I didn’t root myself in worth and possibility.

I was painfully aware that I could no longer “hustle” and stay well. My body had no margin for being pushed beyond capacity without obvious side effects like illness and injury.

I didn’t know it then, but I was about to trade “hustle” for “service.”

It probably isn’t hard to guess how that worked out.

I have met some wonderful people in the entrepreneurial community. I imagine we are all “misfit toys” (genX reference?) in a way. Stepping out and building something all our own.

It feeds part of my soul to work with people who have innovative ideas, particularly those who are challenging the status quo.

I have also given away more hours and dollars in value (both as a coach and a lawyer) than I would like to count to pre-revenue, early revenue, and nonprofit businesses and entrepreneurs.

I have neither asked for nor expected financial reciprocity. Even as my multi- year mental and physical health crisis left me with a pile of debt and no assets to speak of.

On the speaking side of things, I have recounted my own personal story of devastation over and over and over again. While telling our trauma stories can be powerful, it is not without its own very real cost.

And the place where I struggle the most to set boundaries and ask for what I need is with my own children and inside the home where I live.

In February of this year I was met with a startling realization. While I have traveled light years in terms of my capacity to notice, honor and tend to my own body’s needs and experiences, I have been in a non-reciprocal relationship with my community and the people I serve.

I didn’t root my business or my contributions in my own worth and possibility. I believed that somehow it was incumbent upon me to alchemize my pain for the good of other people. That if I could do that, somehow all of the pain and trauma I had lived through would be “worth it.”

Somehow I could prove my worth (even as a misfit toy).

And I didn’t “join” a community when I stepped back into the world after the days, months and years lost to mental illness.

I stepped back into roles that felt safe and familiar. Facilitator. Speaker. Leader. Space Holder. Giver. Surrogate Mother.