Reparenting season 101.

Holly Gottlieb is recruiter & connector for purpose-driven businesses. This article is part of a Substack series exploring the intersection of consciousness, business and careers: https://www.wholecollective.net/

It’s Sunday morning. After a period of existential professional doubt, let’s go hide in a cupboard and pretend we don’t have to deal with the f*ckery of being alive with bills to pay, words seem to be flowing again.?

Sometimes I ask myself why do I write? Is this really appropriate to share publicly? A friend in the UK told me I was breaking the LinkedIn rules. I got a kick out of that.

Am I just seeking validation or pity by sharing TMI feelings through music or poetry or this. Maybe. I see no harm in asking myself that question. But then again, writing has been such a cathartic process, and it kinda feels these days that all rules are out the window. We’re navigating a whole new world, which seemingly has a lot more FEELING in it.

Giving words to the weird things going on inside of me, to the process, to the feelings, to emotions… it seems to help unlock something. And then it turns out that most of the time other people are feeling exactly the same thing. So, hey we’re not alone in this after all.

I just googled ‘self-esteem’, seeing as that seemed to be the buzzword this week.?

‘Self-esteem is how we value and perceive ourselves. It's based on our opinions and beliefs about ourselves, which can feel difficult to change.’

Well LEMME tell you, this self-perception thing can be MIGHTILY warped at times, but I like the fact this says ‘feel difficult’. My god it does feel difficult, but it doesn’t mean that it actually is. ?

I met an investment banker friend last week. At 33, she’s the first female partner in her firm, 20 years younger than any of the others. She loves the work she does, gets to work with some incredible businesses and founders, is happily married, is magnificently personable, likeable... all the things.

I probed… ‘How?! How is it possible to seemingly tick every box of career, money, fulfilment, relationship, and genuine happiness?...’

‘My parents gave me really good self esteem.’

Well of course. So inevitably the feelings of insecurity come up for me. I’m having a brief moment of lostness, of uncertainty about what the next step is. Why does this business and money and job stuff feel so hard at times? The old compare and despair I know too well.

PERCEPTION WARP. WHAT A LOAD OF BS!?

For some reason, our brains and perception have been trained to see what we don’t have, rather than what we do. For all the ten pieces of positive feedback we get, the majority of us will only hear the one that’s negative. And we’ll be stuck like that, until we start to peel back the layers of why.?

The thing is, I want to understand where these feelings of lostness come from, where these bouts of existential dread and despair originate, so that I can be kind to those pieces, and allow them to not rule the story anymore.?

I tread carefully in writing this, because this isn’t a blame our parents kinda post. In most cases, they were doing the best they could, with what they knew. But understanding how these patterns and behaviours shape us into adults, into the kind of careers we choose, into the kind of success we find, right down into the very dollars we make, is total liberation to me.

AND, not only that, but actually a necessary exploration if we want to reach the stars in dreams and aspirations and success. Because pretty much all of us do have these imprints from childhood, limiting the show in some way, whether we’re conscious of them or not. So in those moments of doubt and despair, I’m being given another opportunity to go deeper, to? get closer to what I really desire.?

This investor friend is a rarity, but also an example of what is possible when we start out with that emotional attunement. It’s never too late to change. But the magic is understanding that we can learn how to give it to ourselves.

Build self-esteem. Heal that warped perception. It is reparenting season after all.

Right now I’m questioning a LOT. I’m questioning this desire to build a business, to be a freelancer, heck I was even questioning the music…

WHO DO I THINK I AM IN DARING TO DREAM?!

Friends reassure me this is another step in the surrendering process. I thought that surrender point was going to be graceful, where I just get to open my arms to it all and say YES. Not sad face, depressed and resigned.?

Feeling lost for a minute is ok. Feeling like I want to give it all up is ok. Moving through these tides of emotions is a process. I have a deep support system. I have tools. In choosing to build a business, it wasn’t the first time these pangs of doubt came up, and it certainly won’t be the last.?

I guess one of the questions I keep returning to in all this, is how do I financially support myself, whilst doing work that feels purposeful, meaningful and that I’m really proud of. And to what end is that possible in a company, or can it only be by creating it ourselves??

On the one hand I want the freedom and the autonomy of working for myself, building a brand I believe in, and on the other, I’m tired. Freelancing is exhausting. Being always on. Thinking about the next piece of work and business development.?

I WANT THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS.?

And, when the self-esteem is low, when that perception is warped, the mountain to build a freelance business feels almightily high.?

I think there’s an idea (one that I have certainly prescribed to) that working for yourself is the only way to win this game.?

But at some point, when is it not working anymore? When do we (I) have the honesty to say, ok something needs changing here. The number of times I’ve heard people navigate these moments of transition, going back into careers they never dreamed they would, or through no choice of their own, get dumped by companies only to realise that they were miserable in that job anyway.

Humility 101.?

Getting past the shame and embarrassment of saying, ‘maybe I was wrong, maybe I do just need a job after all’, is one way to do that.

And maybe I wasn’t wrong. But there was a path I needed to dance along a little longer to gather more information.

This morning there is a sense of renewed clarity. Ok yes, I really would like a job right now. I really would like to be able to breathe for a minute. And, whilst a few days ago, I felt paralysed by that idea - what would I do, who would hire me, THE IRONY OF A RECRUITER LOOKING FOR WORK, blah blah blah - I got clear on the next step.

All these mental health startups that have funding… I believe I actually have a lot to offer. In what role, I’m not exactly sure. Whether it is a fit, I don’t fully know. But can I now see a path which ties into the wider vision of Whole Collective. I got a glimpse. Maybe yes.?

So I guess this is a reframe of the idea of ‘giving up’. Maybe it’s not giving up the idea of working for myself, but recognising that there’s another component that I need right now. A little more stability. A little more security. And a desire to build this self-esteem so that these feelings of compare and despair aren’t so debilitating.?

And how do I build this esteem, giving it to myself as adult Holly?

Through esteemable acts and decisions is how. And as much as I’ve resisted the idea, sometimes having a job and a solid paycheck, and working with other people… that’s pretty good for self-esteem.

Maybe it doesn’t have to be all or or nothing. Can I hold the perception that maybe there’s a solution out there which satisfies my needs, that I can’t see yet? I am so very willing to try.

Someone told me this week, ‘take your problems to God, not the solutions’.

There’s always an answer we can’t yet see.

—Holly Gottlieb (Founder, Whole Collective)