Come With Receipts! Part 1

“The one who disregards tradition, who looks for shortcuts, who merely declares him- or herself a guide- that person is a dangerous fool. These days all kinds of people offer themselves. Some are authentic; some are deluded; some are after money, sex, or power. Make sure your guide is properly initiated and has your interest at heart.”

Plant Spirit Medicine, Eliot Cowan

    I have been waiting a looong time to get my thoughts on paper in regards to discernment and most of it has been because I have experienced and seen so much especially from folks in the ‘spiritual’ world, (insert judgement here) that had they engaged with a spirit of discernment, they could have noticed a mile away was not for them. Spirituality has become incredibly reachable specifically because social media has provided access to everyone who is any one with any claims of spirituality and because people are questioning and leaving religion as they knew it, their spirits are seeking a community, leadership and guidance on how they should go about moving in the world. I too have been there, remember my previous ritual in writing, “When The Student Is Ready”?

    But everybody is not your somebody! Every teacher is not YOUR teacher and similarly every healer is not YOUR healer. I say this from a place of truth, definitely NOT from a place of, that person isn’t your teacher because I AM. I tell people all the time that seek me out for various forms of support, coaching and consulting, I am not the person for them. This helps me to remain checked into who I am and who I am actually supposed to be serving, because I am not meant to serve everyone (hint to other healers or spirituals reading this) and that’s okay. 

    When we lead people to believe that any and every spiritual person, teacher, pastor or minister is for them. We lead people to become conditioned and comfortable with abandoning their intuition, Spirit and their own spirit of discernment. Is that what your coach really wants? Is that what your mastermind program you’ve paid and invested in has told you under the guise of marketing or empowering you to invest in yourself?

    Alright, story time. Rewind the camera footage back to 2016 right. I was very much trying out various yoga classes, workshops, entrepreneur groups for women and happened to attend a morning brunch where there was a decent sized gathering. Besides the time of the brunch and the fact besides a Desi woman, I was the only woman of color, I showed up because I was determined to make my business thrive and learn from other women in my field that were successful. At this meeting there was a panel discussion with three wonderful and knowledgeable women discussing coaching and how coaching helps or aides in small businesses for women. Out of these ladies maybe two of them resonated with me, but again I was open to learning wisdom from anyone so I was going to take it all in. One of the ones I most resonated with in that moment happened to have a book out and if I weren’t a struggling artist at the time, I would have purchased her book. I didn’t but what I did do was get her card and approach her to tell her how much what she said resonated with me. Remember, I said resonated NOT inspired. 

    As I moved to approach her, she made every attempt to address every woman in the space even doing as much as walking around the large conference table and chairs centered in the room until I was one of the last left or seemingly appeared a bit stalkerish. Because of how this made me feel as a person, I kept the wisdom she provided but knew for sure I would not be ordering that book or making any additional effort to show up for her events. How people make you feel is real, there is wisdom in that experience so pay attention.

    Towards the end of the year I decided to attend a circle gathering at a yoga studio. I had already attended the grand opening of this studio and well, you’ll hear more about that some other time but I was going to their place for this specific event so I wasn’t concerned with the space. As I walked into the space (this is fairly normal) I was the only Black woman in the space, got it! I am open and here to share a space of sisterhood and love so, who cares right? During the event the music that was played was hip hop several times, (insert judgement) I hope my facial expressions didn’t show it but I definitely know in my head, I was thinking- now what the hell do they know about this? I noticed out of all of the women there, they all had this certain ‘airy’ and ‘fairy’ like vibe. As all of the women arrived in the room I noticed the one putting on the event was from the panel discussion and another attendee from that brunch and the other panelist was also here. We circled up and danced in the middle and were asked to all enter the circle at some point to dance and ‘twerk’ from our hips to release our feminine energy. Now, if you know me, I don’t twerk in public for NO BODY. I did engage by dancing in the circle, but I was not going to twerk and make myself the teacher or the lesson being amongst a group of women that did not share the cultural expression of twerking with me. No MA’AM. I was not going to become a twerk educator for no Venus or Aphrodities. 

    For the most part it was a decent evening of engaging with other women and being in sisterhood but a lot and I mean a LOT of the words and generalizations of women as mothers and sisters did not apply to me because I had a different cultural background than these women. It did not make them wrong and I am sure their wisdom landed for who it needed to land for, but it did not resonate with me at all. Event ends, I end up saying hello to the panelist again, I also speak to the host of the event and said my thank-yous. 

    Time moves forward of course and 2017 rolls in. I am in both of these ladies from the panel discussion facebook groups even though I don’t have much time. One begins to offer a free 1 hour coaching call for their mastermind group for the New Year and I happen to think maybe THIS is what I need, a little extra support. Now from my days in direct sales, I can read a marketing strategy and script like  Ms. Quad reading Lisa Nicole for filth, OKAY! She reaches out to me and we exchange phone numbers and schedule a good time for us to have this coaching call. When the time comes, she and I hop on the phone for a 30-minute call and she begins to decide HOW she can help me through her coaching program. I end up telling her I know it is an investment in myself but I have to think about it and see if I have the capacity in time, if she is the right person for me and if I will be able to financially afford it. (Most of these coaches do not or at the time did not offer sliding scales, more about that later.) She becomes incredibly uncomfortable and shares with me how she only has so much space for so many clients and how she specifically made time for me and has a few others after me. I explained to her how I am almost like a single mother at the time with two small children, no family near for support (my in-laws lived 4-hours away and are NOT responsible for raising my children), my husband is still stationed overseas and I am working and teaching to get my business off the ground. Ya’ll my NO, was not accepted as a NO, but as a try harder. There was more words, increasing pressure and then a suggestion to make at least the deposit payment that I could get back if I decided it wasn’t for me. I take full responsibility in having given this woman my card number in case I decided to do it, I did that and shouldn’t have.

Sheesh, this got much longer than I anticipated so I am going to come back with a part two, same title. Stay tuned.