What do I have to offer?

What do I have to offer?? This is the thought that has hijacked my mind for weeks and weeks. 

What do I have to offer? Authenticity, vulnerablity and a heaping helping of "I don't know!". That's what I have to offer.

 

I'm learning to be ok in the not knowing. I'm ok with admitting that I don't have all the answers. I'm not an expert. Some days, it takes everything in me to just get my ass out of bed.  Some days I show up at my desk and look down to notice I'm wearing  two different shoes or that my shirt is on inside out.   I make mistakes.  I get angry, I get depressed.  I get overwhelmed.  What do I have to offer? 

 

Some days I say "What the fuck!!!"  47 times before lunch.  Some days I eat French fries for dinner.  Sometimes I have a perfectly good lesson plan ready but half way through the class I get distracted and forget what I had planned. 

 

What do I have to offer?  Most days I spend the whole day counting the minutes until I can go home, take off my bra and crawl under the covers.  Some days, I roll out my yoga mat  and with all good intentions I begin with Surya Namaskar only to spend the next hour in savasana after the first round.

 

Some days, I experience sensory over-load and my head spins, my heart races and I fight the urge the puke.  Some days, I honestly don't know if I'm coming or going.  Some days, I feel like giving up. 

What do I have to offer?  

 

Self-doubt is my constant companion.  Feelings of not being good enough, not doing enough, not working hard enough are so familiar that they feel like my own skin.  What do I have to offer?

 

I can offer my own struggles. I can offer my authentically, messy self.  I can offer my story.  I have learned some tools that have helped me.  I have had some experiences that have taken me to the brink and back.  I have walked through the "dark night of soul"  ( which, incidentally, lasted longer than a night).  What do I have to offer?  My own experience with all the messy human emotions that no one wants to talk about.  

 

What do I have to offer?   I can offer you what I, myself need.  A couple of years ago when my world turned upside down I remember someone saying to me "You'll be ok.  You have a lot of family and friends to support you."  The fact of the matter is that everyone thinks that someone else is offering support so no one actually does.  The biggest source of my distress has been when people say things like "I'm here for you."  "If you need anything call me."  The truth of the matter is that when I have reached out and asked for support I have been disappointed to find that  most people don't actually mean those things.

What do I have to offer?  Myself.  Authentically, Vulnerably, messy ME.   What do I have to offer?  Exactly what I need is what I wholeheartedly offer.  I was recently reminded that when I can't find what I need it's a sign that what I need is what I am meant to offer. "It is in giving that I receive". 

I don't know what that will look like exactly but I'm learning to be ok with not knowing and leaving the details up to God.  In the words of Kirtan Soul Revival.... "I release and I let go. I let the spirit run my life..."

 

Om Namah Shivaya!