Pedestalized leadership and why we need a peer group: how feedback and relational dynamics highly influence us

Is it more important for you to not get feedback - or to adjust who and where you are getting that feedback from? 

Topics we jump into in this quickie episode:

-How sometimes the more and longer we are in the healing and therapy world , the more and better we learn to intellectualize and bullshit ourselves and others and how it can create wide gaps of integrity and even create burnout for those in helping, coaching, and therapy careers 

-pedestalized leadership- the gap of humanity, professionalism and having a community of peers who can hold your dynamic range of self, roles, and jobs

-unspoken power dynamics with coaches and therapists and why it's important to name, address, and actively connect around the roles and relationship dynamics 

-avoiding asking for help or support until we've already cleaned up our own mess and how inviting others into the process is a big game changer in every area 

If you resonate with this episode- you would probably really love working with me where you can get your hands dirty in your own life with these same concepts and tools at a deeply embodied level. A lot of coaches can teach you their own personal strategy and systems, I work differently helping you create deep roots of awareness of all your strengths, weaknesses, and blindspots on every level of being (mental, physical, relational, environmental, spiritual, emotional) and life so that you can be in full life leadership. 

Join us next time as we continue to explore the multifaceted journey of motherhood.

Thank you for tuning in to The Motherhood Mentor. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review us.

Stay connected with us on social media and share your thoughts and experiences tagging @themotherhoodmentor

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome to the Motherhood Mentor Podcast. I'm Becca, a somatic healing practitioner and a holistic life coach for moms, and this podcast is for you. You can expect honest conversations and incredible guests that speak to health, healing and growth in every area of our lives. This isn't just strategy for what we do. It's support for who we are. I believe we can be wildly ambitious while still holding all of our soft and hard humanity as holy. I love combining deep inner healing with strategic systems and no-nonsense talk about what this season is really like. So grab whatever weird health beverage you're currently into and let's get into it. Welcome to today's episode of the Motherhood Mentor Podcast.

Speaker 1: 0:46

Today is another little quickie, and my quickies are going to be these short little riffs that I do on a small topic. That is quick and short and hopefully gives you something for the day. So I wanted to share a reflection that I shared with someone the other day and they were like wow, I've never heard that before. I was talking to a community of coaches and therapists and I was sharing that the better I get at coaching other people, the more I develop as a person and as a practitioner, especially in theory and practices and understanding. The more language I build. The better I get at bullshitting myself, the worse I get at self-coaching, and what I mean by that is that, like I, I think this self-growth and personal development and even the coaching world has become so individualistic. We have created this weird both dependency, where we're giving our authority away to random strangers on the Internet who live lives nothing like our own which, by the way, there's always power dynamics in coaching and in therapy, and when you're taking a course from someone, there's often a power dynamic because most of us learned that there is an outer authority that knows better than we do, there is something outside of us that has more access or agency or power or wisdom than we do, and we truly, genuinely, as a culture, don't trust ourselves. So one there's this weird power dynamic, but there's also this very individualistic response to that of I have to do it myself, especially with high functioners, when we don't know what we need, or what we need is complex, or what we need is in conflict with what someone else wants or needs of us, or their concept of us or our own concept of ourselves. Right the other day, I'm in a mastermind and I realized that I could really use help with something, but I didn't know the exact way that they could help me, and so I almost didn't share it, because I've grown a lot of capacity for receiving. I've grown a lot of capacity for asking for help, for being really honest and vulnerable about where I could use other people coming in with their strengths and areas where I'm weak and areas where I don't see myself clearly. And this is what I was getting to with this episode of.

Speaker 1: 3:43

I don't think we can heal in isolation, because almost all of our woundings, almost all of our traumas or our shame, it happened in belonging, it happened in relationship, it happened in your family or in relationship to another person. And obviously there are some exceptions to this, of like, if you experienced a natural phenomenon or like a medical emergency, like you might have experienced a trauma that didn't have to do with another person, but for the most part, it was something that happened in relationship or the lack of someone else being there or the way that they, over or under, responded to what happened is the thing that created the wounding. The thing that creates our self-concept is relationship to other people, and so I don't know if we can heal that on our own. Someone who has spent a lot of time and energy healing and trying to grow and understand your thought processes and understanding. You know you're someone who's, like, deeply invested in psychology and why are we the way that we are and how do we change? I think we just get better and better at trying to curate and create this self-concept and I think the more that we do that work individualistically, the more we're going to miss, because, man, when we are on our own, when we are on our own, I don't think we see ourselves clearly. I don't think we see our shadows and our wounds clearly, and I also don't think we can see our light clearly.

Speaker 1: 5:51

I think the way that we heal our self-concept is by finding people who see us in the way that God sees us, in the way that God created you of. Who were you before the world told you you were broken? Who, what, what was your potential of? Like, that self of you exist outside of other people, but you also exist in community to others, in relationship to others and, yes, who are you in relationship to the people who love you most? But I think what is so powerful is having new eyes on you and your life who see you with unequivocal worthiness I don't know if that's a word, is that a word People who see you with the utmost sovereignty and respect and honor and compassion, and they see you with clear eyes. They have enough distance from you that they see you in ways that the people who love you could never, because the people who love you most are also the people who are the most afraid for you and they're also the people whose lives are so intertwined with your life that there's no possible way that they could see you without their own filter of humanity.

Speaker 1: 7:17

This is one of the reasons why I love masterminds. Why I love group coaching or even just working with a one-on-one coach is because it brings in a new perspective of you, of you, this assumption that they already assume goodness and love and possibility out of you. But it also creates this container for you to explore. What are these different parts or aspects of yourself that you maybe have never been able to see? It's like they become this mirror, and even mirrors. We never see ourselves fully right Like you will never be able to see yourself the way other people see you. But what's powerful is when you create these relationships where you're intentionally and purposefully saying what is my relationship to self and other, and what do I look like and sound like and act like and what is my intention? And then is there a gap between what I intend to do and what my actual impact is. You know, the best brain surgeon there is cannot do brain surgery on themselves. They need someone outside of themselves.

Speaker 1: 8:45

And I think honestly, the more aware and educated and the more therapy or the more coaching or the more growth work you do, I think in some ways how do I want to say this? I think sometimes we get better and better at hiding our humanity, especially because for a very long time a lot of this work has been so steeped in toxic positivity, and toxic positivity not in that we don't have positivity and hope, but in so many of us myself included, myself first we have sought out healing and growth as a way to dissociate or bypass or gaslight ourselves out of our own humanity, out of our mess, out of our humanity out of our mess, out of our cringy, vulnerable, victim-y, anxious, horrible parts of ourselves, like as a way to outrun or outgrow or outheal being human, not as a way to be in it even more, to be even more human, a mammal. And you know, I certainly have changed my perspective on that of the work that I do personally, but also professionally, with other women. It's really important to me that it's like I want you to feel all of it. I want you to be here for the full experience of being you. And that's not all going to be pleasant, right. Being present in your life is, for sure, not always pleasant, but I wanted to share that concept and that thought, because I was talking with them and they were like, oh my gosh, you're right. The more I know in my head sometimes, the easier it is to forget. What do I know in my bones? What do I integrate into my actual being and my personal life? Because it's a lot easier to talk the talk than to walk the walk.

Speaker 1: 10:55

And I think our culture pedestalizes leaders. Often we pedestalize people who are influential, whether that is small influence, whether that's big influence, whether that is, you know, big followings or books, or coaches, or therapists, or thought leaders or celebrities. There is this pedestalization where people have become personas. They create this professional mask of knowing and talking, because we're not 3D anymore in our culture, are we? We're this tiny little talking one-dimensional or two-dimensional face online and it's like yes, you can hear me and you can see me, but I don't care how authentic you are can see me, but I don't care how authentic you are. It's curated and it's a performance like the second. You hit record that you're missing an embodiment of being in the moment, as soon as it's a picture, as soon as you know.

Speaker 1: 12:13

Someone said you'll never be able to capture a sunset in picture or on video in the same way that it is to look at it. And if you think of, like I think of the sunsets on the beach where you can hear the seagulls and you're playing with the sand and you can feel it in your hands and the wind is blowing on your face and you're watching the sunset and you can hear the waves and you can smell it, it's like you can never capture that in a picture or in a video or in a book or in a coaching program, and you could never capture that of someone who's a leader. I don't care how authentic they are, that's just a piece of them and I think that's important to acknowledge because I think so many people who are wanting to do this work, who are building businesses where we are helping other people. I don't know about you, but I don't want to become a pedestalized version of myself. I don't ever.

Speaker 1: 13:14

One of my biggest things when I was creating this business is I never want to lose myself to a persona. I never want to have to be out of integrity or crafting a version of myself that isn't actually real. I hope I'm always better in person, but the reality is is that, like in person, I'm also a lot more human. I'm a hell of a lot more human. I'm awkward. I have moments or days where I'm straight up awful or unhealthy, not because I'm an unhealthy person, but because I'm human and because that's what life looks like. You're going to have days where you are massively human, no matter how much healing and growth work you do, I don't care how smart you are, I don't care how many degrees or certifications or people you've helped, I don't care how many six, seven figures you've made in your business. You still are human and I think our culture has forgotten that and I think it sells really well to the capitalism, to the capitalistic world and the bro marketing of.

Speaker 1: 14:32

Here's my before and after. Here's how I recovered from burnout. Last years I've been selling you on this like beautiful feminine flow of business that, like, I never actually felt in my own body, I don't know. I just had to share that with you today and I hope it helped.

Speaker 1: 14:59

I hope you enjoyed this quickie and if this resonated with you quickie, and if this resonated with you, follow the podcast, leave a review. Please go. Leave a five-star review. That really helps me, that helps the podcast. And if you have a friend you think you would love this episode, send it to her or share it on social media and tag me so that I can see it and you know, if you're someone who listened to this and you're like, oh my gosh, I need help with that, I would love to help you.

Speaker 1: 15:29

There will also be in the affirm you but who can also help you see yourself more clearly. And that's not always going to be pretty, it's not always going to be comfortable, but it's a beautiful thing when we can start to heal our self-concept from the people who we are asking. You are actually someone I want to speak into my life. Have you ever thought of that Like who do you want speaking influence into your life? Who do you want speaking identity into your life? From Whose advice is worth taking? You know that saying of, like, other people's opinions are none of your business. I disagree. I think you should think of whose opinions are my business and whose opinion do I want to have in my life as like a high value thing. All right, I'm going to cut myself off. I'm so terrible at keeping on going.

Speaker 1: 16:38

I hope you have an awesome day and I'll see you next time. Thanks for joining me on today's episode of the Motherhood Mentor Podcast. Make sure you have subscribed below so that you see all of the upcoming podcasts that are coming soon. I hope you take today's episode and you take one aha moment, one small, tangible piece of work that you can bring into your life, to get your hands a little dirty, to get your skin in the game. Don't forget to take up audacious space in your life. If this podcast moved you, if it inspired you, if it encouraged you, please do me a favor and leave a review. Send an episode to a friend. This helps the show gain more traction. It helps us to support more moms, more women, and that's what we're doing here. So I hope you have an awesome day, take really good care of yourself and I'll see you next time.