Self-trust is freedom

🪟Keeping the windows of possibility open 🪟

Announcements:

✨ Join me on 1/15/25 for Self Made’s *first* monthly Life Design Skill Session (free!)

January’s topic is Establishing a BASELINE:
→ Do you ever do the thing where you swear to yourself you’re going to begin a daily practice (say, meditation, or journaling, or <fill in the blank>), fall short of your promise, and then rip yourself apart for once again not keeping your word?
→ I’m going to teach the #1 most fundamental tool I share with all of my clients (and have tested and iterated on dozens of times in my own life for the past seven years).
→ This tool will help you learn to listen for what would *actually* be supportive, instead of holding yourself to a standard of perfection you will never meet…and then dropping into the failure/self-flagellation loop that ultimately is the antithesis of what we seek with self care/daily practice.
→ Learning to listen for would *actually* be supportive to you—a unique individual with unique needs, fluctuating energy levels, and an animal body—instead of listening to what someone or something outside of yourself is convincing you would be supportive, is a first step in expanding self-trust.
→ All are welcome! If you’re already familiar with this tool, this is a great opportunity to revisit and update your BASELINE. One of the best parts of these workshops is the resource shares and suggestions that open up between us.
→ There will be a recording - so please sign up even if you can’t make it live. (Wednesday, 1/15, 9am-10am PST, FREE)

• ✍🏽 BEGIN ANEW: Self Made’s first writing workshop of 2025 is LIVE. Let's turn the page on a new year with a crew of warm, friendly, creative comrades. Now more than ever, the world needs is our unique perspective and wild imaginations. Let's write. (January 26th, 2025 | 10am-12pm PST | $44)

Today’s Inspiration:

Some of us don’t want
to be tough leaders.
Some of us just want to write
and wander
the garden
and breathe in the sky
and nourish and nurture
and quietly create
new pathways
and live our
lives as our art.
To know the earth
as poetry.

Victoria Erickson

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Photo by maxime caron on Unsplash

“How did you become a coach?”

As someone with embarrassingly maximalist proclivities (this very sentence a case in point), I have spent an inordinate amount of time figuring out how to whittle an answer to that question down to a sentence or two. What usually happens is some poor innocent soul poses to me what I’m sure they think is a fairly innocuous question and instead of a simple response, I go all deer-in-headlights, my typically fast talking tongue in a tangle.

I’m getting better at succinctness—I swear—but sometimes I still stumble in my response. Because it’s not a simple answer (if my life has shown me anything it’s that “simple” isn’t quite yet my vibe). There is no single sentence that can encompass the circuitous route I had to take in order to settle into the seat of coach—all the spirals, slides, setbacks, all the everythings in between; all the years spent fumbling my way through the dark, more often than not with only the dimmest of lanterns lighting the the next step; all the dozens—dozens!—of random-ass jobs I’ve held since I started working at fourteen, every single one of them attempts at moving the needle a few degrees closer to what I was ultimately seeking, which was—of course (and maybe you can relate)—clarity around what I was supposed to do with my life.

As someone constantly encouraging my clients to lean into the inherent messiness of their humanity, spitting out a perfectly polished elevator pitch to describe the depth-and-breadth of what emerges in a coaching relationship just feels bizarre (yes, I am over-thinking this and yes, over-thinking is another theme that often shows up with clients).

In my imagination, someone asks me, “How did you become a coach?” and we go for a coffee. We both share about our spirals, slides, and setbacks. There’s no rush, no performing, no getting it right, no need to impress (and yeah, this is how I want my whole life to to feel). I get a chance to share from my heart this thing around which everything else spins; I get to hear what that thing is for them.

I’m a writer and coach.
I work in transformation, and my mission is liberation.
I help people discover who they really are so they can make choices that align with the life they really want.

It used to embarrass me that it took me as long as it did to discover and claim a vocation. I don’t see it that way anymore. Because the sense of excitement and aliveness I now feel about myself and my life was hard-won. I did not get here in spite of all the spirals, slides, and setbacks; indeed, I am where—and who—I am today because of those meanderings. Even the hardest, darkest moments—some of which happened this year—I know were happening for me, not to me.

This is a powerful reframe. And it’s ultimately the nexus around which my work spins.

Knowing that life is happening for me and not to me is the definition of self-trust. If I know this to be true, then when something objectively bad happens (which it will, over and over, for the rest of my life, because life it what it is), I can ask myself, “What if I were to trust *this* too?” I ask myself that question, and what emerges is an organizing principle that serves as a compass to the other side of whatever dark wood I find myself in. I ask myself, “What if I were to trust *this* too?” and when an answer arrives (sometimes it takes a while, but an answer always arrives), it does so in the shape of one of those aforementioned lanterns I mentioned. It illuminates what’s next. And I get to respond in a way that is aligned with my higher self; I am far less likely to react from the fearful, limited thinking of past patterns and bummer self beliefs.

Self-trust means trusting that I have capacity to be with whatever is occurring. Beauty and terror. Light and dark. Ease and struggle.

Self-trust is spaciousness. Breathing room. Inhale, exhale.

Self-trust keeps the windows of possibility open, keeps my options open, because self-trust is freedom from the conditioning that would have me respond in ways that perpetuate all the unhelpful, and even harmful, programming I so diligently seek to liberate myself from.

Developing self-trust; interacting with my life as a collaborative partner, rather than an antagonist; deconditioning all the obstacles within me that keep me distracted, disconnected, or diminished away from my higher self—this is the path. And I would have never stepped into this spacious, new ground if my life hadn’t unfolded exactly as it did.

Speaking of freedom: do you know what it’s like to regret (<almost>) nothing? To have forgiven yourself as kindly, honestly, and fully as you would the person you love most in the world? To no longer pine for do-overs? To reflect on the mistakes and failures of your past, and to make sense of it all, to maybe even create meaning and purpose from it all?

These are just a few of the promises of self-trust.

If the nexus of my work spins around self-trust, I’m sure it’s unsurprising that a big part of my work is partnering with people to develop this within themselves…and then to design a life created from this foundation.

I write about it here—longtime Self Made readers know that experimenting with increasing self-trust has been the Great Theme of My Life Not To Mention My Substack for years. In my coaching practice, it doesn’t matter why a person chooses to hire me—whether it’s to transform their relationship with a substance; because they’re navigating a Big Life Transition; or feeling a vague sense that something is off, but the steps they’ve taken to address it don’t seem to be working anymore; +/- anything and everything in between—by the end of our engagement, they will have expanded self-trust.

Time and time again, I keep collecting evidence—from my own lived experience, and from the lived experiences shared with me in thousands of sessions with clients—that the transformation we seek is predicated upon developing this aspect of our inner experience.

For so long, I fought against my life’s unfolding. I banged my head against doors that would never open; I climbed other people’s ladders of success. I thought there was something wrong with me; I thought that if I could only fit myself into certain shapes, check off certain boxes, I would be an acceptable human, that nothing bad would happen, that I would finally be OK. I had no idea I could even *consider* that everything was happening exactly as it was meant to. Holy hell, I know I wrote earlier that I have no regrets, but I wouldn’t have minded a ticket to the self-trust path a little sooner.

Here’s how I’ve organized the stages of developing self-trust:

1. Establish - This is where you create the inner conditions for self-trust to emerge. You create space for transformation. You get some steady, baseline practices going. You learn to listen to, and forge a relationship with, your inner world - your higher self.

2. Expand - You start experimenting. This is where you develop discernment around which thoughts and beliefs are truly yours, and which ones were downloaded into you by family of origin, culture, society. This is where you begin questioning, and getting curious, about your default beliefs/reactions/thoughts/ideas. This is where you free yourself from perfectionism, and embrace messiness. This is where you become more and more yourself.

3. Evolve - This is where the rubber meets the road. This is you behaving differently, and experiencing yourself differently, out in the world. This stage is collaborative, and relational, and connects you to a sense of deeper meaning, purpose, and interdependence.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

This is more-or-less it (“more-or-less,” because each stage can include so much): you keep showing up, knocking on the door, and doing whatever you can to make the process the goal.

Creating the conditions for self-trust to emerge—and then building a life from that foundation—is often where it’s helpful to have a guide. Someone to wade in the water with you. Someone to offer suggestions and ideas and to encourage exploration and experimentation. Someone who can celebrate your big wins, and who can also crawl into the pit with you. Someone who is not invested in the bullshit narratives you’ve internalized about who you are and what you’re capable of, and who instead holds up a mirror that reflects back what they see:

brilliance, brilliance, brilliance.

Here’s how it works:

1:1 coaching with Self Made is a 6 or 12 month engagement that consists of the following:

• 🪐 A 75-90 minute intake and assessment.

• 🪐 A customized personal development program. This is not me telling you what to do; it is a collaboration. I create the program, but before we get started, I run it by you for your buy in. I incorporate your feedback and make adjustments so that inspires a sense of ALIVENESS.

  • Programs are developmental: you will amplify your strengths, and attend to blindspots, patterns, stuck places.

  • Programs are both outcome based (working toward developmental goals) and narrative based (creating a new story for yourself and what’s possible). Think practical, and creative.

• 🪐 Between session tools and practices, observations, readings, and more, to support your program

• 🪐 Ongoing check-ins and adjustments to ensure program alignment

• 🪐 Email access to moi as much as you need

• 🪐 A private Self Made Slack channel for ongoing support, community, and resource sharing.

• 🪐 Early registration to all Self Made events, workshops, and retreats.

If you’re curious, I’d love to connect. We start with a 60-minute conversation where we can get to know each other and discern mutual fit. I will share about my method and process and answer any questions you have. I am not into hard sells; I want all of my clients to feel a full-body yes when they sign up for coaching. Our connection and chemistry matters.

There are plenty of coaches to choose from. If the idea of developing self-trust as a foundation for a bold, on-purpose life of your design is intriguing to you, I might be yours 😎

If you read this far:

1. Thank you! and—

2. Please consider sharing this post with anyone you think might be interested. Self Made is built on word-of-mouth referrals. I deeply appreciate you spreading the word to anyone who might benefit from my work (and words!)

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At SELF MADE, the game is to uncover your essential self so you can design a rebellious, bold, on-purpose life that is an expression of who you really are and what you really want. Posts are written by me, Dani Cirignano, writer, Integral Coach, and recovery guide based in San Francisco, CA.

Click here to learn about working with me 1:1. Check out the “About” page for more information about our online community and click any of the “Subscribe Now” buttons to become a subscriber.

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Thank you.