I had my last supervision call yesterday and after our discussion about the call, the supervisor asked me what my key learning was this time. I didn’t even have to think. One of the cornerstones of the style of coaching I am studying is that People are Naturally Creative, Resourceful, and Whole. And while I understand this concept logically and am totally on board with it, I haven’t always been so great at practicing it (in coaching or in life.)
When one goes into a profession like coaching, it’s all about people. To me, it’s all about serving. Being there, trying to help create something wonderful, so that each person can fully step into their life and live it with 100% fulfillment. If you imagine a world where everyone is fulfilled and really showing up in their lives, I am hoping you’d agree that it would be a wonderful world indeed. Anyhow, so I know that the reason I originally wanted to coach is to help others do this for their own life.
But here’s the thing: people *are*, in fact, naturally creative, resourceful, and whole. People who come to me for coaching are not broken, they don’t have problems that need fixing, they are not looking for advice (even if they think they are.) (There are exceptions of course, but those cases are outside the realm of coaching.) What they need is not my “solutions” to their “problems.”
What they really need is for me to bear witness, be with, listen really carefully, be very curious, and ask some great questions. If I can do those things, they always, always, always find a way to get to the heart of the matter and figure out what comes next. When I am not focused on solving the issue, I can listen better, I don’t worry about being ‘clever’ or ‘good.’ When I am not trying to solve things, it’s not about me at all, it’s fully about the client and listening to what they are saying and not making any assumptions or even thinking of what step should/will come next. It’s practicing full presence.
And when this kind of magic can happen, the sessions are gold.
After I hung up, I stumbled upon this wonderful post by Karen Maezen Miller and I realized how many parallels it had with my thoughts on coaching and clients and what makes the magic come alive. I especially read and reread this quote:
I no longer think of my daughter as something for me to do, or parenting as something to accomplish. We are ordinary people who love and need each other in ever-changing and unpredictable ways.
I love the wording here. “something for me to do, or parenting as something to accomplish” I think that’s the key for so many things in life. At least for me. As with my word, I’ve been working more and more towards presence this year and I think one of the crucial parts of being able to stay present is letting go of the need/desire to solve, accomplish, or fix.
There’s so much gold in listening with full presence and curiosity. And not just for my clients, but for myself, my family and every single person I come across every day.
So that’s my key learning for the day. As with most key learnings, it’s one I will likely have to learn and relearn.
Two weeks ago, I was sitting on the couch working when it suddenly dawned on me that I might not have any luggage. Ordinarily, this is not a big deal since I rarely take big enough trips to require more than a carry on. However, the kids and I are leaving for Turkey next week. So as soon as remembered we might not have any luggage, I panicked. I ran into the garage and my fears were proven right.
No luggage.
I ran right to my savior, amazon, and it took me only four minutes to start hyperventilating. I hate shopping. I mean I really hate shopping. When I was about to have David and needed to buy some baby essentials, I started weeping. My sister had to talk me through each item on the phone all the way from Turkey. Shopping is not my thing.
Anyhow, I started looking at the luggages and had no idea what the right size would be. After stressing, panicking, and even crying a bit, I picked one and bought it.
Ten days later, it came and it was way too small for three people and two weeks. So now I was a little over a week away from my trip and I still had no luggage that I could use. And I had a piece of luggage that was useless that I’d paid for. If shopping puts me into a frenzy, you should see what having to return items does to me. Instead of letting the despair consume me, I just went and bought another one that was two sizes bigger. I ordered 2-day delivery to ensure it would be here in plenty of time.
And then the obsessive clicking began.
I am not sure if I am the only crazy person who does this but when I order something I really want or need, I find myself going on amazon 20, 30, 40 times a day and checking order status. And when it finally changes to “shipped,” I then go to the ups/fedex site and continue my obsessive clicking there. I need to make sure it’s moving across America. I start thinking about the worst case scenario. UPS will lose my package. I will not get it on time and will not be able to go on the trip. It will come and be broken. Something will go wrong. The stories go on and on in my head. As if I can control the outcome with my sheer will. As if worrying will ensure nothing goes wrong.
This issue with having to control the outcome happened to me so many times this week that I decided the universe was trying to send me a message. The car needed last minute repairs and smog check for the DMV, the planned schedule at work turned topsy turvy due to a last minute issue, etc. etc. Each time I thought I had a plan for how things would go, something new (albeit small and inconsequential in the scheme of life events) came up and I found myself close to breaking down.
At some point, I just got really mad at myself. My need to control things. My desire to have it all be done “NOW” and not hang on my mind or my to-do list. The way I would let something as dumb as smog check or luggage really take over my day and weigh me down. I just kept coming back again and again to this need to control and clench tightly.
What I was reminded gently is that I do not have any control. Things happen. It’s neither my fault nor my success. All I get to do is show up and do the best I can and then I release it. The rest of it is not up to me. That’s the hardest part for me, remembering that it’s no up to me. And that I can just go on and live my life and when the next thing comes up, I will deal with it then. Life is not about constantly making backup plans. It’s ok to have one occasionally for the stuff that matters. But, even then, the excessive worrying is pointless.
So that’s my lesson for this week: release, release, release.
There’s no such thing as control. It’s all an illusion. And these small instances are perfect reminders and preparation for more substantial ones. The more I can learn to practice releasing now, the better off I will be in the long run.
Oh, and, the luggage arrived right on schedule, of course. It was a little bigger than I’d hoped but it will do perfectly for the trip. And the car is all fixed. And life continues to unfold every day so the best I can do is show up and welcome it all.
Here’s what I’m learning this week: nothing lasts.
What I’m learning is that life is all about starting, stopping, starting again, failing again, changing things up and trying again and on and on in a recurring cycle.
Summer’s begun and so many of the things I was doing a few months (or a few weeks even) ago aren’t in my life anymore. I’ve stopped the no-sugar and the 5am wake-ups and the meditation and journaling (for the most part.) Between the strep throwing me off and the summer starting and our trip coming up, I feel like my footing is a bit unsteady these days.
But it’s not even the right now. When I look over the last few months, years, I realize that things are constantly shifting. Sometimes I share when I start something new, but I don’t mention when I stop it. When I fall off the path. It’s not cause I am ashamed to talk about it. It’s not a big secret or anything like that. It’s usually because the “falling off” happens so gradually or non-eventfully. It’s not like I wake up and decide to start eating sugar again. It’s one small decision here and one tiny one there. One morning I decide to sleep in because I am tired and the next thing I know I am no longer getting up at 5am. It’s subtle.
If I don’t pay attention, I might almost miss it and then wonder how I got so off-path. This is one of the reasons I like having a very structured schedule. It makes it more noticeable when I fall off course.
What I decided this morning as I was pondering all this was that I will no longer think of these as falling or quitting or failing. I am beginning to think that this is what life is. It meanders. We find some balance, stay on it for a while and then things shift and we have to find another way to balance. Always adjusting, altering, revising.
The path forward is not straight. It’s not even forward. Sometimes you have to go down and around and left and right and even backwards before you can get to the next place. And even though I live a relatively structured life, I have still learned to accept this flow.
Well accept might be too strong. I find myself resisting, judging, wanting to control, being disappointed, angry and sad. But it doesn’t matter. I know that the way out is always through and I know that there’s no such thing as perfect balance. It’s all temporary. Ephemeral. So I am learning to accept. Learning to sit without judgement.
First of all, I am sorry that I disappeared to nowhere for the last week or so. As I mentioned last weekend, I woke up with strep at the beginning of the week and it was a rough week so I decided to give myself whatever time off I needed. That meant the blog posts were going to have to wait. It also meant I am behind in everything. And it meant we started our summer with anything but a routine. Alas, this is the way life goes.
Anyhow.
A few weeks ago, I was sitting at book club and I was voicing my opinion and thoughts on something pertaining to working. One of the women in my group said something like “But your situation is so unique Karen.”
And I immediately went to my bad place.
I could literally feel my heart beating loudly and my entire body trying to choose between shutting down or rebelling. It was not a comfortable experience. And I’d like to say I handled it with grace, but I said a few choice words first (albeit quietly) and then closed my mouth.
But I was still seething inside.
Actually, I think I still am.
I spent my whole life feeling different, not-like-the-others, weird, blah blah. It’s one of the reasons I chose to leave the country I was born in and come here to the US. I’ve always chased after this feeling of wanting to be “normal.” As I have gotten older and reflected more, I’ve realized that, for me, these continual thoughts of being different have severed my sense of belonging. Because I feel like I am so different, I feel like I don’t belong and won’t ever belong.
So when someone tells me how different I am, I immediately hear “You will never belong here.” It doesn’t even matter if they mean well. Sometimes people will say how different I am, meaning it in a positive way, like how great I am, but I don’t even like hearing that. Because it still means I don’t belong. It still means “this one is not like the others.”
It perpetuates my deepest fear of never belonging.
But I’ve been making a conscious effort to fight this lately. I have come to realize that we’re all different from each other. And we’re all the same. We each share some things in common and we are wildly different in other ways. So, now, instead of seeing all the ways in which I’m apart, I look for things we share.
And I decided I am not okay with people calling me unique, different, whatever anymore. I am rebelling against it. All I’ve ever wanted was to belong, and I don’t understand why I have to be someone I am not to feel that way. So I am stopping the feelings inside and I am not allowing any more of the conversation that triggers these thoughts in me anymore.
Maybe this is childish. Is it? Honestly, I am so deep in lack of belonging that I can’t even see if it is. I just know that it feels wrong when people say it. Regardless of their intentions. And I don’t want to undermine myself or them so that I can fit in. I just want to be me and I want to be ok with them being who they are. We’re all 100% unique. There’s no other person like me or you in the world.
So maybe we all don’t fit in.
Or maybe I’m still a bit sick from the fever and antibiotics. I’m not sure.
Years ago, I took this class. In one of the segments of the class, the teacher picked up two trashcans and put one in front of him and one behind him. The one behind him was full of papers and the other one was empty. He said something like (paraphrasing since it’s been many many years) “This full bucket is your past and this other one is your future. If you don’t make peace with your past and let it go, you are bound to take pieces of it and bring it to the future.” He picked up a paper and put it in the empty one to demonstrate it as the spoke.
Last night, as I was talking to a client, I remembered this little scene because we were discussing a case where the client was making a choice that wasn’t based on resonance but on what I call “not that.” (or maybe dissonance is a good word for it.)
There are so many times in our life where we experience something in a dissonant way and then choose future actions based on doing anything but that again. Imagine something your parents did that you believe is a mistake or something you didn’t like. You think When I have kids I will do “not that.” Or the way a boss treats you. Or a sibling, a friend, even a stranger. If something hurts, upsets, frustrates us or causes dissonance in some way, we react by choosing to do things that are pretty much anything but that particular act.
And while I am all for avoiding dissonance and pain, in my opinion, “not that” isn’t a good way to make choices in life. The most empowering choices come from a space of resonance. And the opposite of pain and dissonance is not always resonance. Imagine standing in the center of a circle at this moment and there are many, many paths extending from you to the edge of the circle. If we were to think of this one path you’re trying to not have and rule it out, there are still hundreds of others available to you. Picking any one of the leftovers isn’t the right strategy. While all of those would qualify as “not that” some are still dissonant in other ways and many are not resonant.
If you let go of your attachment to the past and to the idea of “not that,” you are now choosing from an empty space. A space of possibility. A space where you can honor your values, step into your life, and really exercise choice.
That’s the life I want for myself.
And now I can see why that means I have to empty my metaphorical trash of the past.
I was talking to my coach last week and sort of doing a mental dump of a collection of small, medium sized, and maybe biggish things that were frustrating me or sucking my energy in different ways. As we went around and around, I settled on something that had been bothering me for most of last week (and probably many weeks before then, too.) and just went deeper into what I was feeling. Hurt, worry, sadness, frustration, anxiety and anger. They were all there.
But what made me angrier than anything else was that when I could look at myself from a 3rd person point of view and put some distance between me and the issue, I could see how little it mattered. I knew that if it all worked out wonderfully, I’d be remotely happy (mostly relieved to be done with the issue) and if it didn’t work out, I’d be devastated.
Does something sound out of balance to you too?
Despite the fact that I could see it clearly, it still ate at me. In fact, knowing this disproportionate kind of caring only made me madder at myself. Then I sort of had a visual of a pie chart.
I thought what if my whole life was a pie chart and each slice was the things that mattered to me. And the size of each slice corresponded to how much these things mattered to me. The more important the item in my life, the bigger slice of the pie they get. Things like family and health and self-care. And then there would be other, medium sized items like service, friends, creating, reading, learning, work etc. And then a ton of small slices. Things that I am doing now, things that matter but not nearly as much as the others. And then some slivers.
The thing to remember is that I get one circle. If I made one item larger, I am taking that space away from something else. And things are proportional. How much more is family important to me than work or creating, etc.
What I love about having this circle is that it allows me to keep things in perspective. This means if I am worried about something that’s a small slice of my pie, stressing about it as if it’s a huge slice is disproportional. It might upset me a lot. If I were coloring my chart with levels of happiness for each, that one slice might be black even. But it doesn’t spill over to the other slices. If my family is a happy yellow, then the black from this small slice should not seep. It should not get to determine the color of the overall pie. It’s just a slice. And a tiny one at that.
For some reason, this visual helps me a lot.
It’s easy to say the words “keep it in perspective” but, to me, those words are rarely effective. However, once I see it with my own eyes, when I can see the space that slice occupies in the pie that is my life, it just works for me. I can step back. I can disassociate/compartmentalize more easily. I can stop it from consuming me.
All of which helps me stop the “reacting.” The anxiety, fear, anger and even sadness are all reactions. They are my way of making meaning from actions. If I can remember to keep the pieces of the pie in perspective, it allows me to respond and not react. It also allows me to remember what matters most.
And as Tara often quotes: the most important thing is to remember the most important thing.
I had some pithy (or not depending on whether you usually find my thoughts pithy) things to say tonight but alas it’s almost 6pm here and I have a bit of a last minute urgent thing at work and a client very soon. So instead of my deep thoughts, I thought I’d share a wonderful video I watched while exercising last week. There was a short version that’s animated and fun to watch. It’s taken from a graduation speech David Foster Wallace gave:
and if you really like it and want to listen to the full original speech it’s 22 minutes and you can watch it here:
This morning, after I exercised, I found myself frustrated about a recurring task at work that I just don’t like to do. Because I don’t like to do it, I put it off quite often. And then I feel bad about putting it off. And then I feel bad about being a “bad employee” because I put it off. And then I feel resentful that I have to do it at all. And on and on went my wonderfully non-constructive feelings. After going through the whole cycle, I found myself trying to quickly rush through it while backfilling weeks of it.
Clearly not helpful.
Not to mention, I was doing this right after exercise, at 6:30am, before I showered and what I really needed to be doing instead was to get ready and wake the kids up and help them prepare for school. What finally allowed me to walk away was having to say “This is definitely not what I should be doing right now” out loud. I apparently had to hear myself say it. So I finally walked away and went about the business of starting my day. But, of course, this unfinished, way-behind task was still nagging at me.
After the kids were off to school and I’d had time to make some coffee and oatmeal, I decided to take a different point of view. Instead of doing the task resentfully, I decided to have fun with it. While I completed it, I also added humor and used it as an opportunity to connect. I was having enough fun with it that I stopped worrying about it and decided to only catch up on last week and this week and to try to stay on top of it from this moment forward. Making it fun helped me take the pressure off myself and it helped me finish the task without dread and frustration. Since it became my own personal game, I also stopped comparing myself to other colleagues, etc.
All of this made me think about what other areas of my life could use this sort of “lightening up” or at least some major perspective change. When I dread doing things, my normal reaction is to put them off for a while and then power through them once the pressure is high enough. There are times this is productive but most of the time it’s stressful and it’s always unpleasant.
I love the idea of making it fun instead.
We tend to this with kids often. When we give them medicine, we try to make it fun by singing songs or making airplane sounds (at least my parents did.) We either create a distraction or a more enjoyable experience so the task at hand seems less onerous.
Yesterday, when I was doing my weekend journaling, I wrote down something that resonated with me so much that I found myself revisiting it today. I wrote:
This is just one chapter of my life. Neither the first, nor the last. When this one ends, there will be many more. The goal is to savor this one while it’s here. Savor its gifts and celebrate its magic. This one chapter will not ever come back exactly the way it is now.
I wasn’t really writing about this as a concept. It was in response to something different but it just stood out to me and I found myself thinking about the idea of looking at my life in chapters.
If I think of life as a journey and destination, then a misstep can impact the whole journey and, specifically, the destination. One bad step here and now can mess everything up. Whereas thinking about my life as chapters automatically lifts that pressure up, for me. It makes everything disconnected in a positive way. It creates this setup where there’s no actual destination.
Think of it as an interconnected short story collection. Each of the chapters of my life stands on its own. There’s an overarching thread that holds the book together but any one chapter isn’t making or breaking the book. And while each story contributes to the whole, none of the stories singlehandedly determines a specific destination. And without a destination to focus on, there’s no “messing it all up.” There’s no wrong. And there’s no right either. It just is. This is one of the stories in my life. Nothing more, nothing less.
All I have is this story. This chapter. And all I can do is maximize that. With what I have now, with where I am now, how do I increase my fulfillment?
Imagine if you were selected to write one of the stories in an anthology. You don’t get to even see the other stories. All you can do is really focus on the one story you’re writing. You work on it to get it as “perfect” as possible. You make every word count. You take this one chance you have and you give it your all. Maybe it sounds high pressure when I put it that way, but, to me, it sounds more like there are barriers. I cannot control the future or the past, I just have my one story I’m living now and this is the one I get to have. So the focus falls fully on this one.
It might not work for you, but for some reason, the idea of thinking of my life in chapters creates a quick link to presence for me. It makes it so the past and the future are not as pressing as they seem otherwise. It creates a focus on the now without the pressure of causing permanent harm.
I am not sure if this makes sense.
But I am not sure I care. Because what I’m realizing is there are very few Truths in life. Most of us don’t know anything for sure. (And if we think we do, we are often proven otherwise. Certainty seems to be the fastest way to ask for trouble.) None of us can tell how the future will unfold. And, so, whatever helps you get through this life with the most joy, the most fulfillment, and the most presence is a gift.
And, for today, thinking about my life in chapters is doing the trick for me.
I spent the better part of 2012 and 2013 reading Young Adult novels. I am of the strong opinion that there’s no such thing as a “bad” book to read. In my opinion, any kind of reading is better than many other things you could be doing. So I had no shame or embarrassment about focusing on Young Adult. Some of the best books I’ve ever read have been in the genre as well as some of my most favorite authors. And I will continue to read Young Adult for as long as the high quality stories continue to be told. This genre is exploding at the moment and I am thrilled about that for both myself and my son.
However, I was disappointed that I couldn’t find any General Fiction books that held my interest. Each of the ones I picked up seemed to be full of horrifying acts or deeply depressing plots. And, in early 2012, I had vowed not to read anything super-depressing anymore. This meant that (with very few exceptions) I couldn’t find a single non-young-adult book I liked to read. My struggle continued for a long time and I was starting to lose my faith in books. I couldn’t understand if it was the books or me. Would I never enjoy them again?
Since I still read a lot of novels, I wasn’t deeply worried about this but it became a nagging question at the back of my mind.
And then, suddenly, a few weeks ago, things shifted again. I was reading some of the upcoming books for my book club and I read Seating Arrangements (which was okay) and Where’d You Go, Bernadette (better that the other one). And then I went to the next one which was March by Geraldine Brooks. March had been on my list for a long time but I hadn’t managed to read it. To be honest, I sort of dreaded it because I knew it was historical fiction and thought it would be slow-going.
It wasn’t at all.
I read the whole book in a day and absolutely loved it. And, I’m not sure why, but it reignited my desire to read more. I then read Life After Life (quite interesting but also sad at parts) in a day. I decided I wanted to go back and finish the Delirium series (i love this author but the series left me a bit empty) and then read The Great Gatsby in preparation for the movie. As well as Lean In (very interesting), The Dinner (quite unusual), Before I Go To Sleep (also unusual, made me think of Memento but not as good a story), and The End of Your Life Book Club (absolutely magnificent). I also read Wonder for another book club (absolutely excellent.) All in the last two weeks.
And now I feel like I can’t get enough. It’s like all the books I’ve been putting off, and wanting to read at some point, are calling to me and I must read them all right now.
I went through Amazon’s Book of the Month lists for the last two years and some of what’s been on my to-read list forever and made a list of books that I plan to read while I am in this wonderful place. Here’s what’s on my list at the moment (in no particular order):
The Sound and the Fury (haven’t read since high school and determined to re-read)
The Woman Upstairs (reading right now)
The Reconstructionist
Middlesteins
Caleb’s Crossing
Ready Player One
A Discovery of Witches and The Shadow of Night
The Dog Stars
The Mirror Chronicles
The Vanishers
Defending Jacob
DaVinci’s Ghost
The Flame Alphabet
Office Girl
The One Good Thing
The Thief
Shine Shine Shine
An Uncommon Education
Wild
Magic Hours
The Empty Family
Flatscreen
The Fingertips of Duncan Dorfman
The Violinist’s Thumb
Me Before You
My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece
Gorgeous
How Literature Saved My Life
The Humanity Project
Beautiful Ruins
An Invisible Sign of my Own
Why We Broke Up
Mr. Fox
The Interestings
Lake
Illumination
The Weird Sisters
Sweet Tooth
NW
The Signal and the Noise
When It Happens to You
Light Between Oceans
Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone
Seraphina
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
In One Person
The Magicians
The Family Fang
Rules of Civility
The Leftovers
Girls in White Dresses
The Art of Fielding
The Orphan Master’s Son
Moonwalking with Einstein
Behind the Beautiful Forevers
Delicacy
The Age of Miracles
The Beginner’s Goodbye
So Good They Can’t Ignore You
Steal Like an Artist
The Red House
Binocular Vision
The Scorpio Races
Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls
The Burgess Boys
Carry On Warrior
The Disappearing Spoon
Yes, I know it’s long. I also know it contains several Young Adult titles as well as some Non-Fiction and some Mystery and whatever else. But I love this list. It seems more like me: a variety.
If you’ve read any of these and have strong recommendations (either positive or negative) and/or if you haven’t but have other great recommendations please do let me know. My book postings on Thursdays are a bit behind so you won’t see these mentioned for a while but they will appear eventually. And let’s see how many I get to while this lovely, savoring mood is still with me.
(Ps: sorry I was too lazy to link each of them, but I am confident you can look them up if any of the titles sound enticing enough to you.)
I’ve had many hobbies throughout my life and I’ve loved them all, but the one thing I’ve never ever stopped doing is reading. Books are food for my soul. And this recent bout has felt more like coming home and slowing down and exploring all at the same time.
I’ve been grumpy lately. Actually, that’s not accurate. I’ve been down. I’ve noticed that these cycles seem to come and go. I wake up one morning and just seem to feel low for no apparent reason. And then my perspective shifts so that I am seeing everything with negative-eyes.
Which only serves to perpetuate my sadness.
I’ve learned that, at any moment in time, there are things that make me happy and things that frustrate me. The contents of the list might change but both lists are active at all times. How I feel about my day, and life, depends on which list I am focusing on. On the rougher days, I look at the “happy list” but none of the items seems to penetrate through the wall of sorrow. I feel like they are all fake or things that can be taken away at any moment in time. Whereas, on a happy day, the things on the “frustrating list” seem completely surmountable or insignificant.
While I know it’s about my perspective (or maybe hormones), what I don’t know is how to tip it from one to the other. What’s even more frustrating is that when I am in this not-so-positive space, I sometimes do things that disappoint me. Like eating things I know aren’t good for me. Which then perpetuates the bad feeling. So I get stuck in my own cycles.
Since it’s been more than a week, I am agitated and completely ready to snap out of this place. If I could force or shame or even cheer myself out of this place, I totally would. But none of those seem to have worked. So, this morning, I went to my intentions cards from the One Little Word, so I could see what I’d originally chosen for May.
It said “Physically Present:” Go outside. Breathe. Breathe more. Can you do more to be healthy? What needs attention now?
At first I thought, none of this is helpful. Then I thought, why not. Maybe this is exactly what I need right now. To get out of my head. And what’s the best way to get out of my head if not being more physically present? I’ve decided I am going to take long-ish walks every day this week. I’ve also decided to take two days off and be more physically present at some of the events at my kids’ schools and see if these help me get out of my head a bit.
So there we are. If you have these cycles and have ideas on what helps to snap out of them, I hope you leave me a comment. I am up for trying creative solutions at this point.
