It’s devastatingly painful to feel like you failed yourself. When you believe that the only way your work/service/offer is going to sell, is if you follow someone else’s techniques and step by step formula. It is a low blow to have it fall apart, and then to have to live with the feeling inside yourself that you compromised your integrity, your ‘you-ness’ in the process.

It can often make people stop offering their gifts, stop operating in their zone of genius, because they just can’t handle feeling like that again. They may swear off running their own business, or putting themselves out there because its just too vulnerable.

I know the feeling well, because it has been my waking feeling for the past few days.

Berating myself for not following a specific formula, for not preparing better, for missing an opportunity…but really what is actually bothering me is that I wasn’t me. It hurt because I temporarily forgot who I was.

I support my clients everyday in being who they are, offering their gifts..and here I am not listening to that for myself.

And it hurts.

It has made me question my entire work…thinking that maybe its not of value. Even though deep down..I know this actually has nothing to do with that.

But that’s why so many people just don’t make it in their business. Because they have a shitty week, or a shitty month. They don’t see the results they wanted, and then they tear themselves down, because they not only didn’t succeed, they didn’t succeed AND they weren’t themselves.

And not being you, hurts.

It’s scary to be yourself, to offer yourself as you are, without any marketing technique, or sure-fire-tactic.

Because if no one likes it…THEN YOU’VE REALLY FAILED. And that feels so much more painful..which is why we jump at the marketing techniques, and the formulas…why we try to mimic what we see…because it feels less risky.

But the raw icky feeling of having succumb to my fears and wavered from being who I am…it doesn’t just quickly go away..its hung around for days. It’s made me question everything.

And this feeling..is not something I can continue to feel, when it is so at odds with the feelings I get when I’m being me, when I’m connecting with people, when I’m operating in my zone of genius, doing the work I’m meant to…THAT…that’s untouchable.

That feeling of picking yourself apart is a big flashing sign that you’re out of alignment. And the fastest way to return to that place, at least for me, is to just be completely and brutally transparent about it. To send it out into the ether, and know that some other soul is going to say “me too”.

It has called forth my desire to be committed, honest and real in my life and business, and to make sure I’m always operating from that place..and when I’m not..to stop, turn in and see what I’m believing, or following that just doesn’t feel like me.

What have you been doing that makes you feel icky, something that you want to stop, but you feel is just “the way things are”?