One morning last week my eyes popped open
in panic. I ran downstairs and started scrambling
for my phone. My husband called down,
“What’s going on? Why are you running around?”
“OMG I think today is the day I’m supposed to deliver a presentation to a bunch of yoga studio
owners about money mindset!” I cried. “And I
haven’t prepared for it at all!“
I checked my calendar and sighed with relief.
“Thank God, it’s not until tomorrow,”
I said.
As I prepped the dog’s breakfast, I started thinking about what I was going to say in my presentation the next day.
And for some reason—maybe the residue
of my morning panic?—I found myself in the
presence of a part of me who I call my
“Don’t Knower.”
My “Don’t Knower” is a teenager, and
she often turns up wringing her hands when
I’m gonna do something new,
something visible,
something hard.
Her whole schtick is wailing
“I don’t know what to do!“
She doesn’t realize that we’re 45 years old now;
we’ve seen fire and we’ve seen rain, and
there are very few things that we can’t
figure out or muddle through.
I love this tender, vulnerable part of me.
But I don’t let her drive the bus.
Instead, here’s how I handle her.
I say,
“Oh hello there you!
Thank you so much for being here.
I hear that you’re anxious about this.
Would you mind stepping back for a few minutes?“
Then I say to myself,
“OK self, what if you DID know?
What knowing is behind the not-knowing?“
… on this occasion, another part came forward, rolling her eyes.
She said, “EMMA. If there is
ONE FREAKING TOPIC that we know
backwards and forwards and inside out,
it is money mindset for yoga studio owners!
We lived that for 20 years in our last career!“
And it’s true, I had.
There are actually few people
in the world as qualified as I am
to coach yoga studio owners about
money mindset.
Yeah, I said what I said.
There are probably
FEW PEOPLE IN THE WORLD
as qualified as I am
to coach yoga studio owners
about money mindset!!!
And yet…
there is a part of me
who thinks I don’t know anything about it.
Who thinks I couldn’t conjure up 45 minutes
worth of comments about it!
It’s just wild, how our minds work.
Next time you’re feeling like you don’t know, I invite you to try out questions like this:
“OK self, what knowing is underneath the not-knowing?”
“Ok self, what might we say if we DID have the answer?”
“Ok self, what might somebody say who DOES know the answer?”
These get your “Don’t Knower” out of the way, so that you can actually start to consider the problem.
My loves, we’re all winging it, in this life.
You know enough to do whatever you need to do.
You DO know.
YOU KNOW.
PS I gave the presentation the next day and
it was a smasheroo. I enjoyed myself SO MUCH
and was invited back!