I’ve been doing it all wrong…

… no wonder I’m so frickin’ tired!

I’ve talked a lot about self awareness, even written a blog on the importance of self-awareness. And if you’ve been watching my Thirsty Thursday videos, you know that I have been reading a book called The Mystic Path to Cosmic Power by Vernon Howard, and it is really shifting my perspective on some things. Over the last couple of weeks, a huge shift for me has been becomingaware that I’ve had this awareness thing all jacked up.

As a student of personal growth (and an admitted overthinker and perfectionist), I have become quite masterful at analyzing myself. I can come up with a dozen possible hidden motivations behind everything I think, say or do. I can recognize fear, insecurity, and a whole host of other unpleasant emotions or responses within myself. It’s almost TOO much awareness andI swear to God it gets exhausting.

The problem is I have been doing all of this with one main purpose in mind – to FIX myself. I must be AWARE of every possible negativity or unhealthy thought or pattern so that I can CORRECT it. It’s like,  “Oh I have this desire for others’ approval but that’s bad and I have to stop it,” or “I see I have a hard time being vulnerable in a relationship but that’s wrong and I need to change it.”

Yesterday I read an article by author Iyanla Vanzant in which she says: “On the emotional level, I had fallen into a pattern of terrorizing and brutalizing myself with my own thoughts. Before anyone else could, I would make myself wrong; before anyone else could, I would begin to doubt myself. I had trained myself to push up the mountain rather than take the lift. Things only counted if I suffered. For far too long I had been willing to be beaten up and beaten down and pop back up smiling.”

DAMN. That’s totally me. I can’t stand the thought of being caught off guard, of someone else confronting me with an unpleasantness about myself that I didn’t spot first. And I can take all my self-imposed struggles and write about them and call them “learning experiences” all neatly and cheerfully wrapped up with a bow. It’s bullshit!

Perhaps this is why I’ve been feeling a creeping sense of sadness lately. And perhaps why I found myself crumpled in a heap of tears the other day when I heard that old Indigo Girls song Closer to Fine, with the lyrics, “The best thing you’ve ever done for me was to help me take my life less seriously, it’s only life after all,” and “The less I seek my source for some definitive, the closer I am to fine.” You see, I have this ideal vision of who I would like to be (or think Ishould be), and I’ve been allowing every bit of so-called self-awareness to remind me I am not there yet.

Enter Vernon Howard and his teaching on the practice of self-observation WITHOUT JUDGEMENT. What has been happening is that I mistakenly identify myself, my true self, with these unpleasant feelings, patterns or responses. Howard says you must simply “witness the passage of mental and emotional grief. Do not resist what you see. Do not identify with it, that is, do not take the painful feeling as being part of the essential you.” He says you have to stop trying not to be angry (or annoyed, or fearful or needy etc.), but instead just be that way and notice it without condemning yourself.

He adds, “Don’t work so hard at living your life, just let it be lived.” Sounds like a tall order.

If I were coaching myself, I would probably issue a challenge to go an entire week without trying to fix anything about me. (The thought of that sends shivers up my spine. I honestly don’t know if I can do it!) In my favor, Howard describes this practice as one that is challenging at first but produces amazing results. So I really want to try.  Besides, I’m just worn out from the old way.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

 

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When Is It OK To Show Your Panties?

Can Confidence and Vulnerability Co-Exist? 

I recently had an interesting discussion with a girlfriend about when it’s appropriate to show vulnerability, particularly in the context of male-female relationships. As women we are taught to play hard to get, don’t be needy, confidence is attractive, men love a chase, yadda yadda.

Now, I’m totally down with the “fake it ‘til you make it” approach in certain situations. After all, that’s how I’ve been able to do things like meet Rob Thomas (multiple times) and walk on to an Adam Sandler movie set. I’ve probably landed a couple of jobs that way, too. Act confident, act like you belong, and make stuff happen.

In relationships, though, I’m not sure I buy into that. Because here’s the problem: There’s a saying that “the consciousness that obtains sustains.” What this means is that if you acquire something through false pretenses, you have to maintain those false pretenses to keep it. For example, pretending you love all the same hobbies as your partner so they’ll like you might work initially, but how many baseball card shows do you really want to get dragged to?

In my coach training program we were often asked to bring personal challenges to the table for coaching in front of the group. When my classmates were willing to get up there and be vulnerable, that’s when I developed the most respect and admiration for them. I find that when someone is brave enough to admit that they don’t always have it all figured out, that they too have worries and insecurities, it takes the pressure off the rest of us to be so darn perfect.

Vulnerability is often misconstrued as “neediness” or “weakness”, but they are very different concepts. You can show vulnerability without being weak or needy. It’s simply a matter of shining some light on something that’s present, which in my experience is usually enough to release it. It’s just saying, “Hey, this what I’m experiencing right now, I want to honor that for the benefit of being authentic in this relationship. I’m cool with that and hopefully you are too.” It’s about being real. It gets stuff out of the way.

Neediness is being unwilling to express your true feelings and desires, expecting the other person to be able to guess them, and then becoming frustrated because they can’t. Or on the flip side, voicing every doubt or insecurity that crosses your mind, which would become tiresome for anyone. Ultimately the responsibility for our emotional state is nobody’s but our own.

I’ll even go as far as to say that it actually requires confidence to express vulnerability. In order to go there you have to be pretty comfortable with the fact that the other person might call you a lunatic and run for the hills. But if there’s any potential for a relationship to deepen in a sustainable way, you have to do that from the get go. If not confidence, at the very least it’s courage – which is equally admirable in my book – and it sure ain’t weakness. Plus, when someone shares vulnerability with me, I’m flattered by the trust.

In my Making Fear My Bitch post, I talked about how being authentic and sharing your true self with people we care about can be one of the scariest things we do, because there’s always the risk that they might not be able to meet us there. Suzanne Evans refers to it as “showing your panties”, and I guess I’ve always been a bit of an exhibitionist. You see, I personally find authenticity to be the doorway to developing the most meaningful connections with people, which to me is one of life’s nicest gifts.

So, regardless of the rules, I’m willing to take one for the team.

 

Who’s Driving this Bus?

I’ve never really thought of myself as “driven” so to speak. Flaky, irresponsible, unmotivated and the bad rebellious kid were some of the labels I was carrying around. At best it was always more like bopping around looking for the next fun experience, trying to find fulfillment. Sure, in my sales days I was motivated to work hard by the lure of a bigger paycheck, but even that was just a means to an end to apply toward the next fun experience. So when a new friend commented the other day that I seem driven, and inquired what drives me, I had to take pause.

What exactly is “driven”?  The definition according to dictionary.com is being under compulsion, as to succeed or excel: to strive vigorously toward a goal or objective; to work, play, or try wholeheartedly and with determination.

I suppose I’ve always associated “driven” with traditional pathways to success, climbing the corporate ladder, etc. But as I read that definition today, I can see the limitations in that type of thinking.

Not long ago I decided to release those false labels by which I’d been defining myself.  I decided that perhaps it was possible that those labels weren’t true. And without those labels taking up space, some other cool stuff came into my life. I found something I like to do. And I remembered that when I really care about something, I’ll work my freakin’ ass off.

So what drives me? It’s probably that for the first time in my life I KNOW what I’m meant to be doing. That’s not to say that I have all the hows and details worked out, or even that I’ll do exactly the same thing forever. But I know that I am going in the right direction for me. Sometimes I’m scared to death about my next move but I keep going. It’s as if I don’t have a choice.

I guess the drive behind the drive is a desire for authentic connection with other people, an urgency to share and teach about what I’m learning about life, to help other people see things differently that they may also find deeper meaning. I want to help people connect with their possibilities and power. And do I want to be able to support myself and my family, and enjoy a rich, fulfilling life as well? Hell yes! And I know it’s possible because I’ve witnessed it.

There’s a saying that pain pushes until vision pulls. And the best way I can describe what drives me now is a pull. It sounds woo woo, I know. There’s some strange universal energy pulling me forward, like a freaky Field of Dreams “If you build it, they will come” sort of thing.

But when an opportunity in alignment with that pull presents itself I can’t HELP but say yes. Audition for speaking competition? Yes! Go through coaching program without delay? Yes! Get ready to bare your soul to the world with really raw website copy? Yes (well, maybe).

Just yesterday my own coach had me find a heavy piece of furniture in my house to push across the floor to symbolize a commitment I had made to push through some fears that had come up. Leave it to me to seek out the heaviest, most stubborn thing I could find. I think I pulled a hammy.

Holy shit, I am driven! When did that happen?

New Girl in a New Town

It’s no secret that I’ve had a bumpy ride lately. A lot of change, ups and downs, periods of growth and retreat… transformation is never smooth. And often during those darker hued days, the days when everything just seems hopeless and too much to bear, I notice the desire to pick up and go. To go somewhere new and start over. Reinvent myself in a new environment. This is probably a version of that familiar old fight or flight response, weighted heavily toward flight when I am just too tired to fight anymore. I wish I could just go somewhere else and start over. But how can I do that when I have responsibilities here, children thriving in school, and let’s face it, I don’t have a money tree in the back yard at the moment? I think I’ve figured out a way.

One of the skills I am learning in coaching school is about changing perspectives. Being willing to look at things from a different viewpoint. In fact the course I completed in January was all about that. I know that we create our own reality, I’m no stranger to the concept that in order to change your life you must change your mind.

So here’s my solution: Beginners mind. As of today I am new in town. And what would I do if I moved to a new town? I can do all of that right here, right now.

There are many new places to be explored. New people to meet. New experiences to discover and try. New routes to be taken. I may even tell people that I meet that I am new here. See what they have to offer. (Technically this is true because I am new, although I have been here a while). It’s so easy to stay in the bubble of daily existence and keep trying to recreate the same experiences over and over. I’ve been operating within one little slice of existence here, it’s time to taste the rest of the pie.

 

Making Fear My Bitch

What are you afraid of? Is it something obvious, like heights or sharks in the ocean? Or perhaps it’s more subtle, like going to a fancy restaurant alone, trying a new line of work… or being really honest with someone you love at the risk of losing them.

I was recently struggling with a life-altering decision, the consequences of which had me filled with dread, and was challenged by a good friend to “make that fear my bitch.” This instantly became my new mantra and I set out on a quest to conquer any and all sources of trepidation that came my way. First came getting my hair wet in the pool or ocean (fear of looking like a dork – check!). Next came a weeklong vacation with my children (fear of flying and fear of being outnumbered- double check!), and on said vacation a 125-foot tandem bungee jump with the kids (fear of falling – check!). And regarding the aforementioned life-altering decision… I decided to separate from my husband of 16 years (fear of being a single parent at 42 – OK, still working on that one).

It’s not that I’m fearless, far from it. In retrospect I have lived a pretty fearful life. I’ve stayed in unhealthy relationships longer than I should have because I was afraid to be alone. As a talented young gymnast, I gave up the sport because I didn’t want to compete and risk harsh judgement or failure. In fact, I shied away from all team sports for fear of looking foolish or letting down my teammates. Most of my friends are probably shaking their heads right now, because I am hardly a wallflower, nor have I lived a timid existence. There are some things I am not afraid of – like commandeering the microphone at karaoke parties, being the life of the party in general, hitchhiking rides home from Tijuana… I’ve even started a couple of little businesses (True, but did my fear of failure stop me from really giving them my all, or was that fear of success?).

I wonder how much richer my life would be had I recognized and challenged at least a few of the fears that held me back along the way. But the more I embrace this concept of making fear my bitch, the more I’m finding that facing my fear is not really about the obvious – the scuba diving or ATV-riding kind of stuff. I find it’s the little things that are the most terrifying. It’s the idea of being honest in relationships about my deepest needs and feelings. It’s speaking up for myself in situations that don’t honor my values. It’s letting people see who I really am (writing this blog, for example). It’s choosing a non-conventional career path. It’s making my own happiness a priority even when it requires going against the status quo, and knowing that some of the people I care about may not support me. It’s that kind of stuff that leaves me quaking in my boots.

Sure, bungee jumping and singing with the band is exhilarating – heck, I’ll do it all day – but that’s really just thrill seeking. And I’m certainly not advocating splitting up with your spouse as a display of courage. But I’m learning that to truly make fear my bitch is to be authentic, and in a way that’s the scariest thing of all.