The Person Is More Important


It’s the day before my birthday and I’m in bed in the middle of the afternoon, blinds dark, trying to nap away the tiredness that is reverberating from the space behind my eyelids. Dunder Mifflin sweatshirt on (photo above from another day when Apollo wasn’t so bored of me). Hair a mess. How to Train Your Dragon may or may not be playing in the background - IDK. My skin shows no signs of living in a place where the sun shines. The reflection staring back at me in the mirror reveals little evidence of a life force being present within. I realized yesterday that there is always big energy moving in my life at this time of year. This year is no different.

Guys, it’s been a hell of a week. Last Tuesday I had a therapy session that unearthed some major trauma from my childhood. Something I’ve sensed for a while is in there but have been unable to access in the ways we normally perceive memory. All I’ve had for a good handful of years now is a sneaking suspicion based on some events in my earth twenties that got me wondering, and a series of recurring dreams that began around that time and haven’t stopped. There is no visual memory available to me, but my intuition is my most trusted informant and it’s been speaking up at a higher volume. I’ve been able to feel an awareness wanting to come through, poking holes in the floor of my subconscious to let the light in.

In the last week that awareness has made itself known and turned the lights on big time through my body. It is so, so much to feel. To say that things are a bit messy and chaotic within and without right now would be, perhaps not an understatement, but really fucking accurate. As my consciousness expands to hold this awareness, there is work to be done to allow that holding to take place. It is not easy or comfortable. I’ve mostly just slept and cried since last Tuesday. But it is good, and I am choosing this pursuit of myself and the freedom it promises.

But that’s not really why I wanted to write to you.

I just wanted to write to tell you that it’s okay if you’re not okay. it’s okay to be in it. it’s okay to feel, and to feel in a really massive way, and there is nothing more important on your to-do list than that.

When I worked for lululemon, this brilliant brand documentary came out that really illuminated the heart of the organization. In it, a woman from the head office in Vancouver said something that lodged itself upon my heart. She said “The person is more important than the knowledge.”

Whoa. Yes. Fuck yes.

Yesterday I had someone ask me a question about what had been going on in my ecosystem over the past week, and I honestly admitted that I hadn’t “worked” much because something really significant was happening in my personal life that required a lot of my energy. They pretty much breezed over that and asked another work-oriented question. I thought to myself “This is not how I want to be with people.” I thought of that quote from the documentary. The person is more important than the knowledge. The person is most important - period.

I coach people for a living. A lot of people in a similar role would say that sharing my process while it’s still in process is inhibitive to people experiencing me as a potential guide in their expansion. All I know is that letting people know that I’m human, is the way that feels right. Expressing that I am in pain and it IS painful  but it ISN’T killing me, feels like freedom.

Some day, I will be and have been before, in a position with a client where they themselves are up to big things and have shit to do and to create and to build - and then life happens. In those moments I want them to know that it is OKAY to be in the dark and to allocate their energy towards feeling deeply and honoring the experience. I want them to know that they are more important than their business. They are more important than their email lists and their empires and their appointments. They are more important. They are MOST important. Period.

Last week my client FaceTimed me to chat about some things and she asked how I was doing. And you know what I said? The truth. That shit was upside down. That I was aching and healing. And you know what happened? She allowed. She laughed with me. Resonated with me. Was human with me. She pays ME to hold space for her and still, there is room to be human together. My commitment to my clients of present and future is not to have everything together all the time. My commitment is to tell the truth and hold them in safe space while they find theirs. I need not be without bleeding wounds of my own to do that.

Today, that same client and I sat together in session and it was fucking awesome. In the course of the day I’ve felt energized and enlivened and joyful and delighted to connect - AND so freaking tired, and wanting to be alone. I am in surrender to all parts of my humanity and my healing. Sure there is more shit on my to-do list, and I’ll get to it in the moments where I feel capable of that in the midst of one of the most major experiences of my adult life. It can all fucking wait a second.

Showing up BIG to our entities requires that we show up BIG to our healing. It is not a distraction, it is a conduit. To those who have, do and will someday trust me as their guide in their own healing journey, my question will never be “How is your business?” but instead “How is your heart?”.

Hey you, whoever you are, whatever you’re feeling is okay.

Whatever you need because of it is okay.

It is okay if it isn’t okay.

It is ALL okay.

And you are more important. Period.