I used to strive mightily to keep my personal and professional identities separate and somewhat walled off from each other. I realize now I did that out of fear, and related to a memory of a former boss using my personal life against me in my professional world.

It caused me to contract and curl up, to hide, to protect myself, and to lose trust. To be fair, I had been using some passive aggressive tactics to communicate my distress about my workload. Lesson learned, thank you EAP counselor who helped me become more proactive about that.

These days I have less desire to hide and protect myself, because I focus on how I can be of service to my clients, in my little corner of the world. That requires courage and a willingness to fail, to feel embarrassed, to try again.

I am the person I am. I have strengths, I have flaws. I never do everything (or anything) perfectly. And yet: I still believe I have gifts to offer. Brené Brown advises us to step into the arena anyway, knowing that we are going to get knocked down a few times.

As a result of stepping forward, and getting pummeled a bit, we build our resilience over time. We learn that each and every action will teach us. Each attempt builds our resilience, even if it does not turn out as we anticipated. Failing is only truly devastating if we do not learn from our experiences, our missteps and our decisions.

My new conviction, which feels much more deep and embodied, is to integrate my life, not to divide it. Sometimes this is really scary, and I do not like that “bottom dropping out of my stomach” feeling, like a roller-coaster the first time we ride it.

It is unfamiliar, this risk of revealing more of who I truly am. But in service to the goal of also inviting others to fully show up as who they are, it is worth it.

cristy@meximinnesotana.com