Author: Lisa Williams

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Wholehearted living – Guidepost #3 – Resiliency

We’ve arrived at month three of my year of wholehearted living. The third guidepost is letting go a numbing and powerlessness and cultivating a resilient spirit.

Defined, resiliency is “the ability to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.” Reading this I thought, well, shoot, I’ve been resilient throughout my life! Thinking back, I recall the medical challenges with my foot amputation, moving homes several times as a child, family drama – like anyone else, broken teenage hearts, and I don’t even want to examine adulthood. But was I resilient in those moments or was it something else?

Think about your own life and the challenges you’ve faced. Capture them in your mind for a moment. What was your approach? At a glance, I would say that I was resilient. But this isn’t a glance, it’s a stare down. The honest truth is I numbed myself. Continuing to look forward, pushing aside pain or sadness. I’m certain I felt, or told myself, I was powerless to make any impact, so the easier choice was to numb, to tune out. Yes, I moved forward. Yes. I bounced back. But at the cost of not processing or sitting with the emotions I was having. Which is why, at 52 years old, I’m still working to identify my emotions and what I want my voice to be in the world. Does any of that sound familiar?

Finding your midpoint

Resiliency, bouncing back, does not involve numbing, or powerlessness. Imagine a line in your mind. The midpoint is how you show up in life from day to day. Your normal, everyday, self. When life knocks the crap out of you, in varying degrees, you fall off that midpoint. If you choose to numb, via whatever your tool of choice is, alcohol, television, shopping; or if you tell yourself you’re powerless, you stay down. We can’t live in the low lows or the high highs 100% of the time. Instead, we need hover around the midpoint.

Resiliency gets us there

The healthy way to return to our midpoint is via resiliency. Through practicing joy, collecting it, over time. Cultivating a jar of happy experiences that serve to right our ship when we’re out of sync. When I think back to those early years, that wasn’t my practice. Hence, the numbing. As we grow in life, we learn to choose joy. Think back to the line for a minute. When you fall away from your midpoint due to the inevitable pain that comes with life, the joy we’ve cultivated is like a trampoline. We bounce back faster because we know that even though we’re in pain, we can face it. There will be joy in our lives again. That doesn’t mean we avoid it, but we recognize our emotions and bounce back.

And it takes practice

To truly cultivate joy and build resiliency, we must practice. When difficult times come, and they will, practice identifying your emotions. Recognize them. Validate them. Acknowledge how you’re feeling and practice self-compassion, self-kindness. Remember that joy will return and take a breath. Hard times happen, but we can safely acknowledge and work through them. We can choose not to numb ourselves, to believe we’re powerless. Every single one of you has the power within you to be resilient. To choose the wholehearted way. It’s our journey, friends, and I’m on it with you.

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Lessons learned after a month of self-compassion

Within the so called ‘month of love,’ my wholehearted journey led me down a path I’d heard of, taken classes on, but avoided. Self-compassion, which is a type of self-love. Think of it like a hiking path that you see climbing the side of what appears to be a gentle, sloping hill. Around what feels like halfway up, you glance back to your progress, only to realize you’ve barely left the parking lot. And the hill gets steeper, pebbles and rocks threaten to trip you, sending you tumbling down, bruised in body and pride.

All that and more was the month of focusing on self-compassion. I’ve written about it in prior weeks, but as I near the end of the month, as you would with any project, I’m taking stock the distance traveled on the path. When you tune in and listen to your natural thought patterns about yourself, it can be astonishing. In a million years you would never utter the words to another human which you speak to yourself.

Why is that? Perhaps that no one hears it but us? It’s not an isolated problem. To the degree that you can find coffee cups and pictures with the phrase “talk to yourself like you’d talk to someone you love.” With certainly I can assure you Etsy could deliver you the object of your choice with the phrase, if you so desire. The negative chatter in our heads is incessant. I spent time getting curious about it this month and flipping the equation to look at what self-compassion would say. The negative talk? That’s generally perfectionism related and likely tied to comparison.

Ain’t nobody got time for that (or Ain’t nobody got thyme for that – if you’re follow my new kitchen towel – small pleasures friends).

Seriously, comparison is nobody’s friend. Self-compassion is kindness. Compassion and perfectionism tear us down. When we pay attention, we can catch ourselves in the act and switch to self-compassion. I did, all month, mostly consistently, and learned a few things.

Lesson 1

  • Listen to your body – The last few years, ok, more than the last few, but let’s not get distracted, specifically, the last few years, I’ve beat myself up because my body decided to drum up an autoimmune disorder. And sleep apnea – yes, I’m looking sexy in my CPAP each night. I’m now that person. Doctors can tell you only so much. What self-compassion told me is, “of course your tired, that’s part of the condition.” And when I offered self-compassion, my body whispered, “you can trust me.” That’s the element many of us miss. We can trust our own bodies. They know how to heal themselves and when they don’t? They let you know. And they also know when you’re throwing down buckets of negativity, and guess what, they don’t like it, and they get your attention. Self-compassion is being soft with yourself.

Lesson 2

  • Healing takes time – Physically and emotionally. Emotional wounds didn’t get there overnight and they’re not going away that quickly. My podiatrist told me the other day as I lamented about the continual discomfort in my foot… if you’d broken your foot, six weeks later you’d be healed. Soft tissue takes longer. And so do your emotions. Self-compassion is giving yourself space to heal. Knowing that your healing path may not look like someone else’s. Which is probably good because you don’t need to heal from their wounds.

Lesson 3

  • You can trust yourself – Perfectionism constantly looks for the ways you’re failing. A crack in the armor to seep in and crumble you. Self-compassion reminds you that there is no right or wrong way to approach your life. You can trust the path you’re on, and still, they’ll be mistakes. That’s normal. Everyone makes mistakes. Mistakes don’t mean you can’t trust yourself. You can. Mistakes mean you’re human.

Lesson 4

  • It’s ok to not have all the answers – Earlier in the month, I would have responded “are you sure?” Having answers for each possible contingency seems logical. Wise even. It allows you to reduce risk. But self-compassion reminds us that it’s ok not to have all the answers. The answers may come in giving yourself time and grace to discover it. It doesn’t make us weak, or less not to have answers. It’s another way we’re human.

Cumulatively, the lessons from self-compassion make me think about Brené Brown’s quote, “Strong back, soft front, wild heart.” She talks about it related to getting close up with people, being civil but speaking truth to BS, and holding hands with strangers. I’d extend these principles to yourself. Your self-compassion allows you to get up close, to speak truth to the lies you’ve told your heart and mind and hold hands with yourself – because we can be a stranger to ourselves.

Consider your own self-compassion journey this month. Perhaps you’ve followed along with mine, and if so, I hope you’ve been reflecting on what you’ve learned. We’ll shift next month, but we’re always on the journey together. Be brave my friends.

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Why should we choose love over fear?

On Valentine’s Day, my co-workers and I walked the halls, handing out Valentine cards and candy to staff (perks of being in HR). At the same time, we held a contest. I carried a thick glass jar filled with Hershey’s Kisses. Whoever guessed the number of kisses (303 to be exact) won them. Maybe halfway through, I balanced the jar on the corner of two cubicle walls to write down a couple guesses. Before I even knew what had happened, the jar tipped and plummeted to the floor, shattering and sending kisses in every direction. The weight was enough to turn the bottom of the jar, which hit first, into sand.

Needless to say, the kisses were in a Ziploc bag the rest of the contest… and while no one guessed the exact amount, a one person was close at 300. Congratulations! You’ve won an insulin swing (yes, this is where my brain goes in midlife).

And then, there was my response. There was a time in the not too distant past, when I would have beat myself up endlessly. My internal dialogue would have included, “stupid, stupid Lisa. You’re clumsy. Can’t be trusted, you always make mistakes.” Sound familiar? It would have continued to surface for days.

While I’m happy that didn’t happen, my immediate response was to rush to clean it up. Small glass shards are weapons, the cuts on my hands attest to that fact. The desire was to make everything right again.

In those moments, my curiosity rises, wondering about the emotions that bubble up. Was self-compassion coming into play? Perfectionism?

What’s the driving motivator?

Truthfully, the answer was a bit of both. As the incident rolled around in my head, the other words that arose were love and fear. Now my curiosity was genuinely peaked. Self-compassion is an expression of love while perfectionism is based on fear. Fear of shame, disappointment, embarrassment… the whole gamut. Both are motivators, one positive, the other not.

What’s interesting is the prevalence of fear as a motivator. In business, in relationships, in religious institutions. Fear is used as the driving force to move people towards a desired goal. At work, people may perform out of a fear of penalty. In relationships? Fear of abandonment or other forms of loss of love. In religious institutions? Believe a certain way to avoid an eternal penalty. We could easily extrapolate endless examples of fear used as a motivator. Think about the examples in your own life.

But when love is in play, such as with self-compassion, it’s another ball game. In relationships, when we approach another with loving intent, including our approach to ourselves, the outcome is expansive. Not limited by fear. At work? People flourish when given space, encouragement and trust. And in religious institutions? I’m not a religious scholar, so in my opinion only, approaching people from the standpoint of the love of Jesus, which was His greatest command, “love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself,” the outcome is different than fear. The commandment is love. That’s it. Him your neighbor, yourself. Not, go out and terrify people into following me. Love.

Making a choice to love

Making the choice to love over fear, self-compassion over perfectionism, it’s moment by moment. Get curious this week and notice your own thought pattern. Notice when fear is in the driver seat instead of love. When that’s the case, reframe your thoughts from a place of love. It’s practice, friends, reprogramming ourselves. But choosing love is choosing expansiveness versus the limiting nature of fear. Imagine if each of us choose love regularly? It’s our brave journey to a wholehearted life. Let’s make the choice together.

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Using creativity for self-compassion

When I committed to spend this month focusing on self-compassion, I may have bitten off more than I anticipated. The flip side to self-compassion is letting go of perfectionism and it’s possible that’s posing the larger challenge. Possible? More like, probable. I listened to a Tim Ferris interview with Brené Brown on his podcast this morning and perfectionism was, not surprisingly, one of their topics. One comment has left me thinking.

How do you let go of perfectionism and not become complacent?

You’ll have to listen to the podcast to hear their answer, which was honestly a non-answer. More so it was consideration, the lens that you’re gazing through. Looking at how we talk to ourselves about our behavior and activities in different situations. Focusing on being kind and curious instead of critical. It’s not saying, “I’m only doing a mediocre job in life but I’m not going to do anything differently.” That’s complacency.

Perfectionism is armor, it gets in the way of being wholehearted. I talked about it in last week’s blog. It’s less about doing well than avoiding blame and shame. Self-compassion is the antidote.

Ok, so conceptually, I can make the leap. But I have a confession, I’ve been focusing on this for more than a month. More like a couple years. The deep dive this month is with the laser focus of a little kid with a microscope pointed at a bug, but I’ve been noticing. Noticing the pattern of my self-talk. My internal narrative. Once riddled with “you’re an idiot,” shame when I made a mistake, calling myself “clumsy,” or “stupid,” it’s mellowed a bit.

Sheer determination is one reason for it, but I’ve also practiced. Crazy as it might sound, one of the ways I practiced was by taking up watercolor painting. I’ve mastered being inspired by something on Pinterest and then trying to freehand paint it myself. Around the same time I started dabbling with painting, my mom took a watercolor class, learning higher levels of technique. I have zero interest in that.

Here’s why. For one, I am not, nor do I intend to become, a professional painter. I have people in my extended family who are and admire their work. My painting is a creative outlet and allows me to make my own greeting cards. Secondly, a component of watercolor that I enjoy is not knowing how it’s going to turn out. Sure, you know what you’ve painted, but you don’t have the full picture of what it will look like until the paint dries. Painting has forced me to stay in a space of creativity and curiosity. I know and accept it’s not a space where precision is my goal.

Simply speaking kindly to yourself, letting go of the internal narrative of “not good enough” or “you did a crappy job on that,” is a step in the direction of self-compassion. The way I look at it, self-compassion takes an ABUNDANT amount of practice. I mean, a LOT. Taking up a hobby you know you’re ok at but not a master, and being OK with that, it’s practice. Staying in the space of “huh, that’s a bummer,” when you drop a glass tile from your bathroom remodel instead of beating yourself up about it, that’ self-compassion. (Incident purely fabricated…ok…not really, I dropped the tile…still finding glass chards in the garage this morning)

In and of itself, self-compassion isn’t perfection. It’s the opposite. So, the fact that we must practice it, that we don’t always do it well, that part of the deal. But we need to let go of perfection give ourselves a break. Usually we’re the toughest on ourselves, but at the end of the day, that’s a choice. As we continue working on shifting our midlife journey, we can choose otherwise… let’s choose self-compassion.

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The first step towards self-compassion

Wholehearted. The word itself is simple but the meaning, expansive. With wholehearted as my guiding word, I’ve chosen to focus each month in 2020 on one of Brené Brown’s guideposts for wholehearted living. January was the month to Cultivate Authenticity and let go of what other people think. Nothing like starting off with a bang.

Focusing on this guidepost proved interesting. When you capture your thoughts and take a moment to consider where your internal chatter comes from, at least for me, there were loads of other voices. Past authority figures, people I have relationships with, voices influencing my actions.  Up to the last day of the month, I was aware of it. On January 31st, I received a text from someone providing a piece of information. A simple piece of information. Next thing I know, I’ve added in inflection, backstory and motive and am responding to the story I created! The thing is, from an intellectual standpoint, I could see I was doing it. I later talked it through with a trusted friend and we called B.S. on the story I’d created.

Enter Self Compassion

Given letting go of what other people think (or at least the story of what I believe they think) was going to be ongoing as I grow in authenticity, February’s focus arrives just in time.  The second Guidepost for Wholehearted Living is ‘Cultivate Self-Compassion – let go of perfectionism’. Boy howdy, do I have more than a few things to say about that.

On the surface, perfectionism sounds innocent, an ideal, a quality to strive for. That’s a straight up lie. Yes, striving to do our best is a good thing. What’s not a good thing is believing that our worth is tied up in exceeding in all that we do. Brené Brown describes perfection as a “self-destructive and addictive belief system that fuels this primary thought: If I look perfect, and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize the painful feelings of shame, judgement, and blame.”

If I think back to the text that threw me off last week, it was not only tied to what someone else thought (or at least the story I created about that), I fell into the perfectionism trap. Had I failed? Done something wrong? I inflected judgement and criticism into the words. The ‘addictive belief system’ of perfectionism does just that. It fueled the belief that I wasn’t good enough, that I’d failed, and the familiar shame spiral showed up like a summer tornado in Kansas.

Which is why self-compassion is so important. First of all, I created that spiral all by myself. The words were pure information, nothing else. I inflected judgement, blame and invited the shame to park in my mind. When I talked to my friend about it, said it out loud, named it, and the feelings began to diffuse. My amygdala calmed down. No longer was my mind flooded and I returned to seeing the words for what they were, information. She spoke kindly to me, acknowledged how I was feeling, and together we spoke about the facts.

Don’t miss this point. The kindness and acknowledgement she spoke to me? That’s what we can, and must, do for ourselves and when we do, it’s self-compassion. Speaking to ourselves the way we’d speak to a friend. And we need it, desperately. In a culture that provides endless opportunities to compare, to strive for perfectionism and avoid blame, shame and judgement, self-compassion is the antidote.

It’s going to happen. You’re going to start down the perfectionism path at some point this week. You may not even name it, but it’s inevitable. Yet, not insurmountable. Catch it. Name it. And talk to yourself like you’d talk to a friend. Because you are your closest friend, worth love, worth compassion. Be brave friends, we’re on this journey together.

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How to listen when intuition nudges

I can be a little over the top when it comes to cleaning. Last week was no exception. Staring mindlessly at the carpet, vacuuming, and I notice the filter looks gunky when I emptied it. EW! Easy remedy, I’ll rinse it off in my tub. I take the first step with the filter in hand, and next thing I know, my forehead is hitting the door, breaking my fall. As I lay there, dazed, my immediate attention went to my recently operated on foot. Miraculously, as the ground quickly approached, I managed to instinctively protect it. Small miracles. But my head…I paid for that for a couple days with a headache, and a clean vacuum filter.

You’d think I’d be treading lightly after that, and I thought I was. Sunday night, I was doing at home physical therapy. Using an exercise band around my foot, flexing against it. La-de-da, two, three, four, SNAP! Band off my foot and before I even knew it, smacked it in the face. What lesson was I missing that twice I’d narrowly escaped death?? (ok, maybe not death, but come ON!)

A few days later, facilitating a class at work, resting my leg on a chair while folks got organized for an activity. I go to take a step forward. Yep, say it with me. My toe caught on the chair and down I went, face first, knee then foot, stretching it farther than I had since surgery. I jumped up, shaking it off like a soldier but inside feeling rattled for hours. Again, what the heck??

Life gives us lessons

Isn’t that the way life goes sometimes? In my case, I was earnestly trying to be ultra-careful and baby my foot while it recovered. Yet my stumbles were not little. I was reminded of something my great grandmother used to say. I was fortunate to have her until my late teens and she’d visit a couple times a year. She was well known for remarking, “If you don’t listen, you’re going to have to feel.” Reminiscent of the times she grew up in. The last week had given me my fair share of “feel.”

But what was the “listening” I was missing?

Setting aside my week of painful reminders that I’m still in recovery and need to slow down, what do we do when those repeated nudges keep coming up in our lives? Think about it, you’re in a season of asking God, the Divine, what exactly the discontent that rumbles around in you means. You’ve put it out there, asking for guidance. Maybe you find an interesting opportunity reading a magazine you’ve never picked up before. Or you meet someone who happens to be going down the same path you want to walk. You have lunch with a friend you haven’t seen in ages, and the conversation opens new doors.

Why listen to our nudges?

What do we do with those nudges? All too often, we give a cursory, “oh, that’s interesting,” and mosey on with our life. Um, hello God, the Divine, why aren’t you giving me the down low on what to do? Chances are, it already happened, but you were too busy and missed the sign.

So now you get to feel. Growing discontent. Stress. Your body telling you to wake up and pay attention. Ok, fine. I’m sitting down. Done feeling.

Every single one of us can choose to listen. Open up to the nudges we’re looking for coming from the most unexpected places. We have a choice. When a thought pops into your head and you think, “I’m not smart enough to have dreamed that up,” yeah, that’s a nudge. Trust it. The Divine ‘speaks’ to you in unconventional ways, so long as you’re paying attention. Your authentic self knows the way, because that wisdom, the nudges, they’ve been inside you percolating for years. Trust you. It’s our journey, friends, and I’m on it with you. Be brave.

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Following your inclinations

pro·cliv·i·ty /prōˈklivədē,prəˈklivədē/ a tendency to choose or do something regularly; an inclination or predisposition toward a particular thing.

Within the English language there are regular words and ten-dollar words. For reasons unbeknownst to me, my mind gravitates to ten-dollar words because, in that moment, they make the most sense. More than likely, it’s at work. Other times, they fit a scenario perfectly, as was the case early this week. In what seems to have become a daily phone call with my friend, I said, I think I have a proclivity to entropy. Her response? What are you talking about – or close to that – a bit saltier.

Reluctant to abandon not one but two ten-dollar words, I explained, I’m inclined to inaction. A surprise, I’m confident, to people who know me. It’s not that I am unable to get it done, whatever it, is. Instead, my initial response to a new direction, or change in my routine is to slowly grind to a halt. I procrastinate. I’ll talk all day long about the new thing, how great it will be, the depth of my desire to pursue it. All the while, using the time I should be working on the “thing” sitting around drinking green tea and watching Netflix. Once I kick it into gear, I’m going, but reaching that point? Procrastinate, delay, clean a cabinet, reorder my CD’s and DVD’s – wondering when I’ll actually cut the cord and get rid of them. There are endless options to distract you, without lifting a finger to look for them.

Inclined to… Since I gave you a definition, let’s try one more. Incline: feel willing or favorably disposed toward (an action, belief, or attitude). You’ll find several more in the dictionary, including an uphill, but let’s stay with number one for the moment.

Think back to a time when you felt willing or favorably disposed toward an action, belief or attitude. What did you do with the inclination? Did it float by like a cloud? Maybe you examined it from all sides, getting a close look. It may have been the subject of your Saturday morning coffee date. But what did you do with it? That’s a good question.

And the answer for a vast majority of us is, nothing. Entropy. Inaction. We’re inclined to move in a direction, pursue a dream, follow a calling, but that’s where it stops. The inclination might come up against a light breeze of resistance, that slight hill, and we decide it’s too much. Too risky. Too much work. Scandalous.

Instead of following the inclination, remaining curious, we behave as though we’re looking at the sheer granite face of El Capitan in Yosemite. We can’t possibly continue because it would cause disruption in our lives. Perhaps positive disruption, but disruption nonetheless. So, we stop. Leaving what might have been the next New York Times Bestseller rolling around in our mind. Or staying in a job because it’s paying our bills and provides benefits even though the alternative brought our soul alive. But it was unknown. We stay in the status quo.

The status quo is not where we’re meant to be. While not terrible, it can be a plateau. A place in our life that is “fine.” And fine is ok for a short term, but if we live there, what are we leaving on the table? What if, instead of staying in the status quo, we follow our inclination? We put aside the warnings of our friends or the naysayers (which likely speak to their fears, not ours) and we follow the breadcrumbs. Where would our inclinations lead us?

I’m willing to find out. My ‘proclivity towards entropy’ needs to step aside while I stay curious and follow what unfolds. How about you? Where in your life do you need to follow your inclination? Dream, and where your heart is leading you…give it a chance. You’ll be inclined love the journey.