Anna
Hello, welcome back to the show. In today’s solo episode, I’m sharing with you why I have decided that I’m no longer empowering women. I’ve used that language for the last 25 years in my career as a as a coach, as a mental agility coach, as a Whitewater kayaking coach. When I released my DVDs, instructional DVDs for women in Whitewater back in the

2000s when DVDs were cool. I’ve built a whole brand around empowering women in Whitewater, empowering them actually on and off the water. And I’m gonna stop doing that. And the reason is that I had a very big aha moment when I read Emma Greed’s book, Start with Yourself.

Emma Grede is an entrepreneur, businesswoman. And she is very feisty. And I love that because I feel like I could use more feistiness in my in the way I approach things. And so I was reading her book. I love reading business books. There aren’t also, there’s not a whole there are not a whole lot of business books for women out there. In her book, she

Talks about how she strongly dislikes the term women’s empowerment or empowering women because for her it insinuates that women need someone else to empower them or need to be empowered rather than knowing that they have it within themselves to empower themselves.

And that really struck a chord. It was at first, it was of course very confronting for me because it’s language I’ve used in my my whole career. And I love growth. I love being challenged with new ideas. Well, maybe not always. Maybe it takes me a minute.

I am human when I’m challenged with a new idea. It takes me a minute to come around to it. But I was really fascinated and my wheels just started turning. And there is something to that. So I started really considering how I work and how I talk about my work. And I am very I’m passionate about.

Helping people change the stories that they tell about themselves and what’s possible. And when I look back at my own healing journey with my back this last year, it’s been one year, by the way, y’all, since I put myself over the edge with my herniated disc, was in so much pain. This time last year, I could not sit. I couldn’t sit for two months.

I was doing everything standing or lying down, and the pain was terrible. Don’t wish that on anyone. And when I think about my healing journey and empowering myself to heal, I realized that I did have to find that within myself. I had to find the consistency, the patience, the motivation, the commitment to.

PT to walking to giving up whitewater kayaking for six months, to celebrating the small wins, to continuing to believe that it would get better, even when I was waking up at 4 30 in the morning from the pain and there was no relief. And I would go out and walk around my block just to get moving, just to distract myself from the pain.

Now, a year later, I’m back in my boat. I’m paddling class four. I’m teaching on the water. I can sit comfortably pretty much on anything. And that strength, that inner strength, that inner confidence, that inner belief, I had to find it for myself while also being supported.

By others. I had so much support. And I had the support of people who believed that I could heal, who had seen it before. My my pelvic floor PT, my chiropractor, my massage therapist, who’s also a a structural integration person slash rolfing massage therapist. And

They held the space, the container for me to show up with that inner strength, inner belief, and they supported it, they fostered it, they encouraged it, they kept me accountable for showing up what because they knew that the healing, I had said that the healing was important to me. And so

I’m really taking on not empowering women because when I think about it, that’s not actually what I do. I do for women and people, I do have male clients as well. I am very passionate about women in kayaking, though. What I do is I set the container. I’m really good at distilling information and

Seeing the root cause of whether it’s a skills improvement that’s needed, a mindset shift that’s needed, or a habit, mental habit or physical habit that needs shifting in order to help people achieve what they say they want to achieve. And so I’m gonna drop the language of empowering women and embrace.

The support, the setting, the container piece, the holding space, and being a catalyst for change. be you know, because honestly, the people who show up in my world for coaching, private instruction, trips, they have put themselves there. So they have made the powerful choice. They have the inner strength, they have the inner empowerment to

to know to put themselves in a situation in an environment that will support what they want to grow, what they want to achieve. So that’s what I wanted to share with you all in this episode today. I think it’s so important to be open to new ideas, to growth, especially when it feels uncomfortable and it challenges what you’ve been doing.

It is at Women’s Paddle Fest this past weekend, I shared what I’m sharing with you. And I had so many, I saw so many nods in the crowd. There were a hundred women there gathered to paddle and connect and share community and have fun. And seeing all the nods when I was sharing what I had read in Emma Greed’s book was on the one hand very exciting.

Because in it’s, you know, it’s like, you go, Anna, way to go to really hear something that is also important to the people in your community and to your clients. And on the other hand, I had the thought of wow, everyone was thinking this and no one said anything to me. You know, I do, I do remember, I have to shout out, and I don’t know who this person was.

There was someone who emailed me some years back and talked about, well, conf, you know, if we are always talking about wanting more confidence, aren’t we insinuating that we don’t have confidence? And I really appreciated that. And I never had the chance, the opportunity to talk more with that person. and so there have, and maybe I wasn’t ready to hear it. This was just the moment I was ready to hear it.

And that’s okay. Right. it’s it’s vulnerable. And now I I I feel empowered to be clearer about what I do and clearer language to create that container and that support system. So it takes vulnerability and it takes courage to change, to grow. It’s this podcast is about the discomfort zone and and I was I have been in my discomfort zone contemplating this piece because

I don’t know. It it’s scary to consider, wow, you’ve been wrong this whole time. At the same time, as a recovering perfectionist, it’s really important to not make myself wrong, right? To celebrate that that language did something for me. It did help me grow a brand. And in the spirit of continued growth.

I’m celebrating the shift and the change and the aha. And that’s what’s so amazing about life. And so amazing about whitewater kayaking. I love whitewater kayaking because it helps me, it helps to make sure that I don’t get dull. I have to continue to grow and and explore and discover and get confronted with fear and with.

nerves and with opportunities to learn. And that is what the discomfort zone is. That’s why I love whitewater kayaking. That’s why I love to hold that container for women both on the water so they can take it off the water. So that’s my share today. And I’d love to hear what well one, what you your thoughts

So please email me, Anna at mindbodypaddle.com. I’d love to hear your thoughts. I’d love to hear if you have a similar story of an aha moment and how it shifted your perspective, your language, the way you do things, and how you approach that. So Anna at mindbodypaddle.com, I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you so much for listening, for tuning in wherever you’re tuning in from.

And if you love the show, if you’re an avid listener, please take a few moments to rate the show on whatever platform you’re listening. It really helps the show get seen by more people. And I would really appreciate that. Share the stoke. So thanks for rating and reviewing the show. Thank you for subscribing. And I will see you next time.