This episode is all about those moments of surrender and humility where you lay down the mask, take off the cape and allow yourself to say "I don't got it."
When I talk about brokenness, I do not mean any form of inadequacy or not enoughness. I do not mean brokenness in the sense of something being wrong or not working.
I am referring to the humility and surrender that happens when the ego gets released and we surrender to the brokenness of that external facade and replace it with love, kindness, and compassion for every inch of our human experience.
As we launch into this mental health awareness campaign and initiative, I am humbling myself enough to say "I don't got it."
I cannot do this on my own and I need help. I need your help to share this message and let the world know that we are here, that this is happening and that there is a safe and supportive place for them to come.
Don't let yourself think your contribution doesn't matter. It does. If we can reach one more person because of your ripple effect, the world will have been changed in a meaningful way. So thank you in advance for taking the effort to make that difference.
Talk soon, friend.
Robin
Shadowsideleadershipsummit.com
This episode is all about those moments of surrender and humility where you lay down the mask, take off the cape and allow yourself to say "I don't got it."
When I talk about brokenness, I do not mean any form of inadequacy or not enoughness. I do not mean brokenness in the sense of something being wrong or not working.
I am referring to the humility and surrender that happens when the ego gets released and we surrender to the brokenness of that external facade and replace it with love, kindness, and compassion for every inch of our human experience.
As we launch into this mental health awareness campaign and initiative, I am humbling myself enough to say "I don't got it."
I cannot do this on my own and I need help. I need your help to share this message and let the world know that we are here, that this is happening and that there is a safe and supportive place for them to come.
Don't let yourself think your contribution doesn't matter. It does. If we can reach one more person because of your ripple effect, the world will have been changed in a meaningful way. So thank you in advance for taking the effort to make that difference.
Talk soon, friend.
Robin
Shadowsideleadershipsummit.com
Hello, my friends. Welcome to the Identity Factor podcast. My name is Robin Keesler and I will be your host. Let's go.
Today, I would like to share a little bit of my story as we get ready to launch this mental health awareness project for the month of May. As many of you may know, I've made a few posts recently and released a couple podcasts up to this point, uh, talking about this mental health awareness project that I have been working on and that launched officially today.
I wanna talk a little bit about, particularly why I wanted to create this project. Um, and I wanna tell you a little bit about my reasons behind it and share some of the ways that this has been difficult actually in places that I didn't expect. So I wanna talk about the idea of brokenness and not in a sense that most people think about it.
One of the reasons that I decided to create this summit that we're having in May, and this podcast series that we're releasing throughout the month of May is because I had an experience recently that surprised me, and that really brought me to a place of profound surrender humility. For sure, and it invited me into a place of courage.
And then it brought me back to surrender and humility again. And I kind of have just been repeating those emotions or those experiences, but it's been a really beautiful thing. And the reason is because when I talk about there being beauty in the brokenness, Like I said a moment ago, I don't mean broken as in something that's wrong with you or bad about you or not, okay?
I don't even mean brokenness in the sense of something not functioning. That's not what I mean. When I talk about brokenness and the beauty inside the brokenness. What I'm referring to is a contr. What I'm referring to is a humility of the spirit, the human spirit. I'm talking about that moment of surrender when you surrender your ego, when you release the bravado, right?
Any, any idea that. I am somehow strong enough to do this on my own, right? That lone wolf that doesn't need anyone because I'm just that strong. I'm that invincible. I've got it. That is the brokenness that I am referring to, and there have been a few times in my life where I have found myself on my knees again, face down in the mud.
In that place of brokenness, of humility, of surrender, where I've had to say, you know what? I don't got it. I don't got it.
And that my friends is what happened to me recently.
Those moments of surrender. Those moments of humility are often some of the most tender and most precious times really, that I get to have with myself because when I find myself in that moment of brokenness, in that moment of surrender where all the ego has been released, everything has been let go.
What I find. Is that the pride is gone. There's no more pride, right? There's no more anything. There could be judgment, but even that, when you are at the bottom of your barrel, at the end of your proverbial rope, when you have nothing left, what's the point in even judging yourself? And I'm just, this is simply my experience, but sometimes when I find myself in that broken place, that's also where I find myself being opened up to all the gold that's underneath that facade, that facade that I've been trying to hold up, trying to keep up.
It gets exhausting, and when that facade, when the pressure builds and it finally cracks, right? It's like the story of the Gold Buddha. If you listen to the podcast episode that I released with Jessica S. Morrow from her unblocked podcast yesterday, we talked about that, right? The gold statue of the Buddha that got covered in clay in order to protect it.
During the war and after all those years, the pressure, it finally began to crack the clay. Cause they had forgotten about that gold statue that they covered up. And when the clay got cracked away, it revealed the gold underneath. And so often that's what happens to us. We, we put on all the facades, all the masks, all the superhero capes like Glennon Doyle talks about.
Right? And we try to go into the world conquering our business, showing up for our family and at work, trying to be. You know the hero. And at the end of the day, there sometimes there comes a point where your mental health, your emotional health, it requires you to surrender. And to say, I don't got it. And when you do that and you, and you allow the clay to be cracked, and you allow your humanity to be revealed, what you find, what I often find is the gold underneath.
And that gold oftentimes reveals itself in the form of love. The love that I get to have for myself. The compassion right that I get to have for myself in those moments is a tender, tender place to be when I just experienced my binge eating disorder relapse, and those, those six or seven weeks, um, were excruciatingly painful.
And I was so kind and so tender and so loving to myself in that moment through all of that, right? And that was an amazing thing to witness. What I witnessed was my own capacity for love. What I witnessed was my own growth, right? What I noticed is that I wasn't judging myself. I wasn't beating myself up.
I wasn't kicking myself when I was down, and that was an amazing thing to witness. Didn't used to be like that, right? I noticed my capacity for kindness, for empathy, and also for courage, right? Because it was in that moment of my brokenness. Of my surrender, of my humility were not only did I show up to love myself more powerfully, but I also decided to show up for the world.
I also decided to find what kind of courage there might be inside of me to share my story, to talk about this, and a thought crossed my mind, and that thought was, you know what? What if I'm not the only one? What if I'm not the only one that's out there trying to be a leader in the community and to, and to coach and to build a business and to encourage other people.
What if I'm not the only one that's out there trying to do something in the world and at the same time is struggling on the inside with things like depression, anxiety, loneliness, fear, shame, self-doubt, emotional dysregulation, all this stuff. What if I'm not alone? And I had the thought that, you know what?
I would like to ask and reach out and see maybe there are other coaches, other leaders in the industry that would also raise their hand and say, me too, me too. And I'm done trying to be the, the leader with all the bravado. I'm done trying to be the leader that has to pretend to have it all together.
Let's, let's, let's have a real conversation about what it means to be, as Greg Nyman said in his podcast episode with me to be a human first and a leader second, right? You're a human first. And so I decided to embrace the courage to try something new, to reach out to some people to ask about if other people would be interested in creating an event.
For leaders and entrepreneurs, leaders in the industry, in the coaching industry, in the business world, leaders in the church and their, with their friend, their family, their friends, parents, partners, teachers, right? There are leaders all over this country that have the capacity to change the world. One family, one community, one business, one client at a time.
And so many of those leaders, I know because I've talked to them, many of them, and we hear it all the time, right? So many of them are struggling on the inside, feeling disconnected. Loneliness is one of the most common complaints, right? Many of them struggle with guilt, especially a lot of the, the business owners that I coach as they start making more and more money, even, you know, 6, 7, 8 figure businesses, right?
You guys will listen to my podcast that I did with her Corinne talking about this, right? And it's like, even then they feel guilt, they feel shame. They feel all of these things that impact our mental and emotional health. And so I wanted to speak up and talk about this and have some conversations.
So that's what we're doing. However, what do you think happened as soon as I did that? What do you think happened as I embraced the courage to speak up and share my vulnerabilities in hope? That maybe somebody else would be helped. Maybe this would encourage another person to let them know that you know what, they're not alone, that you're not broken, that you're not unique, you're not different.
Right? That we all feel this way sometimes. Dex and Laura, Dr. Laura Jergens, and Dex Randall and Sarah Bond, and again, Corinne Crabtree and Chris Hale and Kristen King, and all the people that are coming, all the coaches that are coming. To do this summit with me, Gretchen Hernandez, right? Amber Lynn.
Every, every single one of them, Jen and Sarah Bybee Fisk, come listen to these podcast episodes. They're all, all of them have the same, have gone through these same human experiences. And even though they're coming on my podcast talking about their experiences of depression and self-doubt and anxiety and all the things, guess what happened for me?
Do you think this was easy? Not at all. Do you know why? Because what I noticed is in order to do this summit, in order to stand up and even tell you about it, everyone, the doors are open. Come, register, let's go. We're doing this awesome mental health initiative. I have to be seen in order to do that. I have to show up and talk and I listen.
I get up and talk on the internet all the time. I do my Facebook Lives. I talk to my people, but I have never done something like this with other coaches in the industry. And so the courage that it has taken for me to be vulnerable and to be seen in this way has been more surprising and more difficult than I ever expected because, This has has required me to be seen and to be naked emotionally in front of other coaches and colleagues in my industry.
And I don't even just mean sharing my story about my binge eating or my emotional dysregulation or all those kinds of things that, those triggers that happened. Do you know which parts have been the hardest? How this has not been easy because these coaches now are watching me run this event. They're watching me host this summit, and my most profound insecurities have been triggered.
It has been so scary and a little dysregulating, right? I've been having to coach myself and get coached right and care for myself through this. Why? Why has it been so hard? All the self-doubt. Right. Why has it been hard? It's been hard because now they are having to see all of the parts of me that I am the most ashamed of, the parts of me that I have been rejected for the most in my life.
The parts of me where I talk too much, where I'm too Gabby, where my emails are too long, where I'm not good, right at communicating the parts of me where I get nervous about things. I'm a little bit of a worrier. I'm kind of neurotic, right? All those personality traits that my partners, my ex-fiancee people I've dated, the things I've been dumped for, the things that family members complain about, the things I've been picked on since I was little.
All of those things about my personality.
I'm now having to show in a business capacity, and that has been hard. It's been effing hard, scary. Why am I talking about this? I'm talking about this A, because I want you to know that we're doing this mental health summit, but B, the reason that I'm talking to you about this specifically, the person that's listening right now, Is just to, to notice, like I see, I don't know how this is gonna go.
I don't know how many people are gonna show up. I don't know whether it's gonna matter to anyone. I don't know if it's gonna make a difference or not. But notice that it has been worth it without a doubt. Why? Why is it worth it to do something hard? Why is it worth it to do something really effing scary?
Why is it worth it? Think about it for yourself. I want you to answer that question. I want you to first think about the moment in your life when you felt that sense of surrender, that sense of brokenness, that sense of humility. Have you ever had that moment in your life where you wanted to say out loud, I don't got it.
I don't got it. I'm not okay. I need help. It's so notice how hard it is to say, I need help. I need help. And I want you to know that you are not alone. That is hard for most people to say, I need help. I don't got it. I'm not okay. And I want you to know that first of all, it is possible to find beauty in that moment of brokenness.
It is possible to experience the beauty of having your own back, to witness yourself being kind to yourself in those moments. That is a victory, that is a beauty, and I want you to notice the beauty that came out of that experience for me. This entire summit that we're putting together came out of my experience of my own humility, my own moment of surrender where I did not have it.
That's where all of this is because of, because I did have the courage to say, you know what? I want to share this message, and I'm going to hope and pray that the world catches me. I'm gonna hope and pray that these other coaches come on board and help. I'm gonna hope and pray that the people that are listening to this Facebook Live will hit the effing share button and tell the world that there's an opportunity here, that there is a human out there that cares about you.
That is powerful and I want you to know that this hasn't been easy for me. The reason that I'm talking about this story is because it being easy is not the point. What if the fact that it's difficult, what if that's okay? What if that's part of it? And what if you can do the hard thing and you have support and we're here for you?
But notice this human up here breathing, standing here,
I'm flailing. I'm not a fearless leader. Not in any way, shape, or form. I'm a flailing leader for sure, but I'm flailing my way forward and I wanna invite you to flail your way forward with me, with all of us. Because here's the thing, my brain has nasty shit to say it for sure does. My brain is telling me right now all the things, right?
My brain's telling me that. Nobody cares. Robin, see here, you're doing it again. Are you still talking? Is this Facebook Live still going on? Good grief. Why do you talk so much? Can't you make it shorter? Don't you know that Facebook lives are only supposed to be, I mean, gosh, five or 10 minutes at the most.
People don't have an intention span that long. You're going for like 20, 34, 5 minutes sometimes. Jesus, Robin, nobody's gonna listen to that. What are you doing up there? Talking so long? Nobody cares. Shut up. Right. My brain is telling me you're terrible at social media. You don't know how to do social media and marketing.
Nobody's even gonna fucking see this. Here you are putting, doing all this work for this big summit. Nobody's gonna show up. Nobody gives a fuck. Just turn the thing off. Go watch Netflix. That's what my brain is telling me. My brain is telling me, you're gonna have done all this work for nothing. Right?
You're gonna have revealed the most insecure places of your heart. You're just the areas where you're disorganized, your A D H D, your, your, your email ability that you suck at all the things they're gonna see. All these parts of you, all these people in the business and the industry, Robin, look what you just did.
They all know what a disaster you are. Now. They're never gonna wanna work with you again. Why did you do this? Can you hear it? Can you see it? Does your brain do this to you? And I just wanna invite you to notice that. What if that's all okay. And here's what I wanna invite you to do, is to answer your brain, because my brain is being a bully right now, and that's it.
Does that. But here's the thing that I want you to know that there's beauty in the brokenness and that there's courage on the other side of that brokenness that is available to you. The third thing is it's not meant to be comfortable. It's probably not going to be. It sure as hell has not been comfortable for me, and that's okay.
This is what my experience has been. In fact, the opposite of comfortable, and the final point I want to make is when you surrender to the brokenness, when you accept the courage to do the hard thing, to try to make a difference in the world, no matter what nasty stories your brain tells you, the point is this.
That one person has been helped and that one person is me. I have challenged myself and I have learned how to love myself harder. I have learned how to have my back stronger. I have learned to forgive the parts of myself. Forgive that brain of mine that wants to be so mean and note so nasty. I'm gonna even treat that bully with love, right?
I have learned. How to love myself harder. I have learned how to have my own back. I have learned to breathe and to know that even if the worst should happen, the worst rejection, the worst humiliation, the worst failure, that it's all okay, that nothing is on the line. Because I am 100% worthy. I am 100% lovable, and I am 100% capable.
Fulfilling whatever destiny I'm here to fulfill. It's just inevitable. Nothing's on the line. And that's true for you too. So just notice that if nothing else happens, if only one person was helped by this mental health initiative, just one person, that will have been enough. And the reality is coming back to this idea of surrender and humility, my brain is right.
I can't do this on my own. I need help. And I am asking for your help, not somebody else's. You the one that's watching this right now. Right now, in this moment because we're doing something really beautiful and I wanna help. I want other people to know, and I don't have all the skills, but I have you, and I'm asking, will you share this message?
Will you let people know that we're here, that we're getting ready to do something amazing, that the doors have opened and we are creating the Shadow Side Leadership Summit, where we're gonna help you lead your own life, your own heart. We're gonna help you embrace those shadow sides of yourself, those parts of you that you're afraid to show the parts of you, that you might be ashamed of, the parts of you that might be hurting those shadow side parts of you that don't feel light and beautiful and socially acceptable.
We're gonna help you learn how to embrace those things and how to love those things, and how to support yourself in a way that's going to help you be able to make the difference in the world that you're here to make. Right, because when we have support, we can go so much further. We can do so much more.
And so I'm asking for your support and I'm also asking you to remember that again, if only one person is loved today, today will have been a success. And I wanted to make that person you, who want you to be that person. When we put love into the world, no matter how small that act of love is. The world has been changed.
That one small act of love and kindness is enough. It counts. You count. So give yourself some love today. Remember that if you can, that you are beautiful, that you are worthy, and that you are loved exactly the way you are. You belong here in this world, and we need you. The world needs you, so let us come and support you.
Let us come together and support you so that you can truly live the life that you were here to live and to enjoy the hell out of it while you're on the journey, right? Let's enjoy our life. Let's enjoy our journey. Let's enjoy connection, intimacy, love, belonging. Sometimes in order to do that, we need a little support.
Thank you for being here today, my friend. We'll talk soon.
If you enjoyed this episode, take a screenshot of it for me and share it on your favorite social media platform. And in the meantime, I just wanna invite you to remember that you are beautiful, that you are worthy, that you belong. See you next time.
shadowsideleadershipsummit.com