On Ownership
“I don’t know if I can really explain it,” I say. “It’s basically this: those first few days felt incredibly lonely. And very emotional.”
I blink back tears, surprising myself with the strength of feelings still lingering. I glance at her through my computer screen and she smiles slightly, encouraging me to continue.
“I wasn’t actually alone. I had support and I felt that support. But there was this…other thing. This persistent thing. It felt like loneliness.” I look up at her again. “It was hard.”
She nods slowly.The look in her eyes tells me she knows what I’m taking about — that she’s felt it too.
“It’s ownership,” she responds, leaning into the computer screen. “You were feeling ownership, Elora.”
My breath catches with the truth, the vibration ringing through my veins. Yes, I think. Yes. That’s it.
It was early July. A heat dome was holding the temperature in central Texas to a steady boil. And here I was, in my office that faces the morning sun, sweating with nerves and grief and heat while trying to fill my boss in with everything that happened while I stepped up to fill her spot while she was on vacation. I’d been the functional area manager for two lines of business for three weeks. And this loneliness — and her peeling back the layers of the root of that loneliness — was the beginning of the letting go.
//
I was sitting at the computer when the email came through, the ping of the notification causing my heart to race. That was the norm now. Ever since the fallout, I’d check my social media with one eye open, terrified of what messages were waiting for me. Terrified another notification would be pointing the blame, the mob out for blood.
Against my better judgment, I opened the email to see it was the husband of one of the coaches. How convenient you registered your business as an LLC. It’s almost as if you knew you wanted to screw people out of money and protect yourself — because you know you’re liable, right? You know you could go down for this, right? You’re such a liar. An abusive wolf in sheep’s clothing. I wish my wife never met you.
Tears ran down my cheeks.
Honestly, I felt the same — I wish she’d never met me either.
A few weeks prior, I’d dissolved the coaching arm of my business, The Story Unfolding. It wasn’t lucrative for the women who’d been part of it, and while it was devastating to admit that particular failure, I knew it was the right decision by the way my shoulders loosened as soon as I shared the message. They’d still be coaches. They could even promote their offerings in the community I ran if they wanted — they just needed to collect the money themselves. Host the courses themselves. We all had Zoom at the time anyway, so there was no net new investment on their part. All it meant was a shift in approach and honestly, it felt more true: you don’t have to be a Story Unfolding coach to be a coach, I said. You know what you’re doing. Now you get to do it without constraints.
The only problem was, I had horrible advice on how to go about it.
An email would be best, my business coach told me at the time. This way, you’re giving them time to process on their own.
So I sent an email with the news, and before I knew it, the torches were lit. It sounds dramatic because it was dramatic. Hand the reins to a narcissist and that’s what you get — drama. The coach who gave me the advice to do this via email ended up kicking me out of the leadership cohort I started for our development because it’s for the best — they’re all just really tender right now, Elora. One of the coaches — the one I unknowingly gave the reins to — created a Facebook group titled We Need to Talk about Elora. She started messaging people in my community, letting them know that Elora isn’t who she says she is — don’t trust her. Don’t believe what she says.
Had I not been the target, had this been a show I was binging or a story I was reading, I would have thought it brilliant: get out first so you can control the narrative.
The thing was, I never was going to share her dirty laundry. I wasn’t going to share any of their dirty laundry. I had no intentions of letting the women know about the moment she looked at me and screamed get the fuck away from me! only to explain that she was screaming at the lies in her head and it had nothing to do with me. Even though my nervous system never lies, and I felt those words in my bones.
I didn’t want to explain how she called me her Elora, how she pulled one of the women aside and told her she had spiritual parasites and because of that, didn’t deserve affirmations because the parasite would simply devour them and turn them into lies.
It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.
None of it was supposed to happen this way.
//
On August 25, 2013, I published Every Shattered Thing. It’d felt like hell just getting to that moment — from almost winning a publishing contest, to being published by that publisher anyway only to have them crash and burn with a year with no royalties to speak of — I couldn’t believe it finally happened. But I did it.
And then everything fell apart.
It happened slowly, and then all at once.
At first, the release was magical — miraculous even. My book launched as one of Amazon’s Hot New Releases and reviews were pouring in — people loved it. An acquisition editor from Simon & Schuster bought it. Friends in the industry were connecting me with their agents. I walked around with my veins buzzing, feeling as if I was choking on goodness and beauty.
It wasn’t just my writing.
I was invited to a retreat of women leaders and I took the leap and went, suddenly brainstorming and laughing with people I’d admired from afar. I had the first retreat of Story Unfolding and it was a huge success. I was adding eCourses to my repertoire and consistently selling out every time I launched something. My community of women was pushing 100 members. At the time, there weren’t many online communities. Membership sites hadn’t really hit mainstream yet. So my near-100 group of women felt rich with talent and support and sisterhood and potential.
First, my agent dropped me. We’d worked together for the better part of a year, and when she’d read Every Shattered Thing she contacted me immediately. I’ll never forget that phone call or the particular shade of light my lamp reflected onto the wall in our bedroom. I stared at that glimmer of light the entire call, my heart beating out of my chest and my eyes filled with the tears that bubble up and over when you’ve crashed into something too beautiful to process. It was there she took a breath and spoke the line I would write in my art journal later that night:
Elora, you’re going to be a star.
It wasn’t that I believed her. It was that she believed in me.
Even still, our partnership ended faster than I anticipated, both of us realizing at the same time that publishers weren’t ready for The Shattered Things series and my writing was taking me to the indie market. Mutual as it was, that separation still stung.
Next was the retreat.
The one with the women.
This is where everything converged. Where I began to lose credibility. From the moment I opened my doors for coaching and I found myself successful, I would say this won’t last. This just fell into my lap and I’m terrified it’s all going to disappear one day. Like, I’ll blink and it will all be gone.
If anyone has never told you, let me be the one to say it: your word is your wand. Within four months of that retreat, my monthly income dropped to a fourth of what I made before, Somewhere Between Water and Sky released without fanfare, and Russ lost his job. I tried to make it work — I invested in a branding eCourse, fully pivoted my business, and continued to stay silent, choosing to swallow the poison instead of spread it.
Within a year of the retreat, I would release everything but the bare necessities of Awake the Bones and return to work, taking a temporary contract at a tech company.
I’d owned a business.
I’d led a community.
And I failed at both.
//
A few days ago, I interviewed for a role at work. This role would be a promotion, something I’ve been working toward for two years. After the interview, I walked out of the room with a smile on my face. Within a few hours, I would be limp with exhaustion, and heavy with a grief I couldn’t name.
Yesterday it was practically paralyzing.
I sobbed in the bathtub last night, desperate for some connection to what in the world I was feeling. I knew it was grief, but it didn’t feel as if it were attached to the interview or the role. Like I always do in these moments, I thought about the magic of time and how our bodies serve as reminders of things we’re still carrying. I thought back through previous summers — why was it always June and August that hit me like this? And suddenly, I remembered my conversation with my boss. With the loneliness I felt as I covered for her while she was on vacation.
On her naming that loneliness ownership.
I am closest than I have ever been to owning a line of business at work. That’s the terminology we use for this level of leadership — you own it, even though we all know who gets the revenue. That’s not what it means though. Here, ownership means responsibility. It means empowerment. And in order to do this well, you have to harness and fully own your power.
And tonight, I realized I would not be able to fully step into this season of leveling up my leadership until I let go of the fear and self-doubt and need for validation that comes from the devastating blow of failure. Because the last time I owned a business — truly owned a business as in it was my only job — it didn’t work out because I trusted the wrong people and not the internal compass that has never steered me wrong. It was in a summer much like this one — where the very air feels combustible. Only it wasn’t the air that exploded, it was my business.
And that type of wound can be gutting — nearly impossible to heal.
//
Yesterday morning, I pulled out one of my decks that has been with me for a few years. I needed direction, something to point to why I felt so heavy, the grief so potent. I pulled The Crumbling and it spoke about how what’s happening — this release — it’s all for my good. I can allow the crumbling to occur so within the rubble I find my Northstar.
It reminded me of The Tower card in tarot.
And it reminded me of Mary Magdalene — the Tower.
How she stood up and began revealing things that had been hidden, and in that, offered freedom and release to others.
I’ve worked through a lot of 2014 and the Crumbling that came with it in therapy and a sisterhood that feels more solid and true than anything. But last night, I realized there was one last piece to tear down — one last persistent chunk of rubble that kept bumping into me and my growth, rendering me frozen and heavy with grief.
That piece is this: if I couldn’t own a business by myself, in a field I love, what makes me think I can step into this ownership now? Who’s to say I won’t mess this up as well?
A quiet voice echoes across the breeze, filling my senses with the hint of roses.
It wasn’t your fault, love. It never was. And yes — yes you can absolutely step into your full power without fearing the repercussions. Let the earth quake with your truth — it’s how new mountains are born.
Take it Further
Where are you needing to take ownership in your life?
What desires are being held under an immense amount of pressure to perform, and how can you release those expectations?
What would happen if you took ownership of your power, standing barefoot and confident in what you know to be yours?
