E. Chang
Sr CSM Facebook
"My outlook is different in so many ways due to the coaching Vibha has shared, but at its most basic - my whole life I’ve looked for gratification from the outside, from others. My parents, my bosses, my husband, my son, my ex-boyfriends – am I doing things that make them love me, make them see me? (Whatever I was.)
Vibha made me understand that I have to be centred, to go within. I have to know who I am and find self-satisfaction for my own gifts. I have to love and trust myself first if I’m ever going to find happiness and personal power and be able to love and trust others. I can’t build my entire life around serving outside external forces and waiting for external love to make my life worthwhile and to make me “enough”. And I can’t run through life mindlessly, not checking in with myself. I have to be in the moment, aware and listening.
I’ve also learned that the perfectionism value I’ve held so close all these years is not only not great, but can actually be destructive because I’m always shooting to deliver to someone else’s expectations. This goal can be deceiving because perfectionism was very effective at making me teacher’s pet, at landing jobs and earning salary increases, at being the “go-to” daughter and friend. But it was unsustainable and, ultimately, unfulfilling. It was an effective way to lose my compass, to lose connection to my inner self, to my own unique contributions, to my own personal, true-only-to-me passions and joys, to what I have to offer.
I’m learning from Vibha that everything I need comes from me. That external drivers are fake, messy and offer rickety foundations.
By centring myself, breathing, calming down and speaking from deep inside my humanity, my core, not from my eyeballs, I’ve been able to stay more even-keeled. This has even ironically helped me to listen better to others. I’ve been able to gain control over how I was showing up in meetings or with my family – to temper my over-eager and overly energetic approach into something much more approachable.
This centring and mindfulness have made me better able to manage the litany of individual symptoms I sought to fix originally. I’ve found that if I can step quietly into my own truth – this automatically slows my speech and my flailing hands. Like a miracle. It’s hard to explain, but if I can let myself rely on me, on my years of experience and my earned education – if I can relax into the things I know I uniquely bring to the table, then I can calm down and trust and let those things hold me up.
I don’t need the extra 24 x 7 googling and memorization I used to seek before I entered a big meeting. I can enter the room with a deep breath and some quietude – reaching into the calm and listening confidence that comes from knowing I, indeed, belong in that room.
All I need to do is show up with my mind and my heart and my good intentions. I’ve learned I just need to enter a room with me and take it respectfully from there.
This has been life-changing." ?
