Motivational Dogfooding

“Light up the darkness” — Bob Marley

Shit got real on this journey of Contagious Vulnerability this week.

Dark night of the soul real.

Question my calling real.

Honestly, it’s been this way for a little while now. I just haven’t had the courage to go this deep with you until today.

It’s easy for me to be open, authentic, and vulnerable when I’m experiencing joy and feeling connected to my highest self. It’s a whole lot harder when I have to speak truth to the darker aspects of my being.

Things I’m really not proud of and would rather not look at much less share with the world.

I’m at a point in the journey of the startup of me where it’s time to take this vulnerability thing to a whole ‘notha level. It’s time for some serious dogfooding.

For the non-techies amongst you, dogfooding is when people who work at a technology company use their own products — effectively eating their own dogfood — to gain user insights and assess quality by testing out their products in real world situations.

In my case, it’s time for me to take my own wisdom to heart.

To turn my powerful voice of transformation inward and be my own motivational speaker of one.

To deepen my inner work so that I can more effectively guide others on their own journeys of self-healing.

To recognize and put a stop to a deeply-rooted behavior pattern that is stealing my joy.

Because comparison is not the only thief of joy.

As I’ve shared in previous articles, I believe that joy is a choice and make it my practice to choose joy every day, responding with joy in the face of the full spectrum of human emotions — both light and dark.

Especially the darker emotions.

Sometimes this is way more challenging than others. The past few months have been one of those times.

I think of my emotions as weather patterns flowing through my inner landscape. Thinking of them this way helps remind me that whatever I’m experiencing at the moment is temporary and will change in time.

That my emotions are states not traits.

My inner meteorology has felt more turbulent than that of our planet of late. I’ve had a powerful low-pressure system sitting on my soul since the end of last year. There’s been typhoons of sadness and grief punctuated by brief squalls of anger and despair.

I have been struggling with an unhealthy relationship pattern. One I thought I’d worked on — worked through! Apparently, not so much.

This one keeps coming back. Like a nightmare on Elm Street.

I’m noticing that the way I show up in romantic relationships is causing me suffering. I fall in love and quickly fall into an unhealthy spiral, a pattern of unbalanced engagement that leaves me feeling sad and depleted, my needs unmet.

I chase joy and validation from another rather than cultivating it in myself. I feel a constant need to perform and please — to delight and amaze — in order to receive love.

I deeply crave feeling desired — because somewhere along the line, I equated being an object of desire with being loved. So much so that I embody the divine feminine temptress archetype to the extreme, seeking the dopamine hits of my lover’s responses via a steady stream of tantalizing ecstatic, romantic communications and intimate outreach.

A flow which I maintain long after I recognize that my needs aren’t being met in the relationship.

Or that the person isn’t right for me.

Or, in this case, that the timing isn’t right.

At its core this pattern stems from a fear deep down inside that I’m not worthy of love.

I fear that if I ask for what I need, I won’t receive it. This fear is so powerful that I normally don’t have the courage to say what I need.

To create space for my love to show up.

To meet me half way.

Earlier this week, I worked up the courage to speak my truth to someone I’ve been romantically involved with. It meant letting go of a beautiful dream because that’s what it really was.

More fantasy than reality.

More potential than actual.

A few days after taking this big step, I had a hakomi therapy session where I explored a strange nerve pain sensation that radiates from the back of my heart. A sensation that showed up in my body during the unfolding of this particular romantic involvement.

Showed up as my heart expanded more than I’d ever experienced.

Definitely not a coincidence.

As the somatic therapist guided me inwards, she directed me to focus my attention and breath on that area of my body.

The sensation shifted from a diffuse, radiating energy emanating from the middle of my thoracic spine to a dense spot on the left side, nearer to my shoulder blade — like a black hole on the back of my heart.

I sensed a rod of energy — like a spear penetrating through my ribs, piercing my heart from behind and leaving a scar. This spot had elements of being betrayed or wounded by someone I trusted, someone with whom I felt safe enough to have had my back to them.

And yet rather than causing my heart to close down around this wound to protect itself from further harm, I noticed that the front of my heart was radiating light and heat, expanding outwards in front of me as I felt into and curiously explored the dense scar tissue behind it.

Some might infer stories of past life trauma to this experience. For me it was just a reminder that when we open our hearts, we are vulnerable and open to wounding.

The evolved response to experiencing these wounds is to not to close our hearts but to open them more fully with the awareness that we may again experience heartache.

Better to risk heartache than to close ourselves off from experiencing the deep love that only a truly open heart can experience.

This morning I had to speak this same inconvenient truth again — that I am ready for and worthy of a deeper relationship than is currently available with this person — after witnessing myself falling back into old engagement patterns as the week progressed and losing my connection to joy.

I don’t care how woke or evolved we get; the reality is that our inner work never ends. As one of my favorite yoga teachers likes to say, “practice makes practice”. When doing our inner work, we don’t conquer or work through our issues.

We become aware of them.

We learn to be with them.

We change our relationship and responses to them.

We take back our power — the power to choose and direct the course of our lives rather than feeling like life is happening to us.

This is our practice as divine beings on this human journey. We approach but never reach mastery because there is always more to explore and discover about ourselves and the Universe.

This is not a bad thing.

A commitment to lovingly curious — and courageous — lifelong self-discovery is what ignites our inner spark, fuels the light within and ensures a lifetime of aliveness. A lifetime of joy.

Sharing this with you was really hard for me and simultaneously empowering.

I started off the week with the intention of writing about what joy means to me. I found that I couldn’t write about that topic in an authentic way because of what was in the way.

Because I wasn’t connected to my joy.

Because all this was going on and I wasn’t talking about it.

I’m not gonna lie, the dogfooding wasn’t fun — inner work is hard! I’m sad — it hurts to let go of love. And I feel lighter and clearer now.

I refocused my energy and reprioritized my journey of self-love.

This is the power of giving voice to your authentic experience.

Of shining light into your darkest places.

Of sharing the burdens you carry with others.

Of speaking truth to what is.

I hope that this gives you the courage to continue your own hero or heroine’s journey.

To explore your whole inner landscape — both the darkness and the light.

To speak truth to what you find out loud—to be Contagiously Vulnerable—so that others can witness and support you on your path.

If you need support, I’m always happy to talk. Please book a curious conversation to explore how the Vulnerability Doula can be of service to you.

Happy to meet you in a space of contagious and courageous vulnerability because in my experience, that’s where the magic of transformation happens.