Letter 2: To someone I hurt.
(This is a 20-year overdue letter to a beautiful, smart, lady love that never quite became, which turned into a reflection on how our pasts co-create the future, until we witness it, and one of the ways that impacts business).
I’m so sorry I betrayed your trust in the space of a solitary, weak and thoughtless heartbeat. I had no idea how easy it would be to do it. Truthfully, I never even knew that’s what betrayal was. In my mind, betrayal was some great thief in the night, a poisoning or treachery by dagger and dastardly deed so great people would write songs about it. Never once did it occur to me, until long after it was too late, that most betrayal is as sweet as pillow talk and as soft as the brush of a feather. That it could unfold, like a blossoming rose, in full sunlight. That it’s often invisible, until it’s too late.
Betrayal happens in the spaces where love and trust belong. It can look and feel so like them. Be as simple as a few small words, spoken unintentionally, to someone who didn’t matter to you at all.
Except he did matter, in the worst way, to me.
That man I told your secret-I-didn’t-know-was-secret to, had a secret of his own: he was another long-term abuser in my life. And when he drunkenly stumbled upon us in the bar that night, close-knit and breathing the heady aroma of one another’s possibilities, part of me immediately blacked out. I was gone, and in my place was just a shadow puppet. A few light pulls on my unseen strings, and he inserted himself into our conversation. All the damage was already done long before any of us opened our mouths…before you and I ever even met.
I watched as my two lives and realities collided in real time, completely invisible to you. In slow motion, and then suddenly at light speed, the fragile identity graft I’d built from new connections and interests was suddenly and violently rejected. The wound beneath welled up and overflowed, poisoning the well of understanding we shared. Meanwhile, in your reality, a man somehow familiar to me walked up, said hello, and offered drinks…
What happened next, to me was three or four throwaway words. An automatic act of deflection. I was acting out a scarcity that replayed over and over within myself too: a brokenness and unworthiness that churned out that handful of deadly little throwing-star-words.
A practiced nothing to me, that hid my vulnerability. To you, the ragged, breathless edges of yours laid bare and made brutally visible. You fell headfirst into the depths of your own wound: betrayal by your father.
I understand now that to you, it never mattered what man those words were spoken to, or why – that’s why you wouldn’t listen later. It mattered it was me who spoke them.
That microcosmic statement overshared your story – your shame – because nature is a pattern, repeating over and over at bigger and smaller scales. Twig; branch; tree; forest. Not only was it cowardice on my part to label you, it was as invisible to me as my own motives. I thought I was being smart. But really I meant to turn the attention off myself and onto someone – anyone – else.
Just because a war is inner, that doesn’t mean it has no manifestations on the outside. Quite the opposite. Outside reflects inside. Bystanders are regularly killed in the crossfire of single person conflicts. One look at your face, and I knew immediately the shot landed true. The wound was fatal. The kindling love in your eyes guttered and went out.
Much later, I started to understand why. In every sense, I was lost: what I was calling sassy, strong and independent was fragile. Toxic because it was taken by stealing power from another. The only model of power I knew back then. I made you a victim. That light going out was you watching our dreams and who you thought I was die. All in the space of FOUR words.
Your lessons for me set me towards the path to many years of academic study in identity and reality that would change me for the better, forever.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart. And words can never be taken back.
As hard as I tried. As much as I longed. And for all that I missed lying in bed holding you, sharing your art and dreams, and trading wishes, I knew you were right to be hurt. That you were hurt because you were whole – it was your wholeness that was affronted. Even though you’d never met that wholeness and didn’t believe it was there, it’s light was so bright and beautiful to me. Like each of my greatest teachers, just by being, you taught me to see more.
A little bit of my love for each teacher is built into my research, the very fabric of my business now and everything else that I do. It doesn’t right it, but I want you to know that. In dedication to both of us, and to everyone else I’ve ever hurt, I turned my life to unlearning, educating, healing and wayfinding for others.
Hurt people hurt people, and attract hurt people. Whole people bring wholeness to others, and attract whole people.
Over the past three years, this is one of the most fundamental truths of service relationships that goes undiscussed in the online space. Everyone talks about attracting ideal clients and how important they are. Some talk about “who” we have to be to attract them. But very few understand that the “who” they advocate for is other to you. It inflicts more damage. That “Who” means moving towards being somebody else.
That’s why I focus on how we do being in the world. How our hurts, fears, insecurities, wounds, self-criticisms, habits, beliefs, thoughts, patterns…act back upon us. How reality is collaborative, and how without knowing it, we collaborate with our own wounds, amplifying them. Making ourselves feel less and less worthy, and accidentally taking wholeness from others. This impacts how easily we’re sold to and the results that we create. It impacts the number of sales we make, the investments we feel comfortable asking for, and even the results people have in collaboration with us. It impacts EVERYTHING in business.
The good news is that wholeness is never gone from you. It’s always present, you just have to learn to see it and advocate for it. Learn to accept, release and grow. Make a life that FITS you. Know that the exact stories that tell you “you’re broken” are the very ones which show you how to see your wholeness, and that of others.
Stepping into showing up that way attracts completely different people to you – often for very different experiences than the ones you’ve been delivering before. That’s a big part of why working on yourself and your business together is so important. More of you at the table means clients can bring more of them. It’s dynamic, exciting and so incredibly valuable and affirmative.
And so lastly, my love that never quite became: I’m no longer sitting with apologies for you. I forgive me, and I forgive you. I’ve learned so very much about the power of words, thoughts, beliefs, intentions, experiences, relationships, contexts and more. I’m helping others to embody that knowing, and turn it into beautiful, heart-centred businesses too. Wherever you are, I hope you’ve learned something that’s as meaningful to you.
Read Letter 3: A Letter to Someone Who Makes Me Laugh
