Latest / Your Money, Your Rules | Financial Mastery, Wealth Mindset, Leadership Principles, Intuitive Decision-Making, Human Design / 217 | The Grief That Comes With Growth

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217 | The Grief That Comes With Growth · Your Money, Your Rules | Financial Mastery, Wealth Mindset, Leadership Principles, Intuitive Decision-Making, Human Design

• 0:01
  Erin Gray: Welcome back to the podcast.
• 0:03
  Erin Gray: Today I want to talk about an aha that I received when I was recently traveling, watching whales over in the Oregon Bay Area.
• 0:10
  Erin Gray: And that is that there is grief that comes when we up level.
• 0:15
  Erin Gray: So let's dive in.
• 0:18
  Erin Gray: You know, travel for me is one of the ways that I integrate, that I have so much introspection and ahas, and allowing for the space to receive the lessons that I already know.
• 0:31
  Erin Gray: Like I highly recommend it.
• 0:33
  Erin Gray: It's part of my business plan, if you want to call it that, where I need to get away in order to gain more perspective and to think about, you know, the things that I already know and to really allow those to settle in.
• 0:47
  Erin Gray: And one of those things that I recognized while I was away was that there is grief that comes with up-leveling.
• 0:54
  Erin Gray: And I think it's something that we don't talk about enough.
• 0:56
  Erin Gray: You know, we're always going for the growth.
• 0:58
  Erin Gray: We're always talking about what we're doing and where we're going.
• 1:01
  Erin Gray: But I think there is beauty in exploring this topic and understanding that a lot of times with growth, there comes loss.
• 1:11
  Erin Gray: And we are so quick and great and practiced at celebrating, you know, new revenues or new opportunities or wherever we are in our business, but becoming a different version of yourself, or I like to say returning home to who you are at even a deeper level can mean letting go of parts of you that were familiar to that old version of us.
• 1:36
  Erin Gray: And I don't know if many of us allow the space to integrate into this and allow for this.
• 1:44
  Erin Gray: And this is why I have intentionally, if you work with me, this is why I have intentionally included three different separate months along the year that we work together to allow for integration.
• 1:56
  Erin Gray: Where you still have access to me via WhatsApp, but on a meeting, you know, via Zoom, it's really a time for you to go inward, for you to look at all of the growth that you have had and to really integrate and embody that.
• 2:11
  Erin Gray: I don't think that we give ourselves enough time to do this, to integrate.
• 2:15
  Erin Gray: And we're great at, like I said, going for the growth, but the practice and the muscle, I don't think has for a lot of us has been built when it comes to integrating and synthesizing and being still and allowing all of those, you know, downloads and that what we have learned along the way and what we have come to realize to really settle.
• 2:37
  Erin Gray: And I think that the integration part is just as important, if not more, when we are growing, because that's kind of like I always say, that's like where the, you know, the sand settles in the ocean.
• 2:50
  Erin Gray: It's like you've got all of this stuff that's been churned up while you're going for the growth, while you are growing, and then allowing yourself the stillness to actually take it into the body and to embody it is such a beautiful thing.
• 3:02
  Erin Gray: And I think that, you know, the aha or the recognition that I or that I came to realize was that there's there's sadness there.
• 3:10
  Erin Gray: There's sadness that when you are constantly up-leveling, when you are constantly growing, relationships change as you grow.
• 3:21
  Erin Gray: You know, there have been friends along the way that I don't like to say I leave people behind.
• 3:26
  Erin Gray: I like to say people don't catch up.
• 3:27
  Erin Gray: You know, it feels much more empowered, like it's a choice, right?
• 3:30
  Erin Gray: We're not leaving anyone behind.
• 3:31
  Erin Gray: That's a story that I've had to transform, you know.
• 3:34
  Erin Gray: But I think a lot of times there are people that are on this journey with us, and some of them are not as willing to do the uncomfortable things to get to where they want to go.
• 3:44
  Erin Gray: It's not a problem.
• 3:46
  Erin Gray: And also just recognizing that their sadness of where you started with friends along the way may not be where you end up with.
• 3:53
  Erin Gray: And that is okay.
• 3:54
  Erin Gray: Dynamics change.
• 3:56
  Erin Gray: You know, not everyone on your journey where you started signs up for the same type of growth that you're going to.
• 4:02
  Erin Gray: And not everyone is willing to go the distance with you.
• 4:06
  Erin Gray: And that's okay.
• 4:07
  Erin Gray: There's no, there's no right or wrong here.
• 4:09
  Erin Gray: It's just a recognition that it is what it is and that there's grief in that.
• 4:14
  Erin Gray: So as you're growing, you know, one of the things that I've really learned to recognize is that friendships might fall away, or business partnerships, or clients might leave, or team members might leave.
• 4:26
  Erin Gray: And all of that, if we look at it from the lens of being disempowered or feeling disempowered, we think something's gone wrong or there's something wrong with us.
• 4:33
  Erin Gray: But really, what that is is God giving us space and creating space for us to allow, you know, the new to come in.
• 4:40
  Erin Gray: So I think, you know, allowing yourself to feel the grief that maybe, you know, friends that you started with along your business journey, they may not be along with you now.
• 4:49
  Erin Gray: And that's okay.
• 4:50
  Erin Gray: I think also, too, you know, as a founder, people that you hired in the very beginning, you know, team members, like to me, having people on my team is it's not just a business decision.
• 5:01
  Erin Gray: It's it feels, and maybe this is the tribal part in me, I don't know, but like it feels like when I say family, I mean like there is a more of a connection than it is just like we're doing business together.
• 5:12
  Erin Gray: And people that you start with may not be the same people that you end up with.
• 5:16
  Erin Gray: You know, when you first open your doors, you might have, you know, had people that met you where you were.
• 5:23
  Erin Gray: And if you are someone, which if you're listening to this podcast, you probably are.
• 5:27
  Erin Gray: You know, if you're someone that continues to grow, that chooses growth and uncomfortability over staying the same or staying stagnant, there will be team members that you will experience along the way that either they'll move on or you'll have to let them go because it's no longer a frequency match.
• 5:43
  Erin Gray: It doesn't mean that anything's gone wrong.
• 5:45
  Erin Gray: It doesn't mean that this is a problem.
• 5:46
  Erin Gray: It's just recognizing that where you are going, and and something else that I recognize about myself is I move at a pretty quick pace, right?
• 5:54
  Erin Gray: Because I'm always going to choose the growth over staying stagnant or staying where I'm at.
• 5:59
  Erin Gray: And recognizing that not everybody might move as quickly as you do.
• 6:02
  Erin Gray: And that's not a problem.
• 6:04
  Erin Gray: And it's also a recognizing and a realizing that that is sometimes what happens.
• 6:09
  Erin Gray: And one of the beliefs that I have grown to embody is that it's okay for people to come in and out of my life.
• 6:17
  Erin Gray: And God puts them there, you know, for you in that moment.
• 6:21
  Erin Gray: And it's okay if you outgrow each other.
• 6:25
  Erin Gray: It's not a problem.
• 6:26
  Erin Gray: And it's just something that allows, I think it softens and it lessens.
• 6:30
  Erin Gray: It doesn't necessarily mean you don't feel sadness, right, when they leave or when they, you know, don't keep up, but also it just allows for understanding of like, you know, change is inevitable.
• 6:41
  Erin Gray: That's just part of it.
• 6:42
  Erin Gray: So recognizing that you may have team members that are currently there with you now, that maybe, you know, the best and the most loving thing to do might be to let them go.
• 6:53
  Erin Gray: You know, if they are no longer a fit, it's like a puzzle piece.
• 6:57
  Erin Gray: It's like stop trying to put, you know, a square peg in a round in a round hole.
• 7:00
  Erin Gray: Like that might be the time where you recognize like they want to do something different or they might not want to go the distance that you want to go.
• 7:08
  Erin Gray: And that's okay.
• 7:09
  Erin Gray: And I think that that we can always have these conversations from such a loving, grounded, honoring place for you and for them versus trying to continue to force something that doesn't fit any longer.
• 7:22
  Erin Gray: I've also seen this with business partnerships.
• 7:23
  Erin Gray: So if you are someone that has a business partner, you know, that you really clicked in the beginning, you had the share, the the same shared vision.
• 7:31
  Erin Gray: And in the beginning, you know, and as your business has grown and you have grown and you might have outgrown them or they might not have kept up to the vision and to the level that you are, you know, growing into and aspiring into being.
• 7:48
  Erin Gray: And those differences then become glaringly obvious the more that you grow and the less that they do, or at the pace maybe that they don't do or grow as quickly as you do.
• 7:59
  Erin Gray: And what once felt like a strong desire of being partners, now you might be feeling that heavy weight.
• 8:06
  Erin Gray: And I can say from experience, you know, when I went into my family's construction business, that was one of my first, if you want to call it, tasks of like one of my uncles like leaving the company and that whole, you know, dissolving of that partnership and recreating just the one with my dad and my uncle.
• 8:23
  Erin Gray: And also me personally, you know, before I landed here, I was in a partnership, business partnership with someone.
• 8:29
  Erin Gray: And where we started and where we ended was vastly and completely different.
• 8:33
  Erin Gray: And there was grief there.
• 8:34
  Erin Gray: And I don't think that I at the time recognized it and I recognized what, you know, it's it feels like a divorce in a way.
• 8:42
  Erin Gray: And allowing yourself, if you do have a business partner that you're like, you see the writing on the wall and you're like, and it's one of those things I think sometimes that we feel bad for them, but that is definitely looking at it from a very disempowered lens versus I want something different and they may not want the same thing I want.
• 9:00
  Erin Gray: And what is the most loving thing for myself and for them?
• 9:05
  Erin Gray: And to have a clean, loving break versus continuing to ignore what is actually happening and, you know, thinking that things will change, or, you know, and then years down the road, you're bigger and more assets and all of these things that we could potentially, I don't want to say take care of, but that's the word that comes to mind that we could take care of in this moment if we were willing to have those, you know, more difficult and uncomfortable conversations.
• 9:33
  Erin Gray: And I always want to encourage you to look at it from the lens of like, what is the most loving thing to them and to me?
• 9:39
  Erin Gray: And sometimes the answer when that is most loving, it doesn't mean that you don't have the conversation.
• 9:45
  Erin Gray: It just means that, you know, you can come from a place of love and softness and still stand firm in what you want and where you're going, letting that other person choose.
• 9:55
  Erin Gray: Or if you've already made the decision, you know what, we're just not a fit anymore and you want to go a different route, like it's okay to say that.
• 10:01
  Erin Gray: It's okay to honor those parts of yourself that you want to go at it alone, or you know, you're just at a point where you don't want to be business partners anymore.
• 10:13
  Erin Gray: And I think that there's there's grief in recognizing that what once was the dream, you know, like if it if you've ever gotten divorced, which I did early in my 20s, you know, this one therapist told me is like it's a death of a dream, right?
• 10:27
  Erin Gray: You thought that your life was going to look a certain way and it's not gonna be the same.
• 10:32
  Erin Gray: And allowing yourself to experience that and to be where you are with that, because business partnerships can most definitely feel like a divorce.
• 10:44
  Erin Gray: And grief, it doesn't mean that you made a bad decision.
• 10:47
  Erin Gray: It never means that you made a wrong decision.
• 10:50
  Erin Gray: It just means that you're human.
• 10:51
  Erin Gray: It means that this is part of the process.
• 10:54
  Erin Gray: I think that, you know, it's one of those things that most people we don't talk about enough.
• 10:58
  Erin Gray: You know, in the self-development space, we don't talk about this.
• 11:01
  Erin Gray: And it's one of those things that we need to expect as we grow.
• 11:06
  Erin Gray: It is part of the process.
• 11:07
  Erin Gray: And this is similar to, I think it's episode 206 that I talked about.
• 11:13
  Erin Gray: I don't think I called the episode the gap, but I talked about the gap in this episode.
• 11:16
  Erin Gray: But I know it's episode 206.
• 11:18
  Erin Gray: So go back and listen to that one too, because I talk about, you know, that's the space between where we are going and where we came from.
• 11:26
  Erin Gray: And we haven't yet, you know, it hasn't our 3D reality hasn't yet materialized for us.
• 11:31
  Erin Gray: And also we don't fit in in the old, you know, 3D reality that we currently are.
• 11:37
  Erin Gray: And so we're kind of in that void or in that gap is what I call it of the in-between.
• 11:42
  Erin Gray: And so I think that the more of us that can talk about the gap to expect it, you know, we are always talking about quantum leaping and growing and all of these things, but not a lot of people are talking about like there's space where you haven't received where you know what you are meant to receive and that doesn't match.
• 12:00
  Erin Gray: And so there's that constant, you know, duality of like, okay, I know that this is where what's coming to me, but it hasn't shown up yet.
• 12:07
  Erin Gray: And so holding that, you know, being in the gap and being in those two realities, as well as the grief that we feel when we up level.
• 12:17
  Erin Gray: And I think that if we could normalize those feelings of grief, grief as part of our growth, because we expect to grow, we expect to feel anticipation, we expect to feel excited, we expect to feel joy and happiness and all of those quote unquote higher vibration emotions.
• 12:36
  Erin Gray: And all of that feels amazing in the body, but we don't a lot of times expect for the grief to show up.
• 12:44
  Erin Gray: And so when it does show up, if you're not expecting it, if you don't know that that's part of the process, then you can start to question yourself and you start to, you know, wonder like, did I make a wrong decision?
• 12:54
  Erin Gray: Or, you know, am I going in the wrong direction?
• 12:56
  Erin Gray: Or is that really what God wants me to do?
• 12:57
  Erin Gray: Or should I go back?
• 12:58
  Erin Gray: Or like start you start to get in your head and you start to question actually what is meant for you and where you are going, versus when you expect grief to be there.
• 13:08
  Erin Gray: When you know that it's part of the process, you can recognize that you're simply just in the space between who you've been and where you're going, and that that nothing, nothing has gone wrong.
• 13:19
  Erin Gray: And you can love and you can honor the people that have helped you along the way, the friendships that you developed that may no longer be there anymore.
• 13:28
  Erin Gray: They were a good fit at the time, but maybe they're not anymore.
• 13:31
  Erin Gray: You can deeply appreciate, you know, an employee that in the beginning they were there for you with the startup and all of that and what they have done for you and your business, and also know that they may not be meant to take you to your next level and to the next chapter of your business.
• 13:48
  Erin Gray: And that's okay.
• 13:49
  Erin Gray: And, you know, like I mentioned, if you are in a partnership where you have decided, like, I don't want to be in this partnership anymore, you can grieve the partnership knowing that the ending is the best decision and most loving decision for you and them.
• 14:02
  Erin Gray: I always, you know, say, like with partnerships, because I've had several clients that we've unraveled, have helped them unravel the partnership.
• 14:10
  Erin Gray: And it's one of those things where you have to also look at it as an investment in yourself now for years to come.
• 14:18
  Erin Gray: You know, it's it's like staying in a marriage where you know that you're not meant to be there.
• 14:23
  Erin Gray: It's out of comfort that you're staying versus knowing what's best for you and for them.
• 14:28
  Erin Gray: And it's the same is true as business with business.
• 14:31
  Erin Gray: And so doing the hard things, feeling the grief now so that you can enjoy really truly what you're meant to have and receive, it's so worth it.
• 14:42
  Erin Gray: So we can miss, you know, those old versions of ourselves and lovingly care for and hold those parts of ourselves that we used to be and also have no desire to go back to where we were ever again.
• 14:58
  Erin Gray: You know, we can hold those dualities at the same time.
• 15:01
  Erin Gray: And I think that, you know, we've been told a lot that grief, you know, is a lower vibration emotion and it's a negative thing.
• 15:08
  Erin Gray: But when we can look at grief from this place of simply just being part of the process and it's part of moving us forward, like grief has a place at the table just like joy and anticipation does.
• 15:20
  Erin Gray: And when we can soften into this, when we can expect it, and when we can allow, you know, like I already mentioned, the integration of this and to be there for yourself while you feel this grief.
• 15:31
  Erin Gray: It doesn't feel so jarring and alone when we are in it.
• 15:34
  Erin Gray: So give yourself space for that if you are experiencing grief, you know, of where you are going and where you're up-leveling and where people might be falling away.
• 15:43
  Erin Gray: And this can even be with clients too, you know, clients and team members and contractors that you work with and friends, and it's all of it.
• 15:52
  Erin Gray: So give yourself space for it.
• 15:53
  Erin Gray: Let yourself integrate, let yourself feel the grief about where you were and who you were along the journey and who is no longer going to be with you as you move forward and toward what's to come.
• 16:08
  Erin Gray: So the thing that I would have you ponder on is where am I feeling grief in my life for relationships that maybe are no longer what we signed up for, right?
• 16:21
  Erin Gray: Where we started.
• 16:22
  Erin Gray: And this is gonna take some space.
• 16:24
  Erin Gray: This is gonna take some time with you by yourself.
• 16:27
  Erin Gray: You know, if you're constantly going for the growth, we're going to feel grief on a consistent basis, right?
• 16:33
  Erin Gray: Because we're constantly up-leveling and moving, I think, at a quick pace.
• 16:37
  Erin Gray: And so I think allow yourself to be held and to be taken care of and to be supported in whatever that looks like for you.
• 16:46
  Erin Gray: And, you know, how I think another question would be is like, how do I want to be supported when I am feeling this grief?
• 16:52
  Erin Gray: Like, who is your ride or die?
• 16:54
  Erin Gray: You know, I have very few of them now, women in my life that I consider my ride or dies that I can come to when this occurs and like hold those friendships very closely.
• 17:05
  Erin Gray: So, how do you want to be supported when this occurs?
• 17:08
  Erin Gray: And if you are experiencing, you know, up leveling on a consistent basis, you will experience grief.
• 17:14
  Erin Gray: And so just recognize that.
• 17:15
  Erin Gray: And if you are experiencing it in this moment now, like know that it's perfectly okay.
• 17:20
  Erin Gray: So I'll see you in the next episode.