Category: Coaching

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Who can you trust?

Life, as life does, has presented me with significant decision points this week. My personal decision-making process is best summed up as, I’m a waffler. Driven by a desire to maintain an inner peace, I don’t always trust that I’ll make the right call. But if you can’t trust yourself, who can you trust?

How we learn to trust

We come into the world helpless. Completely dependent upon our parents to keep us alive, to care for us. Without cognitively knowing why, or even that we’re doing it, we place our utmost trust in the two people who brought us into the world. Two people, who (speaking as a parent myself) know no more about keeping a baby alive than they did 24 hours before we were born. My own parents were young when I entered the world and instinct, informed by the model of their own parents, guided their caregiving. I’m still alive, so whatever they did worked.

As we gain our own personalities and sense of self, we continue to trust our parents, our elders. In fact, we’re taught to trust those in authority without question. I swallowed that pill effortlessly. Subconsciously, it may have been easier to defer decision making than to make the wrong one. You can keep the peace (yep…back to the Enneagram 9) when you’re compliant.

Gender Norms

I’ve lately been paying attention to the ways society conditions women to defer to men in decision making. To trust men without question. Particularly when it comes to financial decision making. In traditional marriages, women are taught to ‘let their husband lead.’ I confess that I was on that bandwagon, but how does it play out in real life? Differently, depending on the relationship. Suffice it to say, I jumped off on a sharp turn and dumped out my Kool-Aid.

What I’ve noticed is that women, myself included, don’t trust themselves to the same degree as men. Women gain consensus, men, speaking generally, believe in the validity of their experience as truth. Without conscious effort, these actions are a self-fulfilling prophecy for women because the more we defer, the less we trust our own decision making.

Breaking the mold

Without question, I know I continue to defer decision making. Arriving at my own conclusion, but first crowd surfing it to ensure I’m not alone in my thought process. Decisions by consensus. Oddly, it’s not a pattern I follow at work where I’m consulted in decision making daily and regularly make the call. My personal life does not fare as well. Getting to the bottom of that has been a quest.

Why is it that children, and for the sake of this post, girls, are not taught to trust themselves? To have confidence in their decisions and see them through, whether positive or not. Society continues, and to be fair, rightly so in certain circumstances, to have children defer decision making. We don’t talk them through learning to trust their own instinct and the confidence than ensues. And we’re not teaching our children that failing is not the end of the world and doing so doesn’t mean they can’t trust themselves.

As someone who has lived more than half my life with fear in the passenger seat, I’m an advocate for teaching children, especially girls, to trust themselves. To speak up and let their voices be heard. I’ve allowed the fear of making a mistake, of disappointing others inhabit my head and color my decisions. I’ve taking the safe path, which has been no path at all on occasion. Perhaps you’ve felt the same. Brené Brown sums up the feeling I’ve arrived at about this time in life:

Midlife is not a crisis. … Midlife is when the universe gently places her hands upon your shoulders, pulls you close, and whispers in your ear: I’m not screwing around.

Brené speaks about midlife, but in the context of my subject today, trusting yourself, if I don’t start believing in myself now, when will I? When will you? For me, I’ve asked the question often enough that the still, small voice inside me has whispered “You can trust yourself.”

Trusting yourself

Trusting yourself doesn’t mean you have all the answers, it means you trust that you make decisions that are in your best interest. That you seek guidance when appropriate, that you have your own back. It’s a muscle we must build through practice and reprogramming our minds. It’s daring to believe in yourself. You’ll make mistakes, we all will, that’s normal. But when faced with the question of who you can trust, the answer is you. I believe in you, and I believe in me. Be brave friends. Lisa

 

 

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Gaining perspective and daring

Earlier in my career, I had the sweet luck to travel to beautiful National Parks. One year, I travelled to Death Valley National Park in a bearable month, October. Never having been there, the landscape struck me with a sense of wonder. In the desert, gaining perspective can be challenging because of the lack of comparison. You gaze across endless seas of sand and your perspective is limited by what you can see, which is nothing but rolling sand in several directions. You realize how vast the landscape is and how minute you are in comparison. In subsequent years, I travelled through Death Valley during a bike race and found the terrain much different. Apparently, the desert landscape is not flat. I could see my prior vision had been narrow. Perspective follows that pattern. In the moment, you see narrowly what’s in front of you, but in hindsight, you see the entire landscape. The process of aging affords you perspective, and, I believe, the daring to act on the results.

Perspective in hindsight

As a girl growing up in the 70’s, the idea of feminism was radical to me. In my mind, feminism equaled: ‘bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan’ the hallmark of Enjoli perfume ads; hairy arm pits (no thank you for me); working women; and Ditto jeans…because you were sexier in Ditto’s. Feminism also meant Gloria Steinem who, as I heard her spoken of, was radical and hated men. Apart from my one pair of Ditto jeans, which I coveted, I was not about the feminist way of thinking. I stayed cloistered in my Holly Hobby world and tuned into Little House on the Prairie each Monday night. A skewed view of the world indeed.

But college…oh college, the first of many eye openers. People who saw the world differently, who broadened my perspective. A far cry from the quaint, conservative, church teachings in my hometown. I recall being in a church service while home for a holiday and the pastor spoke of women being submissive. I did a double take and wondered how I missed that in all the years I’d been attending. That idea rolled around in my head as I grappled with forming my own perspective about my role as a woman.

Undue influence

Whether we want to acknowledge it or not, ‘the church,’ is responsible for defining what ‘womanhood’ is for many women in the United States and around the world. Faith traditions usually include the role of women , and it has been further refined by a multitude of denominations. With rare exception, the refinements did not provide more agency and freedom to women. Instead, they neatly tucked women into a box of rules that defined when we spoke, what we said, how we served, and the degree to which (and how) we could express ourselves. From where I sit today, the faith perspective was also skewed.

But influential.

Because the powers that be within faith communities speak with authority, with certainty, about an array of topics, but most definitely about women. What’s been braided together over the years is a perspective that, to be a good (insert your faith here), you must also be XY and Z. And I guarantee you XY and Z do not have Gloria Steinem as a poster child. No, XY and Z has a quiet, supportive, submissive woman who does not make waves. Who does not speak her mind, who carries a load not understood by the opposite sex who defines how we are ‘supposed to’ act.

Shifting to a daring perspective

You know who should define women’s behavior? Women. Specifically, each individual woman. Because no playbook captures the myriad of our experiences. Does that make me a feminist? Ok. Maybe it’s because I’m in the second half of life and feeling daring, not caring as much about what others think, but we have permission for our behaviors to range to the same degree as anyone else. If we’re angry, we should get angry. Overwhelmed, we can show it. Sad, happy, excited, frustrated, perplexed? Yes, yes, and yes. When we don’t express our feelings and shove them inside, keeping ourselves buttoned up on the outside so that we don’t draw attention, those feelings, that energy, it goes somewhere. Where we see it manifest is in illness. Chronic illness from the long-term effects of stress.

A friend sent me this video yesterday sharing the perfect perspective. If you’re angry, be angry, truly experience your life. We’ve been conditioned to ‘not make a fuss,’ but if you want to make a fuss, make a fuss. Another person’s discomfort if we break a gender norm in our behavior is none of our business. It’s not. I don’t write that to be confrontational. It’s the truth. If we’re behaving respectfully, albeit forcefully, again…we’re allowed.

It’s a rip off that true perspective occurs in hindsight. Be that as it may, I have perspective now, 53 years in. Will it be different 10 years from now? I hope so. For today though, I’m fed up with the norms we’ve been given and ready to embrace a daring perspective. What that means, I’m not sure, but I’m confident I’ll gain perspective along the path. This is your journey, friends, what do you want it to be? Be brave. Lisa

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Expectations have caused my own disappointment

Over the past couple months, I’ve found myself shifting from a simmering anger inside me to a feeling a disappointment. Disenchantment. Because what should be a cornerstone of American democracy played out like the book burnings scattered through history. People from all corners throwing fuel on the fire. Destroying the good in the process. The rhetoric before, during and after the election by the political party who, by the way, once fought against slavery, was ugly. Was the other side ugly at times? Sure. But the talk from the right was venomous. Now before you check out…had enough politics…my point is not to talk politics but more the vitriolic nature of speech that has become commonplace and ‘normal.’ What I’ve realized is that my expectations that it would be otherwise have caused my own disappointment.

The loss of civility

Over the last decade, we’ve watched the slow decline of civility in the United States. While it’s perfectly normal to have people you disagree with, it’s something altogether different to experience the degree of hatred that has become commonplace. We’ve lost a sense of civility. I think it’s reasonable to expect people to have civil conversations about different opinions and either one side will persuade the other or they will agree to disagree.

Which should be reasonable…unless the subject of the disagreement is a person’s rights as a human being. Or disdain towards people based on the color of their skin or who they love. As someone who is not a fan of conflict, I used to shy away from defending my perspective on those matters in deference to silence. But no longer. I will fight for those people all day long…in my own way. At the same time, I have an expectation people on the other side of conversation will speak civilly, as do I. But in certain circles, I would find myself disappointed.

Use your words

Yet, I remain hopeful. I expect that people will use their words, as we tell our children, and explain their dissention with my perspective. What we’re seeing played out on the evening news, and, unfortunately, on social media, is quite the opposite. Demeaning, degrading, untruthful speech is the norm. And from where I sit, that’s bullying. It’s using words intended to undermine the credibility and ‘humanness’ of the other person.

I’d also call it fear. Whenever we see a person bullying or demeaning another, an underlying fear is often not far behind. Maybe a fear of not being important. A fear of being irrelevant. A fear of losing power. Fear drives us to extremes we wouldn’t have considered during ‘rational’ times. Fear drives us to anger – as does hurt – and when we’re in that frame of mind, we act out, not with. Other people fade in deference to satisfying our ego’s needs.

Using our disappointment to spur action

I don’t have young children, but if I did, the current culture in our country would terrify me. It terrifies me and my kids are adults. I’m disappointed in us. In the collective us that I expect, that I know, can do better. Are there fractions of people doing better? Of course there are. But they’re not the ones getting attention.

Changing the negative narrative doesn’t happen overnight. We can expect that it’ll change quickly, and we’ll find ourselves disappointed. But we’re not powerless. What we can do is use our voice. Be daring and bold and brave. We can use our voice to spread truth, hope, joy, fairness, justice. It’s so easy to feel defeated when we’re greeted with the news, but we can shift our own narrative and hold those in our lives to the same standards. We have that strength and power. I know there are millions of people who feel the same. I have hope that we’re shifting away from the caustic climate that has hovered over our country towards one that is united. That’s all we can have, hope, and the action that we choose to take. It’s a daring path, but one we must walk. Be brave my friends. Lisa

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Why silence may not be an option

Think back to the messages you’ve received about speaking up throughout your life.

  • Children are better seen than heard
  • If you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all
  • Good girls are quiet
  • It is better to stay quiet and pretend as if everything is alright

I’m certain you could add more of your own. We’re taught, particularly as women, that we should ‘hold our tongue’ and defer to others, namely to men. I bought into that patriarchal paradigm hook, line, and sinker. But, as years pass, I’ve come to experience why silence may not be an option.

Why I’ve been silent

This Enneagram 9 is no fan of conflict and I’ve learned that when you speak up, people may not agree with you. Go figure. Particularly in relationships, I’ve chosen to be silent in, what I thought was, the interest of maintaining peace and harmony. I trained myself over the years to ‘let it go.’ To keep my mouth closed and not speak up because I feared conflict.

Do you know what that got me? Resentment. And maybe a little passive aggressiveness, if I’m transparent.

In one situation, however, I did begin to speak up with someone close. To question, to wonder out loud but was met with resistance. And since I am averse to conflict, I would ‘feel’ the tension in my body. It would disturb my inner balance and stick with me for days. Or, in other situations, I’ve chimed into a conversation only to be told that I was incorrect. These, and countless other situations I won’t bore you with, led to increased silence and telling myself I was taking the high road.

Silence is not complicity or agreement

But…and there’s always a but…when you choose to be silent, people may assume that you’re on board. That you’re in agreement. And that’s not true. In moments of silence, I often was not in agreement. And while I can’t put my finger on it, there was a tipping point when I knew silence was not the best option. When what I was hearing from people in my circle as truth, was not my truth at all.

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Silence may not be an option when you feel your morals and beliefs are under siege. When continuing to hear the rhetoric impacts your physical and mental well-being. Removal from the situation may also be a course of action, but I’ve learned silence isn’t always golden. And in moments that hit close to home, failing to speak appears to be agreement, but it’s not. It’s taken me 53 years to figure out that it’s worth being uncomfortable to speak up for what I believe is right.

Now is a time to use your voice

I’m not espousing using your voice for the sake of it. Not in the slightest. There are absolutely times when silence is wisdom. However, I believe now is not one of those times, at least not for me. Years of remaining silent when I had volumes to say have taught me that. But I cannot stay silent while I see people suffering. While injustice is propagated as patriotism and ‘Christian.’

I cannot stay silent when I see a message of love, Jesus’ love, being perverted into a message of hate. I won’t. Nor will silence be an option when people are being treated negatively based on the color of their skin, or who they love, or how they worship. Because if we stand by in silence while our friends are harmed, are we acting in love? We’re not. Love can look messy, it can be disruptive, it reaches the marginalized, it’s not always popular, and it might be persecuted. But it’s worth it. Jesus showed us that. It’s worth it every time.

When you listen to your intuition, what is your voice trying to say? What truth have you kept deep inside you for fear of creating controversy or conflict? Maybe it’s time for you too. Your voice matters don’t let anyone try and tell you otherwise. Be brave my friends. Lisa

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Why live your life with a daring spirit?

Remarkable as it may seem, we’ve arrived in January. As I scrolled through my social media feed, the range of ‘resolutions,’ was endless. Lose weight, exercise, learn to speak Russian…maybe I made that one up, but a wide array of actions designed to improve upon the current state. I was not among those making resolutions as I’ve chosen instead to pick a word for the year the last few years. My word serves as a guidepost for behavior throughout the year. You may have seen the preview last month of 2021’s pick, daring. Why? My internal voice was telling me, “live your life with a daring spirit.”

Why choose daring?

There are literally thousands of words I could have chosen, millions even. But in November, daring knocked at the door of my mind. I often think about one of my Dad’s go to sayings, “Life is not a dress rehearsal.” Yet, I’ve lived much of mine as though it were. With a mindset that once I’d done the thing, whatever that thing was, I’d be happy, content, filled with joy. Often that thing revolved around my weight, but also to do with my career, or a relationship – or lack thereof. Right around the corner, life was going to be all I hoped it would be. But the truth is, that’s not how it works.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Mary Oliver – The Summer Day

Live for today

Nope, it’s not how it works at all. New Year’s Resolutions date back to 4000 B.C. and the ancient Babylonians. They began as offerings to pagan gods and continued to the modern era with the overriding theme being to ‘do better’ in an area of life. As many as 45% of Americans make resolutions with only 8% maintaining them. That’s a dismal statistic.

Because, there’s nothing magical about January 1st. Julius Caesar may have thought so in making sacrifices to the god Janus, but it’s merely a day. I stopped making resolutions for reasons I honestly can’t recall. The idea of a word was appealing, and I stuck with it. But why choose to live my life with a daring spirit?

Because every day is a January 1st. We start over every single day. Brené Brown writes about the concept of postponing joy. Postponing joy is a form of living like you’re in dress rehearsal. Which we’re not. I’ve spent years of my life waiting for ‘the things’ to line up so that I can be truly happy. But as much as we want that magical day to come, it never does.

Living a daring life

And all that is good and well, but it still doesn’t explain daring. After reading Brené for several years now, I can see that I’ve lived in a safety bubble. Armored up and protected from risk and danger. Except you know what? That’s where joy is. In The Gifts of Imperfection, Brown writes, “We cannot selectively numb emotions, if we numb the painful emotions, we also numb the positive ones.” I’ve numbed my share of painful emotions and I can assure you, that doesn’t make you happy all the time, it makes you numb.

Life with a daring spirit means you’re going to get your heart crushed. Damn. But life with a daring spirit also means that while you’re going to be vulnerable, and the pain will still be there, so will the joy. You cannot get to joy without going through suffering. If you did, you wouldn’t know joy when you experienced it. There would be nothing to compare it to.

Living life with a daring spirit leads to risk, to vulnerability, to courage. And it may look like an ordinary day from the outside, but below the surface, those baby steps to live the one wild and precious life are one after the other. Daring is using your voice, speaking your truth, even when it might risk losing belonging. But, my friends, if we do not live life with a daring spirit, what do we have? Day after day of resolutions. Thumbs down to continuing that tradition. You, we, are perfectly made and as we’re supposed to be, as we are today. Let’s choose to live like we believe it. Be brave my loves. Lisa

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This year was not about presents, it’s about presence

Do you remember making a Christmas list as a child? I recently took a gander at my 11 year-old nieces’ lists. Let me tell you, things have changed. Here’s a sample: Air pod pros (real – code for ‘don’t cheap out mom and dad’ – my words, not hers), Lululemon leggings, blankets, James Charles eyeshadow palette (I’m a 53 year old woman and don’t know who that is?!?), pretty necklaces, mascara, new comfy pillows, shaving cream. While my list at 11 was probably starting to include clothes, I couldn’t help but laugh, especially when I got to shaving cream. When you’re young, a big part of Christmas is presents. I don’t recall when it happened but there comes a point when Christmas is no longer about presents, it’s about presence.

Families coming together

When I inherited boxes of pictures from my Grandmother, looking through the family history captured by her Kodak 110 camera made me smile. Particularly those of Christmas. Our family would gather in a cramped living room and open presents on Christmas Eve. Grandparents, Great Grandparents, Aunts, my Uncle. There was the year I threw up all over assorted relatives. Convinced I’d been poisoned by a marshmallow chocolate, I swore them off for years. I’m pretty sure though it was just the flu. We all have memories of family gatherings, some more eclectic than others. But at a young age, I cared about presents, it wasn’t about presence.

Before I got savvy to Santa, he made an appearance each year…right around the time my Dad would go missing. I lived in Yosemite Village and my neighbor would also dress up as Santa each year. Parents would leave their ‘Santa gifts’ outside the front door, which he would deliver as he made his way through the Village on Christmas Eve. Traditions those of us raised in that magical setting continue to reminisce about.

Reminiscing this year

If it were not 2020, I would have already jumped on a plane travelling to visit family in Florida. But it is. Families are scattered across the country and unable to gather. Our ‘people’ might be far away, or may be close, but in the name of the greater good, Christmas looks different. Gatherings are reduced, if held at all. My house will have my two grown boys and me. Christmas, party of three.

And although the skirted floor beneath my tree is littered with presents, I’m wishing for more presence. Grateful that I can be with my boys, yes, and missing extended family. Because, contrary to time spent at holidays when we were young, in this phase of life, presence is more important than presents.

Creating a new type of presence

While we may be tired of looking at screens, one positive outcome of 2020 is more face time. Previously, our extended family may have received a phone call every few weeks, but 2020 has invoked a sense of urgency to physically laying our eyes on our people. Early in the pandemic, my Florida family and those of us in California had a weekly Zoom call. After a few months it tapered off, but we still gather online for birthdays or celebrations.

The desire to connect has become stronger in 2020, not only for my family, but for everyone as we’re all impacted by the pandemic. Doing that safely has made physical visits rare. In the early part of 2020, the increase in video app downloads had increased 90% over 2019. It’s our new normal. The ‘present’ we all crave is presence, which we achieve via video chat. Does it allow me to hug my parents, my grandpa, my siblings, nieces and nephews? It does not. But it allows us to be present with each other and see expressions and feel connected.

The path forward

We’re all asking ourselves if next Christmas will be different, if it will be back to normal. My two cents are that what we considered ‘normal’ no longer exists. And, the truth is, normal is not the same for all. While many families have complicated relationships, some have trauma and dysfunction that this year may have provided a break from…or amplified. Normal is subjective. Will next Christmas return to what each of us have experienced in the past, whatever shape or form that took? I can not predict, and for some, that is a relief.

What I do know is that presence will remain more important than presents. You may find that connection with family, or with friends who are family. My hope is that we’ll continue to work collectively be safe, and to improve the ways we gather. In the meantime, continue to schedule your video calls and let your people see your face when you tell them how much they mean to you and I love you. That’s the type of present we all need. Be Brave my friends. Lisa

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What is anger telling you?

I wasn’t sure what it was at first, the fire inside me that at first, I thought was anxiety. But, as much as I wanted to dismiss it, I didn’t. I’ve noticed it for a few months, a shorter temper, annoyance, at times feeling overwhelmed. Still, I couldn’t name the emotion I was having. After listening to a Brené Brown’s interview with Emily and Amelia Nagoski on her podcast, Unlocking Us, and subsequently buying the Nagoski’s book, I have a name for it. I am fired up, angry, pissed really. And for once, I’m not ignoring the anger. I’m listening to what anger is telling me.

Emily Nagoski, PhD and Amelia Nagoski, DMA collaborated to write the brilliant book, Burnout – The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle. What jumped out and caused me to take stock of my own anger was a deep recognition of my own experiences within the pages. Likely because it was targeted for women. My anger was telling me to pay attention.

Anger doesn’t come naturally

As a tried and true Enneagram 9, I am usually not aware of my own anger. Though smack in the middle of the anger Triad, it stays deep inside me and as odd as that may seem to someone who finds it easily, quickly. I get…frustrated…snippy…but I wouldn’t normally call it anger. A friend once encouraged me to try yelling or screaming at full volume alone in my car. I did. I did not like it, not one little bit. Reading through the pages of Burnout, it was as though the factors that have played a role in shaping me were narrated so that I wouldn’t miss the message.

After finishing the book, I a) wanted to crush the patriarchy and creates an imbalanced system for women, and b) knew that I was angry. Still, what was the anger telling me?

What we’re experiencing

The truth is, women face different expectations than men. In fairness, men could say the same about their own gender. But while men have historically marched off to the office each day, women were expected to keep the kids, house and outside life in order. But for my generation, well, we’re the children of the 60’s whose mothers’ fought for our right to break the norm and work outside the house. Not all, but most women my age did take the career track.

Except, keeping the kids, house and outside life in order was still our job. It’s no wonder we’re burnout! And, if we’re honest, we’d say we’re resentful.

But by and large, we’re not honest about our resentment because, when we do, we’re accused of being unhinged. We must do all the things and do them with a smile on our face and remain happy and cheerful, supporting the rest of our family. As those pages opened before me, what got unlocked in me was anger. And it was telling me to pay attention.

Anger is a guide

The coaching program got my certification from uses what’s called an Energy Leadership Index. Comprised of seven levels of energy, the index ranges from catabolic energy such as apathy and anger to anabolic energy, connection with others and self-actualization, for example Since catabolic energy is destructive, it’s not healthy to remain at those levels for long periods of time. But, while anger is catabolic, it also speaks to us and is a catalyst for action.

Anger tells you what you’re passionate about. Makes sense since, it’s said, there’s a fine line between love and hate. So those areas where you find yourself angry (or frustrated for my Enneagram 9 comrades) pay attention. What is the anger telling you? What emotion is underneath it.

In my case, once I stopped ignoring my anger and started paying attention. When I did, it wasn’t surprising what I cared about, but the level to which I’d fight for it was unexpected.

I’m passionate about integrity. And while that’s not knew, for me it’s more than doing what I say I’ll do. It’s that, and it’s acting on it. If I say I believe in something, that means more than a bumper sticker. Which is scary because it can upset the apple cart, which this peacemaker is not a fan of. I’m passionate about family, my children, and my nuclear family. Passionate about supporting the LGBTQ+ community. About supporting the BIPOC community. Passionate about examining my faith and asking questions…knowing God isn’t going to disappear because have a different perspective than I once was.

What is your anger telling you?

Reading Burnout confirmed my passion to come alongside other women. The anger I feel is at the inequities we’ve faced and the false narrative we’ve listened to so that we keep the peace (I am not alone in that camp). We were told we’re the one causing a problem if we merely spoke up for ourselves, or, wanted to have a seat at the table…at our own dinner table at times. I have a passion to build up those women. My anger is telling me that it’s past time. Just as it’s past time for the BIPOC community or LGBTQ+ community to want a seat at the table.

When I finally acknowledged I had any anger at all? I word I’ll borrow from one of my favorite seasonal movies, The Holiday, I found gumption. Just as it’s explained in Energy leadership, anger is a catalyst for action. And finally…FINALLY…I’m listening.

As you finish reading, I want you to be still with yourself for a moment, breathing slowly, emptying your find. Ask yourself, what is your anger telling you? What passion is it pointing to? Now’s your opportunity to find your own gumption and follow the path. We’re in this together. Be Brave. Lisa (and, P.S. go buy the book!)

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Why is change so difficult?

In preparation for an upcoming series of articles my company plans to publish, I headed to the great encyclopedia of Google earlier this week. My business partner had shared the phrase, “Nothing is certain but change.” Our conversation centered around that idea and the question we continued returning to was, if nothing is certain but change, why is change so difficult for the vast majority of humans?

Change has been with us since the beginning

I wanted to get my hands on the origin of the concept of the certainty of change. I had to look way back to 500 BCE philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus. Thank goodness someone had boiled down his philosophies so that I could understand them because it seems he has known as the dark philosopher… his writings were that difficult to understand. My eyes would have glazed, I’m quite confident of it, if I’d reviewed his original manuscripts. Beyond the fact that they were probably in Greek. Greek to me. (I couldn’t resist that one…low hanging fruit.) Heraclitus’ claims are summed up as:

Panta Rhei (“life is flux”) recognizing the essential, underlying essence of life as change. Nothing in life is permanent, nor can it be, because the very nature of existence is change. Change is not just a part of life in Heraclitus’ view, it is life itself.

We see Panta Rhei played out in the world around us. As I write, it’s late fall and my yard is covered with leaves. If I wait long enough, say, around March, the trees will again be covered with leaves and flowers. It happens around us every single day, this process. Yet, so often we’re resistant to change. Not surprisingly, there are underlying reasons why change is so difficult.

The devil you know

Consider a situation you continue returning to despite the fact it’s uncomfortable, or even painful. A job that you show up begrudgingly, day after day, because while you are miserable, it’s a familiar misery. Or the relationship you fight to maintain despite the fatal flaws you know are not going to heal. A habit you maintain because, without it, you feel unanchored and lost. That’s the root of it. We stay in a situation that’s unhealthy, or unproductive, or miserable for us because we know it. In junior high, we even wrote in yearbooks, “Don’t go changing.”

Think about it. At that job. You know what’s expected of you, how to perform successfully. Without the job, you’d be unanchored. Turns out, humans hate uncertainty, and change creates uncertainty. When we’re unanchored, or in a state of uncertainty, our brains trigger a threat response in our limbic system. Instead, when we find the answer, complete the equation, our brains are rewarded with hits of dopamine, that familiar, feel good, hormone. Brené Brown equates it to story, in that, our brains are wired for story. We look for the beginning, middle and end…certainty. When we don’t have one of the elements, we move to story…complete the cycle, get the hit. Usually, that story is the one we’re making up.

We want to know what’s going to happen next. And since life doesn’t always give us a roadmap, hence, change is so difficult.

We must choose to take the first step

Back to the job, the relationship, the habit… we know when something needs to be different. We do. If we’re listening to our guts, they speak to us plainly. But that first step is terrifying. We meet our friend uncertainty on that first step. Damn, not that guy again. Temptation to retreat to our safe existence is strong. So strong, if fact, often we do. Often, what you’re taking is the 470,256th first step. But, when you’re uncomfortable enough, you’ll keep trying.

And although change is difficult, once you take a step, you might find you keep moving forward. You can start to see the light in your situation. I’ve heard from dozens of people who’ve shared that they spent years in a job, or at a company they didn’t like. Too afraid to change, to lose what sense of certainty they had in that situation, because even negative certainty is certainty. But once they left, the feeling of “Why did I wait so long???” washed over their entire body.

It’s not easy, but worth it

I’ve shared snippets of a former relationship before wherein I was told, “You’ve changed,” and it wasn’t a “Yay you, awesome, you’ve changed.” Instead, it was an accusation. In fact, I had changed, because, we’re allowed. And the woman that was emerging as the change took hold was different. More assured, confident and willing to be in a space of uncertainty.

Liz Gilbert described a sensation that happens when we make a change that causes us to leave our former beliefs (amongst other things). The group, whether family, friends, colleagues, church, that you’ve been part of will fight against your change. They’ll use any means to draw you back into to the ‘safe’ place with them. You might hear comments such as, “you’re making some dangerous decisions,” or, “you’ll miss us,” or, “you are straying from the path.” You might even be told that you won’t survive outside the group. Liz calls that “tribal shaming,” and unfortunately, most of us have experienced it.

When do you feel that resistance, maybe from a person or group, in the form of tribal shaming, or other strategies, or the resistance within yourself the most? When you’re on the right path. Truly. So, when you feel that pull, keep going. Even when you’re afraid, keep going. Why is change so difficult? Because science. Because other people. But when you feel the pull to return to the old ways, in the immortal words of Dori, in Finding Nemo, “Just keep swimming.” You’re brave my friends. Keep swimming. Lisa

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What happens when you open your eyes

Unraveled, that’s what I thought as I glanced down at the hem of my shirt. For an unknown reason, my new shirt’s hem had decided to let go, unraveling and leaving string hanging for me to see as evidence. And I thought about how that fray may have been present when I bought the shirt, but I hadn’t noticed. What happened when I opened my eyes was that not only was it frayed, any attempt to break the string without scissors resulted in rapid unraveling. Leaving a raw hem for me to contemplate…determining if I liked the shirt enough to fix it. Because that’s how I roll.

Unraveling in life

The journey from A to Z is rarely, if ever, straight and with certainty I’m sure I’ve taken the most complex path. But over the last four or so years, the pace at which life clicks into place has been rapid, like the unraveling of a hem. In the moment, it doesn’t seem that fast because of the labor pains it takes to get there, but there’s no other way to describe it. When I opened my eyes to what was happening around me, I couldn’t help but see.

Once you see though, you can’t unsee. And it unravels faster than you imagined. The realization that I’d made choice, gone down a path personally that I believed I needed to walk (and honestly, I may have needed those steps) led me to a stalemate was unexpected. And at the same time, the awareness I’d gained about my experience was the result of having my eyes opened. Resulting from clarity around the fuzziness I’d had for years. But as we’re becoming clear, there’s no guarantee those on the journey with us are doing the same. Or better yet, no guarantee that their clarity is the same as yours.

Making daring choices

It seems to me that when your eyes are opened – to whatever the circumstance is in your life that you’d turned a blind eye to – you can’t unwind it. In those moments, you might find that what you believed to be true was only in your mind. And that’s heartbreaking. But if you remain engaged in what you’re noticing, you might find heartbreak is a catalyst.

When you open your eyes, you might not find what you thought would be there. In those moments, you make decisions. Choose to be daring or choose to retreat. I chose daring. And while we’d like to think that we’ll emerge from daring choices with newfound energy and zeal, that’s not always true. You might emerge with your heart in tatters, or your system of beliefs on shaky ground.

Daring to be in the wilderness

And you know what? That’s ok. It is. When you make daring decisions in your life and the result is time in the wilderness, that’s ok. You know who else spent time in the wilderness? Jesus. It could be that the wilderness is where you needed to go to find yourself. To find your own power. To ask yourself what is true…for you. I know that when I’m in the wilderness, I’m never alone. Because I’m there with myself, and I know Jesus is alongside me.

Those daring choices bring you back from the wilderness too. The wrestling you did while you were out there, that only strengthens you. It sparks your inner fire to continue exploring what is true for you. Your eyes are opened in the wilderness.   You find your true self, free from expectations others layer on you. You find freedom.

And you find that you can breathe. Fully in and fully out, without wondering when the other shoe will drop. It already has. I know it had for me. And now, my eyes are opened, and the unravelling, what I thought would end, it hasn’t. There’s so much more I see which I accepted as true and now I find myself wondering why. So it goes when you’re being daring. You lose parts of yourself but find the ones you were always supposed to have.

Where are you finding your eyes opening? Is it leading you to the wilderness? Hey, that’s ok, necessary maybe. But this is a journey we’re taking together. I’m brave, you’re brave – stronger together. Lisa

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Living a daring life

Four days a week you can find me happily cruising back and forth in a pool lane at my gym. It’s a little trickier now because you must reserve lanes given the social distancing restrictions. 100% worth it because water is my happy place. But the other day. Boy oh boy…it was a hotbed of drama. I’d spent time before I headed over journaling and pondering my word for 2021. It landed in my lap really. I’ll be focused on living a daring life.

Everyday opportunities to be daring

With that fresh in my mind, I was presented with the opportunity to be daring that morning. To be clear, as I unfold what it means to me to be daring, the dimensions will expand. I’m rooted in Daring Greatly by Brené Brown, but not that day. My swim pals and I had reserved our lanes days before and were 30 minutes into our swim. When I paused at the wall, a guy informed me that I was in his lane and I needed to get out. I explained I’d signed up for it and he said he’d already checked with the front and I was wrong. Confused, I looked at my friends and we adjusted, shifting so we could share two lanes. He was in the pool maybe 15 minutes and then got out.

When we finished our hour-long swim, we fumed over the situation and I reiterated that I’d reserved the lane. They agreed, after all, we’d done it together. In those moments, I realized that I hadn’t been daring at all! I didn’t stick up for myself, presuming I was in the wrong and, classic Enneagram 9, didn’t want a fuss, and acquiesced. As I left the gym, I asked the attendant up front, and the guy did not have the lane and hadn’t even checked. He lied to me. Honestly, it was gaslighting, making me question my own memory. And still, I was not daring.

Wake up to your life

As plain as day this situation showed me that I had missed an opportunity to be daring. But isn’t that always the way? We have clarity in hindsight. Being daring would have been saying he was wrong, and swimming away. Oh wait, excuse me for a minute while I untie the knot in my stomach. Not even kidding. Does anyone else have that response to personal confrontation? Anyone?

My limbic system, my body, genuinely feels the emotion resulting from the thought of being confrontational. And for those of you who identify, how are we to live daring lives when we can’t hold our ground? Being daring requires that we’re awake to our lives. That we listen to our bodies and hearts and are vulnerable in pursuing our desires. It could look like telling someone close to you that their behavior makes you uncomfortable. Or telling someone that you love them first. Saying no to a family member’s request, without giving a reason. One way that we’re living a daring life is speaking up for ourselves, and that takes vulnerability.

It always comes back to vulnerability

And here we are back with our friend vulnerability (said no one ever). Vulnerability, according to Brené Brown, is uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. All of which the situation with Mr. Pool Liar presented to me. Even with someone I didn’t know, I wasn’t vulnerable. But you know what? That blatant reminder slapped me across the face. Really. It reminded me to be daring. Reminded me that it’s ok if someone else is upset with me – which is a mountain sized risk to an Enneagram 9. But it’s ok.

To be clear, scheme of things, the pool scenario was no big deal. But at the same time, it was. It reminded me I can stand up for myself. Even though I didn’t do it in the moment. And I’d ask you, where are you missing opportunities to be vulnerable? To be daring with your life? What would be different if you chose to be daring, more often, to the point where you are living a daring life? It’s becoming my journey and I hope you’ll come along with me. Be Brave friends, it’s our one and only life. Lisa