I’m not sure if you’ve heard from my @coachalyssashaw instagram, but I’ve been exploring Human Design. Specifically, Human Design for Business (shoutout to Phoebe Kuhn!).
[Here are a few paragraphs about what I’ve been learning about on my Human Design journey. Feel free to skip it if Human Design doesn’t speak to you!]
Through this process I’ve been learning about my conscious sun + conscious mercury (gate 48.1) and my conscious earth (gate 21.1). In this process, to gain more clarity on what these gates mean, I’ve also dipped a baby toe into gene keys (basically, I’ve just scratched the surface). In my gene key +conscious sun/mercury learnings, I discovered how gate 48 is programmed with gate 21 annnnnd guess who just so happens to have gate 21 as her conscious Earth?! Moi!
This made me realize that my gate 21 and 48 are linked. I don’t really get how the programming works, but I can feel it in my bones that the link is stopping me from reaching my highest frequency.
I made this picture to try and help myself visualize what I’m talking about.
It feels like the control feeds into my inadequacy and shuts down my Valor (my bravery + courage), Wisdom, Resourcefulness and Authority.
Over the past 5 years, I’ve adopted many, many time management techniques and tools in general to manage my ADHD. What I could never have predicted was that these tools would be the very thing that would bring me into burnout.
Here’s some of the time management tools & ways of being that brought me to burnout:
- Time Blocking
- Goal Setting
- Very detailed meal planning
- Routines & habit building
- Examining my feelings to try and fix them (this was very time + energy consuming)
- Filling my work day with clients because that was what I determined “success” to be.
Going through and explaining each of these feels so tedious and boring so I’m not going to do it. That said, if you’re curious about of the points, let me know and I’ll be sure to elaborate! Naming them is enough for me to realize the impact/level of control I was trying to exude over my life. I was trying to control my outcome time and time again. The beauty of life is in letting go, in the unexpected!! When I implement all of the above, I am becoming a machine. My sense of self slips away and I become a very irritable, control freak who is sprinting after her goals to the point of exhaustion.
I will say that the above tools can help. Just depends on the circumstance and not to the amount that I was using them. They were the way to navigate my days. And during covid, they were what I clung onto.
Here is what I am practicing now to step out of the control:
- I checked on what sort of income I needed to be able to pay my bills and that’s my monthly “need”.
- I then scheduled my day and weeks based on said income (this is ~12, 1:1 clients a week)
- Noted: this is what is helping me to cover my bills. I am trusting (I have a deep, instinctual knowing) that by giving myself this time and space I am going to be able to take care of myself while I wait for an invitation to create some sort of course/program/coaching group that will bring me a solid income stream.
- I also made sure that my energy levels for the amount of clients in a day were on track. Was 5 clients a day too much? How did it feel to have 4? 3? What time of day did I prefer to meet with clients? It really helps to check in with my body here.
- I have been using google calendar to store my tasks
- If a task pops up and I don’t feel like doing said task at any particular moment or day, then I simply don’t do it. (I’m fortunate to have created a life for myself where I have very minimal deadlines).
- I trust that the time will come where I have the energy to do the task and I know that I will!
- I will not force myself to do anything.
- I am using somatic exercises to support my nervous system. I recently purchased a course from The Workout Witch.
- Be in the moment – Do I actually have to know what time it is?? Can I just go with the flow and see what I want to do? I started to set alarms before my client sessions so that I would know that it’s time to transition.
- Because I am giving myself so much time and space, I’m able to nurture myself in a way that I have never felt or experienced. I am showing myself that I am safe and interestingly, I’ve been able to explore some of my traumas that bring me out of a calm and gentle space.
Just today, I had an interaction on Facebook that helped me to come to a huge realization… I joined a program on June 1st and as a part of the program I purchased a bonus. It is now July 10th (over a month later) and I have yet to receive the bonus. I reached out (I’ll admit in a sort of impatient way) and the response that I received was less than ideal. I became totally emotionally dysregulated. I was asking how to go about getting my bonus and they responded that “I needed to hang tight”. What I realised while I sat with my feelings, was that I was looking to get two of my feelings validated. I wanted her to tell me:
1- My impatience was valid. I have been waiting over a month for my bonus to land in my mailbox.
2- My confusion was valid. I hadn’t received an email or any direction as to when I was going to expect my bonus, that they were working on my bonus or that they even received my information to process my bonus. I was left hanging.
→ My big “aha moment” was that I was looking for external validation. Once I identified what I was looking for, I then validated myself. And woweeee!! How amazing and liberating does it feel to be able to validate myself. My feelings are valid. That was all I needed <3
I never would have been able to have this aha moment/realization without the time and space to do so.