“Regina, that’s not right. You’ve got to stand up for yourself.” Rachel’s words struck terror through my whole being, but I knew that heeding her words could be a turning point in my life. This situation, I knew it, was the latest version of my repeating pattern of powerlessness and resignation. I had been studying transformation and the creative cycle enough to recognize this as an opportunity to transform my own pattern, rather than do what I had always done before – go off slinking in defeat.
The actual facts of the situation don’t even matter that much. What really shines out in this drama is what it meant for my soul, for my way of looking at why “bad” things happen. I had rehearsed the words, “I’m open that things are happening FOR me, not TO me.” Now, with Rachel standing firmly as the herald, I could see that clearly I had the chance to practice this in real life.
Today, I want to thank Rachel Trabelsi for being there for me when I got kicked out of the Introduction Leaders Program. She kept me focused on seeing that it made no sense for this to happen, but was clearly set out to give me the chance to choose a new way of being that I had never done before. She was there with words consistently repeated until I heard them. She was there helping me rehearse the words to articulate my new way of being, until I felt them as an authentic expression of myself.
I am immensely glad that I leaned into her support and accepted her coaching. Experiencing myself as someone who stands up for herself with articulate, dispassionate negotiation opens up a whole new world of possibilities for me in career, in community, and in relationships.
Rachel, I thank you from the bottom of my heart!