something a little different this week...

There's something I've been wrestling with lately, and I'm going to share it with you in real time instead of waiting until I have it all figured out.

Like many late-diagnosed neurodivergent and recovering people-pleasers, I've spent much of my life trying to prevent judgment and rejection anymore than it already was happening by masking and accommodating any and everyone around me in order to find safety. 

When it came to sharing online (I've been blogging, creating, and sharing on the internet for over 15 years now 🤯) and trying to find how I showed up authentically, I spent years trying to find the line between what to share and what not to share. Somewhere along the line I found the advice to "share from scars, not wounds"—to only talk about the hard stuff once you've healed from it, once you have the lesson wrapped up in a neat bow.

And that framing gave me a lot of the safety I needed and was searching for then.

But lately, it's felt more suffocating than supportive. 
More restrictive than expansive. 
More like I need to be perfect, instead of being human. 

All of which is the opposite of the work I do with and for others today. 

(We are so often our own blindspots...)

So I set off to do some discovery (it's part of why I've been so quiet online outside of this newsletter alongside a perfect storm of life events) and I realized that I'm most connected individually, with my clients, and with this community, not when sharing from scars OR wounds, but when I'm sharing from emergence.

From the messy, alive space of becoming and defining.

Then this morning I was doing a meditation exercise that completely shifted how I see my own work.

For years, I've signed off hundreds of coaching/mentoring calls thinking "How can what I do be worth so much? I'm not PROVIDING anything tangible!" Then in the next breath, I'm also thinking: "That felt so easy. We just talked for an hour. I wasn't building complex systems or process deliverables for every call. How can I feel so good about that?"

It got me thinking so I went back and looked at messages from past and current clients as they processed in the days after a call. Read reviews after they finished programs. And it made me realize that when it felt easiest for me was also when it felt life-changing for them.

Not because I'm giving them perfect frameworks or systems or answers—ie. solving their problems for them.

But because I'm giving them something far rarer:

The experience of being completely seen and accepted exactly as they are.

Which of course, got me thinking about the difference between two approaches:

Permission vs. Instruction

Most business advice follows the instruction model: "Here's the framework, follow these steps, do it exactly this way."

But what if the most powerful thing isn't giving people instructions?

What if it's giving them permission?

👉 Permission to trust their own instincts. 
👉 Permission to honor their natural rhythms. 
👉 Permission to exist exactly as they are while they figure out who they're becoming.

Of course, two things can be true—we need both permission and instruction. Even I have frameworks, but they're intentionally designed to support you through all stages of growth and help you build self-trust so you can always give yourself the permission you need.

For too long the online business space has leaned too far into "do it exactly this way to be successful" frameworks instead of "giving you a trellis for support as you grow" frameworks.

And this permission-giving shows up in how I think about presence itself:

Filling Space vs. Inhabiting Space

Because there's a difference between filling space and inhabiting space.

Filling space feels like forcing yourself to take up room you're not sure you deserve.

Inhabiting space is allowing yourself to naturally expand anywhere, exactly as you are—through self-acceptance, with intention, and referring back to self-trust.

I'm always trying to make sure I don't fill space in my client sessions.

Instead focusing on creating conditions for them to inhabit their own space more fully.

I bring that same philosophy to the community I'm building too. Just Because Club isn't a place where I teach you to create better, but a space where you get permission to create authentically, alongside others doing the same thing.

🫂 Community without agenda. 
🎨 Creativity just because. 
✨ Space to become without having to arrive anywhere.

With all that said, I'm still figuring this out. Still discovering what it means to share from emergence instead of waiting to have some brilliant conclusion. But that aliveness, that not-knowing-exactly-where-this-is-going energy?

I'm leaning into the pleasure and magic that lives there.