Having the tough conversations

I love Brené Brown’s work on Vulnerability.

Actually that’s not true. I hate it AND love it all at the same time.

I hate it because it has me baring my soul. Naked. Standing out there awaiting judgement on my flaws, my thinking, my insecurities and my worries and fears.

In the arena.

All eyes on me.

Watching. Waiting. For them to laugh. To jeer. To sigh. To turn and walk away. To judge. To gossip.

To pick over the carcass of my soul and body left in the arena, on the floor.

That’s what being vulnerable feels like to me. Or rather, more often than not, the anticipation and build up of being vulnerable.

The side I LOVE is what happens after that soul wrenching moment when the stuff that needs to be purged comes out.

The clarity. The empty feeling in your head. The lightness that comes after, because everything that is whirring around your head, getting bigger and bigger and louder and louder is finally, gone

I was talking to a client today about having a hard, tough conversation with her husband about some stuff that was going on for her.

I’ve had many a tough conversation with Dom. And it usually takes a couple of days to build up before I do the “oh holy F. It’s just got to come out” and it comes out in a spewing torent of anguish, tears, ugly crying, trying to explain what I have in my head and not sound like a complete mental case. Actually, that’s not strictly true! I do let him know that acutally, the conversation is not usually about HIM per se, it’s more about my interpretation of whatever it is that’s going on and what I make it mean.

I know you get what I mean here.

Over the past month I have challenged most of my clients to have these conversations with the important people in their lives for various different reasons.

Mainly, because keeping it inside of them is causing them pain. And they cannot control how someone else behaves, but they can communicate to the other party(ies) how whatever it is that’s going on is making them feel.

One such conversation I had with Dom was around money. It was reasonably deep into my business and I hadn’t been particularly good at managing the money coming in. I wouldn’t say I was reckless with my spending, but, well, I didn’t manage it as well as I could have.

When things went a bit sideways in my life, it impacted the capacity in which I was able to operate my business and therefore I scaled it back to about a quarter of what it had been. For those who are aware of what it was in the past, you’ll be able to work out the numbers.

It was a big smack to my ego, it created some shame within me ILLOGICALLY, though, right? Because, I chose to do it for a variety of reasons. I felt like it was the RIGHT thing to do (I still do, actually) but it did put different financial pressures on us as a family, as a couple and for me personally.

I felt like I’d failed and not delivered on the promise that I had made to Dom, my family and myself.

So when Dom innocently asked at one point, “When are you going to start making more money again?” it hit me like a B-Double. Right in the solar plexus.

I put on a bit of weight. I was worried. I was stressed. I’d stopped skating. I was drinking more champagne more regularly.

It wasn’t a great place to be in.

After a while, with the weight of this weighing on me, and me writing my “shitty first draft” in my head (Thanks Brené), I was worst case scenario-ing all over the place. From Dom leaving me because I was ‘broke’ (I wasn’t!), to the business never ever picking back up, to never getting another client again, to me feeling like a has-been, a wash-out, a 15-mins of Milli Vanilli famer… And I mustered up the courage and made the decision to talk to Dom about it.

Talking about my biggest fears, the way I was feeling and the depth of despair that I felt like I was in was probably one of the hardest things I’ve consciously chosen to do.

But you know what? It opened up a dialogue.

It helped him to SEE ME. Like, really see me. To see that even though I joked and made light of it all and pulled the “everything will always work out, babe, don’t stress about it”… I was quite clearly deeply worried and impacted by the whole scenario.

You see, for me, it wasn’t talking about money that made it so sticky and icky and vommity.

It was the conversation about what I made it mean about ME.

About the fear of failure despite wearing the mask of ‘She’ll be right’. The fear of not being good enough. The fear of being past it. The fear of not being able to back it all up. The fear of, well, every fucking shadow!!!!

Brené Brown says that the cure to shame is vulnerability and by bringing your stuff out into the light. (Not a direct quote, but pretty damn close).

My advice, if you have stuff lurking around somewhere and you’re creating shadows and villains and vampires that come out and eat you from the inside out at night. If you’re afraid about anything, anything at all, talk about it with the people around you.

If you feel like you are not happy with the way that you’re being treated or by the interactions that you’re having with those around you, talk about and do something about it.

I personally find this hard. You may not.

But to me, the hardness is worth EVERYTHING that happens on the other side of vulnerability

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Admitting that you don’t always have it together when you’re someone who is in the spotlight can be challenging. Particularly if you’re creative or if you’re a leader.

But here’s the thing.

The homeless person down the street has hangups.

The check out person at the grocery store has hangups

The bank teller..

The teacher…

The lawyer..

The doctor..

The student..

The next door neighbour…

The magazine model …

The elite athlete..

Me…

You…

We all have stuff.

And we can use a variety of different tools to overcome these hangups, work through them and let them go, so that we really CAN step into that place of truly leading from a place of clarity, magnetism and strength.

The thing that will stand you up and apart from them, is the fact that YOU are willing to do the work to release these hangups and truly LEAD. Most are not.

The Queen Code starts 14th of Feb 2019. We’ll be working through things like this, using the exact strategies that I use to prepare for these conversations in order to create ideal outcomes. Plus the energetic work, of course. Then the logical work. So that you can have it all – and then some, all whilst wearing that beautiful Crown.

www.nicolamoras.com.au/queen