Tag: Coaching

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Why we need pride

In my head, the phrase is said scornfully by a ‘little old church lady’, “Don’t be prideful.” Usually with the intent of ‘putting someone in their place,’ or knocking them down a notch. I don’t know if men hear it, because I’m not one, but I’ve been on the receiving end as a female. Or, if not those exact words, the sentiment that one better not let their head swell with pride. But why not? Why has our culture, particularly what I’ll loosely call ‘church culture’ steered us away from having pride? Certainly, references abound in the Bible of pride leading to a person’s downfall. That would give you pause. Fundamentally though, shouldn’t we all have a sense of pride?

What is pride?

I think pride has a bad rap. It’s as though we see it as a gateway drug to a personal downfall. My programming, primarily a result of a woman’s perceived ‘place’ has led to pride being pushed way, way down. The other night, I was at a rare dinner with work colleagues. Out of the blue, I found myself being praised for a work problem I’d helped successful navigate. Did I shine? What do you think? No. I brushed it off as no big deal and downplayed my role. Unfortunately, I see women taking a similar stance over and over.

Consider the definition of pride. My trusty go-to Meriam Webster states:

  1. a feeling of deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one’s own achievements, the achievements of those with whom one is closely associated, or from qualities or possessions that are widely admired.
  2. consciousness of one’s own dignity.

 

Neither definition is negative. Why shouldn’t you be proud of an accomplishment, an award, a milestone? Honestly, why shouldn’t you have pride about who you are, about your own dignity? And yet, people are told to keep themselves buttoned up. Not to let too much of what’s on the inside leak out and into the light. We are told to let others shine. This recurrent message we receive is not benign. There’s a consequence.

How pushing our pride aside shows up

When we repeatedly take in the message that we shouldn’t be prideful or have pride, what do you suppose the translation is for any normal human person? Something about you is bad. To be hidden. Don’t allow people to see the ‘real’ you lest you be rejected. The result? Shame. Brené Brown provides a definition of shame I find instructive.

“The intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.” It is “the fear that something we’ve done or failed to do…makes us unworthy of connection.”

It’s no wonder millions of women, and men for that matter – because shame does not discriminate – suffer under the weight of shame. Perpetuated upon them by systems which use shame to control the people under them. In the recently published book You are your best thing, an anthology of Black voices speaking to vulnerability, shame and the Black experience, embodiment teacher and founder of the Embodiment Institute (TEI) Prentis Hemphill shared “Shame is also the way oppression gets internalized.”

When I read those words, I had to return and reread them. More than once. Because the words, they speak to the Black experience, certainly. Pride pushed down, pushed aside, drilling into people that they do not have the right to personal dignity. They are ‘less than.’ All lies, all tools of control. But also, because they speak broadly to the stripping of pride from groups of people whose only flaw is that they are different.

We need to celebrate Pride

From June 28, 1969 to July 3, 1967, when I wasn’t yet 2 years old, people protested outside the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village. In what became a rebellion, the Stonewall Riots, the rioters advocated for gay rights. And because of their uprising, President Clinton began celebrating June first as Gay and Lesbian Pride month, which later became LGBTQ Pride month. I find it interesting that Pride is the term chosen to characterize this month because, at the core, that’s what’s needed. Celebration and a raising of consciousness in the dignity of LGTBQIA+ people.

Because these people, these human people, have been told they should have the exact opposite of pride. That the way they were designed by God is wrong. They’ve been shamed by our culture because of who they love. Denied rights and benefits, healthcare, decency…and sadly, that continues today. Instead, we should love, affirm, and celebrate the dignity of those in the LGTBQIA+ community. For that matter, we should be doing the same for those in the BIPOC community.

Pride is not the enemy

Maybe we should be rethinking how we characterize pride. Because pride is not the enemy, shame is. When you, or me, or any person believes they are ‘deeply flawed’ and unworthy of love and belonging, there’s a problem. And the structures that perpetuate shame as a tool to oppress those who are different? Different because of the color of their skin, their sex, who they love? We need to dismantle and rebuild those structures. And if you think shame is not used as a power tool, I ask you to simply listen and watch. To the words used by those in power, to the choices made by our systems, to the underlying messages that tell people they cannot show up in dignity, celebrate who they are, without consequence.

Be Prideful. Be conscious of and celebrate your dignity as a human being. Because you have qualities and characteristics that deserve to be celebrated. Because you are loved. Be Brave my loves. Lisa

 

 

 

 

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Unpacking life, box by box by box

Weeks before moving across the country, thoughts of packing my life into boxes engulfed every portion of my mind. I’d wake in the middle of the night playing Tetris, packing version, in my mind. Thinking about which small piece would fill this mostly full box. And one day, after toiling away at it for untold hours, it was done. Everything packed, at least everything I wanted to transport to the next phase. After saying goodbye to the moving truck and meandering my way across the country, here I am. Unpacking life I tenderly packed up and brought with me.

Life that’s in a box

Whose life can honestly be placed in a box? That’s the reality. We pack things in a box. Silverware, dishes, books, books and more books, clothes, décor, my grandma’s Kitchen Aid mixer and china, pictures…the deeper you go, the closer to your heart the contents become. I have boxes of pictures because, well, back in the day…when you actually clicked a picture and didn’t know how it would turn out until developed…I captured my children’s youth.

And still, these are things. Things with memories attached. Or maybe better, they’re things that spark memories. Making the event return to life. Triggering the emotions and feelings that surrounded the origin. What’s within the boxes is the evidence of the string of events that comprise our lives.

Unpacking life, over and over

Therapy. That was the first place I unpacked life. Upon entering the middle phase of life, I found myself swirling with emotion.  It may have been all the hormones shifting in my body, or my ovaries deciding it was time to rid themselves of all the eggs, but the culmination was tears and emotions I was ill-equipped to navigate. I found myself sitting on the proverbial couch for months.

Making sense of the fragments of my life, the ones that resisted moving forward smoothly, that caused jagged edges. Unpacking our lives can be a fragile process and one which is best navigated with the assistance of a professional. Or as I like to call my past therapists, a paid friend.

Close to one hundred boxes of life to sort through solo? A daunting task. Yet what do you do except dive in? There is no other way but forward. With boxes and with your life.

Different but the same

Despite the fact that moving involves boxes and packages and things, unpacking evokes similar emotions to therapy. A fact that goes unacknowledged in moving guides you find online, or in the numerous blogs providing ‘Best tips for a smooth move.’ Not even a week into it, emotions flooded me the other day. Overwhelmed by the sheer number of decisions, Tetris in reverse.

Unpacking life requires decision after decision to determine where all those things belong. Where they fit. Revisiting the decisions to carry forward items in your new life, navigated without the help of your paid friend. While packing is an emotional journey in and of itself, unpacking may be the harder task.

You get to choose what carries forward. Only you. The things are simply that, things. The overwhelm? Part of the process I’ve decided. Your life is laid out in front of you ready to re-launch. It’s your move.

Truly, it’s your move

Metaphorically and IRL. In real life, the move is physical. You experience it physically. New surroundings, rooms and hiding places. Metaphorically, you’ve provided distance. In my last moments standing in my empty home of nine years in California, I pondered the life I’d lived there. If those walls could talk…I said a silent goodbye to that phase.

What carries forward is entirely up to you, to me. The memories, the decisions, who I am, I am the only one deciding what resurfaces. As I think about it, all of life is like one big move. Whether physical or not, you’re in charge of what comes forward. You can recreate your life over and over. You can. It’s your move.

As for me? Well, you’ll have to stay tuned. I’m still unpacking.

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Why change is hard

change

Did you ever see the movie We bought a zoo? Yeah, me neither. Yet, it was the first thing that came to mind after I did a thing this week. I bought a house…in another state…sight unseen (I had a proxy)…on the other side of the country. Am I excited? Yes. Am I terrified? Yes. I am all the things. Lest you think I’ve lost my marbles; the purchase wasn’t entirely out of the blue. I’d been contemplating making a move because the bulk of my family is across the country, but the timing was ‘out there.’ And, the move won’t only be in my residence. All changes I desired. So, why did it feel like I’d swallowed wrong and was choking? Because change is hard.

Why change is hard

It is. Change rarely rises to the top of anyone’s bucket list, and with good reason. When we go through change, whether it be in our personal lives, as an organization, or our thinking around a long held believe, we’re leaving something behind. We allow a process, a relationship, a practice, a belief to die. Although our destination is positive, it doesn’t diminish the fact that we’re leaving something, and that thing may be one we treasured.

When I make a significant change, my inner voice begs me to return to the old way. Because many of us, myself included, are creatures of habit. We might park in the same place, eat at the same restaurants, order the same food, drive the same way to work according to our habit. Introduce a new variable and it throws us off our game. Our internal memory craves to return to the old way. I use the word discombobulated to describe the feeling inside when parts of my world in a flux, in the midst of change. I desire to restore order. But that may not be what is best.

Change is well studied

Google wouldn’t pull up 5,370,000,000 results (literally) when I type in change if it were a well-oiled machine. People are continuously working to process improve it and producing models for how to do it well.  As defined by Meriam Webster, change is a verb with a variety of applications:

1a: to make different in some particular; b: to make radically different; c: to give a different position, course, or direction

2a: to replace with another; b: to make a shift from one to another; c: to exchange for an equivalent sum of money; d: to undergo a modification; e: to put fresh clothes or covering on

Nearly every single definition applies to my situation. Not even kidding. Words like ‘radically’ land with me because that’s what change can feel like.

Because change is hard, you can find 8 models for change in a 2 second internet search. One I’m partial to is by Kurt Lewin which has 3 phases: Unfreeze, Change, Refreeze. Unfreeze challenges the way things are done; in Change we look for new ways to do things; and, our change takes hold in Refreeze. A similar process is Form, Storm, Norm, Perform. You create, brainstorm ideas, create new standards and processes and finally, perform.  We transform through the change process over and over in our personal and professional lives.

Why some change feels harder

Despite, or maybe, in spite, of our regular journey through change, some are markedly harder than others. When we change, in the words of the Brady’s…you’ve got to rearrange. Buying a zoo, er…house across the country, isn’t the only change I’m making. For the past four years, I’ve wrestled with the direction of my career. After 30 years in the same field, I’ve been itching to transition into a new capacity. Specifically, coaching. I became a certified coach and operate a side business. But without full attention, the side business hasn’t gained traction.

I’d ruminate about leaving my job and branching out on my own. I’ve worked since I was 13 years old but always for someone else, which brings stability. On my own? That’s a white knuckled drive on a snowy mountain road. But, early in 2020, after rolling it around in my head for 3 years, I was ready. Ready to make a plan that is.

And, as fate would have it (as fate does), a friend from my coaching program asked if I wanted to start a business with her. Since that phone call in the Spring of 2020, we’ve formed a company, Wayfinders Talent, and are in the form/storm phase. We’ll be coaching leaders to bring out the best performance in themselves and others. It’s the culmination of several years of unfreezing.

Once you decide to change, then what?

Which means I’m transitioning out of my day job. Slowly at first, but eventually it will be time. I’m not exactly sure when, but it will be time. Akin to buying a home across the country, I’m excited and terrified at the same time about the transition. I’ll leave stellar people behind and that part of change is never easy. But I’ll be building a new business that will change lives.

Given that I am in the ‘creature of habit’ camp, I want to know what’s next. Biologically, our brains want to know how the story ends and change doesn’t always afford that. Again, change is hard. Does that produce stress in me? Yes. It would for anyone who’s similarly situated. I have to remind myself of what Glennon Doyle write in Untamed, “we can do hard things.” The only way we can get through change is…to change. I hope you’ll stick around for the white knuckled journey and consider what changes you’re making, or need to be made, in your own life. It may be hard, but it may be time. You’ll know if it is in your gut. I did. Be brave my friends. Lisa

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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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Do you want to be well?

I’ve had a migraine for 3 days…and I’ll probably have it another 10. The migraines I experience are food triggered and although I do my absolute best to avoid the deadly culprits, I had a salad this week. Without fully thinking it through I ate the delicious take-out creation and upon finishing it realized the dressing likely had red wine vinegar. Dastardly. You see, alcohol in any and all forms, triggers the migraine.

It was said to me (and has been said before) “you should be more careful.” To which, I want to scream. This zero-conflict Enneagram 9 wants to lash out. Because in absolutely zero way do I want the migraines. They are level 10 awful. I AM careful. Yet mistakes still happen.

Is it “mine” or simply “the” [fill in the blank]

Earlier in the week as the headache was curling up with a good book and tea in my head, settling in for the long haul, calling a few buddies over, I thought about the notion of referring to it as ‘my migraine.’ I remember reading in a holistic health guide (or read on the internet…who knows anymore), that one should avoid personalizing a health challenge. The concept, which I think is valid, is that personalization embeds the symptoms, the diagnosis, into our bodies.

I’ve thought about this idea in combination with a sermon I heard years ago entitled, “Do you want to be well?” The degree to which we personalize our medical problems, as a for example, they become our identity. In our minds and narrative, we are the person with…migraines, fibromyalgia, cancer, arthritis, extra weight, thinning hair…not all of those are mine, I borrowed, but fill in your own. But a few of them are and when we identify with a hinderance, are we not further hindering ourselves? Could we just as easily be the person who is filled with joy, gratitude, beautiful hair, a positive body image at any size and whatever positive characteristic people ascribe to us that we ignore?

Why we hold on to what we’re fighting

Yes, we could. Yet… There’s something we get from being the person with the affliction when we’re including it in our narrative. We allow it to hold us back, or use it to explain X, Y or Z.

Do we want to be well?

These thoughts flooded my mind this week as the U.S. watched the presidential election play out. I’m thrilled we can now exhale from this week. But all week, the negative narrative associated with the entire race continued. The fight. And I thought for a moment, “Do we want to be well?” Is our country so engrained in the fight that we’d rather stay in that space than move towards a peaceful existence? What are we gaining from ‘the fight’?

And believe me, I’m not naively espousing the idea that there is nothing to fight for. There are groups of people who continue to this day to be treated as if they were less than. Our BIPOC brothers and sisters, our LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters, the marginalized groups who we deserve protection and equality because of the sheer fact that they are human beings. To correct the injustices that many have faced, we have that responsibility.

What would it look like to be well?

But do we want to be well? It seems that many identify with the fight more than what is being fought for. A broad statement? Maybe. But what would it look like to associate less with the fight and more with the desired outcome? Being for equality instead of fighting against injustice. That’s a much different mindset. How would our collective lives change if we shifted the narrative to being well instead of fighting the illness? And I do think the racial and LGBTQ+ inequity in the nation is an illness. But how would it be different?

I, for one, don’t have an answer. But I’m thinking about it. As we emerge from the election battle, could we shift to a unified country who is for equality? Who acts from that mindset? The choice is truly individual, do you want to be well or are you the illness? Brave choices ahead for us my loves. I hope that we will be well. Lisa

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A better way to experience the let-down

The fall season often brings back memories of a bike race I’ve done a couple of times, which is now defunct. The Furnace Creek 508 started in Santa Clarita, California and ended in Twentynine Palms, in the eastern Sierra desert. As the name denotes, you travel through Furnace Creek in Death Valley, California, on your way to the finish. It’s what is called a ‘total time’ race meaning all the time spent cycling, eating, resting, visiting nature, was included. The first time around I was on a tandem team of 4 bikes, 8 riders. The second? A two-woman team. Needless to say, the preparation for a 508-mile race, whether you have to ride the entire distance or not, is extensive. And so when it was over, around 28 ½ hours later both times, a gaping hole existed in my schedule. In hindsight, I can see what I experienced was the let-down. And it makes me think. There must be a better way to experience the let-down.

The calm after the storm

We’ve all felt it, the stillness that follows a long-awaited event is a chasm.  To be clear, I’m not talking about the let-down of disappointment. An empty space we’re not quite sure how to fill. You may have felt it after finishing college. I can still remember walking out of my final exam on the U.C. Davis campus in March 1989. Done. But then what? It’s exactly those moments that cause us doubt, or questioning…wondering if something is wrong.

The calm after the storm is the let-down. It’s the exhale that comes at the end of finishing the race, college or a hard-fought goal. Racing to finish a project, killing it, and then having too much time on your hands. The let-down, the emptiness that defines it, can easily feel like depression. I can’t help but wonder if we’re all barreling towards a collective let-down once we start to ease back into our everyday life. We’ve been holding our breath, existing in a sea of anxiety, for nearly all of 2020.

How else could we look at it?

But I think it doesn’t have to be a let-down. What if, instead, we find that we’ve evolved through our experience? You, mom or dad who has a day job, started home schooling your children. You learned Zoom, more importantly, you learned how to mute on Zoom. Your house has never been more organized and you did not know that you had the capacity to bake so.much.bread. You began to enjoy a slower pace, time with your children. Your pets most certainly have enjoyed having you at home. You may have gotten to know yourself that much better because you had the time. And time is a scarce commodity.

I chose Wholehearted as my 2020 word for the year and have spent the past ten months going through Brené Brown’s Guideposts for Wholehearted Living. But there are ten versus the twelve months this year. So now what? I wondered if I’d teeter towards a let-down, but instead, I considered what else could be happening.

We’re shifting

While I’d like to say we’re in a state of perpetual motion, that’s not quite true. Perpetual motion is the motion of bodies that continues forever. Apparently, that violates a couple laws of thermodynamics, who knew? But what is true are Newton’s laws of motion. While the first states that something in motion will continue in a straight line unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed on it.

Could it be that many of us were all in a straight line and the forces of 2020 have changed us?  Or that 2020 was a force that further changed us (because many of us were already shifting)? Let’s suppose that’s true. When life as we know it gets closer to life as we knew it pre-2020, we might feel the let-down, the loosing of the death grip we have on life. But even if we do, we can shift the way we think about it. Consider how much progress you’ve made this year, in unexpected areas. The relationships that have changed. The talents you’ve developed and want to hold on to. We often don’t see those changes because we’re in the middle of it. But I’d suggest if you write down where you were at the end of the year and now, there would be a vast difference in what’s important to you.

And so, being different that I was at the beginning of the year despite or because of the turn of events, I am more at home in myself. I’m on the Wholehearted journey, and yours’ is entirely different because it’s yours alone. But if you become tempted to give in to that feeling of let-down, reflect on what’s in motion and how far you’ve travelled. Be brave my friends.  Lisa

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We CAN let go of cool and always in control

Brené Brown’s Wholehearted Living Guideposts lay out markers along a path leading to the cultivation of being your authentic, wholehearted self. But what does wholehearted signify? I believe it’s different for each of us and throughout the year, focusing on a different guidepost each month, I’ve arrived at my own definition. Wholehearted living is coming back to who you are at your core, independent of other people’s opinions, judgements, or expectations. And wholehearted is most decidedly not cool and always in control.

What other people think is in our way

Why do we care about what other people think? Where to start? Belonging comes to mind, acceptance, feeling that we ‘fit in.’ We have an innate desire to be seen and known by others. Unfortunately, that can lead to twisting ourselves up like a pretzel in an effort to be one of ‘the club.’ We remain in control of ourselves partly to ensure our acceptance in this elusive club, because, we surmise, if people knew who we ‘actually’ were at our core, they would kick us to the curb, alone.

And nobody wants to feel they’re alone.

But, as Brené Brown writes in Braving the Wilderness, do we truly belong when we’re shape shifting to remain there (paraphrased)? If the space where we desire to belong requires that we stay buttoned up to meet other people’s expectations, or to stay in their good graces, are they really our people? If we’re spending our time working to ‘fit in,’ chances are, they’re not. In which case, our own growth as a wholehearted person is being stunted.

We desire security

One of the reasons we strive to be in control is other people and staying in ‘the club’. But within that space, we often find those crazy, unstructured people who enjoy accusing us of being ‘control freaks.’ If they understood our ‘why’ they may show a bit more compassion. And I say this as one who has been accused on more than one occasion of being a bit controlling. Truth is, I don’t care about controlling other people. Really.

What I care about is controlling what’s happening around me. Being in the club provides security, but so does being able to predict what’s going on around me. So, do I like an organized, structured life? I do. Unequivocally. Security is one of the basic needs Maslow describes and when life around me becomes chaotic, my own sense of security declines. It might seem as though those of us who desire security in our surroundings are control freaks and if that’s the case, I am not sorry.

Wholehearted is not control

If we could architect our way to wholehearted living, it wouldn’t be a journey. But it is. And despite the lingering relapses into control I, for one, have chosen the journey. Which requires letting go of always being in control. Dammit.

I was recently reminded of what it feels like to not be cool and in control while visiting my 16-week-old niece. Do you know who is in control in her house? She is. Structure around her schedule and what she needs. I willingly submit. And what I noticed is that when I was with her, I had zero desire to be in control, or to be cool. She does not care if I’m cool. So funny faces, giggling with her, letting her kick and splash in the tub while I get wet…I’m in, 100%. With a surprising side effect…laughter, song, and dance. A feeling of being free. Understandably, if you’re the parent, it’s different, but as the Aunt? Fantastic.

So perhaps feeling wholehearted is reminding myself of that feeling. Replicating it once I’m back to my day to day. If each of us determined that we are no longer going to remain calm and in control, instead opting for wholehearted, it’s possible the nature of the club would change. And if not, maybe they’re not our club. The people with whom we don’t feel we need to remain calm and in control, now that’s our club, and it does feel like the wilderness at times. Are you up for braving the wilderness to have more laughter, song and dance in your life? I am. Be brave, friends. We’re in the same club. Lisa

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We need to find our own play

Well established at this point is the fact that play is not a part of my regular jam. But October…it makes me want to play all month. Because it’s my birthday. This blog is being published…on my birthday. And if there is no other time than that once a year, it calls for time in play. There are good reasons we need play every day, but it looks differently through the years. We need to find our own play.

It starts young

As a mother myself, I remember the birthday parties I’d plan for my boys. Maybe it was my own penchant for crafts, but usually there was some form of creation as part of the event. We made the cups you color on and bake in the oven to set – a throwback to the plates we used to color and bake. My younger son is a December baby, so one year it was Christmas stockings. There was always cake, the universal sign that it’s your birthday, presents, balloons, and their friends.

I don’t remember my own early soirees, but the days of slumber parties, who could forget that?!? In hindsight, they were little more than a tween’s nightmare. Started off innocently enough, but soon you realized the girls who were farther along in puberty, e.g. generally cooler, and those who were not and hence, not as popular, aka, me. That’s not a sob story, I had plenty of good times, but was the B tier. You know what I mean, the ones who weren’t the most popular, but was friendly with those people. Not the class president, the class secretary…or treasurer.

But those parties were also a source of play. We had games, absurd and not. There were movies and lengthy discussions of boys. Most of all though, despite the early social ranking, there was play – playing/ dreaming of the day we’d be grown up or have a romance. The play allowed us to dream, create, plan.

Play goes sideways

When you’re in college, boy howdy, there’s some freedom there. So, your parties, your birthdays, become an excuse to have excess. Because now you are a grown up and this must be the plan. Can I just say what a dumb plan it was?? Why any college town needs a game night or enticement for kids – ahem, grown-ups – to drink alcohol is beyond me. But they make it easy, particularly on your birthday. Combinations that should be labeled as hazardous do not need to enter the bodies of 21-year-olds. I suppose we thought that was how to play. It is certainly doubtful that we needed that type of play, though it gave us lessons. Samantha’s birthday in Sixteen Candles would have been a better option.

And when you’re turning as old as dirt, you know, 30, you have a blowout. For mine, I wanted to be surrounded by friends and family – both of which came true. We caroused our way around Universal Studios and had a decadent, indulgent, time – earning me the name ‘Princess” for many years amongst those friends. I have several tiaras which attest to that fact.

All grown up

But after a while, the adventure and play of your birthday isn’t such a big deal. We get older and celebrating less appealing. I, for one, have done little to mark my annual ride around the sun for several years. That’s not to say there wasn’t one year I was showered with attention. But not attention I wanted, that was more about the one who did the showering than the one being showered.

And that made me think about a lot of things, which are subjects for other blogs. But relevant to birthday play…

Is it possible that we celebrate others the way we want to be celebrated? Because that same person commented that I’d done ‘nothing’ for a milestone birthday of theirs. In my mind, I’d planned an executed a whole day, but not the same type of day planned for me. The realization was eye opening.

What we think is celebration, what we see as play, is different for all of us. I’m seeking more play, but you or anyone else can’t tell me what that will be. And visa versa. It is as unique as each of us. What a relief that is because I’ve spent some time feeling like I was missing a gene when, what other people may think was fun seemed a tad absurd to me.

Choose how you will play

Our challenge is to determine what play is for us, at each stage of our lives. I’ve been in the second half of life for a hot second now and play looks much different than it used to. Honestly, physical activity was play for me. I recall an event where I rode a bike and ran through the mud and concluded feeling enthusiastic as a child. The mere act of muddying up my body and bike was rebellious, titillating even.

But today? That same event would exhaust me. Reading a book, writing…that feels like play. Entertainment for my brain. Chasing the dog around the house and having her engage is play. Spending time with friends, being outside in nature, all elements of play. When we’re on the journey of Wholehearted Living, part of the path includes accepting change. Who we are today will not be who we are tomorrow or whoever that girl thought she was at 21. Grown-up was not an accurate description by any stretch.

We’re allowed to change how we play the key is…keep doing it. Bringing play into the picture. Our hearts need lifting and our spirits require boosting. Play does that for us.  So, for me today…go out and play…and once you have, my brave friends, drop a note in the comments. Share how you play, and we’ll feel joyous right alongside you.

 

 

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Why it’s hard to let go of calm, cool and in control

Have you ever been ‘spaz’ shamed? Let me break it down for you. You…normally calm, cool and in control happens to let loose and get downright silly. An occurrence that happens rarely, and I mean rarely. And as you’re just about to get to your finest groove, your spouse (or child, or parent, or friend) says, “Geez, calm down already.” Talk about shutting.it.down. It might as well be a pin to a balloon. And then they wonder why you are most always calm, cool and in control.

I am that person. The calm one. In control all the time. Because if you’re not in control, absolute mayhem could break out at any moment. Literally, it could happen. So, when someone wired like me lets loose and dances in the kitchen, or breaks out laughing hysterically and is told to calm down? It stings like a jellyfish. And if you’ve never been stung by a jellyfish, yay you. It is MOST unpleasant. Needless to say, once stung, it’ll be a good long time before I muster up the nerve to let loose again.

Laughter is the best medicine

As the serious one in the room, days can pass without any laughter escaping my lips. And while I’d like to change that, it’s the straight up truth. It’s an actual medical fact that laughter is good medicine. The Mayo Clinic and 66,200,000 Google results will tell you so. Laughing stimulates your organs, your lungs, it activates positive hormones in your body and reduces stress.

I know this, and in fact believe myself to be a doctor some days. Yet, I persist in my serious outer demeanor. Calm, cool and in control. But lying below the surface is a silly girl who genuinely wants to play.

Danger Will Robinson

I do, I want to play. But once you’ve been serious for so long, it’s not a matter of flipping a switch. I lived through a period in my life that was incredibly hard. So much so that I became hypervigilant to the possibility that a negative downturn could happen at any moment. In this situation, my fight or flight hormones were continuously activated. Which served as a protective mechanism at the time. But now? I don’t need to be on alert anymore, but my brain hasn’t gotten the message yet. This is the case with a person who undergoes long term stress, or trauma.

The good news, according to neuroscience and this article, is that our brains are ‘plastic,’ meaning that they’re adaptable. They can be altered to respond differently. 2020 hasn’t exactly helped any of us who are vigilant. Carefully guarding ourselves in our homes, our limbic systems are in overdrive because of a potentially deadly virus. But we can make choices to change our thinking. I can make choices to rewire my thinking.

Wholehearted Living Guidepost #10

Cultivating Laughter, Song and Dance

Letting go of cool and always in control

Letting go of always in control

And while I’m serious with good reason, I know that I can let go of the reigns – if only a tad. This year of Wholehearted Living calls for it. My experiences reinforced a proclivity to being serious and any of us who are wired similarly can make a choice to rewire our main circuit board. Letting go of cool, calm and in control? It’s one thousand percent worth it. Being the grown up all the time is exhausting. So, when your normally serious friend, aka, me, starts laughing over nothing in particular? Don’t shame her. Or when you walk into the kitchen and find your reserved mother dancing? Don’t shame her. Ever.

Don’t shame her for being serious, and certainly don’t shame her for letting loose. Because only you have lived in your body. Lived your life. Been at the other end of whatever it is that you’ve experienced. Only you. And sister…if you want to cut a rug in the middle of the CVS…I say, ‘go for it.’ If I see you, I’ll stand 6 feet away with my mask on and join in. It feels brave to let ourselves go because it is. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. I’m with you my loves. Be Brave. Lisa

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How do you define meaningful work?

Spoiler alert…if you’re looking for me to define what meaningful work is for you this is the wrong post to spend your Sunday morning reading. Because it not my, nor anyone else’s, job to define meaningful work for you. That is your job and yours alone. Now that we have that out of the way…

Defining meaningful work

Wholehearted guidepost 9 – Let go of ‘supposed to’ and self-doubt and embrace meaningful work. That’s my anchor for the month and honestly, one that cuts a little too close to the quick. Each guidepost has done that, in its own way. Life has taught me a few things about meaningful work that I shall now impart to you.

  1. No one else can define meaningful work for you
  2. There is no dictionary definition for meaningful work
  3. What meaningful work is will likely change and morph for you over time

The beauty of meaningful work is that it is defined by you and you alone and you get to change your mind whenever you want.

That time I changed my mind

I’ve mentioned once or 1,015 times, that I have been in the same profession since shortly after college. Not what I studied in college, mind you, but when the reality of having a liberal arts degree but no discernable skills arrived, I landed in human resources. Where else could I chat with people all day and that was my job? Seriously, it seemed like a sweet deal back in those days. I planned parties, raised money for charities, worked in ridiculously amazing places and generally had fun.

Until I didn’t. Because, like any career, the farther you progress, the more complex it tends to be. Human Resources no exception. But by that point, you’ve got skills. So, you keep going. You know the drill. And honestly, in my field, there’s an immense amount to learn and it’s always changing. There’s a challenge to it. Around four years ago though, I started hearing a small voice in my mind, hinting that there might be something else.

I remember telling my former husband  hat I wanted to pursue that something else. About which he questioned me, saying that ‘[I’d] been so excited when [I] got my job.’ Yeah. That was true. But I changed my mind.

Wanting meaning in my work

While the work I was engaged in was certainly important, no longer did it hold my passion. I felt a stirring to make an impact in the lives of others in a different way. I still feel that call today. The voice is louder, and the reality is getting closer. Because it’s possible that you can be doing work that matters, but which is no longer meaningful to you. Perhaps it was less that I changed my mind and more that my ‘very best work,’ was calling me to something else.

As I write, the nation is mourning the loss of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. I was drawn to one of her quotes, “I would like to be remembered as someone who used whatever talent she had to do her work to the very best of her ability.” And I thought about her body of work. The battles she fought for the rights of others. For women, for minorities, for the LGBTQ community, people with disabilities, for me. I am represented in the people she represented and do not want to squander the rights and privileges afforded me. I must exercise my talents because people like RBG have fought for me.

In meaningful work, you must ignore ‘supposed to’

If we are to truly find our meaningful work, we’re compelled to create it for ourselves. We can’t look to others. Sure thing they’ll tell you what you’re ‘supposed to’ do. They’ll line up for that. But it’s you, lying your head on the pillow each night, knowing that you’ve created work that means something to you. That you’ve used your talent to the best of your ability, by your own definitions. Not because you were ‘supposed to,’ but because you were called to.

The answer to my initial question, ‘How do you define meaningful work?” is in your hands. Molded like a soft piece of clay until it speaks for you. Perhaps later you’ll throw it back down and start all over again…bravo! You’re allowed. As we morph and grow, so do our own definitions of what brings us meaning. Let that happen for you. You are the author of your own life. Be Brave with it. Lisa

And as a bonus, if you want to start your own Wholehearted Living journey, you can take Brené Brown’s Wholehearted Inventory. Learn more about it in the 10th anniversary edition of The Gifts of Imperfection. It’s the book that said, “I see you,” in this journey of midlife.