your wide open spaces

In my early 30’s I was working for Canada’s largest outdoor retailer in what I thought was my dream job (short story: it wasn’t. More on that another time). I was running Learning and Development across the country and reported directly to the COO. 

At that time, I suffered from not-enoughness. Do you have it too? Its symptoms include unreasonable expectations of self, crippling doubt, and an inability to celebrate any and all achievements — big and small. It’s an all-consuming way of being that pervades every aspect of life. 

In the not-dream job, I was deep in the spiral. I worked 70+ hours a week, unable to make a dent in an unlimited to-do list. At home, I stressed about all the things I could have done better. The anxiety was real. I was drowning trying to swim against a relentless current.

One day in a meeting, my boss held up a blank sheet of paper and said:

“All this blank open space — this is what you do well. The team loves you. You have super fans across the company. Your work is exceptional.”

He then took a pen and put 5 pin-prick size dots on the paper, held it back up, and continued

“This is all you see. What you do wrong. Stop focusing on these tiny dots and focus on all the rest.”

I blinked for a few beats. Then left.

I want to tell you that in that moment I had an awakening.

I didn’t.

I was too much in my worthlessness to take this gem of insight. Yet I held onto the moment, knowing there was something here for me when I was ready for it.

Not enoughness is a complex dis-ease. Entire world systems rely on us to stay unworthy. The less enough we see ourselves, the more we will contribute, produce, overgive. Humanmade society is literally trying to keep us compressed and contained. That compression and containment ripples out into how we then compress and contain others. It’s a closed-loop system that works really well at making sure we stay underwater. I share this with compassion as to why so many of us have it and why it’s so hard to heal from.

We are swimming upriver to get to the headwaters of our inherent worthiness. 

Two strokes forward. One back. Rinse, repeat.

A year after that meeting with my boss, I was cleaning up my desk and found that piece of paper. It was then I had that moment of awareness — I was letting myself down by not focusing on my magic, the magic I bring to others, in what I do.

My self-worth did not instantaneously go from 0 to 100. That’s not how sustainable growth works. And I did start to take small steps forward. The first step — start by seeing the wide open spaces on that sheet of paper.

I often say this in my work:

The lead-up is often harder than the doing. 

When we say – 

Yes. I’m open and ready for a new way.

We say yes to the wide open spaces of ourselves. Those spaces and places that have always been here. The truth that we, we have always been here. 

What do you see on your paper beyond those few tiny spots?

What wide open spaces can you embrace in yourself? 

Here’s to seeing that you are already inherently worthy.