspire me to reflect and action differently. It’s both my pleasure and privilege and I don’t want it any other way.