This week I was facilitating an extra mentoring session for participants in our Sacred Selling course. A participant said, “Can I ask you a personal question, Mark? How did you step into your gifts?”
I stopped. Aware the silence had gone on too long, that she could’ve thought I was ignoring her, I said, “I don’t even know what to say. Let me sit with this.”
In the silence I thought about it. Had I stepped into my gifts? From the way she asked, she seemed to think I had.
I let the silence hang a little longer. I realized something obvious: she only saw me when I was “on.” As a client and a class participant, she saw me “delivering.” And despite the vulnerability I try to share in this weekly love letter to you all, I also try to make it useful, so I share vulnerabilities once I’ve processed them to some extent, walked with them.
You don’t see the tears on the screen. How could you? And how helpful would that be? Evidently it is helpful, sometimes.
Through all of my spiritual training, through my training as a spiritual teacher and healer, through my Masters of Divinity, what it comes down to is this:
I’m really helpless.
To some, this can sound like I’m judging myself, or that I’m beating myself up. But truly, it feels like a burden is lifted whenever I arrive back here. Whenever I can find the humility in my being to realize I can’t really do anything on my own.
If I look spiritual, it’s not because I’m endowed with some special holiness- at least not any more than you have been endowed with. And wow, that is some bright holiness we’ve all been endowed with.
I drink spirituality like a thirsty man coming out of the desert, because I’m a thirsty man coming out of the desert of the world.
About Stepping Into Your Gifts
You don’t step into your gifts, lace up your shoes, and you’re done. There’s the longing in us to be “done,” finished, to have completed and arrived.
What I’ve noticed is that I step into my gifts when two conditions are met: 1) there is a need, usually because people or a situation is in front of me that calls them forth and 2) I surrender and stop trying to be anything. I remember I’m helpless.
Something I need more practice at: Recognizing when I need my gifts for myself, and not just others. Getting out of my way and letting my gifts pour forth for me.
Now here’s a place where there are tears on the page. As I wrote that paragraph above, “wet eyes” as my 3 1/2 year old twin sons tell us after they’ve been crying.
The woman who asked that question gave me an extraordinary gift in the awareness of how I don’t allow the gifts the Divine has placed in my heart out in service to myself. She reminded me to stand in helplessness, and let my heart be open so the Divine can shine my gifts on me, too.
My gifts that I’m noticing in the moment?
- A deep sense of compassion and spaciousness to be who I am. (Deep breath. Everything is perfect and where it’s supposed to be, and I don’t need to be any more than I am.)
- Clarity in the path forward through questions I’ve been wrestling with about business direction. (Everything is perfect. The path forward is clear. Lean toward strengths and let go of grasping at other people’s goals.)
- A willingness to receive help and the strength and wisdom that arises out of that. (Asking more of the Heart of Business Team in clear ways based on their own gifts and my clarity about the business’ needs.)
You don’t step into your gifts once. You forget and get caught by the drama of life, and then you are, again, one of the people who most needs your gifts. Try remembering that you are helpless, then surrender, open your heart, stop pushing, and notice your gifts come forth for you and for others.
We all step into our gifts over and over and over again. Every day, every moment is another chance to lace’em up through remembering our utter helplessness.
Your turn. What gifts do you bring to others in need that you’ve been denying yourself? And, what are you going to do to share your own gifts with yourself this week?
30 Responses
Thank you for this, came at the perfect time….
Wishing you all the best!
Sheila- so glad!
I really enjoy your newsletter. I don’t always take the time to show gratitude for it so here it comes. Thank you. My gifts are linked to empathy and processing emotions through art for myself and as a facilitator of workshops. I have just recently come to the same realization that I will never be “there” in a place where hard emotions do not attain me anymore. I will never be done with it because it’s part of my path to be oversensitive to emotional disturbance. That is also why I became really efficient at dealing with emotions and why I can lead the path for others. I now take any emotional disturbance in me as a playground to test my abilities in processing emotions and develop better skills. So from time to time I devote this empathy to myself and acknowledge that sensitivity is not a gift you can be over with and suddenly become strong with no emotional needs anymore. So I offer me attention and gentleness. I also love your note about feeling helpless. I don’t think that “feeling helpless” and “being helpless” are the same. Maybe, when we feel helpless, we are more tuning into the divine and surrendering to something wider and helpful. So feeling helpless reminds us of humility. But as feeling it comes through when needed, share it’s message and then the emotion is gone. I’m not sure if we “are” helpless all the time or just reminded from time to time by an emotion that we are not allmighty !
@Sylvie- beautiful- thank you for your kind words- and I love your gifts… so sweet… and nope, won’t ever be “there.” 🙂
Thank you. Mark. Because of what you’ve written, I am breathing easier, allowing more compassion for self (and thus for others); being contented in where I am now; being gentler with myself when I realize that I am not “on” — and I realize I am not alone in not living in my consciousness 24/7. I’m making progress. I’m growing (as is the amount of time per day when I am living in my consciousness). Maybe it is slowly becoming who I am rather than what I need to remember to do. But yea, me! “It’s getting better all the time” (thank you, Beatles). And your words allow me to step out (or step in!) in peace and gratitude.
Barbara- easier breathing! Yay!
mmmm…. i appreciate this so much, and the chance to say out loud what i offer and what i don’t always let myself receive…
i make space for others to be their full selves. for all the bits that seem homeless, or rusty from lack of use, or attention, to come in out of the rain, have a warm cup of tea, and be asked “what would you like to say?” “what do you have to tell us?” and then i make pictures.. drawings… paintings about what we saw and what it might be telling us…
but i don’t always give myself so much space…. oh i so deeply long to have this space for myself – a space where all of it is good and wanted and loved and welcomed and seen….
oh, and it’s sort of confronting to say it out loud! after listening to the Sacred Selling audio, and reading about Appreciation, i’ve started an end of the day practice where i list all the things that happened throughout the day that i’d like Appreciation for… it feels really important, and good – and is so much less about what i’ve “accomplished” then what i’d like to have seen and acknowledged… and i say this shyly, because it’s so new….
thank you Mark… I appreciate where your words and your sharings take me!
jessica
@Jessica- all that space is totally yours, eh? Take it UP! And I love reading about your appreciation practice- try cool way to integrate it.
Lovely letter, thank you. 🙂
You are so welcome, Marian.
Sometimes the greatest gift our clients can give us is to be a mirror for us to show us what we have forgotten to see and value in ourselves. Our gifts perhaps are too close to us at times, in the same way that we know what we look like by seeing in a mirror or stopping to touch the contours of our face. We need to consciously stop to look. And yet, we forget what we look like the moment we walk away and get back into busyness. Yet to others our gifts are as plain as the nose on our face. Mark – your words have sunk gently into my heart once again. Thank you.
Ingrid- so true… right on our faces, eh? 🙂 Thank you for your kind words.
Mark, you’ve beautifully put words to something I recognise in you – and me and others – yet hadn’t fully brought into word-order. Thank you.
Your saying it seems to give it permission to be – the stepping in and out of our gifts, our humanness dancing in and out of remembering our divine connection. Thank you.
Bevianne- we’re all human, aren’t we? Lace ’em up, and then untie the knots from time to time… 🙂
Mark, this may be your best writing ever. From the heart, deep, honest…
Sending a heart-hug.
Linda- glad you liked this one so much!
Mark,
Beautiful piece, Mark. Thanks, again. I have some struggle with stepping into the vulnerability that lets me have wet eyes.
There are two more things that are helpful for me, that you touched on. The first is giving myself time to step into the gifts–it usually takes me time to get to that vulnerable place, and it often takes me time to remember to be vulnerable.
Second, sometimes I duck out on my gifts due to misplaced or exaggerated humility. It helps me to remember that whatever gifts I have are from the Divine, and that I help manifest the Divine into the world when I use those gifts appropriately.
Doug- I know, the vulnerability can be really challenging… and yet so freeing once we drop in, eh? And I love what you say about misplaced or exaggerated humility. So true…
So, wait… it’s not just me who’s helpless?!
Wow.
That means a lot to know…
Nope.. not just you, Ted. 🙂
Thank you for this newsletter. When I got to the bit about when you step into your gifts, it hit me in the gut. That is so me too and I have never thought about it that directly. Thanks for reminding me.
Marti- you are so welcome. A gentle hit in the gut is always welcome, eh? 🙂
Wow, so I just read your email newsletter and it totally reinforced a very similar message I received last night in a dream that I had. In the morning, I wrote out my dream and then came the messages from the dream that echoed your message too. Gotta love the Divine that connects us all!!!
Hi Carla- I swear I had nothing to do with your dream. 🙂
Love this Mark. Thank-you for sharing. Vulnerability and acceptance are so powerful. They are the root of creativity, compassion, and connection. I believe my gifts are an ability to teach and model peace. To be present in the midst of uncertainty (mine and others) and hardwork (mine and others) and to faithfully guide others to find that calm within their heart despite of the challenges.
I’m blessed to have read this today. Thank-you for being a wonderful mentor and teacher, Mark. Namaste.
Sean- you are so welcome. “Teach and model peace.” “Present in the midst of uncertainty” “guide to the calm.” Deep breath there, eh? Thank you for your kind words and for letting you have your own gifts.
Beautifully said. I really resonated with this. We are so human….
I loved this so much! Thanks for your words and your gifts. I HAVE to give myself what i so open hearted offer to others. I know that but tend to forget every now and then. There’s no other way around it: Space, unconditional love, creative freedom.
Highly appreciate it Mark.
Carolina! You are so welcome. 🙂 Unconditional love can’t be beat… 🙂
Just got to this. As usual, perfect timing.
I’m reading, & the part of my brain that still thinks it’s going to find the answer is saying wait for it, wait for it…
“I’m really helpless.”
I burst out laughing, scaring the dog. What delightful answer! And one I completely get! Especially the part about opening to using my gifts with myself.
Compassionate presence is one of my gifts. Thanks for reminding me to offer it to myself as consistently as I offer it to others.