[No. 11] We apologize that moments of clarity can be fleeting and that a life well-lived requires intention. Sincerely, The Management

I had a couple of moments this week. Moments that stopped me in my tracks as I felt something opening up, some new energy coursing through me. The world around me started to look and feel different. And I felt different in it.?

Yeah, a little woo-woo today. Because I’d been fooling myself for a very long time.?

MOMENT #1

Some really wonderful people have come into my life in the last few months. Each has guided me, encouraged me, inspired me, fueled me, and has been a source of courage to BE different, to BECOME.?

I’ve started a daily gratitude practice. I’ve started a daily practice with oracle cards and meditation. I’ve started asking powers greater than me for help and protection.?

My rational brain is very powerful. Entering this stage of my life, its power was coming from beliefs and habits that were keeping me still, holding me back. Perhaps a story for another day.?

I’d been pulling cards about compassion and kindness a lot since I began the practice. About relationships. And I’d been interpreting those to be about things outside of myself, about people OTHER than myself.?

In this moment, though, I realized that interpreting these to be about compassion for myself, kindness to myself, trust in myself was actually the direction I was “supposed” to go.?

I’ve lived my life, I chose my career to be in service to others. So much so that when conflict has arisen, when people haven’t gotten their exact desires met, even when harmony or comfort was the slightest bit disturbed, I had a really effed up reaction inside myself – as if I were capable of and responsible for creating all the right best circumstances out of any situation.?

I had misplaced, misdirected my responsibility to others instead of to myself.

MOMENT #2

Driving home from a few restorative days in the mountains, listening to 80s music, and Whitney Houston’s “Greatest Love of All” comes on. As is trending a bit on TikTok these days, I could belt out all the words (and I was), but today I really listened to them on the second time through the verse.?

I believe the children are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way. Show them all the beauty they possess inside. Give them a sense of pride to make it easier. Let the children's laughter remind us how we used to be.

Everybody searching for a hero. People need someone to look up to. I never found anyone who fulfills my needs. A lonely place to be. And so I learned to depend on me.?

I decided long ago never to walk in anyone's shadow. If I fail, if I succeed at least I'll live as I believe. No matter what they take from me, they can't take away my dignity.

Because the greatest love of all is happening to me. I found the greatest love of all inside of me. The greatest love of all is easy to achieve. Learning to love yourself ... it is the greatest love of all.

We don’t know the insides of Whitney’s life – from the outside, it looks like all didn’t work out as the words of this song may have led us to believe it would.?

But the words are still so important.?

For me, these two moments crystallized into a bunch of things:?

1. I am the one who keeps myself safe and protected when I choose to act or say my piece in a way that might be upsetting to others – if I’m seeking their protection, their acceptance, their agreement, I’ll likely be disappointed.
2. If I've chosen people with whom I don’t say what’s on my mind because I’m worried about how the other person will feel – that’s not great. A censored situation isn’t a safe place.
3. My responsibility is to know and represent myself honestly and openly.
4. And to let others know and represent themselves. We can’t “manage” situations or relationships. [Well, we can, of course. But that’s disingenuous. And it will come back around in unpleasant and difficult-to-untangle conversations and feelings.]
5. If someone acts or reacts in a way that is not our jam – let it go, let them go be who they are how they are. There’s no value in characterizing or attributing other people’s behavior into “idiocy” or “narcissism” or “toxicity.”

If we’re all walking around doing this, knowing and representing ourselves and letting others know and represent themselves, we have much better odds of healthy interactions, of healthy psyches, of creating a better world to live in.?

For so many reasons, it can be insanely and unfairly difficult to learn how to love ourselves. To believe we’re enough as we are. To believe we’re valuable as we are. To believe we deserve to be loved for who we are. To learn how to be our own safe space. Our own protector.

Life doesn’t stop for us to do this work.?We can't go back and re-do our childhoods. [But if we're parents we CAN help fix what we unintentionally created.]

All of us have these powerful brains that have learned from early childhood clever ways of “protecting” our Selves.?

Some of us withdraw. Some of us flex.?

But all of us long to be seen. To be amongst people who will love us. Protect us for who we are.?

Very few of us are truly self-aware.

Most of us are being led around by belief systems that operate in our subconscious - and then backstopped by our big rational brains, keeping us in those belief systems. Even when they aren't serving us.

Very few of us understand that we aren’t “in relationships” with other people. We can’t be. Because we don’t see the way other people see. We don’t think what other people think. We don’t feel what other people feel.?And we can't "make" anyone feel anything.

We are only “in relationship” with ourselves. And choosing others to spend our time and our lives with.

We are placing bets from certain points in time, experience, knowledge, and wisdom that the people we choose will evolve and grow with us. Will walk in life with us through all its joys, tragedies, challenges, and mundanities – and keep choosing us to protect.?

None of us knows how we will react in any situation until we’re in it – but we will have an approach.

Our job is to be intentional in our approach.?

Because how we do ANYTHING is how we do EVERYTHING.

If you’re looking for help, guidance, coaching to get better at knowing and representing your Self – I’m here to help! A few conversations and some homework on your part can move you from “what's wrong with me?" or "I want to create the life I want to live" to "I'm experiencing more joy, more intention, more satisfaction than I thought possible."?

If your team is burning out, a few hours focusing on their shared human operating system can do wonders. It’s at the heart of becoming a high-performing team, and another place I can help.