Growth and Community: What to do when you outgrow your community | ep60
About this episode:
Something we don’t talk about enough is that, as we grow, we sometimes outgrow our current communities. One of the hardest things you will face on your self-growth journey is realizing that those around you often aren’t along for the same ride.
This is one of the most heart-breaking parts of growth. It’s a topic that inevitably comes up with each and every one of my clients.
After months of working on themselves, of facing their darkest parts, and transforming their most painful beliefs, they get to the other side and realize that their current community no longer shares their values and vision.
And so, they step out into the world as this new more fully realized version of themselves and it’s as if no one recognizes them.
They hear refrains of:
“Why are you acting so strange”
“You’re so sensitive now”
”This is so unlike you”
Then, they either revert to a former version of themselves that their people know or they come out blazing trying to change everyone and their mom ordering a copy of The 4 Agreements for anyone who will listen.
I know what it feels like to play small in order to make them more comfortable.
I know what it feels like to ignore your new formed boundaries and insights.
I know what it feels like to eagerly share all your learnings only to be meant by blank stares or resistance.
Listen, I know because I’ve been there.
I know how scary it is to realize that the people who got you this far, can no longer get you to the next mile marker.
The truth is that our communities are meant to transform and change as we transform and change. Now, this doesn’t mean we need to cut everyone out of our lives. Transforming and changing can mean re-evaluating our relationships and becoming more deliberate about how and with whom we spend our time.
Transforming and changing can mean showing up as our fullest selves and letting others deal with their discomfort. And yes, transforming and changing can mean finding a whole new community for yourself. So I want to be totally straight with you: Yes, for a period of time, it will feel lonelier on the other side and it will hurt.
But I want to assure you that what is coming, the community that you are manifesting, will be so damn amazing. They will be a reflection of the transformation that you have embarked on. They will be a reflection of who you have become.
If this is resonating with you, then tune in to this episode where I share my favorite tools and concepts that got me through the difficulties of outgrowing my community.
A quote to take with you:
“Transforming and changing can mean showing up as our fullest selves and letting others deal with their discomfort.”
This week I invite you to:
Ask yourself:
What does community mean to me?
I would love to feel more… in my community.
Want to dive deeper through journal prompts?
If you want to be in the know and get each Mindset Monday straight to your inbox complete with journal prompts to take you even further, get on my email list.
About your host, Shirin Eskandani
Hi, love! I’m Shirin.
Coach, speaker, writer, and life alchemist.
I teach you how to trust your intuition again, tune out all the BS, and let your heart lead the way.
Because once you strengthen your inner GPS, decisions become easier, boundaries become clearer, and belly laughs become a daily thing.
A LITTLE BIT ABOUT ME:
I’m a certified life coach (accredited through the International Coach Federation)
My husband and I met on Instagram and we live in Brooklyn, NY with our plant babies
I have a masters degree in Music and was a professional opera singer for twelve years. I worked all over the world singing on stage at Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Opera (more on that later…).
I believe in the woo just as much as I do the work (internal and external). No amount of crystals and affirmations will make up for a lack of a healthy mindset and aligned action.
I love all the Real Housewives franchises. Don’t make me choose one… seriously, don’t.
+ Read the episode transcript here
Welcome to wholehearted coaching the podcast. If you're looking for more purpose, more passion, more joy in your life and you have come to the right place. Let's create your dream life while living your dream life. Okay love. Hi love. Welcome to wholehearted coaching the podcast. This is where we take a deeper dive into my mindset Monday post, which you can read on Instagram at wholehearted coaching or you can get the full post plus journal prompts. When you sign up for my email list, you can do that in the show notes or you can head to my website wholehearted dash coaching comm so today we're talking about self growth and relationships and more specifically, the painful realization that many of us who have gone on this path of self growth and self development kind of realize that often our community, our current community, no longer reflects the person that we are becoming. And this is an incredibly difficult and painful part of self growth. And I think one that is not discussed enough. And I'm thinking a lot about this because right now we are nearing the end of my six month group coaching program, whole hearted woman, and this topic of community inevitably comes up around the end of the program, because these women have gone through this amazing six month transformation with me totally changing their beliefs, their outlook, their ways of being. And they're on this really amazing high, feeling full of themselves in the most amazing way right full of excitement, full of pride, full of joy. And then they step out into the world, the world that they know, right with their friends, their colleagues, their family, their partners, and they're like, wait, what, like record scratch. And they become acutely aware of toxic behavior, unhealthy mindsets, like all the stuff that they were working on, and transforming is alive and well in their communities. And maybe before they were aware of some of it, right, but now it's like this huge chiasm it's like everything is being highlighted for them. And it's overwhelming and frustrated. Here you are feeling so incredibly rooted and grounded. And sure and clear, having gone on this amazing journey of growth, and you get to the other side. And there's almost no one there to greet you. It's like getting back from a really long trip abroad. And no one is at the airport. Right? We've all been there. You come back and you're all tanned. And maybe you bought a hat on your trip and you like you're wearing your beautiful Flopsy hat, and you have all these stories you want to tell. And maybe now you have some sort of intercontinental accent that you want to share with your community. And there is no one waiting for you at the airport. Welcome to growth, everyone. So let's get into today's Mindset Monday, it reads, here's a truth. One of the loneliest journeys you can ever take is the one in which you discover yourself. So let's rewind to was seven years ago when I really decided to change my life to transform and I got into mindset, mindfulness and coaching. And it was it was an amazing experience for me. And of course, there were parts of it that weren't so amazing, right, but building self awareness and having tools to navigate my way through life in a more joyful easeful way. I mean, that was incredible, having the tools to change my mindset, and just feeling this general shift in how I was operating in my life in a way that felt so much more aligned and healthy for me. And as I started to build my self awareness and as I started to have this better experience of life, I started to become really aware of the contrast between how I was living life and how my community was kind of living life and experiencing life, which was exactly how I used to be living life and experiencing life. And I'd be hanging out with family or friends. I didn't have a partner at the time and it was like this game of whack a mole. Like I became so acutely aware of their negative mindsets, wack unhealthy coping, coping mechanisms wack self judgment wack striving, wack reacting wack like it was just, I just be I'm so aware of that. And so I started to do one of two things. One option was that I would either show up into spaces, and I would play small, I wouldn't embody my newfound fullness in order for them to feel more comfortable. Because that's the version of me that they knew. Or I would try to convince them that my way of being was the way to go, right, like, born again, Christian, trying to sway everyone over to my side with Marianne Williamson quotes and talking about the universe. And as I'm saying this, I hope we can all agree that neither of these options is okay. Right, that we have all done this, if you have gone on the path of self growth, self development, you have played with these two options, the one option of you know, just whatever, I'll just be my old self, I'll put on this old outfit I used to always put on of who I am, because it's just easier for them, right? This this is, quote unquote, easier for all of us. Or we try and convince them that what we're doing is what they should be doing. So let's talk about both of these reactions. Because I think that these are two options, we kind of automatically turn to in this situation, I want to look at them. And I also want to look at a third option, too. And the third option is one in which we can show up as our fullest selves, and instead of trying to fix them, really tending to ourselves. So let's talk first about option one, the option in which we play small in order to make others feel more comfortable, the option in which we revert back to our former self, because it just seems like too much work too difficult to show up as this fully realized self. So I want to share with you a story, an origin story, by the melanesians of the new hybrids, or hybrids. These are a set of islands in just east of New Guinea. So the melanesians believe that we humans used to be able to shed our skin, like like snakes, like many, many animals do, and that is what made us immortal, this ability to shed our skin, but we lost this ability. And this story explains why. So one of the older women in this community in this group, went down to the river to shed her skin, she was growing old. And this was a natural thing. But when you're growing older, it's time for you to shed your skin. And so she went down to the river and she threw her old skin in the water. And she noticed that as the skin floated down the river, it kind of got caught on a branch on a tree that had fallen. And she observed this, and she went home. And when she got home where she had left her family, her children, they all reacted her child reacted and and refused to recognize her crying that this is not my mother, this this this, this person is not my mom, I know this older woman and this person is not my mother, and this child was having this real reaction to seeing this version of its mother. And so the woman to pacify her child went after her old skin and put it on. And from that point on, human beings were unable to shed their skin. And this is exactly what happens when we transform. people no longer recognize us. They no longer quote unquote know who we are. We hear refrains of Why are you acting like this? This is so unlike you, I even heard from one person I don't like this new you Is this because of all these books you're reading. I don't like this new you. So for me, I would hear these refrains, I would see how they would react to this beautiful new skin that I had this beautiful new version of myself that I had that I was so proud of. And yet I would show up in these spaces, and I would have these reactions. These reactions have this isn't you? This isn't who we know. And so I started to put my old skin on again. And because I would put on my old skin, I noticed that I started to censor my happiness or joy around my friends. I wouldn't share my good news. I wouldn't share what felt good because I realized that so many of my connections were through what was difficult. Right. Have you noticed this? that so often common topic, our common bonding topic with perhaps our friends or family or partners is how terrible things are, are more about how difficult things are, are suffering. And now this isn't to say that we're not supposed to talk about challenges and difficulties. But I became acutely aware that like, Whoa, so many of my relationships were founded on talking about our own misery or other people's misery. So, of course, this new skin that I had wasn't about this, my new skin was like, I want to talk about the challenges, but I also want to talk about my joy. But I felt like no one was here for my joy for my goodness. So I put on the old skin. And I wouldn't share what was on my mind and my heart, I wouldn't share what I believed not in a preachy way, which we're gonna get into, but in an honest way, I was scared to show up as this, me, this new skin, I also would notice that because of this, because I was like wearing this, the skin, this outfit, that wasn't mine anymore, I would leave conversations, I would leave, you know, meetings and dates, like just exhausted and feeling more alone than before, not really feeling nourished, which is really what community is for, it's to nourish us, it's to hold us. And so I see how it makes sense for us to revert to the version that they know, to make them feel comfortable. But love, it's at the cost of our comfort. It's us going back to the river, going to that branch, grabbing that old skin, that no longer fits us, that's no longer ours, and putting it on. I think it's so telling that in the story from the melanesians, that the first humans shed their skin, and that is what made us immortal. We have this ability to let go of one version of ourselves and transform into the next iteration, this idea that this is natural and needed, we are meant to shift and change and to let go. That is what is natural. What is unnatural is holding on to who you no longer are. So if you're someone who tends to lean towards option one, love putting on that old skin is coming at a cost and it's a cost to you. Right? There comfort over your own their peace of mind over your own. So that's option one. Now, let's talk about option two. This is the one where you show up in spaces, trying to tell everyone how they need to change and what is best for them. Now, let me tell you, I did this one hard. I wanted everyone to have what I had, I kept telling everyone they needed to meditate and to get a coach and do this. And that. And let me tell you, it really turned people off. off for me, but also the ideas I was talking about. And I'll never forget, but I was really pushing coaching to my sister like I was like, you need to go see a coach, you should get a coach, I had this great coach coaching is the best and for she was like Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then she totally shut me down. Like, you know, if you have a sister, or a sibling, you know, the way sisters and siblings can just shut you down. We got into a huge fight. And I of course was like super wounded after this, like, how dare she, how dare she do this. I'm just trying to help her. I'm trying to help her life. And I was just righteous and wounded. And then I remembered when the same thing happened to me, before I started to get interested in my own self growth. And it felt like someone was forcing their beliefs onto me. And I was just so put off by it. And I realized that we come to our growth when we are meant to come to our growth. I realized all I could do is live by example, meaning just live and be an embody these new things I believed in. And let me tell you years later, so many of my friends and family have started to ask me about the books I read. The coaches I admire the tools I used, and more than a few people in my life have totally transformed not because I told them to but because they saw the change in who I was and the experiences I was having. And then they reached a point where where they were like well, I kind of want a little bit of that as well. So let's talk about option three, which is showing up as your fullest self using these amazing tools that you are learning for yourself to attend to yourself. Not for them, not to fix them. But for yourself. So last week, I was talking to a client and she's someone who's finishing up wholehearted woman. And she was really struggling with integrating again with her family after working with me. And I think I have to put a disclaimer in here, I think COVID has also exacerbated everything, because in the before times, we would still see our families and friends more regularly. But right now we're not seeing them as much so reintegrating, after you've gone on this path of self growth and self development, and transformation is like being thrown into an extremely cold lake or body of water, right. So I really want to put this out there that reintegration right now is, is a tough one. And and I can sense in the collective, especially with my communities, that fear of when actually COVID restrictions end, which is a blessing, obviously, but also when they end that means we have to reintegrate with people that perhaps we now realize, may not be our people. So this client of mine was telling me that, you know, she was seeing her family more and more now, because people are getting vaccinated, and she was getting really frustrated. And she was showing up in these spaces, and they were doing all these unhealthy things and unhealthy mindset. And they and they weren't respecting her boundaries. And and she was like, I just, you know, I just, I want to show them, I want to show them who I am, I want to like, show them what they could be doing. And I said to her love, your tools are yours, and yours alone. Meaning the tools that you cultivate on your self growth journey, are only meant for you. They are what help you navigate the moments with your parents that are difficult, they are not meant to fix your family, your friends, your partner, unless they ask for it. But until that point, those tools are meant for you those tools are meant for when you are in those spaces showing up as your fullest self, how can you tend to yourself? How can you nurture yourself? ROM das has a really great saying that goes something like you can be the most enlightened being and then you go home for the holidays. Right that even the most enlightened being is tested, right when they go home. So when I go home, I know that there are going to be things that are going to be triggering for me or difficult for me. And so I figure out like a game plan, like what do I need to be emotionally and spiritually and mentally healthy. So like I double down on my meditation, when I go home, I double down on journaling, I double down on self compassion and just compassion in general. Because yes, I would love to say when I go home, I'm able to use all my mindset tools. But that doesn't happen. You know, you go home, something comes up and you react and you get angry or you start whatever it is that you do. And you can judge yourself and be like, you know so much better. Right? You have the tools to not do this right now you're even more difficult on yourself, because you're like, you have all the tools in your toolkit to nurture yourself and tend to yourself and I can't believe you reacted to what x, x or y or whomever said, whatever. And it's like now self compassion, self compassion. And so love your tools are yours and yours alone. So in this third option, we're showing up with our new skin, right, we're showing up as our fully transformed an embodied self. And we're using these amazing tools that we've cultivated, for ourselves, to ground ourselves to be compassionate for ourselves. You know, a lot of the times we think when we talk about community and self growth, that we have to cut everyone out. And I don't believe that's true. But I do believe we have to become really intentional and deliberate with who gets our time and how they get that time, we have to become really intentional and deliberate with the purpose of our friendships and our relationships. So I always say when you have these moments of oh my gosh, I don't know if this community is mine anymore. First thing you do grieve, allow yourself to be sad, because these are the people who you have spent so much time with who knows so much of your history. These are the people who have brought you to this point. And the realization that these people who brought you to this Mile Marker may not be the same people who take you to the next one is incredibly sad. And there's a sense of loneliness and a sense of loss and it is absolutely real and true. So love, grieve, feel the feelings. Allow yourself to have that. And then once you have allowed yourself to process that it's Really reassessing, reevaluating, becoming intentional and deliberate. You know, some people we don't want to lose, we don't want to not have in our lives. For instance, for me, my family there my ride or die, regardless of what they do, I'm going to be there with them. And I know for some people, that is not the case, some people find this with their partners where they're like, wow, I don't know if we can work out. And some people say, No, no, no, we can figure this out together. So this is really a personal journey for you of figuring out who gets to be in this community. How do they get to be in this community? Right, that second part is really, really important. How do they get to be part of this community, the German root word for friendship actually means a place of highest safety, a place of highest safety. That is what our friendships, our relationships, should feel like. Now, not all of them are going to feel like that. I want that someone described to me that friendships relationships are should be like a mountain, and at the very, very top, which is the people you get the most vulnerable with that you're the most honest with that that place of highest safety, right, that top of the mountain, there's only room for maybe two or three, four people, I don't know, maybe even one person. And then as you go down the mountain, there is more space. But as you go down the mountain, that's when you're getting into friendships or relationships that are fun, or the ones that you love going to, I don't know, a retreat with or hiking with or whatever. But this is about you getting intentional and deliberate with how people get to be in your life, not how they get to act or react that's up to them, right. We can't control what they do. But we can control kind of how we interact with them, how we go out with them, how we conversate with them, all those things, those are up to you. So if you're finding yourself in this place, where you're like, Oh my gosh, I've done all this self transformation. And I don't know if these people are my people, I understand I have been there. First, grieve, allow yourself to feel that sadness. Second, become intentional and deliberate. Show up into the spaces with your new skin, those new tools that you've developed, those are for you. And the third thing is that I really want to add is go find that community. The courage to put yourself in places and in conversations where you may meet those people is a courageousness that we don't talk about enough. Oh my gosh, as an adult, it is very scary to make friends. Let me tell you, I get it when you're like oh my god, I'm like 30 something 40 something? How the heck am I supposed to make friends now? This is actually when you make those really beautiful friendships. I will tell you this, when I did my self growth, I was like, Okay, I feel like I need some new people in my life that really kind of reflect where I am and where I'm going. And I really put this intention out into the universe into the world. And I have cultivated the most amazing friendships in my 30s friendships that develop from sliding into someone's dm friendships that developed from going to a retreat, going to a workshop that was aligned with what I believed. This is how we create that new community, we actually have to do a little bit of work, we have to get a little bit more intentional. It takes courage, I'm not gonna lie, it's very scary, totally scary. You're like, it's like going on a blind date, a blind date with someone you've never met. I have done this. I've literally gone on friendship, blind dates, and some of them have been so amazing. And some of those people are now my closest friends. So my love, listen, you have gone on this amazing journey, or you are embarking on this journey or you are in the middle of your journey. Wherever you are on your journey. The transformation you're going through is a transformation that will also be reflected in your community. It will shift it will change. But all things are meant to transform. That's just a constant in life. The only constant is that things are going to be changing, including you including your community. Here is to all of us finding friendships, finding relationships that feel like a true place of highest safety. Until next week, love I will talk to you then. Thank you so much for joining me this week. If you liked this week's episode, please share it with a friend. comment and rate this podcast until next week. See you later. Love