Leadership?

We've been working on solidifying our mission statment. It's only taken us 5 years to sit down together and do this. Here's the inspiration we are working from...

Possible Statements:

"Providing biblically based common sense education and empowerment which gives hope to everyone from the financially secure to the financially stressed." -Dave Ramsey

Our takes:

To facilitate growth for all who suffer from addiction and trauma, to emotional stability and sobriety through empowering personal work and loving 12-step mentorship.

We facilitate growth from powerlessness and addiction to personal responsibility through intensive trauma work and loving 12-step mentorship.

We give hope to families with addiction to use the tools of personal responsibility and sobriety through intensive trauma work and loving 12-step mentorship.

We empower families with addiction by teaching them how to use the tools of personal responsibility and sobriety through intensive trauma work and loving 12-step mentorship.

Facilitate spiritually based recovery from addiction and trauma which gives hope to families and individuals through intensive work and loving mentorship.

To empower families and individuals suffering with addiction to heal through intensive trauma work and 12 step mentorship.

Plant the seed of hope in families and individuals suffering with addiction to heal through intensive trauma work, empowerment training and loving 12-step mentorship.

Educate and empower families and individuals suffering from addiction to heal and grow through intensive trauma work and loving 12-step mentorship.

The list goes on and on...We are trying to reset our culture at our business and it's a lot harder to drag it back to where it's supposed to be than set it in the first place (or so I've been told).

Leadership has always come naturally to me (toooooot! that's my own horn...). By that I mean that I have always been the first to speak up on a group project and begin to organize a group. I don't like awkward silences. I also don't like endless conversation about who is going to do what, round and round, trying to be nice and acquiescence etc. So generally I jump in and assign things in hopes that if someone wants a different role they'll speak up but also know that we all have to do some things we don't like. I like to get decisions rolled off of my back so they are not still sitting there, like little monkeys, chattering away, driving me bonkers. Okay, so I'm working on not letting the monkey's run the show through mindfulness and meditation and my trigger to just make a decision, any decision, has slowed down a little as I've gotten older (37) but I still prize decisiveness as the way to go.

However, I have been burying my head in the sand for quite a while in regards to my business. I am coming out of the storm cellar, and I think I figured out what happened...

When I went on maternity leave when I had my first baby I DID NOT want to go back to work. But I had to to finish my hours for licensure to get my LCSW. In my mind, I'd worked for 9 years to get that dang license and I couldn't believe I had to finish my hours for licensure within 5 years post graduate school (new Florida mandate), I was already going on 3 years because of a paperwork discrepancy that took 9 months to correct (red tape bs). The mandate for getting licensure within a 5 year timeframe is to keep people current on Social Work ethics and standards and to keep people serious about using their licenses appropriately. But having a baby changes you. Or at least it changed me. It shifted my priorities. I was livid and resentful that I had to go back to being a trauma therapist instead of being there for my child. I suffered extreme post-partum anxieties that I mostly hid from everyone because I didn't think it was acceptable or that it mattered. I kept thinking that I was a horrible mother and that I was paying someone else to raise my daughter and that I was missing her life. I hated our business and I hated Social Work. I burned out on a deep, spiritual level. I know all of this is of my own making, I'm acutely aware. I didn't know how painful it would be to hear my baby cry and scream for me as I shut the door to go to work. I didn't know how much anger or how many tears I would shed when my mother sent me a video of my daughter eating the cupcake I was saving for when I got home for her first birthday. I didn't understand that I was going to value, above all else, being there for her. It's not how I grew up. It's not how most people grow up. I didn't know that these painful memories or moments were going to change me. Change who I am and my purpose.

You see, I like being a therapist, but I don't love it. I just listened to the "Essentialism" audiobook and he talks about the 90% rule. Meaning, if it's not a 90% yes or more, than it's a non-essential, and you should chuck it. Being a therapist is like a 65% for me. Being an entrepreneur/ philanthropist/writer/servant leader/available parent, who does whatever the hell she wants and empowers other people to do the same...now that is 90%+. I have been through hell and I'm coming out of it. I rattled around in the resentful cage of "you did this to me, I gave up my life for you, when is it going to be time for my dream?, saga for about 2 years. Much of it was directed at my husband because I was holding him responsible for wanting to start this treatment center of which I was an integral member. I couldn't see that I had fashioned the cage for myself. I couldn't see that staying home with her was okay. I cared too much what other people were going to think. I let society dictate my worth as a human based on the monetary contribution I was making. I let my ego compare what my motherhood and working life looked like in comparison to my mother, other women, and even my close friends and I let all their opinions sway me away from what was going on in my heart and soul. A deep longing to chuck it all in the ocean and just go be with her, the world be damned, began to form a wall. And then, about 6 months after I'd been back at work and got my license, the wall that had been building, hardened and I could no longer surmount it. I started shirking all of my work. I just started pawning off all my duties and I was in this place where I couldn't verbalize quitting, because that would make me feel like I failed work and my daughter, and I couldn't do my job. Something was stopping me from physically going in and doing anything productive. I couldn't write notes, I could barely sit with a client for 45 minutes, I would miss people entirely, and rearrange the schedule constantly to minimize my involvement. I sucked, but I felt nothing. When I got pregnant for the second time I pretty much stopped doing any face-to-face work at any time. I spent a lot of money on crap trying to change how I felt. I spent a lot of time alone at the beach. I watched eons of television. All while reading everything I could on minimalism and constantly trying to rid my life of all the stuff (externally) that I thought was the problem... I tried to connect to God but I was mad at her/him/it too. After a year with my second baby, I decided I did in fact want to work some, but not full-time and I was unsure of what I wanted. I was running again and I had finally talked to someone about "the wall" and she gave me some much needed perspective. She suggested that the wall was the truth. My truth. That it was trying to tell me something but I might need to lean in and listen a little closer. She suggested the wall was a blessing. So I started to look at it that way. I started listening. It told me to get rid of the TV, so I did. It told me to stop shopping excessively, so I did. It told me to find something creative and something I was afraid of, so I started learning how to make pottery. It told me to start a garden, so I did (and it is huge!). It told me to sign up for a race, so I signed up for a 50k (on Dec 12th!). It told me to listen to what I really want, and listen to what makes me happy, my kids, writing, creativity, financial independence/minimalism/investing/frugality, plant-foods, giving and...leadership. I am good at this. I can do this.

Taking a year to do what makes me truly happy has been very healing, as I'm sure you can assume by now. But it took me trudging the traditional path and burning it to the ground spiritually before I begrudgingly tried to figure it out. The wall was a gift. Not being able to climb over the wall anymore was a gift. Re-discovering who I am at my core, and connecting with sources of input that have been spiritually rewarding have turned out to be emotionally, and financially rewarding as well. Cutting yourself off monetarily, letting go of excess, delving into creativity and actually dealing with the difficult emotions and finding new ways to celebrate, redesign, and move forward have been stalwarts of my journey.

Now, as I am rebalancing the areas that have been weighing on my mind, I'm turning with clarity back to the business I inadvertently abandoned. My husband has been burning the candle at both ends trying to keep it all afloat on his own with no sympathy or support from me. At first the old thoughts started in "they all hate you. They don't respect you. Why would they listen to you after that shoddy job you did, etc..." But then I remembered, I own this place. It's not my job (right now) to worry about what other people think and feel (to a certain extent). It's my job to right the ship. To sit down with my husband and talk strategy, get a game plan and begin to execute. I have already discovered a lot of leaky spots in our budget and patched the holes. We are finally addressing our mission and vision (now that we are both clear in what we will and will not do). And I am still writing. I am also about to sign off and go finish dumping some compost in a new bed, planting some seeds and securing the cover (dang chickens!). And I have taken it slow and cuddled my kids and told them I loved them and given them time and love. It isn't perfect, but it's mine and I wouldn't trade it for all the gold in the Universe. Amen