Hello, Ellivate Ally!
We celebrated my son’s 6th birthday last month, which got me reflecting on his birth story. I spent my entire pregnancy planning for a healthy, natural birth. My husband and I took natural childbirth classes. We had a birth plan. We hired a doula. I worked out, meditated, visualized and prayed every day. I kept my thoughts positive. We were good to go, right?
Well, 2 days after my son’s due date, the plans I’d been meticulously working on for 9 months were crushed within a few hours. After 18 hours of labor (and being awake for almost 2 days), my labor stalled. Fast forward 10 hours, and the story ends with a C-section (plus some complications along the way, but I’ll spare you those details!).
As soon as my son arrived, I was so focused on taking care of this precious, tiny human that I didn’t have the space to process the trauma associated with his birth. It wasn’t until years later that I worked through deep feelings of pain, disappointment, failure and self-doubt.
Why am I telling you all of this, and what the heck does it have to do with you and your business?
Being a business owner, and simply being a human, is full of birthing experiences. We each experience this at the micro level, when we birth a tiny human, a business, a book, or a new evolution of our business or self. We are also experiencing a collective birthing, as the fundamental structure of our society shifts from one where people seek power over others to one where we seek to share power with others.
Just like physical childbirth, these transitions can feel hard – messy, painful and consumed by fear and doubt. Yet, just like childbirth, these transitions also offer us immense hope, purpose, beauty and progress.
When we’re in the midst of a tough transition, it’s easy to lose hope and get lost in fear and doubt. However, we must never forget that it serves a greater purpose. We are being refined and readied for something greater on the other side. What could shift for us, if we acknowledge the process and greet it with openness and curiosity…if we trust the process and seek out the wisdom it has to offer?
Our shared cause of Ellivate is to help birth a more conscious, evolved form of leadership into the world. Each day, through their work, our women exemplify what it means to bring their hearts to their businesses. They show others how to lead differently – how to bring more purpose, meaning, compassion, wisdom, inclusiveness and love to business.
Transitions are not meant to be easy. We must trust the process and hold on to hope. Let us continue to courageously do our part to bring about the change we wish to see in ourselves, our businesses, our country and the world.
With deep love and gratitude,
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