Category: Face the fear

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Authenticity in real life

Confessions-2I’m continuing to think about authenticity, still flowing over from last week. That’s the thing about it, when you set your focus on authenticity, you look for it in all areas of your life. But there’s a balance, I think, between authenticity and showing up well.

Here’s how it played out in my house last night. Long week and before I went home, I ran some errands and stopped by Whole Foods to get dinner for me and my husband. By the time I got home, I was hungry, not a good start. I walked into the house thinking that all I wanted to do was put on cozy clothes and eat dinner. But then I did the house scan. Some of you might know what I mean. The glance around your surroundings where you see every dish, spot, paper and dust bunny that needs to be cleaned up or put away. I’m wired in a way where I can’t relax until everything is done. As part of the scan, I see my husband who got home ahead of me, on the couch, watching TV. And I’m bugged. The conversation in my head was (read at an increasing pace here…) why didn’t he do all that stuff when he got home because it had to get done and how could he just watch TV with all that stuff to do?!?

What came out of my mouth was, “hey,” and then I started to do the stuff. Not gladly, but irritated. And he knew. Oh, they always know. I’d like to say I pulled my head out…but I didn’t, at least not for a little bit. Nice entrance, Lisa.

So I was authentic…but I didn’t show up well. Authenticity is about being who you are, being comfortable with yourself, feeling brave to stand on your feet knowing you’re showing people who you truly are, not who you think they expect you to be. Being authentic is also being human and realizing that we are not perfect. In the same way that we are striving to be our authentic self, so are others around us. My husband and I are not wired the same. He says it would be boring if we were. I know I should agree, but really…what a clean house we’d have (side note…my husband actually is very clean…he’s home dusting for me while I write this…our timing is just different)!

Today, I’ve thought a lot about that interaction last night. Each of us struggle with different things, one of mine is that evenings are a roll of the dice for my mood. I am a morning person through and through, more creative, more energy, more talkative (once I get up and going). Evenings, I’m tired, exhausted, talked out. In thinking about last night, and other similar interactions, I realized that the person who showed up at my house really wasn’t my authentic self. I wasn’t showing up how I believe I am in my heart. And I didn’t like that reality.

What do you do about that? The first step is realizing that it’s even happening. I’m working on being authentic and that means pulling in the true parts of me even when I’m cranky. In fact, I may need to pull them in even more when I’m off center because I need the steadying force that those characteristics give me. And I think it’s also letting go of pride enough to say, “I’m not showing up how I’d like to, forgive me and can we start over.” Your partner, your close friends, they know you’re off even if you don’t say a thing.

I like to remind myself of something I said a few weeks ago, “once you let go of perfection, you can be good.” Authentic is good, but it’s not perfect. Authentic balances with human. Authentic is brave.

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Thoughts on authenticity

authenticityLately I’ve been thinking about what it means to me to be authentic. Through the years, I believe I’ve been a lot of different things. I’ve had the drive to be successful in business and I’ve taken a step back in my career. I’ve been a good mom, likely a questionable mom at times too. A daughter, a wife. A cyclist, a swimmer. A girl who loves clothes, and fashion, and shoes. I’ve been a lot of other things too, I’m sure. But through all of that, to some degree, I was being who I was “supposed” to be.

You see, it was all a front. Choosing to show up and behave, perform, exist like I thought I was supposed to. And that can be a lot different than what my inside was telling me to be. That place deep inside me that whispers, the one that tells me to be brave. Yet a lot of the time, it’s easier to show up like I’m supposed to than how I’m really feeling, fly under the radar. Those times maybe I was a questionable mom, for example? Most likely was when I showed up more like what I felt like on the inside, not what the world was telling me to be, questionable to the world, but not to me.

We all do it, I think. Put on a persona that helps us get along in the world. And yet, somewhere along the way, if we’re not careful, we start to lose track of who we are and what’s really important to us. We lose our grasp on our authentic selves. And think about this…when we’re showing up in a way that’s not the real us, the people around us, they come to know and love that person…the one that’s not really who we are! That is a tragedy.

But when asked who we really are, who is our true, authentic self, we sometimes don’t know. We’ve spent so much time doing, performing according to what other’s expect (or what we think they expect) that we can’t really identify who we are.

I’ve been working on having my outside actions match my inside thoughts and it’s been a process. As any of you who read my blog know, it’s required pushing myself to challenge what I know and look for different answers. Truer, authentic answers. I’ve done that in a lot of areas, but one that’s lagged behind is my home. I’d like to say it represents me, but it doesn’t. It only represents snippets of me. It’s like I have decorated with reminders of who I want to be, but without the boldness of who I know I am. I haven’t allowed myself to fully step into who I am at home. My designer friend described it by saying it’s like I decorated a dorm room, sort of. Don’t have crazy thoughts, no band posters or memorabilia from my adventures, but I’ve played small. And as soon as she said that, it clicked for me and I knew it was true. I love my house, but have not really felt like it was pulled together in a way that matched me. It wasn’t authentic and that made it not as comfortable as I’d like it to be.

But that’s going to change, we’re going to work on it. Though I know that’s not the only area to be authentic. Most important is being authentic in my relationships, with my husband, my children, my family and friends. It’s that idea of letting my outside match my inside. It requires challenging myself to be true and honest with who I am, what I believe, and letting that be the person I share with the world. It requires being brave.

Is there any area of your life where you could be more authentic? Where your inside doesn’t match your outside? You only have to answer that question for yourself, but if that’s true, what are you going to do about it? Life is too short, relationships too important, to let them be less than authentic. Take the step with me towards living for who you truly are, being stronger, living out loud. I know you have it inside you. Be brave.

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Shining light into darkness

lightintodarkness-jungI don’t like haunted houses. They’re dark, spooky and filled with a whole lot of unknown. Plus, being scared or startled is not my idea of a good time. To all of you that like them, more power to you, but I’m taking the big ol’ pass. I think the darkness is a big part of it. I just don’t know what to expect, I can’t see ahead.

That’s a little how I was approaching 50 this week. In reality, Tuesday I was Lisa who was 49 and Wednesday I was Lisa who was now 50. It wasn’t a catastrophic change. But my mental lead up to it was. Literally the last 6 months it’s been on my mind. Not in a mid-life crisis aspect, per se, but a ‘what’s next’ standpoint. When I was thinking about it earlier this week, there was so much unknown, like the haunted house. A darkness of sorts.

Except it wasn’t. Once I did nothing more than wake up Wednesday morning, magically 50, the thought in my head was, “well…alright, this is it, game on.” I wasn’t depressed, didn’t suddenly feel old, I felt the same as the day before. If you’ve already hit the magic number, I’m sure you experienced much of the same.

The unknown is often like that, darkness. Think about it…

The conversation you need to have but are dreading…darkness…

The decision you need to make but avoid…darkness…

A move in your life or career that you’re procrastinating on…darkness

Once you make the decision, have the conversation, you wonder what you were avoiding! Here’s another perspective, once you shine the light on it, it’s no longer unknown, no longer scary.  “The light shines in the darkness. And the darkness has not overcome it.” John 1:5. It’s the same in life. The light takes a lot of forms but in reality, it’s truth.

Truth is powerful. Truth tells you that you and your spouse are on the same team, not opposing parties. Truth says that the conversation you need to have will have benefits for both you and the other person, that’s there’s nothing to fear. Truth helps you got past hurt to see what actually happened in that long ago argument. Truth says you’re beautiful when the scale or your pants try to tell you otherwise. The light is truth so why don’t we believe it?

What would it take you to believe it? To look past the darkness and see the light? What belief from the past are you bringing forward that limits how you look at your circumstances today? What assumptions are you making that give you tunnel vision? What does the voice in your head – not the voice of truth – the other one that keeps you small – what does it try to tell you? What if you looked at each of those and asked yourself, what is true? What is the truth? And from there you made decisions…

Essentially…turn the light on in the haunted house…see the truth and embrace it…shine the light on it.

That…my friend…would be brave.

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Trusting my inner voice

trust yourselfSometimes I wonder how much I actually trust myself. My own wisdom. I have days where I question myself, flip flop my decisions. But I think if I were to be still, my inner voice would lead me. Truthfully, I’ve been working on being more in touch with that inner voice. Paying attention to what comes up, what I’m hearing, sensing, feeling. Acting on it has been a little slower, until recently.

Last week my husband and I had a trip planned for my upcoming BIG birthday. He was indulging me with tickets to see Celine Dion. Now, I had a friend say “you either like her…or you don’t.” I do. She doesn’t. You might not. That’s ok because when Celine hits those big, dramatic, building notes, I’m all in. My poor kids had to listen to Celine ALL the time in the car when they were young. They could do a mean sing along if the moment presented itself, but also did not hold back in mocking me.

Right now, the only place Celine is playing is Las Vegas. And we were scheduled to fly out this past Monday morning. On Sunday, I was anxious all day. No known reason. We had a great day celebrating our grand-daughter’s 3rd birthday. It was an afternoon of relaxing and hanging out with family and friends. But I had anxiety. Any of you who have anxiety know that sometimes you don’t know why, it’s just there and Sunday was one of those days.

Monday morning, we woke up early to get ready for our trip and heard the news of the horrific tragedy that unfolded in Las Vegas the prior evening. It was awful and sad…blocks away from where we were headed to celebrate. A trip we’d planned and paid for months ago.

And this is where trusting myself came in. I really don’t like losing money. But in that moment my gut was telling me not to go on the trip. I was reminded of the anxiety the day before – and could see it was intuition, God whispering to me. So I asked the question, “if money weren’t an issue, what would we do?” And we stayed home.

For so many reasons, I knew that was the right decision. Primarily, it did not feel right to go there with the intent to celebrate when so many had lost their lives, senselessly. The tragedy made me incredibly sad. And yet, even thought I knew it was the right decision, I second guessed myself for the better part of the day, even after cancelling the flights and hotel. That’s when the competing voices in my head came up. The ones that get in the way of trusting myself.

Those voices are certainly not mine, but represent the doubts about myself that carry forward from the past. The ones that remind me of all the decisions I’ve made that were, shall we say, less that optimal. We all have them. What I now know is that our ability to trust ourselves is related to identifying exactly what comes up for us in those moments. We all have those things we think are true and right that have evolved in our minds over time (whether they are actually true), but that hold us back from making decisions in the present. Those are the things that scream at us in our minds. But you can choose to ignore them. And I did.

And we all can, and should. Choose to look at what’s in front of us today. The facts of the situation we’re currently faced with. Not the voices in our head telling us that we can’t, or shouldn’t, or even worse, that we’re not good enough, not worthy. Those voices aren’t true. They’re not our friends. We CAN trust ourselves and our own inner wisdom.

I would be remiss if I didn’t end with a moment about the tragedy in Las Vegas. It was incredibly sad and we should have systems and rules in place to prevent it. It’s a time when each of us needs to dig down inside ourselves and be brave enough to voice our true concerns about how this happened. But right now, in this moment, we can use that voice to pray. Pray for the victims, their families, the witnesses, and all the first responders. My heart goes out to all of them.

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Moving past perfect to good

View More: http://mercarty.pass.us/lisa_kirby“Once you’re done being perfect, then you’re good.” I was listening to a podcast the other day with Jen Hatmaker and Glennon Doyle and felt socked in the gut when I heard Glennon share those words. Because I got it. Deep in my heart I understood what she was talking about. Having spent the majority of my life striving for perfection, I am tired. And the thing about it is, you never really reach perfection, because it’s based on someone else’s standards. I’ve learned you’ll never meet those. It’s impossible.

In the last year, however, I’ve been working on giving up being perfect. Straight up truth is, I’m not. No one is. We’re all one step away from a hot mess, and half the time, I feel that’s where I’m squarely sitting. That’s what life is. We go through the hard stuff to get to the good stuff. And that’s what I’m starting to experience. Living in full awareness of my messy life and not trying to ignore it or get away from it. It leads to so much more, the good in life.

I think that part of getting away from perfection and towards good is moving away from feelings of shame. Shame is something that we’ve all experienced it. Brene Brown studied it, speaks on it, writes about it. Her work helped me understand that shame is the feeling that you’re a bad person versus having done a bad thing. I was pondering that this morning and had another sock in the gut moment.

One of the worst things anyone could ever say to me is that they were disappointed in me. It is crushing to me. Causes me to lose all sense of self confidence, self-esteem. Today it dawned on me that I interpret someone being disappointed in me as “I think you are a bad person.” It clicked…and when it did it was as though another layer of me was shed. A deeper understanding of myself and my wiring was reached. So what do you do with that? With the past messages you may have received? For me, I’m trying to reframe them. Thinking that in those instances I may have done a bad thing, but I’m not, nor was I, a bad person.

I also realized this week that part of perfectionism for me was really not trusting myself. Constant striving. Always doing what I thought I was supposed to do to color within the lines, to follow every rule. There’s very little independent thinking or reasoning when you’re sticking to the plan. So now, I have to ask if I really trust myself. My own decisions. I think I do trust myself when it’s something I know well, like work, but personal things are a lot harder. I question myself a lot and have a hard time getting to an answer at times.

So what’s so good about all this? Well first off, I’m realizing it. I’m making my own choices. Living in my mess knowing that good is going to come from it. Letting go of the impossible burden of perfectionism. Learning to trust myself and in the process trusting others more. And the truth is, I don’t believe I’m alone. I believe that the experiences I’m having, the realizations, are the same that others have…once you’ve lived for a while.  The challenge is to not only be aware of the messages that have been programmed, but to choose different to think differently. To make decisions for my life based on what is good for me now – not what I think should be good for me now. To listen to the truth. As with anything else in life that’s worth it, I’ll have to work at it. How about you? Are you ready to believe in yourself? Trust yourself? Get to the good stuff? Let’s do it together, be brave together.

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A Rite of Passage

love yourselfI feel like I should issue a spoiler alert. To all my young friends, I’m going to throw down a bit about middle age. If you don’t want to know what’s coming, proceed with caution. I’ve been thinking about middle age and all the “joy” that comes with it, particularly menopause. I’ve heard menopause described as a “rite of passage.” Wondering if that could really be true, I decided to look up what that actually means.

Rites of passage have a beginning, a middle, and an end. So let’s think about it for a minute…yep, perimenopause, then you’re in the thick of it, and I’ve heard afterwards you move into a new phase. So, yeah, it does sound like a rite of passage. And it’s something all women go through one way or another. Truthfully, men go through it too, alongside the women in their lives and they have their own rites of passage.

So if it’s a nature process of life, I wonder why it’s so hard? At least it’s hard for me and my friends in the same boat. As I think about it, the hard part is all the physical symptoms that seem impossible to control. I did not ask for whiskers to randomly sprout from my chin; or for the hot flashes that make sleep elusive; or, let’s get honest, the uncontrollable weight gain – I think they call it the middle age spread. Let me just say…I am not amused.

But I’m wondering if there’s a different way to look at all this. The truth is, it’s inevitable. No woman can escape it. Some have fewer symptoms or are propelled into it, but we all go through it. I haven’t even mentioned the emotions that go with it, but they can be extreme. My husband can attest to the crying that came with the early stages for me.  Where is all that coming from???

What if, instead of fighting it, or resenting it, we embraced it? Leaned in to it. Accepted the fact that our bodies are changing rather than being angry about it? Accept that we have no control over it…that is a big issue. As women, we’re used to having a lot of control over what’s happening in our lives. We have taken care of our homes, our families, jobs…juggled our hobbies and things that bring us joy…for the majority of our lives. This should be something we’ve got covered. We (and I include me in that), want to continue controlling our bodies…and we can’t.

We accuse, we blame, we fight our own bodies. And we’re tired. What if you tried to hold off a car rolling down a hill? You likely wouldn’t be successful and you’d get rolled over in the process. If you just stepped aside and accepted what was going to happen you’d save a lot of blood, sweat and tears. It’s the same thing with menopause. Our bodies want to be loved and we’re the primary person to do that. We may have grown humans in our bodies, climbed mountains, risen in our careers – whether in or out of the house. We have put our arms around others to comfort them, loved on others…but we’re failing to do that for ourselves. We fight what we need and it’s a fight against ourselves.

So if we’re in the midst of a rite of passage, why don’t we lean in? Accept what’s happening. The struggles we might be facing in the midst of the transition are ones we’re bringing on ourselves. Stop the battle. We need to love ourselves, our bodies and not abandon them during this time of transition. Know that this process is taking us to another phase in our lives.

If you’ve stuck through this post and are not in this phase, I encourage you to look at what you may be going through in life. Are you fighting an unnecessary battle? What do you really need right now? Listen to yourself, your body, your inner voice and follow it. Today, let’s choose to love ourselves as we are. We’re here for a reason…lean in to learn what that reason is. Be brave.

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Listen to me!

bodily-wisdom-quoteHow often do you have someone in your life say, “just listen to me.” Maybe they yell it at you, or maybe you’re the one saying it.  With all the space I’m making in my life, to just be, to rest, to be creative, I’ve noticed that I’m hearing that phrase more often. Not from anybody else, but from my own body. I’m not kidding. When I slowed down enough to pay attention, I started noticing what my body was feeling, what it said to me.

It said, I’m tired, quit beating me up, I need rest…it also told me that the shape it’s in now, well that’s where it needs to be. That’s a tough one because for probably the last 35+ years, I’ve felt like I was in a diet battle with my body. The weight it would hold onto made my body an enemy. If I lost weight, we weren’t quite friends, but had reached frenemy status. I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop and eventually, it did. We’d go back to battle.

And that wasn’t all, I pushed myself to do all kinds of crazy, albeit fun, adventures. If I did something wildly athletic all day, I could eat without guilt. While those time truly were awesome, my body got more and more tired. The fatigue never actually went away. Now, I’ve slowed down, but less by choice and more by necessity. But in the midst of what would otherwise be lamenting for that life, the crazy adventures, I’m finding myself feeling still, content.

Once I got to that point, that’s when I really started tuning into what my body and my intuition. What it was telling me was a crazy thing. I felt more peace. I realized that my body has wisdom, it knows what it needs, rest, food, fun, love, comfort. And though I don’t always do it, when I listen and respond, when I’m actually kind to myself, my body responds favorably. I realize it’s not actually the enemy. I spent all those years essentially fighting my true self. Instead, my body has so much to say, it’s done so much for me, it’s been through life with me. Even though my brain thinks it’s my true self, it’s not, it’s just part of it. My body is the one feeling, sensing, being.

So what’s the point in sharing this with you? I’d ask you to think about how you treat your body. Are you in a battle? Enemies? Do you ignore it altogether? Any of those responses would be normal. The question is where do you want to be? I know that for many, many people, especially women, our body is a source of contention. Our image of ourselves is formed from countless sources over the years. If you grew up when I did, ultra-thin was the goal, but was it realistic? After all these years of trying, I can tell you that it’s probably not – at least for me. We need to learn to love ourselves, to listen to ourselves, just as we are now. If you were meant to be thinner, or a different shape, tune in and you can get there. How you are now, it’s where you need to be, for now. It doesn’t mean you’ll always be that way, but maybe you will. Take the brave step of putting down the sword you’ve yielded against yourself for so long.

You are not helpless in this, your body is not the enemy, you don’t have to be made at it. You can show it love and compassion, and it will reward you – with joy, peace, abundance, creativity and love. Today, be brave for yourself and always remember, be kind to the one you’re closest to, the one you’re living in, you.

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Grab on…

View More: http://mercarty.pass.us/lisa_kirbyI was at a women’s conference yesterday, Christine Caine’s Propel Activate Conference. It was a fire hose of a day with amazing speakers throughout. As always, my brain wanders in many different directions and by the time we nearing the end, I had a lot of ideas on the brink of happening. Lisa Harper was the last speaker and she was the perfect choice because she used humor with her message which kept me engaged at the end of a long day.

I’ve been through times in my life when, to be transparent, I’ve seen myself as a victim. Let me define that. A victim of my circumstances. Life was happening to me. I didn’t feel I had any control. I felt like I was along for the ride. Truth is, I lived to other peoples’ expectations, didn’t speak up for what I wanted, typical life of a people pleaser. But I wasn’t happy. Discontent but couldn’t put my finger on it. The great thing about being in that space is that you can blame others for things that happen. Someone else is calling the shots, not me, so I wash my hands of it. Not a good place to be, for anyone.

Last year, my eyes were opened to that reality and I started taking more ownership for my life. Calling the shots, taking chances, even if I risked failing. But it’s a process, one that is still ongoing. Yesterday Lisa Harper’s told the 2,000+ women that God will never tell you that you’re “not good enough,” and challenged us to look at what He’s calling us to do. To be honest, that’s a message a lot of women struggle with, me included. Feeling like we’re not “the right one” for the job, or that we can always be “just a little bit better.”

The problem with that (one of many), is that we look for “evidence” to support our own insecurity. Things that happen around us are put into a box that supports our fear that we’re really not good enough. We build our case…and it paralyzes us.

So today, I’m calling you out on it, calling myself on it. I’m going to spend time thinking about how to propel myself forward, to further embrace the plan God has for me. I’m going to think and journal about questions like:

  • What do I feel is at my fingertips?
  • What is within my grasp but I’m not grabbing on?
  • What gifts do I have that I’m keeping on the shelf?
  • Where do I feel like I fall short…but that’s not the truth?
  • What do others tell me about my gifts that I have a hard time believing – that I could embrace and run with?

This is push through kind of work. Can be fun, but not always. It’s going to require digging, confronting myself, challenging my limiting beliefs. Those thoughts that I think about myself that aren’t true but that I’ve let myself think are true. I challenge you this week my friends, what are you being called to do? Look at your gifts, embrace them, you are amazing. We can do this, we’re brave.

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You have choices

Choose the positiveMy air conditioning has been working marginally, if at all, for two months. During a summer with a record number of days over 90 degrees, many over 100. And now, our water heater is leaking. Yesterday, in the midst of house failures, the heat and a long afternoon, I told my husband I thought we should come up with a name for the summer, like newscasters do around hurricanes, or natural weather events. Like…Summer of living on the sun…or the even more charming…summer in a fiery cauldron.

What he said to me made me think. He told me he wouldn’t attach a negative word to this summer. Wait what??? He doesn’t want to think of it that way. You see, this is the first summer we’ve spent together since we remarried. The heat, the adversity, certainly tested us. It’s very easy to turn frustration that arises in the heat towards each other. But that didn’t happen, at all. And believe me, there have been some tense moments, especially when you wake up tired from sleeping in a hot room, think surface of the sun, all night. Instead of turning us on each other like rabid dogs, it brought us closer together. So, no, he wouldn’t attach a negative name to this summer.

I was thinking about this the other day as I attended the Willow Creek Leadership Summit. Our organization was a host site so I was able to “attend” with 300 of my work friends. The Summit featured fantastic speakers, many of whom stood out to me for a variety of reasons. During one session, Andy Stanley shared an interesting perspective. He said that we should be students of success, do autopsies on success. We often spend our time focusing on what when wrong. So what does that do? Keeps us circling the drain. Keeps us in the negative space. Don’t get me wrong, there is some value to figuring out what when wrong to prevent it in the future, but staying there is not productive.

Focusing on success, studying what went right…now we’re getting somewhere. Studying success helps us…wait for it…be more successful. In life, at work, in relationships. Spending time truly understanding the aspects that were successful, in addition to helping you replicate it in the future, puts you in a positive space. Helps you look back on situations and see the good, not pick apart the one thing that didn’t go well.

Do you naturally look for the positive? I want to say yes. But at the same time, I know that I can have a critical eye. I look for the flaw. My heart is to help make it better, but that overlooks the 99% that’s awesome. I’m quite sure that is not the most helpful, or encouraging. Even though I see the flaws, I also see the positive. I want to see the positive. It doesn’t always hold my attention as long though. That’s something I’m working on.

So back to my summer of…laughter…joy…memories. Yes, I’m choosing the positive. You see, I choose if I want to sit in negative or positive energy. Whether I want to let life and my perspective on it be shaped by what’s going on around me, or take an active, thriving role in it.

Is this an area where you struggle? You too have choices. Start looking for the joy in your life. Don’t worry as much about the flaws. Spend your time looking at how to replicate your success. You’ll feel the shift inside you, and others will notice it too. It may take some time, but it’s worth it. Choose the one thing, the one area where you want to be positive and start…right…now. I’m right there with you, we can do it, we’re brave.

 

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Trying to embrace uncertainty

UncertaintyUncertainty, it’s a word that makes my stomach tie up a nice little knot. Not a fan. I’ve lived most of my life trying to eliminate uncertainty. I always have a plan B. I take the low risk route so that there’s little danger of failing. I research, I plan, I practice, I eliminate the uncertainty. Because I don’t like being in a space of not knowing what could happen. I have a fear about it.

But the truth is that there could be a lot of upside in uncertainty. For those of you saying “not worth the risk…” stay with me.  I once had a friend tell me that if you want to have the high high’s, you have to risk the low low’s. Yeah, ok, I remember thinking, that sounds good, but those low’s, I just don’t know want to have them. So I held on to my practice of being risk adverse.

I played small, took the path that would guarantee success. If I had plans with someone, I always had in the back of my mind that they might not come, and I was prepared for that. It eliminated disappointment, but it also kept me from getting too close, from trusting others too much. Because that was scary, it was uncertain. I wasn’t playing that game.

Lisa party of 1. Playing at mid-level, not taking big risks, not even trusting myself sometimes, my own talents, my own gifts. Selling myself short.

All because I didn’t want to live with uncertainty.

So how’d that work out? Not great. A lot of feeling unfulfilled. Feeling like there was so much more I wanted to do but couldn’t get myself started. Couldn’t get myself beyond the fear of the unknown. I could fail. Something I didn’t want to go through.

Then I realized I was letting my fear of uncertainty keep me in a state of helplessness. Kept me from stepping into my full life, and I decided to take a different path. Take more risks, trust, be all in on what matters. Believe in myself, and believe in others. The more I lean in, the easier it gets.

But I still wrestle with uncertainty, and my coach sees that. My homework is to notice where there’s uncertainty in my life and think about how I can make friends with it. Let go of the need to wrestle it to the ground and defeat it with plans B, C, and D if needed. Recognize where the avoidance actually keeps me small. Because even after you realize you have behavior that isn’t helping you, you still have to do something about it. And that’s a process, it’s not always easy. Sitting here it makes me a little nauseous  even trying to think about areas in my life where there’s uncertainty. I’m fairly resistant about it. But I will. It matters and so I will. I want to live the full life God made me for. To step into that full life and share myself with others.

So how do you feel about uncertainty? If you share my aversion, first, high five. But my challenge to you is to think about it. Recognize those areas, and pick one. An area where you can lean into uncertainty, let go of the reins. I’m being brave my friends, I invite you to join me. Life’s a journey we’re all taking together.