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Susanne shares a memory that came to her today. How it has supported her emotional growth and well-being. How she and other judge people’s actions so quickly and not from a place of compassion or understanding. Susanne asks us to try to see the other person’s perspective which will allow one to live within that moment’s highest purpose.
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When you’re operating in a people-pleasing state.
Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Pointe To Rise podcast. My name is Susanne, and I am your host today. As you can see, if you’re watching this and listening to it on YouTube, I am not in my familiar surrounding, so the quality isn’t that great, but this will do. When I was driving from the gym today, I had this message come into my head that I want to share with you today. I’m going to put a little alert here this is going to be very vulnerable, very honest. You can judge as much as you want to. I feel not only compelled to share; however, I also think that by me telling you honestly what I have experienced, I’m to permit you to do the same and not judge yourself around choices you maybe have made in your past years or failures that you may have had.
I don’t know if you know as I haven’t talked about it in great length. The last company I was in, in 2000. I had left abruptly in a non-traditional way and not an excellent way, something I wouldn’t do anymore. Meaning that you know, silently packing up our belongings and just taping a letter to the doors of the changing rooms and the Office of the Director and never return without any notice.
As a director, even as a leader, I now know what that feels like and what kind of challenge can throw into your operations. I did not feel at that time, back in 2000, that I had another choice. I did not feel strong enough to face a conversation with the leadership of this company. I was not in the mental capacity to even take that on. And I tell you why. Because the way I was taking care of myself was poor, very poor, the way I was working in a consistent state of burnout made me mentally so weak that I could not even imagine or think of what the other side could think.
Now, that was how the company was run at that point, you know, eight to ten hours a day, you have to be there no matter what if you were cast in it or not. You couldn’t sit down during rehearsal. Having rehearsal before shows. It’s tough for me to talk about it because I’m not here to blame. I am not here to shame anybody in the operation. I’m here to say that when we’re not taking care of ourselves, we’re not putting ourselves first. The choices we make are easier to see later on in life and are not the best choices we could have made.
Had I stepped into a different version of myself. And I see it over and over again in clients or people that I connect with that when you’re operating in this people-pleasing, lack mentality consistent state of burnout, you are just functioning, and you are only tapping into what seems the easiest right now. You’re not even capable of thinking about how the other side could feel that you’re making the choices, and sometimes we shouldn’t be thinking about that at all. Because then we would perhaps waver in our decision. But what I’m saying is at least giving the other side a chance to have a conversation which I didn’t do because I wasn’t capable of it. I didn’t think I was enough. And I didn’t want to be convinced of staying because I couldn’t see myself doing another 30 performances of The Nutcracker. If you’re judging your choices, if you want to go and judge your choices from 10 years ago, two years ago, don’t forget to also look at who were you as a person back then? And what did she or he needs at that point? Was she actually capable? Was she capable of making a different choice in where she was at? For me, my answer is absolute; she was not capable of making any other choices but to run.
I was judged for this not too long ago. Our past landlord decided to evict us out of the home that we’re living in. She proceeded to judge us openly on that choice to leave the past company from years back, without knowing any circumstances, without knowing all the mental and physical abuse that was going on there, and not knowing where mine or my husband’s mental health was at.
And so the lesson here, two things, don’t judge other people on their choices without context. Don’t judge others, period. But if you want to, and you feel like you have to say something, consider where that person was. What are the circumstances surrounding that choice? Was it made lightly? Or was it a hard choice they had to make? In my circumstances, in my husband’s circumstances, it was a really, really hard choice to make. Because the only way we were able to stay in the United States was by having a contract with this company. And me leaving meant giving up the house we just bought. I can no longer live in this country that I have fallen in love with, that I just, you know, entered into a year and a half ago. It came with so many other decisions, and not being in that environment ultimately outweighed all of the other inconveniences presenting themselves to me.
I thought I had to put this out here because I want you to know that, yeah, I have screwed up, I have made bad choices, I still make bad choices. But that doesn’t make me a bad person. It allows me to learn. It allows me to grow. And that’s for all of us. We can make bad choices; we can make bad decisions. We can, and even what does bad even mean? It wasn’t bad for me. It was inconvenient for them. And it wasn’t respectful on my part to just run, not say anything, and you know, to let my ego lead the way versus stepping into that higher version of myself. I didn’t even know what that higher version of myself was at that point. But if something doesn’t fit, if you are unhappy in a situation, or a job or a relationship, do not think you have to stay to please the other side. And think, what kind of version of you is making that choice right now? Is that your ego? Is it the tired self? Do you need to take a sabbatical versus quitting? These are all the options, the different perspectives you can look at before running, making a choice that you might regret later on. This brings up another point do I regret that I quit?
No, I didn’t. Because she back then Susanne back in 2001. She needed space. She needed rest. Her mental wellness was in the drains. She had nothing left to give. Could it have turned out differently? Yeah, perhaps if I would have asked for a sabbatical or a year off or something. It may have been different. Would I have been able to heal from the past 18 years of training and being in the industry within a short period? I doubt it, I doubted now, because I am seeing how many more layers there are that I’m going through right now that are unearthing themselves without me being aware of it sometimes. It takes time, right? You have to put yourself in these uncomfortable situations to release all the stories you’ve been collecting over your formative years. So I genuinely hope that these thoughts, this confession, perhaps permits you to see that to be loved, seen, and heard. You don’t need to be perfect to dream big and build something. You don’t have to have an ideal past. Your past story is always the ground for you to become better, want more, and build more to step into that higher version of yourself.
Don’t give up. Choose from where you are at right now. And don’t judge yourself.
That’s all I have for today. I’m sending you so much love.
Again, if this resonates with you if you want to learn more about how emotions play a role in our lives, drop me a DM or share one of your biggest takeaways of this podcast. I’m sending you so much love till soon. Bye-bye
I’m sending you so much ❤
Susanne
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About Susanne Puerschel
Susanne, Founder of Pointe To Rise, an Empowerment society for dancers and other artists, Wellness Entrepreneur, podcast host, former international ballerina, and an experienced principal chief executive officer had the privilege to grow up behind the iron curtain in Berlin, Germany.
She’s dedicating her time now, after working in cooperate America and running her own businesses, to building community among dancers and artists, providing mindset and high-performance coaching, and building a media company that will be the springboard to revitalizing the Arts.
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