The Power of Letting Be: Why Being Held in Community Changes Everything

In this episode, I reflect on the power of being held inside a safe community and what becomes possible when you stop trying to fix yourself. I share a moment from inside the Pathway to Peace community that beautifully illustrates what I call the power of letting be.

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Transcript

Speaker: 1:31

Hi, I am Kara, life coach, wife and mom to four incredible and unique children. It wasn't all that long ago that my son received a diagnosis that had my world come crashing down. I lacked the ability to see past the circumstances, which felt impossible and the dreams I once had for my life and family felt destroyed. Fast forward, past many years of surviving and not at all thriving, and you'll see a mom who trusts that she can handle anything that comes her way and has access to the power and confidence that once felt so lacking. I created the Special Needs Mom podcast to create connection and community with moms who find themselves feeling trapped and with no one who really understands. My intention is to spark the flare of possibility in your own life and rekindle your ability to dream. This isn't a podcast about your special needs child. This is a podcast about you. If you are a mom who feels anxious, alone or stuck, then you are in the right place. Welcome.

2:39

Hello and welcome to the Special Needs Mom podcast. It's early Saturday morning and normally I take all the opportunities to sleep in, but today I was up early to drop Levi off for a day at Disneyland. He's part of a cancer support group associated with his children's hospital, and there's a local group, it's a restaurant who sponsors the entire pediatric cancer group to go to Disneyland for the day. They like send them with spending money, with a bus ride up there. And they even covered the ticket for his caregiver who went with him. And it was just so amazing to have that kind of situation. But I took the opportunity to, work on this podcast a little bit and I found myself at Starbucks. And actually, I'm not recording this at Starbucks. I, you know, decided what I was gonna talk about at Starbucks, but I found myself at Starbucks. And it only occurred to me when I was sitting down that, oh my gosh, this is the very same Starbucks, the very same seat that I sat at when I dreamt up this podcast so many years ago. It was 2019, and I remember sitting there and brainstorming and brain dumping what. I would talk about in episodes, and I think my goal was to get like 20 ideas together, and here we are, 288 episodes later. And going strong. I feel like I'm a lot less organized, but I, I don't know. It's pretty neat to reflect back on how many different relationships I've gotten to build as a result of this podcast and how it's, driven me to dive so deep in my own personal journey, and how many twists and turns there were along the way. So when I started this podcast, my son was a. Single time brain tumor survivor. And for those of you who have been here for a while, you might remember a couple years ago in 2021 and 22, he was battling, several more brain tumors and brain cancer. So, did not expect that would be part of our story, but it is where I find myself today. So, I wanna talk to you about the power and yes, I use that word on purpose, I should say. I use that word very intentionally. I wanna talk to you about the power of being held inside of a safe community as you are that part, being the thing that kind of makes you feel safe. So safe community, to me is one where you are accepted as you are. Loved and held as you are, that the way that you are, the way that you think is not wrong. Like not everybody might agree or be the same as you, but you can be held as you are, and this is a container for you to unfold and to be the wholeness of who you are. And so I wanna go back, why the word power? Like why do I choose that word of all the words? I like it. No, besides that, but, the definition of power is the capacity or ability to direct or influence the behavior of others or the course of events. There's a lot of os in that sentence, but the part that really stands out to me is. Influence the course of events, the capacity or ability to influence the course of events. And the translation I have for you is to change your life. Power is something, when you have power added, it changes things. And my assertion is that by being held in community in this way is life changing. And more of us want for community than we would say that we have, or then would say that we have this place of belonging. And I wanna do a quick side note. Over the next month, I am going to be talking more intentionally and significantly about the paid community that I run. if you're here, you're listening to the podcast, which is obviously a free resource to everybody, and essentially I want you to consider that the paid community I Run is the sponsor of this show. It's the thing that makes this show happen for the reason that it is what funds my time, energy, and of course resources that it takes to produce this show. And I love making it for you, and I very well intend on continuing that. I know it won't be the right time for all of you, but I do know that it might be the right time for some of you, and I wanna do my part to make sure I share with you what's going on inside of the paid program, paid community, maybe a better way of saying it, and what does it look like to say yes to that? Whether you're like, eh, not right now. You know, maybe your hands are too busy to, to change the channel or to stop the show. I hope that's the case.'cause I want you to stick with me. but, but do stick with me even if you're not like, yes, I definitely wanna join a paid community, because I think there's still a lot of value and as always, ways that you can apply this using your own wisdom and internal guidance. There's a particular aspect I wanna talk about today, and the name of this. This episode is some variation. We might change it, but the working episode right now is the power of letting be. I know that sounds kind of like weird English, but there's this concept of letting be that we're gonna talk about today, and. I think a good way to do this is, talking about something I got to witness and I share, just to be abundantly clear, I share all of this with the permission of the person that was the, the prompting of this sharing. So this is about a mom who is inside the community, and I got to a witness this week in our weekly coaching call and one of our beloved came and she was having one of those days, you know. We've all had these days, one of these days where it just feels like too much and like, we wanna quit. We wanna leave the party as part of our call. She got to share. She came. She didn't even necessarily expect that she was going to share in this way. It just is. What was she got to share? Be seen, be witnessed, be heard, like be listened to. Without anyone trying to force her to feel better, to be understood because I mean, I think she knew we've all had those days. It gave her a place to exhale and in turn she gave us a chance to see ourselves in her. This is the power of being inside of a group coaching program. You know, when we are with somebody in that way, I think we see little parts of ourselves in them. And I think it has us be curious about how are we like this person? How are we, how are we different than this person? But also how are we like this person? How have we also experienced with this person before, as is sharing? And you know, this gave voice to the part of us who just doesn't wanna, who is tired? And this part is the transformational part because we got to hold her in nonjudgmental love, just let her be. And this opens a window for us to hold ourselves in the same way. So that's the transformational part for ourselves. Like, yes, of course it's transformational to be held in that way for her. But it's one of those things where it gives so much more than kind of what meets the eye. And with her permission, again, I'm gonna share a comment. She left the next day and the title is, thank You, with an exclamation mark. New Day, new Vibes. And this is the note edited to, to make it a little bit more anonymous. Thank you so much for letting me have my little tantrum Yesterday, I guess I hit the wall and just needed to cry. For the past two weeks and with the extreme cold and wind outside, I haven't had any walks, which is usually how I keep my sanity. I woke up with clarity this morning and I'm back to working on plans for my daughter, et cetera. What a difference a day makes. You all are the best, and I hope if anyone has one of those rock button days, you know I am here to listen. With a cute xo, xo so that's what she shared. Right. This experience of being able to come as you are, you know, did it fix everything in her life? No. Was she guaranteed to wake up the next day feeling amazing? No, not really. But this is the experience that she shared, that this was what it gave her in this moment. And I just think it's a beautiful thing. And during this call, I. Besides just, you know, sharing and, and connecting. We actually talked about the power of letting be, and I wanna talk a little bit more about this. This is approaching ourselves as a whole as we are and relating to ourselves in a way that acknowledges that there isn't anything to fix, but rather to create a container for us to unfold. I know that's a little like conceptual, but I think it's a really important. Aspect that I'm gonna be talking more about because it is newer language for me. I've been a coach for eight years and I continue to study coaching and to focus on my craft or to, to, to refine my craft, if you will. And, and admittedly it's a little bit of a wonky industry. there's a lot of coaches out there, different kinds of coaches out there. And the methodologies and the types of trainings are, are so varied. And, you know, you can ask a hundred people how they would define a life coach or a coach, and they might have a hundred different answers. But here's what I, I would say from my experience, both as I've coached, being inside this paradigm and, you know, of course, observe others, is that most coaching happens under the self-improvement paradigm. And often in this model, we learn about an area that we're deficient in, or we might decide we need to improve or think we need to improve or change, and then that leads us to recognize more and more areas we need to do the same to grow and change. And so it's like this never ending, like always reaching for something for where you are not at. And that can be a little discouraging. It can be a little overwhelming, especially as moms we're like, we have enough on our plate. Like we do not need to become aware of all these ways that we need to fix or change ourselves. That that just does not sound super helpful. I mean, there is a place for skill and knowledge growth, so I'm not like, we're not saying, oh my gosh, this is so wrong, or We're not doing this anymore. We're just saying, oh, okay. Maybe there's a better way of relating to ourselves, not as people that need to be constantly improved, but perhaps apps relating to ourselves as already whole, and that the only thing that we need is to create. Containers to work in to, allow our whole selves to flourish. I know that that is a little conceptual and I'm gonna leave it there. I'm not gonna like fully digest it, but,'cause I want you to actually kind of like think about this for yourselves. And the question I'll have you contemplate is what if you are already whole, complete, and capable as you are? So this is what I refer to as letting be, or what I will be referring to as letting be. And if you hear that question and you think, well, that's too easy, like, no,, you might not be able to, feel the freedom in that. That's okay. But also it might sound too easy and I want you to let that sink in and maybe even have a sigh of relief. My breath, like, oh, phew. I don't have to hold all the ways I need to change and improve myself. Along with everything else I'm holding. Another question to contemplate, what if the answer isn't forcing yourself to be different than you are, but making space for all of you and loving all of the parts of you? This is the power of letting be. And I am gonna leave you with those two questions to contemplate. And so think about that. what if you don't have to go change all of you or even parts of you that the part of you that is throwing the tantrum from is not a problem. That part of you needs to be heard. Has such wisdom and guidance for you, and what if we make a little bit more space for her in a way that just feels supportive? Okay, contemplate those questions. And I wanna shift and actually talk a little bit more about, what does it look like to be inside of the Pathway to Peace coaching community? We're gonna start with some logistics. Like even just trying to like conceptualize what is this community I speak of? And so, you know, we have, a digital platform we use, we call it The Hub. And so there's like a place where everything lives and probably something you're already maybe familiar with in a different place in your life. And we have a community calendar there where, you know. Tells you where to go and how to get there. Generally we're gonna have a main call during the week, and then in addition to these main calls. Where the bulk of community and coaching happens. We have additional calls, optional calls. I would say some are light and casual, like we do a coffee shop connection kind of call where it's really just kind of like getting to know each other. we also have been doing power hour calls, and it's a very simple structure and honestly, the best it's. A set time on your calendar, right? So we all have it on our calendar at 10 o'clock on Tuesday and whatever time's on you're in, it's a time where you show up and you decide ahead of time like what you want to do during this call, and it's then the call is structured. Then you go do that thing and then you report back at the end of how it went. So it's like a little light connection, like a little touch point. And then you go do the work. But you know, like you got these ladies behind you like they are rooting for you. And it just gives sometimes like a little bit of, get up and go when it's just hard to rally on our own. Think of the hardest parts of caregiving, like the administration part of it. Like it's hard for me to rally be like, okay, now I'm doing it. Like it just seems like there's so many other things I'd rather do. So these calls have been really, really fun for me to use alongside the community. We call those power hours. And I do wanna mention that, As a way of kind of sampling, parts of the community. I've opened these calls up for the next month or so to the entire community. So if you're like, eh, that sounds kind of cool, come join us. you can find the way to RSVP the these on the show notes and, it would be very fun and very safe. We will not make you share your story. You don't even have to come on camera, but, know that you'll be met with other ladies smiling back at you. Rooting you on as well. Okay. And then actually one more thing on that. I loved it so much. So last week one of our members came, to the power Hour and the thing that she shared she wanted to do was to journal and paint. And I was like, I love that you're using this structure to support you in doing something that you've just been putting off, but you really wanna do. And yes, of course you can, you know, do other work stuff. Another gal actually, she works full time. So she said, Hey, I'm using this to support my workday, where I'm gonna use this time very specifically to kind of, do this and not do that. And it kind of set the tone for the rest of her day on a really good trajectory. So that was very fun. Okay, so those types of calls, right? So like different variations of that. I can't possibly go over the different, all of them. because sometimes we'll, you know, have a fun idea and we'll put a call on the calendar and then you come if you can. Oh, I know. I was gonna mention, all the calls that make sense to be recorded are recorded. to be consumed or participated, I think is a better way of saying it in afterwards. because we recognize you got stuff that comes up and you may have a schedule that's a little less predictable. So that's what we can do to kind of make it a little bit more accessible if you schedule is less than predictable. And so the calls move around, hopefully kind of catching people in all the different, time windows. but in general, we have calls in the morning in Pacific Standard time, so it's kind of the middle of the day, afternoon in East Coast time, and then everywhere in between, wherever you are in the world. okay. The other thing I wanna mention is there's not a lot of curriculum. So we don't have, like, it's not like I am unloading information on you, during the coaching calls, and then you're supposed to like absorb it and digest it and then go do a bunch of homework. very intentionally. this community acknowledges that you have so much on your plate, and the idea behind this community is not to add more, that the net experience of being inside this community is that things feel lighter and easier and more fun. So I think we make space for all of the feelings. yes, the grief, the hard, the sad, the fear. And the joy, the silliness, the laughing over all the things that we experience as special needs moms. I'm laughing'cause I'm thinking of all the different stories that have been shared. okay. So the, last thing I want you to think about in terms of like thinking, okay, what's the overall experience of being inside this community? I want you to think about a time where you left a party. Or gathering, just feeling full of, full, in a good way. Not overly full'cause you ate too much cheese, which is a common experience I have. I cannot stop myself when it comes to a cheese plate. Okay. But a experience where you, whether it be a party or like a conference on the weekend where you left and you just feel so bubbling over alive and connected and invigorated and really kind of more connected to possibility. Like nothing is externally changing your life, but you just, you have the experience where you just feel more at home and more settled in. That's the general experience I think one gets to have in being in this type of community. I'm not gonna say like every time you're gonna leave sober, flowing, you won't be able to contain yourself. I, I, I wish I could promise that every time, but I would say overall, that is the experience of being inside a community like this. And then I want you to think, well, what would that be like for you? Like what would that be worth? If you had a place where you felt supported, you felt safe, you felt like it was the container that you could explore more of who you are and whether you can acknowledge the value of it or not yet, like and love more of who you are, all of who you are, the wholeness of who you are, like what would that be worth for you? And. wonder how does$47 a month sound? I hope. That your jaw is like dropped on the floor.'cause you're like, oh my gosh, that's like attainable, that's accessible. And I hope so because I have worked really hard, over the last four slash five years to figure out how to hold onto the heart of this community and the intimacy of this community and the kind of coaching that happens there and create it in a financially accessible way. And. I think this is my opinion. Even if you come to one call every other month, I still think that'd be a great deal. But on that note, I actually don't want you to join. If you don't want to come to the calls or if you're like, I absolutely know I can't come to any call. it might not be a right fit for you or right time because we want you there. We want you in there in person when possible. Because participating in the community, like it's not just participate, it's like you are the community. So you know, it just doesn't work if you can't come to the calls. And as I mentioned earlier, we do have a cool tech platform that we use, but that's just not where the bulk of community and connection happens. Okay, well, you likely have more questions, and I hope you're thinking when can I join? The date is February 23rd, so it's coming up. That's why I'm talking a lot about it. I do only open the community several times a year so that we can kind of. Focus, I can focus my energies on, on being in the community, versus, marketing the community. And if you have questions and or if you're like, yes, I wanna make sure I know about this so I can get more details. What I would suggest is that you sign up for the wait list. All the wait lists will do was it will get you connected to my email, which you can ask questions then, but it'll also make sure that when I do, send out the links and do all the things that you get the links, to say yes, I, I wanna look into it more and to see if it is right fit. And so I do encourage you to do that. You can, either just go on, search up the Special Needs Mom podcast, pathway to Peace coaching community, or. of course, click around and find the show notes to this episode and you'll find the links to, get right to the wait list page. Alright, so if you're still listening, I'm so glad you're here. Thanks for, listening all the way through, and I hope you're like, hmm. This could be really cool. And over the next couple, weeks, we're gonna have, other moms that are part of the community come on the show and talk more about it. I know you'll love every single one. it's just, I don't know. I love it so much and I want you to have it for yourself as well. And so I could go on and on, but I am gonna land the plane here. And with that, we're gonna see you on the next episode.