Turning up for yourself

Here is something that I have many, many times wished weren't true: nobody can do your change, evolution or transition for you.

I usually wish this in the moments when I feel awkward and uncomfortable, right in the thick of change or transition, I really wish someone could take the reins. When things feel hard, couldn't my mum just make my decisions for me?

If only.

I have sat in rooms with women this year and witnessed something shift for them. The room goes quiet, someone says the thing that's true and you can see a door or even a window open. Every time, the thing that made the difference wasn't what I brought, it was what she already had with her.

I can hold the space, I can ask the question and keep my mouth shut long enough for the answer to arrive - but I can't turn up on her behalf. Nobody can.

Most of the women I know would move heaven and earth for somebody else. The school run, the work deadline, the friend in a mess, the appointment, the parent who needs a lift. We'll rearrange a whole week at the blink of an eye and ask no questions.

But then, the thing thats for us - the walk, the appointment, the evening we booked months ago, an early night, is the first thing to go the moment the week gets full.

We cancel on ourselves in a way we could never and would never cancel on a friend, and, we barely notice we are doing it because it doesn't feel like you are letting anyone down. There is nobody standing at the door waiting.

Except, there is - really. It's just that, it's you.

When people talk about committing to change it tends to sound big, like a declaration or a fresh start. A new you by spring. In my experience, it is mostly small and unglamorous. It is noticing the patterns that need to change, it is keeping a promise to yourself on the evening where it would be much easier not to. It's protecting two hours the way you would protect them for someone you love. And, it is arriving with your attention - not just your body.

It is also the same as never stopping, which I wrote about a few weeks ago - pausing on purpose. Committing to your own change includes the pause, but what it doesn't include is quietly quitting on yourself and calling it 'being busy'.

I get asked what people should do to prepare for a workshop. The answer is genuinely, nothing. There is no homework, no prerequisite, you never have to have done anything like this before and you do not need anything figured out. That's rather the point of the workshops. But, there are a few things that make a real difference to what you walk away with after a workshop.

Clear the evening properly - sort the lift, the childcare, whatever needs sorted so you are not half in the room and half at home. It is 2 hours, let them be entirely yours.

Come as your are, not as you think you should be. Nobody needs a performance, there's no highlight reel in the room and nothing is shared unless you choose to share it. This is solely for you.

Be willing to sit in the quiet. There are pauses and some of them are long, on purpose. It can feel awkward at first, resist the urge to fill it both in the room and in your own head. The quiet is where the magic happens.

Let yourself feel about it all. Nothing dramatic, but if something catches in your throat or surprises you, that is usually the thing worth looking at - lean towards it rather than away.

Keep turning up afterwards. At the end of the workshops, you take something away with you, and typically I am also sending you something back a few months later. This is you, turning up for yourself on a day you won't even remember planning.

Basically - give yourself every chance to show up for yourself. To succeed in this one step.

If now isn't the time for a certain thing, that's an honest answer to have as well and sometimes life is just .. well, life. But, as I say, no one can do the work for you - whether it is in a workshop, reading an important book or attending therapy. That said, if you are telling yourself 'not yet' for the third or fourth time in a row, it might be worth asking what the 'not yet' is made of. Is it the calendar? Or is that turning up for yourself feels less important and urgent than turning up for everyone else. Only you can answer that, and at least answer it honestly.

So, what next?

For me personally, I am constantly working on showing up for myself. This means getting to the gym or out for a walk when I least feel like it, sitting down to write a blog when I feel like I should be spending my time on client work, or choosing to climb into bed at 8pm and read a book rather than churn away in front of a screen once everyone else is resting.

For Reground, there are no workshops on the calendar just now. I am using the winter to rest and to build and the workshops will return in the new year, likely just when you need them. In the meantime, the turning up starts with the next small promise you make to yourself and whether you choose to keep it.

You can't outsource the turning up - but you don't have to do the rest alone.