Being LOVE is not being a pushover.
I repeat, being love is NOT being a pushover.
Today I had to do one of my least favorite things in the world. I had to call someone who owes me money. It wasn’t an individual, it was a big company that I had a contract with. I had fulfilled my end of the agreement on the project and had never received my payment. It was not easy for me, I felt my fear boil up because I didn’t want to “bother” them. I even was apologetic in my first couple of emails to them a month ago. I prayed for guidance and help around it and I got three wonderful angelic messages. The first was while I was out to go grab some green juice this morning and listening to one of my favorite podcast’s She Did It Her Way and the guest of the particular episode was a woman named Ann Ricketts who now teaches presentation courses at silicon valley biggies like facebook and twitter. I was paying for my juice and going on my way when I heard Ann talk about how women over apologize and under qualify what they do. She talked about how we have this habit (that a lot of men don’t) where we will say, “Sorry to bother you” or “I won’t take up too much of your time” instead of just standing in our power and owning it.
Ding Ding Ding.
Own it. I knew I had to send another email and try to get this figured out. The check was 3 months late. Then I got another hit. Call Dad and ask him how he would phrase it. Ah, of course. My dad, my superhero, famous for telling me to,”put my big girl panties on and deal with it” when I need a little loving nudge would be a great person to call for this. I get him on the phone and the first thing he says is, “stop emailing, start calling.” Makes a lot of sense, emails are kind of passive and don’t really convey how serious I am. He also told me that if in a few days they still don’t come up with the check that I might want to take a little visit to their office, show them how serious I am in person. Most importantly he reminded me that I didn’t have to apologize for any of it! That we had a contract, I upheld my end of the bargain, they did NOT uphold theirs and although I could and should handle it professionally in a classy manner that I needed to stand my ground. If I was going to be a pushover, they would be happy to push me over and keep the money.
When we love ourselves and our grounded in who we are and the good work we do in the world, we don’t need to apologize for asking for the money we are owed.
Lastly, before I picked up the phone, I was reminded of a lovely client I had a session with just yesterday who was struggling to stand in her power and say no to things that weren’t expansive for her in her daily life. I realized that the same muscles I was explaining to her to build, I needed to keep working on at a bigger level. We are constantly strengthening our love muscles and what starts out as saying no to events and people who are not in your highest good at that moment evolves to standing in your power and asking for what you are owed unapologetically.
I prayed before I got on that phone. I sent them love and I asked that the situation be resolved in a peaceful, loving manner. I wish I could say that they apologized, wrote me a check and had someone drop it off, that did not happen. The book is not yet closed on the matter and I will continue to stand in my power from a place of love in this situation till it’s resolved but I learned a really important lesson on an even deeper level. Love does not shrink, love does not wimper, love allows us to have a strong foundation in the storm and an immoveable peace in all situations.
I’m a pisces, I’m naturally not someone who likes confrontation. I would love nothing more than for all situations to go smoothly and not have to deal with ruffles. I had been praying about this particular situation for a few weeks now, asking for it to be resolved easily and timely. However, sometimes we don’t know what’s in our best interest and while I would have LOVED for the check to come in the mail when it was supposed to and this situation to have been remedied immediately, perhaps the path of greater growth was in me standing in my power and getting a much needed reminder that:
Being love is NOT being a pushover.
Being love is STRONG.
Being love is FIERCE.
Being love is POWERFUL.
Stand in that power. Stand in a place of love UNAPOLOGETICALLY.
Saying NO to people and events who drain you is self care, it’s loving yourself on a deep level.
Standing up for yourself from a centered place of love is nothing to apologize about.
You are pure LOVE and your are not a pushover.
