My Place of Belonging
Image by Jamey Rabold
Hello friend! Welcome. I'm so grateful you’re here. Before we dive deeper into the wildness together, I wanted to share more of my journey with you, specifically my work journey. My time spent there and the roles I played have forged my place of belonging in both business and humanity. The moments curated here are ones where lightning struck, and the shock waves following eventually opened my eyes to who I really wanted to be in this life. These are among my most transformative life lessons, and I share them with tenderness so we can walk together in honesty and intimacy, choosing the path that leads us out of our loneliness, separation, and suffering into compassion, grace and connection. Many of life’s moments can feel so painful, but through companionship, love, and gentleness, they can be teased apart in order to find the seeds contained within. The path we must walk is the one through fear so here we go.
My name is Andrea Rabold, and my soul’s work is to initiate a path from fear to love.
While it has taken me into my 40’s to uncover this truth, I know it is only a distillation of ALL that I’ve discovered along the way. And I love where I’m at as I come into midlife. I know! It sounds strange to hear someone say that in this day and age where, at least in the US where I live, society places a premium on you being unhappy with who you are, how you look and how you spend your time. It’s actually odd if you reach midlife without a crisis. Yet in my midlife, I know SO MUCH more than I knew when I was younger. As I journey out of the many years spent hiding myself and move closer to my true nature, I feel grateful. I am living my best life, and while it’s not my richest from an income standpoint - it is my most prosperous. I can now see when I look back into the abyss of memory all the instances where I stood at the cliff's edge, absolutely terrified, choosing to lean into courage and take the risk to follow my dreams and potential. After doing this a few times over, I understand now that it always works out. I don’t mean that it works out perfectly or exactly the way I expected because that never happens, but it works out in that I have always figured it out, whatever it is. No matter what challenge I have ever faced, we (I + my community) have always figured out the who, what, when and how; and every chance taken has propelled me further into my next opportunity. Over my years, I have learned just how deeply resourceful and abundantly supported I am, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything.
Lesson #1: Failure
I was 17 years old, and in my first job as a dance teacher. I really loved dancing, and began formal instruction some time around 3 years old. By the time I started teaching at 15, it was like a second language for me. It was complete freedom of expression without the need for words. It was also a way of moving the very distressing, turbulent emotions I felt during my adolescent years out of my body. When I danced, I experienced some of the freest moments of my life.
Even though I look back on my dance teaching days fondly, I learned some pretty challenging life lessons. One in particular was around how powerful people’s opinions and judgments can be, especially when fear is present, and how swiftly decisions can be made without curiosity or inclusion of the people impacted. But let me backup a tick. As a dance teacher, I was working with young people (age 8-12 yrs) but I was really working with their parents. Makes sense right? But I didn’t know that at the time. So there I was, at 17 years old, given the opportunity to choreograph my first group dance for an upcoming recital. I had total freedom to explore and create with whatever piece of music I liked. Bolstered by my lack of people experience and inspired by a beautifully hypnotic, chaotic piece of music, I fearlessly taught a dance to my students. We had a great time together. A couple of times, I looked over at the studio owner who was present but deep in her own work and seemingly fine with how it was all going. Everything seemed perfectly fine. Until it wasn’t.
It was the dance that would last one dance class. By the following week, I was pulled as the lead choreographer for the age group, and asked to sit out teaching for the rest of the year. Parents had complained about the type of music and the story embedded in the dance I had created, and threatened to take their money and child to another dance studio. In the aftermath, I felt a great deal of shame and like I should have known better although of what, I don’t know. I really struggled with interfacing with others at the studio after that. From the initial experience I learned:
In life, you don’t always get second chances.
Seeking perfection is an easier option than dealing with failure.
In the midst of my failure, I started to believe that even in artistic practice, the safer and more acceptable thing to do is to fit yourself well within the boundaries of other people's reality. I had truly been clueless about generating such intensity and ire from others, and had not been given the opportunity to answer the accusations (most likely in an attempt to protect me). While I stayed at the dance studio for the rest of the spring season, and danced at the recital, I left soon after. Even though I was out of the environment, this particular lesson would settle at the base of my amygdala, codifying my unconscious need to please everyone all the time. It, in addition to other life experiences, also solidified my protective pattern of scanning all environments in order to see the emotional patterns of others so I would never be shocked by my innocence and ignorance again. Needless to say, many of these initial impressions I have needed to nurture and love myself through as I have learned to shed their protective armor around my heart. But this moment was really important to recall as I became a leader of others. This early experience with failure in the workplace would serve as an essential ingredient for transmutation as I became acutely focused on creating healing spaces in the workplace that would enable others the freedom to fail.
Lesson #2: Judgment
Toward the end of high school through college and into my twenties, I fell in love with theatre, eventually graduating with a BFA in Acting. Theatre was a deep dive into Humanity, and through it, I learned how to use my mind to manipulate energy - to understand, control and influence emotional states within relationships - with myself, actors, directors, the audience, and with other “characters” on stage. It was exhilarating and revelatory. Theatre was also my first studied interaction with the human archetypes which I have continued to utilize throughout my work ever since, and would also serve as the setting for another one of my great life lessons.
After rehearsal one night my director came to me, “Andrea, do you hate the character you’re playing?” Well ‘hate’ is a really strong word, I remember thinking glibly. They kept staring at me awaiting my response. Oh shit! They’re serious! I breathed in the question, and looked within. It only took a second. “Oh my god, I do hate my character. You aren’t supposed to hate your character, are you?” Thankfully they were good to keep the conversation on the lighter side. :) “Well you can’t really play the role with sincerity when you sit above them in the judge’s seat. Why do you think you hate your character?” I wanted so badly to avoid their question and focus on figuring out how they could tell. I had been found out, and I wanted to know how. But as luck would have it they continued on, “Do you hate your character because you think you would never do what your character does?” Ugh. From there I took a long, hard look at myself and sank into the realizations that were crackling in the air between us. Somehow I had separated myself from my character. I was playing a role not defined by the page but by me, and I was now playing the judge. How could I be a legitimate actor if I’m afraid to embody my darkness and embrace all that humanity is? We are all capable of harming others, and do so, often. So I’ve never been in a position to physically kill someone (as my character does in the play), but I have enacted emotional violence upon others and we are all capable of killing. That day I realized how easy it is to separate ourselves from “the other” and to believe we have a choice over which part of our own humanity we accept by just excluding the parts of ourselves and others we deem wrong, bad, or unworthy. While I learned the above lesson that day, it would take me many more years before finally noticing and gathering up all of the parts of myself I had carved off because they had been labeled as wrong, bad, and unworthy.
Lesson #3: Listening
While in college pursuing life as an actor, it was time for me to get a job so I applied to be a barista. About a month on the job at Starbucks, I was asked to become a shift supervisor. This began my trajectory into business and people leadership. There I learned strategy, business development, problem solving, profit & loss, coaching vs managing to name a few. As I progressed through the management levels, I started seeing subtleties between conscious and unconscious behavior, how to motivate and inspire others, have empathy, and lead through self-empowerment. Even though it was the most challenging thing I had ever done, I loved leading and developing people. It suited my interests and my journey thus far, and I was pretty good at it.
However, after three years as a store manager of a multi-million dollar business, I was burnt out. I still had a lot to learn about capitalism, leadership and myself within it. So when the opportunity came along, I jumped at the chance to continue my learning as an individual contributor where I worked at a regional office with directors who managed large portfolios including 300-400 stores across 2-3 states, and a leadership team of 10-12 district managers. I learned so much from their guidance and mentorship. Through my widened exposure to leaders higher up in an organization, I also learned how I didn’t want to treat people. At the time, Starbucks was trying to differentiate itself as a “people first” company; however, most of the conversations I participated in were focused on double digit comp growth and how to increase employee capability so we could keep pursuing that tireless growth trajectory for the shareholders. It was uncomfortable thinking about humans as machines, and I could see myself becoming disenfranchised with the capitalistic formula for business. It was at this point where another life lesson shocked me. By now you might be seeing how shock can be a powerful portal for awakening.
My boss and I were in our weekly 1:1 going over the business, comps, and work that needed to be done. Trying to be my most productive self, I started to say something when he turned in frustration and through piercing eyes said, “Andrea, you aren’t a very good listener are you?” I honestly don’t think he meant to shock me the way he did, but all I could do was just stare at him for what felt like minutes epically dragging by. I stood naked in my vulnerability, innocence, wide eyed shock, and shame, unable to respond and trying to hold back tears. When I finally answered, all I could utter was, “No, I didn't. I have always meant to be a good listener. I thought I was.”
It was one of those times in life (maybe you have had them too) where you stand at a crossroads: you can either ignore the truth opening before you OR you can choose to see it as a powerful path leading you home (even if it's wrapped up in someone else’s opinion). I decided on the latter. Even though I wanted to run crying from that room, I stood there and accepted his truth. From that moment on, I studied being a good listener like it was my real job and put my fullest commitment into becoming the powerful listener I knew I could be and knew others really needed. I chose to see his opinion as an invitation - to be who I was supposed to be. Over time, I have healed the shame and guilt resulting from that interaction, and I have been able to alchemize the lead into gold: he wasn’t just calling me to the carpet, he was calling me home. Taking this softer approach, I could both forgive him for his approach and myself for my not knowing. I could offer grace because I recognized up to that point, I had no one in my life who was actually good at listening. As I have searched over the last 15 years, I have found it really hard to find people who actually know how to truly listen to others - through their heart with clear enough emotional energy to attune to the other without agenda, judgment, or needing to make themselves feel better. With this experience came the understanding that:
Life doesn’t always offer an easy, linear path home - you have to take responsibility for uncovering it.
As a leader of others, you have more power and trust given to you than you can possibly understand. Most of your effort should go toward recognizing this and surrendering that power back to those you are leading.
Lesson #4: Fear
So then, a few years later, when I stood at cliff’s edge preparing to leap into becoming a nonprofit executive director, I knew in my heart it would put my healing, wisdom integration, and leadership capabilities to the test, but I certainly had no idea in what way or by how much.
While still at Starbucks, I was working on the side as a contracted actor for Mirror Image Arts, a Denver-based theatre nonprofit. Over the years, the founder and I had become friends, and I knew her struggles with getting the organization off the ground. The Idea into the Start-up stage of a business is precarious and challenging at best, and it is often at this point where organizations die. So the day she called to share that Mirror Image Arts had lost $90,000 of its committed income over the last week and that she had to be done and couldn’t carry the organization any further, I wasn’t surprised. The surprise came, when she asked if I would be interested in taking up the mantle of leadership. At this point, my jaw dropped to the floor, and the only words I could reasonably utter were, “Umm…do you think I can take a couple of weeks to think about it?” By the end of those two weeks, I knew I would be stepping into my fear of the unknown and through the fear of my own inadequacy.
Over the next 8 years, I along with so many others, lifted Mirror Image Arts up from an organization in decline with $200 in the bank account, IRS troubles, and no program, board members or staff into an established, well-regarded, and high functioning nonprofit with an $800,000 operating budget and a team of 10 staff, 8 board members, and multiple support contractors, all working to disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline through theatre and policy advocacy. I will always be so proud of this work, and participating in it was an honor of my lifetime.
As the executive director, I was now at the top of an organizational hierarchy where I knew every action I took could be an opportunity to hurt or heal, to lift up or push down. Because of my prior experience with the stereotypical corporate environment, I knew I wanted to shift from focusing on constant growth through power over models that celebrate force, dominance, extraction, and exclusion. Instead I wanted to experiment with approaches that called people in like collaboration, reflection, playing together, coming from a place of curiosity, freedom to fail, process of the pause, accepting emotion as information, sharing power, and being vulnerable together. Through this new way of being in the workplace, we had to work really hard at deconditioning and healing because the collective harm we had experienced from other workplaces was often much greater than we were, but in the end we proved it could work. We co-created spaces of belonging together that celebrated our humanity and each of our unique strengths. Yes, a great deal of our efforts were focused on how we were showing up for our young people through our programs, but equal organizational effort was placed on how to work together internally before externalizing it out into the world. Through this experience, I learned it was possible to create a business with love at its core. By the time I left, we had planted many seeds and were harvesting so many beautiful moments, but moments are fleeting and to be honest, I know it was only the beginning of the possibilities. But you have to start somewhere. That's one of the lessons you learn through the process of initiating, whether it be for an organization, your dreams, your potential, or any type of change, you just have to start. I know that sounds so easy but it’s true (although definitely easier said than done). You just have to start and trust you will figure out the rest along the way. By the very act of doing this, you create momentum and you engage the forces of imagination, creativity, and resourcefulness. I know this because I've done it so many times, up to and including the moment it was time for me to move on from Mirror Image Arts. I knew there would come a day when I would intuitively feel it was time for me to go. That day finally came. I had encountered my soul's vision, and I saw how all my experiences were collectively pointing me toward my next direction - to move on as a wanderer into the darkness in order to go deeper within my soul’s journey.
That's where I come from today - a magical forest and ecosystem in Maine where I am learning and growing every single day through deep contemplation and connection with myself and Nature. While it hasn't been easy to so drastically change my life, it has been 100% worth it to take a chance and follow my vision.
As I end this, it feels important for me to share once more: EVERY time I have stood at the cliff’s edge looking out at the horizon of a dream, I have felt deep fear and inadequacy. This is so very human. Dreams press on our ultimate fear of annihilation. The difference for me now is that it’s no longer about fighting my fear, but learning from it. Each time I stand on the precipice, I will always wonder what my future is gonna look like, what will happen if I fail, and how my failure will impact the people I love most (including myself). But by taking the terrifying yet more unique path, my experiences have awakened my understanding of both myself and others, and deepened my commitment to love. That is all I’ve ever wanted. I don’t know what the rest of my life will entail, but because of my work with fear, I am now more accepting of the uncertainty of it all, and I’m engaging my potential and most powerful self in service to the world. Are you ready to join me?
