Hello and happy midweek :)Before you scroll any further I’d love to invite you to take a breath with me - you can breathe in through your nose for 4 seconds and breathe out through your nose for 8 seconds*. Now take a moment to check in - how are you feeling today? I’m coming off a very “full” couple of weeks (I heard someone use the word “full” instead of “busy” recently and I love this reframe) and I’ve been feeling both overwhelmed and overjoyed. I don’t know about you but whenever someone asks me how I’m doing, my default response is usually “Good!” but these days I’m trying to answer this question a lil more thoughtfully (and I’m temporarily banning “good” from my answer options lol). So that’s where I’m at mentally/emotionally right now. A learning on living more unapologetically I want to share a little story with you... I’m a member of a Facebook group for the area I live in. The group has about 15K members and it’s quite active - I enjoy it for the occasional drama over who left their dog poop on the sidewalk, but also for seeking out personal recos (i.e. best croissants in the city, first date spots, etc.). Last summer I noticed a woman post something along the lines of “Can someone put me in touch with the Raptors management team? I’ve created some face masks to support Black Lives Matter and think it would be a great fit for the team” A few months later, the same woman - Nadia Lloyd - was on the front page of the Toronto Star and supplying masks to both the Toronto Raptors and Mayor John Tory. I continued seeing Nadia’s posts pop up on this FB community - she’d share personal and professional milestones and what she was working on, including local events she was organizing. I quietly admired how unapologetically she shared her life’s work and her courage to ask what for what she wanted. As she continued to share her work I noticed she curated an arts market called the Toronto Art Crawl, and so a couple months ago I reached out to her to see if she needed an extra hand with any of her upcoming events. Fast forward to this weekend, I spent the day at the market - witnessing her magic firsthand - and it was truly inspiring. The way she handled what would be considered a v high-stress, frenetic environment (we’re talking 100+ vendors and thousands of attendees) with such grace, kindness and energy was incredible. As I got home that evening I took some time to reflect on this experience - for me it’s been a struggle to find the confidence to truly own and express myself and my work - I always worry about coming across as cocky or being “too much”. I often find myself resembling a turtle lol - I poke my head out, express myself a little bit, but things feel scary/overwhelming/unsafe and so it’s just been easier to stay inside my lil shell. However, little did I know that what I really needed was someone to model this for me. Previous to meeting Nadia, the story I attached to people who expressed themselves unapologetically was that they must be self-absorbed, cocky a-holes. Digging a little deeper into this though - people who unapologetically express themselves has always been a trigger for me - and I know triggers usually indicate there’s a part of you that sees that quality in yourself. And I can confirm this - anytime I’ve had conversations with coaches or even in therapy - the word “unapologetic” usually comes up as something I aspire to be more of. Nadia showed me that it’s entirely possible (and safe) to unapologetically own your work with utter confidence and grace, ask for what you want and also be a bomb-ass kind and down-to-earth human. And this realization was both entirely freeing and inspiring. The importance of environments I share this story with you because I’ve also been thinking a lot about environments. What’s an environment you might ask? Think - the people, places, and thoughts that you engage with. These all make up one’s environment. Environments are critical to one’s growth - personally and professionally. And I believe they are especially important when you’re met with change - whether you’re looking to make change or in a period of transformation. More recently I’ve found myself reflecting on whether I’ve been engaging in environments that were conducive to growth i.e. surrounding myself with people who I admire and challenge my way of being and thinking - and that’s why I really wanted to work with Nadia. If you’re curious to reflect on your own environments - whether that’s people, spaces or thoughts you might engage with - I find it helpful to ask the following questions: Does the environment make me feel safe? Do I feel like I have choice? Is there a sense of collaboration or does it feel one-sided? Do I feel empowered and challenged? Do I feel a sense of trust?
These five questions are at the core of a truly trauma-sensitive environment. So much of what I’ve been learning in school about becoming trauma-informed can apply so beautifully to everyday life. I personally believe we have all experienced trauma in some form - and collectively even coming out of the pandemic. Trauma is an overwhelm to our nervous system, which often keeps us in a rigid state of survival, and the antidote to this is a feeling of safety. If we are able to apply a trauma-sensitive lens to the environments we engage in, we can better signal safety to our nervous systems, and when this happens we can build environments that are conducive to flourishing. Next week I’ll start to unravel some learnings about environments that are rooted in Polyvagal Theory, which is probably one of the most groundbreaking teachings I’ve encountered thus far. Thank you for being here :) Much love, B *When your exhale is longer than your inhale, it signals safety to your body as it engages your parasympathetic nervous system - the system responsible for calm, rest and relaxation. P.S. I would love to hear from you.
Hit reply and tell me a little about where you’re at in your personal journey, or if you have any Qs and/or comments.
If you’d like to connect outside of this space, you can find me here and here.
Finally, if you want to help support my journey, I’d love for you to share this newsletter with someone you think might benefit from it <3
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