The power of grief is underestimated in business.
I recently looked through memories on Facebook and how I bought into hustling and talking about how you just have to choose abundance and it would show up (if you also worked hard enough.)
Acknowledging my privilege wasn’t even in my vocabulary. Acknowledging mental health and trauma in our ability to create wasn’t in my awareness.
When you know better, you do better. So here we are.
I had an epiphany while watching Ted Lasso for the second time. (Go watch this series on AppleTV right now ♥️.)
💫 My epiphany 💫
👉 We don’t allow nearly enough space in business for grief.
I read a colleague’s year-end review and how they more than doubled their 2019 income in 2020. I felt a tinge of jealousy.
When I dug deeper, I realized that jealousy was a coverup for shame because I too didn’t double my business last year. (And admitting that I felt jealousy is ugh, I really don’t like it. But this shadow has shown me over and over again the truth when I let myself experience it and don’t judge it.)
I believe jealousy reveals the truth if we’re willing to look.
So I sat in that space for a moment longer than I was comfortable with and there it was: grief.
Grief of the lost plans and events and retreats that didn’t happen. Grief of burying my father-in-law last year. Grief of the strain of that grief on my marriage that we’re still working through.
👉 Grief that I just didn’t have the capacity to do more than I did.
I’m letting it breathe and take up space.
As I do that, I can acknowledge it and it doesn’t consume me like I feared it would.
Before I entertain the tendency to go to the positive, I’m choosing to take up space with grief alongside everything else.
Let’s make space for all of it.
And more importantly, let’s witness each other in all of it – without making up stories about a person’s success because they have the audacity to be seen in all of the layers they hold.
What is your response to grief, especially as it pertains to your business? Let me know on Instagram or Facebook.
