103: The Most Life-Changing Lesson Leyden Taught Me

Foreign. We are back. And today I am solo podcasting on the most life changing lesson that I learned from my daughter, Layton. Now, if you don't know, all the work that I'm doing and sharing started with me processing the lessons that I learned through Layden's life and loss and teaching them. And it started with an email list I was too afraid to put on social media. I was also working in schools. Stay tuned for some episodes that are juicy coming up on that. But I was very apprehensive to put things out there on social media that were uncomfortable. And that was my own thing. That was my own discomfort with my truth and reality. And that was the work that I did on myself allowed me to realize that sharing these things not only is valuable for me, but it can give other people the space to go deeper. It can provide a permission slip. It can provide a path to so much growth, expansion, and healing. So today I am sharing the most life changing lesson. Now, the team that I first started sharing these lessons with in email was like 30 people. And I would share one lesson a week while I was fundraising for my marathon campaign that I was running in memory of Layden. I had promised Layden when we were in the hospital that the next year she and I would cross the finish line of the Boston Marathon together. We would run for Boston Children's Hospital. It was marathon Monday that year when Layden and I were there. The city was buzzing, it was electric. And I was like, layden, next year we are crossing that finish line. I even took a video of her with her little legs kicking. And I was like, you know, she's stretching for the marathon. And I sent it to her uncle, one of my brothers. Now, when Layden passed, I was very much in pain. Moving was hard, getting out of bed, getting out of the house. And I had this, like, thought just come through me that said, melissa, you didn't make a conditional promise. You didn't promise to cross that finish line and run for Children's only if Layden lived. And so I ran that marathon. Now, it was very healing for me to have a place to go and run for Children's hospital. It was also very painful to be around majority of runners, almost the entire team running to celebrate and give back to the hospital that had saved their child or was treating their child. And there I was fundraising and giving back to the hospital where my child had died. In fact, her case was termed catastrophe. So that was a whole huge part of my growth and evolution, but not actually the lesson right there. But Another one, like, we'll give this, like, a little bonus lesson of this episode, of the conditionality we can place on our word. And for me to be in true integrity of my word, I got to run that marathon. And I did. And I ran with Laden's ashes, and I crossed that finish line, bawling with, holding her ashes over my head. And I remember I could barely even speak. And I said to the person who was like, giving me one of those, you know, blankets or whatever that wraps around your shaking body at that point, like, you know, I ran for my daughter, Laden, and they. She couldn't understand, and. But she said, you, dad would be so proud. And I wanted to explain, and I was like, just let it go. And I was like, yeah, he would be proud. He is proud. He was at the finish line. So, anyways, as I'm continuing in my journey, I had, like, you know, a lot of conversations, and I had this moment, you know, where I was still in pain and I was still sharing and really holding onto that. Leiden's case was termed a catastrophe, that it was, quote, unquote, a disaster. And that was a really hard thing for me. In fact, an attorney had been looking at it, had reached out and wanted to look at it. They'd heard what had happened, and they spent over a year on her case and said, this is medical malpractice, and it's not a winnable case. Which means that even if they believe that there was things that went wrong, there's a different threshold. Before a firm can take it on responsibly for their firm, and they have to deem that it's a winnable case. And given the amount of decisions and the credentials of the hospital, and, you know, cardiac surgeons are the highest of the high. The gentleman who called me was crying and was like, I have a daughter that's Layton's age. I want to take this on so badly for me and my emotion, but as a partner in this firm, we can't. And it was interesting because I coach that so much now in entrepreneurship, like, we get to make decisions from data and service with emotion, and it's a really hard thing to tease out. So, you know, that was something that came through there. But as I was in all this pain, and I'm sure a lot of you can relate and feeling something taken from you, like, ripped out from underneath you. What shifted for me was the most potent lesson that I think about. And I carry when I coach all the time, and I carry in every experience I carry into my every Day. And it's this. We are not entitled to anything, but we are worthy of everything. Okay, hear me again in that we are not entitled to anything, but we are worthy of everything. And now I see it backwards so often in our society where we think we're entitled to a lot, but we don't realize that we're worthy of everything. Right? Our worthiness is lacking. Or we look for a bank account, or we look for a person or a job title or a number of likes on social media to validate our worthiness. Right. We outsource our worthiness, but then we also walk around like entitled, like, oh, there's traffic. Right? Like, that's a, that's a level, a very basic level of entitlement. Like, I can't believe there's traffic. Okay, Melissa, living in a major city, right when I was, they're going to get traffic, so plan your time accordingly. But for me, what came through, and I'll never forget, I was walking outside a Boston children's hospital and I stopped and I just stared at the hospital and I had this thought of, Melissa, you have been walking around as if you were entitled to a healthy child. You weren't entitled to anything. It was divine intervention or something that came through. Now I'm worthy of a healthy child. I can grieve that I didn't have one. I can feel the pain. I can be sad, I can be angry, I can be all the things. But I got to let go of walking around as if something had been taken from me and shifting it into, I had the gift of building and carrying and birthing and holding my child. Some people never experienced that gift. And what I really discovered was that gratitude and that power of instead of feeling as though something was taken from me, can I be so grateful for what I experienced? And this is the most life changing lesson I have learned and it applies everywhere. Everywhere. Where am I, or maybe someone I'm supporting? Where is there an underlying level of entitlement? Like, well, I'm entitled to this. You know, in an upcoming episode, one of my guests, we're going to talk about how we both had professional status, which is like a security blanket in the school system, yet we were both put on administrative leave and we both, you know, left her job. She was fired. I chose to resign. However, it doesn't, doesn't really matter, but there was this expectation of, well, I'm safe. And it's almost an entitlement. Well, I pay my dues every month. I'm safe, I'm entitled to that and realizing we actually aren't entitled to anything. So how are we in full responsibility and ownership of creating what we want to create? And how are we so grateful for everything that we experience? So I invite you to really think on this. And this is not an easy topic. Let me be clear on that. In fact, it's even challenging for me to coach people through it because it can be very triggering. No one wants to think that they're entitled. No one wants to think they're entitled. So can we let go of maybe a trigger or an embarrassment or a judgment or shame that we place around the exploration of entitlement? And can we really just let it be an exploration, a curiosity, a discovery, like, wow, where have I been feeling entitled to that? Like, I don't know, if our food doesn't come out within a certain period of time and we get frustrated, sure, you can choose not to go back to that restaurant, of course, but are we entitled to it coming at a certain time? This can apply to anything. You know, you can have expectations or standards in a relationship, but are you entitled to anything? Are you entitled to somebody growing in a certain way? You know, so often I think that I think back on, you know, my, my past, my long term relationship and there was almost a level of entitlement, probably mutually on our side that, you know, where we were when we started and who we be in that space. Like we were just going to grow together, right? But we were both worthy of growing in our own way. We weren't entitled to the other person growing the way we wanted them to grow or living the way we wanted them to live. Right? Because over the course of six, seven years, I personally evolved and changed a lot. So of course that's going to impact different parts of my life. Now I'm not saying that when we grow and change, all relationships are going to do that. So hear me in that. But looking at where do I have this thought of entitlement? Where this person should still be operating the way that they were operating X amount of time ago, or this person should be growing in the direction I want them to grow or this person should be choosing this is their priority because that's what I'm choosing as my priority. Right? It can be anything. Even with entrepreneurship and business. I hear this a lot like, well, I want my business to light me up or I want my business to excite me. And that's like a level of entitlement where we have this expectation of our business to provide an energetic experience for us rather than Being an ownership. Remember, the opposite, in my opinion of entitlement is ownership and gratitude. Right. Those to me are the opposite spectrum. Ownership and gratitude. Right. One more the being. Right. One more the doing. Where are we? Maybe as entrepreneurs, maybe in relationship, maybe in our grief journey. Right? I got to take full ownership of my grief journey and my healing. I didn't want to. I didn't want to, but what was the alternative in entrepreneurship? I told my clients today, do I get excited every day to wake up and say, okay, I'm going to coach on the five aspects of the business for the 10,426 time in the last four and a half years? No. But I get lit up, excited and grateful to be aligned to my vision of empowering others, and that drives everything. So when we are trying to step away from entitlement, that things should go a certain way. I mean, even when, you know, whether it's social media, like sometimes I catch myself laughing at myself when, you know, the wi fi is slow or a post doesn't go up and I'll chuckle and I'll be like, oh, Melissa, you thought you were entitled to that just going so smoothly, didn't you? Of course not. So when we call ourselves out lightly and chuckle now what do we shift into? Gratitude. Geez, I'm so grateful when this works. I'm so grateful when this goes well. I'm so grateful how this evolves. So taking it further, a place where I see a lot of struggle, where struggle exists and lives, is when we declare or desire or want something, but we're not in ownership of it. Right? You want to build that business? How are you in ownership of learning the skill of business building? How are you in ownership of overseeing your entire business? You want to heal? How are you in ownership of your healing? You want your fitness to improve? How are you in ownership of it? I was laughing the other day as I was at the gym. I was watching my. The person who has created my training program work out and man, he's in unbelievable fitness shape. I could be in a place of a Y or an I like that, but I'm not willing. I'm not willing to take the level of ownership that he takes for my health and fitness to be at that level. Now I take a lower level of ownership and it's aligned with my expectation. Right? And I'm okay with that. So now look at how much struggle exists in the place where we have a gap between an expectation and ownership of creating and cultivating that expectation. Do you see you See how this can change everything in your life because it truly has changed everything in mind. And so just a little nugget, let me know what you think. Slide on into my Instagram DMs. I would love to know what comes up for you in this. Because when we shift out of entitlement, like I'm for example, with the gym, I'm not entitled to have that level of fitness just because I hired that person. I gotta put in the work, I gotta be mindful of what I eat, right? Probably not have Mabino or Mezcal or whatever, the foods that I enjoy, but I'm not willing to do that. So instead of me saying, well, I want to be at that level 10, can I say, okay, well I'm a house and fitness, I'm pretty good with an 8, so what am I in ownership of to be at an 8? Same thing with your financial health. How am I in ownership of my financial flow, right? Same thing with your business. How am I in ownership your healing your grief, whatever it may be. So I want to remind you all and something that I'm going to close out with. We forget how fucking worthy we are. We forget how worthy we are. I'm not worthy of investing. I'm not worthy of taking action. I'm not worthy of this. We self sabotage, we avoid whatever it may be. You are so worthy, you are so worthy of everything you want to create and everything you want to experience in this lifetime. It is a gift. This precious, precious lifetime. You are so worthy. So my invitation for you is to not outsource your worthiness. It's to pull back, rein in that magical power of knowing your worthiness and standing in it. And just as heavily stand in ownership of creating and experiencing and feeling everything you dream of.