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About ten years ago I was in a perfectly fine marriage living a perfectly fine life. He was (and still is) a good man. We had our four-bedroom home in the suburbs, nice cars, 401ks and promising careers.
I was an achiever, consistently reaching for the next challenge professionally. I was in corporate marketing, becoming a Director before the age of 30 and a Chief Marketing Officer one month before the age of 40. To achieve that level of success, I had to be driven, confident, goal-oriented, and unfortunately, willing to often be the only female voice at the table.
I brought more than my fair share of masculine energy into my job. To be taken seriously, I thought I had to be that stereotypical female executive bitch. I pushed myself and my team for results and had the belief that hard work was the singular path to success.
And I brought that same driven and controlling energy home with me at night.
There was no magic switch that I could flip between my office and my front door that would allow me to soften in my marriage, making myself vulnerable and letting him take care of me. I was the primary breadwinner. I was the one who made the decisions. I was the one in charge. And it was undoubtedly one of the primary reasons why my marriage ultimately crashed and burned.
My husband had a younger niece who struggled quite a bit. At 20 years old she was already a recovering alcoholic, struggled in all of her closest relationships, and was always seeking deeper answers to life’s essential questions. At the time, that made me incredibly uncomfortable, and I had very little patience for what I viewed as weakness. Now, I understand that those were the parts of myself that I wasn’t yet willing to see or own.
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Years later, long after the marriage ended and long after the marketing career imploded, I began seeking answers myself. I wanted to stop failing in my relationships. I wanted to feel better about what I was doing and who I was being. No one around me seemed to have those answers — certainly not my family and none of my professional peers. I sought new teachers I had never heard of, began reading self-help books I had formerly judged, and stopped running so damn hard so that I could get quiet enough to hear my own voice and inner wisdom.
I found coaching and dove-in with the same tenacity I had other parts of my professional life. I attained my Master level certification, wrote six #1 international best-selling books within two years, and quickly built a successful six-figure coaching practice to replace my corporate income.
I chose to focus my practice on marriage and relationships because that was where I had to overcome my most significant struggles, and therefore, where I learned and grew the most over the years. The people I serve now feel just as lost and confused as my ex-husband’s niece did. I hardly see them as broken, but rather disconnected from themselves and genuinely seeking answers and a way back home.
I also opened myself up to love again. Not the controlling and distant relationship I had created with my first husband, but a relationship where I allowed myself—at times forced myself—to change the habitual behavior I had practiced for so long and finally, soften. I could let my guard down, I didn’t have to be in charge, and I could let myself be genuinely cared for by someone who wanted to take the reins and be the strong one.
What I found was that allowing myself to be soft didn’t take away any of my strength. As a matter of fact, it made me stronger because now I was being intentional and making the choice about how I wanted to show up in my life and my most important relationships. I can bring the strong and driven part of me (the masculine part of me) when necessary; that’s easy. But I can also allow the softer and more delicate parts of myself to be present (the feminine parts of me) when they need a little love and attention.
Each of us has both masculine and feminine traits within us. Becoming intentional about when and how to use each of them in different areas of our lives broadens our ability to live and love more fully.
There are plenty of people that considered my old life with a big title, big home and big bank account as successful; I did. But what I am so grateful to know now is that I am far more successful as a human being, as a sister, as a friend, a lover, and partner than I ever was so many years ago. I know this to be true because when I look at myself in the mirror today, I am proud of what I did with the second chance I was given. And I’m not done yet.
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Photo credit: Getty Images
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