The Unstuck story of Tempered

I've probably known for most of my life that my purpose and calling really had something to do with talking with people about their struggles and dreams. My sixteenth birthday card from my best friend said "you'll make the best therapist one day." Parents would talk to me about their kids (please don't do that to teenagers...). An astrologer told me that I've been doing this my whole life, but whether I make it my career or not is a matter of when I decide to own that part of me, that gift, as valuable...And there's the rub.

Here's the story of how I embraced my value and my message, and my message is Tempered. I hope you enjoy the ride and learn something for yourself about:

Moving through sticky roadblocks, and getting unstuck

Navigating the competing needs of your parts

Owning your wholeness, and all of your elements

Going from sideshow to Center stage is a whoooole other level of vulnerable.

I've coached as a side thing since 2016. In 2019, I decided to make it my thing, and I went back to school to earn a psych degree so I could either become a therapist or a full-time coach. By the end, I had picked the coach path. That was two and a half years ago.

You'd think that I would have built a website, and told all the people, and done all the things, but just because a part of you "knows" something, doesn't mean the rest of you is on board, ok with it, or believes you.

The growing tug of war between calling and comfort meant that I was staying unsatisfactorily in my under the radar comfort zone for the foreseeable future.

I was in what I lovingly call, hell. Maybe it was more like purgatory most of the time, but I'd start to move towards "heaven," and then, find myself falling back down. I expect that there's been a point in your life where you can relate with this - I think we all can.

The story of Temperance

I pulled a card from my Kawaii tarot deck. It told a beautiful story that haunted me for nine months:

(A quick tarot primer, the first 21 cards tell the story of the personal development path we all must travel. It's delivered as "the Fool's journey" - and, each card represents the different teachers they meet along their journey.)

The Fool is resting on the bank of a peaceful lake, a much-needed respite after her meeting with the last teacher, Death, when a tall figure walks towards her from the tree-line. The figure's outstretched hands cup a blazing fire, and the Fool, afraid, assumes this new figure is yet another destructive force. Seeing the Fool's fear, the figure brings the fire to the water and creates a new element: steam. This teacher's name is Temperance, and she says "it's not about good or bad, pleasurable or painful - every element has properties that can be used to one's advantage."

It was the message I most needed to hear - and ironically, it was my own.

If you've ever coached with me, meditated with me, or attended an event I facilitated, these phrases are surely living in your brain rent free right now.

"There is no good, no bad, there simply is the truth of what is."

"Notice what you're noticing. Nothing needs to be fixed or changed, we're simply here to see the truth of what is...."

"Presence and appreciation before integrity."

I do really believe that all of our elements and experiences have value. The parts we love, and the parts we don't, serve us in some way. That to live whole lives, we must first be our whole selves. And, that to effectively create long-term change (or create big, on-purpose businesses), we must first embrace ourselves exactly as we are now. Sometimes, especially with the big stuff, that's pretty hard to do.

Maybe you noticed, maybe you didn't, but I did say this message haunted me for a whole nine months. It drove me, it inspired me. I even almost opened an art business under a similar name to satisfy the nagging call of my soul. It was the right message, but I still couldn't commit to it.

What was holding me back

I couldn't make it past the name.

It's like start-up 101. Don't let something as trivial as the name, the logo, or the perfect shade of purple be the thing that stops you from doing the real work. I. know. this.

But, the coaching world is so filled with "people." Most coaching websites feature the coach's lovely smiling face front and center, and a montage of fashion-mag-worthy pictures of them doing something inspiring that should make you feel like you want to be just like them, and you can, and they can help you with that. There's nothing wrong with this, but it's not for me. I'm not the point. I don't want you to be like me, I want you to be like you.

I felt so resistant to my identity being my brand. I did not want my name as the company name, I did not want an instagram feed filled with a thousand versions of my face spouting advice.

Tempered was "right" though. I could get behind that. That had been my message for a decade.

Even knowing this in my core, I still had to do the work to get unstuck and temper the foundation before I could move forward with what I knew, and if I'm 100% honest with myself, the foundation of my resistance was built from a lack of belief that I am all that inspiring or valuable or helpful.

The elements of unstuck

To really get unstuck around the big stuff, I have a four part process.

Know and love where you're at
Use what you have
Ask for and accept the help you need
Do the work

Sometimes, it's as easy as 1,2,3,4, but for the big stuff, it can be like 1,2,4,1,3,1,2,2,3,4.

Here is this process through my Stuck-to-Tempered story.

1. Know and love where you're at:

Take the conflict down to its elements, and treat each part with neutrality. Nothing needs to change, we're simply here to see the truth of what is.

"The name" was the convenient excuse. But if you read between the lines, it's pretty obvious that the issue wasn't "the name." Know and love where you're at means identifying the parts and welcoming them with neutrality and appreciation. For my story, it was the combination of:

MY DRIVING FORCE - a message that the right way to do this was to use my name and identity as my brand
MY BRAKING FORCE - my angst against that idea
AND, MY FOUNDATION - my unwillingness to own and claim that I have something of value to give.

2. Use what you have.

When you know the parts, you can work with them.

Knowing that the real hang up was the friction between my driving force and my braking force, and a foundation in need of repair, I could work with them.

THE FOUNDATION:

"Just love yourself and own your value" is an annoyingly unhelpful euphemism. We can't just own our value like we can turn on a light switch. But what we can do, is start with what we have and circle back. In this case, that's the two other parts:

To get out of stuck and to move forward - I first had to get to know the elements of me that were a yes to committing to doing this work and everybody knowing it, and the ones that were a no. I had the surface level info, but I had to take both a (several) step(s) deeper to see the whole story of what they really needed.

THE DRIVING FORCE:

My yes parts were revving the engine to just get moving because this type of work is my calling.

THE BRAKING FORCE

My no parts were freaked out at the idea of living in the spotlight all the time and dredging up flashbacks of bullying, rejection, and neglect to put on the brakes.

I had to see the needs of both, and weigh them neutrally.

The clarity and compromise

They have different competing needs: my "yes" needs to fulfill a calling and my "no" needs some amount of safe distance between personal life and public, professional image. Cool, I could find a compromise between them - and that was Tempered. The perfect path forward was letting the part of my identify that *is* my message be the focal point. My yes and no agreed with this.

Circling back to the foundation

The glue between my yes and no had to be owning that this part of me, and what I have to offer, is valuable. The process of loving where I'm at, and working with these conflicting parts, naturally brought about a sense of inherent value. It's funny like that, but in my work with clients, this tends to be the case.

And, everything flowed out of me easefully.

3. Ask for and accept the help you need

It's sometimes the hardest part.

I journaled, I meditated, and when I hit a wall, I allowed it to be ok for me to ask for and accept help from loved ones, my own coach, and professional peers.

4. Do the work

You have to actually do the work. Process and planning paralysis is another mischievous form of stuck.

I committed to a deadline. I made a plan, I stuck with it. I went back to steps 1-3 when I needed to. And now, we're here.

The Tempered, but way better result

I am valuable, but what I have to say and the message I have to share is even more so, and I'm ultimately, way happier with this message-centric brand than I ever could have been with even Beyonce's level of confidence.

The Tempered logo perfectly encompasses my message:

The triangle with the over hovering line is the alchemy symbol for steam, the element Temperance created for the Fool.

The pomegranate symbolizes the irrevocable transformation that our hardest life experiences provide - from the greek myth of Persephone's journey (a story for another time) - and the value of both heaven and hell.

The little lotus flower, one, is just a flair of my personality, but also, a symbol of new growth towards our higher selves.

The encompassing circles nod to my circling-based approach - but more importantly, they are a symbol of the container I hold for allllll of my clients' elements and my core value of wholeness.

Your takeaway

If you're stuck, not in love with yourself and your life, you might just need some re-balancing, some reintegration, some tempering, and some up-leveling. There is no part of you that is entirely invaluable or "bad" or broken. And, it takes some slowing down and intentional inquiry to identify and mediate conflicting needs.

You have absolutely everything you need in order to create the life, love, work, health, family, friends, job, and adventure that you really want. Yes, you'll need collaborators, resources, and some new tools, but you are the one that must seek out, ask for, use and accept those resources - the heart of it comes from you.

My job as a coach is simply to hold the container and guide the process for you to truly understand the elements that make you, you. To see the value of all your parts and life experiences so that you can own them, use them, and temper them together in order to create something entirely new and greater than the sum of its parts.

One last bit from the Kawaii Tarot's Temperance:

Temperance is a balance, but in a different way from what we may be used to. Trusting that life is made up of the right elements, Temperance simply "tempers" - that is, it melds different aspects together, like fire with water. Have faith that the life you've created has the elements you need to evolve. It's just a matter of putting them together in the right amounts.