It landed. It was a gift. It was unexpected feedback, from the most unlikely of sources. Someone who I had disconnected energy with. Someone who I had no idea had even noticed my presence. In 3 years of attending Summer Camp by the Happy Start-up, our paths had not yet crossed, and I think that was intentional on both parties.
“Sophie, you are authentic, brave and embodying sexual energy”
It made me think about how I have suffered this past year with stories I have chosen to tell myself about being insignificant, unloved, unseen. And how in that moment, the story turned on itself.
Unchartered waters
I’ve just approached my 40th birthday, 10 months after ending my marriage, whilst launching a second business, taking on big financial commitments to keep the home stability for my 11-year-old daughter, in a world that is changing around her and me. Becoming a solo parent, of an LGB pre-teen, who had just started grammar school, while I try to support my ex-husband on his move to Asia, and figuring out what it means to be a hyper independent, sexually intellectual woman, in a dating world I have never had to encounter for 24 years.
It’s easy for me to see how I got lost in a negative spiral of wanting to be something, to someone, anyone, needing someone to lean on. I just wanted to mean something. To know that my hurt, pain and darkness was going to be worth it, and that it was noticed without me shouting it. That the pressure I carry on my shoulders was eventually going to ease. That there’d be enough care and love in the world for me. That when I felt like I wasn’t enough, that there would be an opportunity for putting all my baggage down and receiving space for it to be held for a while, while I rested, wept, and healed just a little, before continuing my journey.
Not just these words from the disconnected stranger, but words of countless others, made it impossible for me to deny that maybe how I saw myself, was being seen by others. You see, I do think I am “authentic, brave and embody sexual energy” – I just thought I was having a private experience with that – no-one noticed that in me. I go to Summer Camp to get the love, care (and fun) I find hard to access outside of that 3-day magical container. It makes me hopeful.
Sexual energy for business creativity
Summer Camp affords me a freedom to be my true myself. And this year I was invited to teach a Salsa class, as well as deliver a workshop on Sexual Energy for Business Creativity. It was nice to be acknowledged for my intellect, and not just be the party girl. And more importantly, be able to talk freely and openly about my journey to my sexualness, connecting with my sexual energy, and my theories on sex – what it can do for the world if we just learn to connect with it, talk about it, and get curious about it, rather than suppress, or put it into play in ways that are not congruent with our truest essence.
Sex & Soul, my Sex / Life coaching and education business was officially launched with that workshop. A business I have built, using the very sexual energy I was teaching others to find. People were touched, moved, learned something new and grew because of it. As did I.
Above and beyond seeing myself being reflected back in other’s feedback, tears, and hugs, there’s 3 other key lessons I took away.
Be Ordinarily Different – stay in my own lane
I really am that. It may well be the name of my workplace culture consultancy, but I realised I wear the branding of this well. I’m just your run of the mill woman but doing some crazy stuff with her life. I’ve been feeling injustice that others get a different version of life to me, I feel somewhat singled out a little, by life, and that has significantly hurt me in the past. But I’ve learned at Summer Camp that I am proud of my path, and the fact I’m doing everything a little bit twisty and kinky in comparison to others, makes me ordinarily different.
I am Sex and Soul
I embody sex, and I also embody soul. I am a Libra balancing the 2. I can merge the 2, and with others – sexually, non-sexually, in intimacy, in work and in friendship. I realised at Summer Camp that I am inspired by people who own their sexuality, sexualness, with depth and are authentically themselves. I realised that I inspire myself when I am in this energy, and I learned from so many, that I too inspire others to do the same. It’s ok to show up how I do. I won’t filter or shy away from it.
Love is Everywhere
I set myself the 3 words, Love, Truth and Expression, as my mantras and focus for 2024. Something I think I have done well on exploring, playing with, feeling into and becoming. So, it was no surprise I was seeking my own versions of these words everywhere at Summer Camp.
Summer Camp is a loving space, it gives and receives freely. I left there feeling more loved and seen than I have ever experienced. It lead to disclosures of love, expressing close friendship connections, and feeling in some way complete. And thanks to a workshop focused on love, it helped me consider loving the unloveable – the parts of us we won’t accept, the parts of others we don’t want to accept, the grief, heartbreak, and the general sh*t has hit the fan moments – we can approach it all from a place of love. I want to get even better at that, just by asking “How can I approach this from a place of love?”
Lead by example
So my annual retreat serves not just to nurture my business focus, widen my friendship circle, deepen existing relationships, but it nourishes and nurtures my soul, offers me love where I most need it, and I’ll now live off the feelings and memories of it until the next upgrade in 2025.
I like to write about my personal experiences, because quite simply, I am a human, having a human experience. As are we all are, at work and in our home lives. This is no different when it comes to workplace culture. Bullshitty corporate crap treating people as numbers, with no heart or soul, has no place here at Ordinarily Different, so I must lead by example. I must show my vulnerability, my depth and downfalls, and my epiphanies, just like all good leaders should too.
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