Today is not a particularly ‘breezy’ day. It’s been a day of molasses in my brain, slowly working my way through each task only to realize I’ve not completed the previous one. My heart holds a heaviness that called me this morning to simply curl up and go back to sleep. On days like this, the line between self-care and self-sabotage is so blurry, thin, and ever-shifting that it requires a next step of discernment, which I find in the willingness to wade through and find the hidden line.
And today, that line said, “Actually, going back to bed will only make it worse.”
So I pulled a card instead because what are Mondays if not opportunities to begin the week anew? And here we are, with a card to remind you of a lesson you may (or may not) need to remember, too.
“Don’t underestimate the power of sharing your story. It’s by hearing someone else’s journey that we feel less alone.”
A smallish part of me said not to write this today. Not to share because, What does it matter, anyway, and all that noise. Then I read this, and lo & behold, all our stories deserve sharing. All of our stories matter. One of the beliefs I imagine many of us in this community hold true for others yet doubt for ourselves. As if we are so special to be the exceptions.
And what a joy it is for us to share them.
I’ve pulled this card multiple times in the past few months. Sometimes, it’s connected to my business and being a leader in my own professional right. Other times, it’s connected to trust, like the trust I needed to start this newsletter.
“You don’t need to have it all together to lead. In fact, it helps if you don’t.”
Today, though, a new idea of leadership surfaced.
The idea of leading myself.
How much grace and courage is there in the simple act of taking our own hands and leading ourselves away from harm toward healing?
I realized today that I hold this notion of leadership as always consisting of someone outside me, that to be a ‘leader’ requires a ‘follower’ separate from me. Yet today felt like leadership, too, as I walked myself toward home and my space of quiet reflection to sit down and write this.
Seeing yourself as a ‘leader’ (depending on who you are) might seem:
exhilarating
terrifying
self-aggrandizing
inspiring
silly
or any other number of adjectives.
But what if leadership only needs to start—and can end, too—with ourselves?
“You don’t need to know the way. Just believe that there might be a different one.”
However you define leadership today—in yourself, your business, your family, or your community—here’s to you, dear reader, for finding a new way through and taking the lead in whatever way that means to you.