Is this what growth feels like?

Waiting for the beat drop

Imagine you are at the dance club, on the spin bike, running outside, or even just cooking dinner. The house music is turned up loud, and I mean loud.

Like you are worried about the structural integrity of your speakers kind of loud.

You are completely in the moment. Moving and grooving to the heavy beat. Sweating. Your heart is pumping. Your eyes shift back and forth between intense and soft focus.

You know a world exists around you but you are immersed. Swimming.

It is almost like you are living inside the speakers. Inside the music.

Then the music shifts into something a bit … uncomfortable. The beat disappears. It becomes almost discordant. Weird sounds seem to come into the forefront. The intensity builds. It feels odd. Yucky, even.

It is too much. You desperately want the tension to dissipate.

And then the oh-so-glorious beat drop comes in.

Look, I’m no music buff. I still adore Dave Matthews Band and dance around my bathroom listening to Alanis Morissette from time to time. Nevertheless, I find myself attracted to house music when I’m feeling things. When life is feeling big, and I need the music to match my mood.

Music that is a bit messy. A lot. Too much, even.

Music that is wrong in all the right ways.

And this is precisely why I picked a thirty minute house ride with Jess King this afternoon. I was feeling things.

I’ve come to find that transformational growth feels a lot like the build up to the beat drop. There is a lot going on. New things are happening. Old comfortable patterns have dropped by the wayside. It feels odd. Yucky, even.

We’re waiting for the breakthrough. The moment when we think, “FUCK YEAH! This is what life is all about!”

These moments are glorious. It is what coaches like to boast about on social media. And yet, these moments are far and few between. For sure they happen. They’ll happen for you. But the majority of time spent in transformation is a lot less “FUCK YEAH!” and a lot more “when will this end!?”

Not the sexiest description for someone trying to sell coaching services, but this is one of the spaces where I can dig into the nitty gritty details. A place, apart from my book, where I can artfully and shamelessly tell my story.

Today felt like the tension leading up to the beat drop. I’ve transitioned out of ‘everything I am doing is new’ into ‘everything I’m doing is a shitty first draft.’ A huge step, but it leaves me a bit wanting.

I’m eager to shift into the stage where people are just throwing their money at me. Where we spend a week and a half immersed in nature and deep community. Where we practice yoga together. Eat together. Dream and scheme together. Where we witness breakthroughs, tears, and quiet realizations together.

I’m eager for that part.

And, yet, this tension building is critical. It is an excellent teacher. It reminds me that if I didn’t want this dream so fucking badly I wouldn’t have the tenacity to stick it out. To feel the discomfort. To lean into it.

My clients will experience the same tension. Whatever dream they pursue will likely not fall in their lap. Just as those of us that find ourselves in long-term relationships had to experience some pretty awful first dates before meeting the one; us dreamers will likely have to experience some extended discomfort along the way to our most beautiful life.

Furthermore, if this wasn’t happening for me, how trustworthy could I possibly be to my clients? If things just fell into my lap, how attractive of a coach would I be?

That method wouldn’t produce predictable, repeatable results.

As such, this discomfort reminds me that:

I’m living the path.

I’m doing the things.

I’m making the mistakes.

Taking on new challenges.

Doing the shitty first drafts.

Cleaning them up to make them better.

Taking the feedback. Applying the learnings.

This is what it looks like.

If the path was perfectly clear it wouldn’t be my path. If there was a simple formula to follow I would be skeptical. I wouldn’t be as keen. As willing to experiment. To be wrong. To be right, too.

To do things I think people will appreciate, like getting back into teaching yoga. Well, kind of getting back into teaching yoga. Somehow, I’ve managed to combine yoga and podcasting.

It came about a little something like this: I knew I needed to brush up on my impromptu speaking skills as it relates to the business I am growing and the book I’ve written. If a book tour is in my future, I need to nail the elevator pitch. The hook. The words that will make someone think, “I must have this book!”

This isn’t something that comes naturally to me. I’m more of a long-form kind of gal, which you know and maybe even appreciate if you are still reading this. Since it isn’t a natural skill, I need to practice. Given the time horizon of this need, however, I wasn’t all too keen to get after it. I needed something to sweeten the deal.

I figured I could attempt these practice sessions while doing some restorative and yin yoga postures. These are typically grounded postures held anywhere between two and twenty minutes. The perfect opportunity for me to combine two needs. Even if my attempt at speaking sucked, I would have at least gotten in a solid stretching session. Genius.

This is how my podcast was born. How I've combined two disparate things into something healing. Into something that challenges me in a way I can handle. That helps me grow. That creates a pull. That makes me want to haul out my new microphone and plan out a mini yoga class.

“Re-wild Your Life: Musings from the Mat” is a playful attempt at bringing my word witch skills to the verbal realm while leading listeners through a chill yoga class. It’s easy. It’s informative. It’s relatively painless. Give it a listen sometime.

I’m also trying to get a handle on this reel thing on Instagram. Refine my offering. Conduct market research. Practice speaking to people online in the language they themselves use to describe their present pain and desired future state. Negotiate contracts. Set up automated system. Instill processes. Learn from others.

It sounds discordant in my brain. Everything is happening toward a specific purpose but the necessary skills and energy required to achieve each activity are varied. I find myself bouncing between checking Instagram reel insights to digging into the teachings of Martha Beck. From coming up with catchy slogans, like “Quit Queen”, to deeply practicing what I preach. From getting totally stoked over a bird sighting to remembering to schedule weekly emails.

I’m all over the place. The tension is building. The beat drop is coming. The growth is golden. The purpose is clear. The effort is not effortless yet, but it is worthwhile.

And, so, I shall keep moving forward. Doing the things I think I cannot do. Waiting for the oh-so-glorious beat drop. Letting myself get pulled into the mess. It is worth it. I know it.

Let me know where life is feeling a bit all over the place these days for you. What, if anything, I’m doing is resonating with you. Where you are feeling ease. What’s working. Anything. Let me hear and see you.

Until then, I’ll be on the dance floor.