We, and our businesses, grow and flourish in connection ⚡️. The word connected has taken on a different meaning in recent history. Phones, social media, and a constant need to be “connected” is NOT what I am talking about🙅♀️. Often, we are so attached to our phones and social media when we feel the most disconnected. Genuine connection, brought forward through mutually meaningful relationships, has four specific components.
1. Mutual engagement and empathy: mutually involved, committed, and sensitive to the relationship with a willingness to impact AND be impacted by another. 2. Authenticity: the freedom and capacity to be ourselves with an awareness of how we impact others. 3. Empowerment: The sense of personal strength that emerges from the relationship. 4. The ability to express, receive, and process diversity, difference, and CONFLICT in the relationship in a way that fosters mutual empowerment and empathy. If I’ve learned anything through this time of global crisis, it is that mutually meaningful relationships directly impact: the healthy development of our sense of self, our resilience, AND the success of our businesses. We are wired to connect 🧠. “We do not use nurturing or loving people to fill us up or prepare us to separate and then stand strong alone. There is not a cutoff on our need for connection - ever!” (Jordan, 2017). 🚫 It’s time to stop the cold DM’s, generic email campaigns, and manic feast-or-famine social media marketing strategies. ✅ It’s time to step up and take ownership of our communications authentically and take back REAL connection. I’m here to help. 🙋♀️ If you are ready to build real connections and foster mutually meaningful relationships that empower, influence and lead, I’ve got news for YOU! Strategic Communications & Marketing Consulting. Connective Communications Coaching. Done-for-you Marketing Services. 2021 HERE WE COME! Get to the heart of what matters most to your clients and team so you can empower, influence and LEAD 💕. Interested in learning more? Click the link in my bio or send me a DM.
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This past year started with me jumping back into school and falling madly in love with psychology and writing all over again. I went in with a lot of assumptions about what classes and topics I would love most. Neuroscience. Humanist Theory. Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy. They were great, don’t get me wrong. But they did not “light a fire in my belly” so to speak. The fire that did rise was not at all what I expected. During this time, I took the blandly titled and not so sexy “Foundations of Helping.” Not a class I was looking forward to; I knew what helping was. As I read chapter after chapter of my textbook, paired with study after study about helping and the process of creating change, I was simultaneously going through my very own change process. The ONLY lesson in Helping.I struggle to watch Humane Society ads, Disney and Pixar movies, and those Superbowl commercials with the dogs and horses. I also hate going to the movies.
Not because I don’t love movies, good stories, or buy into the messages. Because I HATE that someone else’s emotions can bring me to tears in less than a second. I’m a feeler. I have always struggled to separate my emotions from those of others. I take your sadness and carry it around for days like a backpack filled with bricks I don’t want or need. How in the hell was I going to listen to the challenges and traumas of those who would eventually sit in my chair and not lose my mind? How indeed. I was terrified. I was starting to stop, find stillness and sit with my emotions more regularly. It was uncomfortable. I kind of hated it. I felt the way I used to when I was ten, back before I learned that feeling too much was weak and dangerous. The more I felt, the more I felt. It was exhausting. After weeks of just letting it all go, I started to notice something. Not all of those emotions felt like they were mine. I began removing the backpacks I had been wearing for years and started to see names and labels attached to them. Mom. Dad. Teacher. Brother. Coach. Husband. Danm. I had been carrying the expectations, emotions, and assumptions of SO MANY other people for so damn long I couldn’t tell the difference between what was mine and what was not. It felt like a revolution in my heart. With each day that passed and each feeling that arose, I began to make it a practice to stop, find stillness, and look for a label. Whose is this? Is it mine? I was taking on the emotions of others because I assumed others could not handle them. I thought that I needed to be strong and carry that backpack for them because they could not. Being a helper is NOT about fixing, removing, taking away, taking care of, or making things easier for others. It’s not taking the backpack off of another person and wearing it for them. It’s about acknowledging that heavy-ass backpack they are wearing, giving them a safe space to open it up, unpack it, and put it back on, realizing their own bravery and strength. It’s ok to empathize and be affected by others, but I had taken that to the extreme. I was stealing backpacks left and right. I did not know what helping was. I’m leaving a lot of assumptions, expectations and beliefs behind in 2020. I’m ready to let go of the resistance and feel my way through a new year. Here’s to reading labels and honouring the strength of others in 2021. growing businesses with communityWhat does evidence-based psychology say about community and business? |
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