Acceptance Leads to Freedom · The MAGDALENE Network

Acceptance Leads to Freedom

Today we honored Acceptance in petitions, and it brought me back to something I experienced and a page I journaled about it in March (attached). I feel the story behind it has a message worth sharing.

In March I had just been given a new boss. I was excited because I'd already worked with her, we got along well, and she'd just been promoted. I'd spent a couple of years healing and detangling my identity from work, and I was proud of that progress. I was walking into this newness open and grounded.

About a month in, she asked the whole team to present the work we were each doing so she could learn our styles and get up to speed on our accounts. After mine, she told me she had expected more from me.

I already knew she was exactly like I had been for my entire career, striving to be the best and only the best. We bonded over it. But this time I had made a conscious choice. I had weighed the presentation against my other duties and, for the first time in my life, decided good enough was fine. It wasn't worth the burnout or my sanity.

I just didn't have the words to explain this yet. I was learning it in real time.I didn't yet have the conscious awareness of how this was all integrating and my fear of criticism was very rooted.

So when the feedback came, I thought I was ready but my insides just wanted to bellow with sadness. It took everything I had not to burst into tears on the spot. Luckily, I was able to end the meeting quickly.

That night I listened to a channeled message about experiencing contrast (on YouTube). It asked me to look at where I might be avoiding the exact experience that would feed the part of me I most want to grow. The offering was to accept or to assert. Acceptance would lead to freedom. Assertiveness would lead to respect. My choice.

Read that twice! Whoa!

I realized I had strived with my whole being for freedom while making every decision for respect, all while telling myself I wasn't.

How's that for the definition of living an illusion!

For so long, I hadn't allowed for any criticism at all. I did whatever it took to exceed expectations in every area. Now, for the first time, I saw that as a weakness rather than a strength. As a human, I can't be perfect. It's literally impossible!

I also saw where my time had been going. I spent it figuring out the big shout-out, the loud achievement, the most bang for my buck. I made things fit just right so I could paint the story, give the pitch, make it pretty. All the while I knew it wasn't doing any good for the real work that could bring real impact to teams and people.

The hard things. The things that take time to pay off. The things that made my heart skip a beat when I thought about working on them.

I just never got to them, because if I did, the other stuff wouldn't get attention and people would see I wasn't amazing!

The trap was keeping me from the real work. And ironically, it held me back in so many ways, because critical feedback was my worst nightmare, even though I craved it. I wasn't stretching myself and allowing the situation to give me information I needed to grow, because no one knew I was struggling (or they did, and it was just normal for all of us).

I worked through this and drew it out (attached) over the next couple of days. It wasn't as clear then as it is now, writing this after months of living it, and months of chanting a mantra until it became my way of being:

"I do not chase. I do not wait. I become so fully what I am that what is mine finds its way."

At work I had stopped dropping everything whenever someone asked the group I am part of for help. I knew raising my hand and jumping in was a sure-fire way to get quick kudos and be known as "the helpful one." I thought it was such a great thing to be! I'm not saying it isn't. I was just doing it for the wrong reasons without realizing it. Another illusion!

When I started letting those requests sit for a couple of hours, they almost always dissolved on their own or someone else handled them. And all that time I got back went to the strategic work that had been on my personal development list for 25 years, brought with me across companies, spanning my whole career. It was an amazing feeling and still is!

It has ironically led to more praise at work, and now it's the genuine, heartfelt kind. Not the people pleasing kind.

And people can feel my energy shift, and I see it give them permission to spend more time on what they believe is important, without me ever having to explain in words what I'm doing on my own journey.

They see it.

They recognize it.

They want the same.

And this time, I could explain it if I wanted to.

Before, it was hollow. I thought I was just born that way. How could I explain what I was doing when I had no idea I was living out my illusions?

How can I not be grateful for all of it? Even though that bellowing-sadness moment seriously sucked. I held fast to Mary Magdalene's teachings. I had just started reading her gospel and Meggan Watterson's book, and they resonated deeply, right away.

I see now that convincing my mind is one thing, but my soul will always know when I'm playing small. Seeing how she had to get that message to me, because she knew I was looking everywhere for it consciously and was ready. It appeared.

Here's to creating our own new ways of being.

Being you.

Being me.

Being more you.

Being more me.

And allowing the process to heal us.

Healing you, healing me.

❤️🌹🌈🦄

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Acceptance Leads to Freedom