Growing Pains

The year 2020 brought me growing pains like I haven’t felt since my 30s. And they had nothing to do with COVID.

Instead, they hit directly on my own self-impression, ability to forgive myself, and willingness to nurture my own self-compassion. While the situation that brought about this growth experience happened back in the summer, it has taken me a while to process it. 

The Back Story

We’ve all had these moments in our careers where we’ve had to gain new insight into ourselves, our motives and our own worth as contributors in the work world. For me, the situation had to do with a series of miscommunications and misunderstandings with people that I care about professionally and personally. Their opinions mattered to me, and their feedback gave me the chance to question myself. My heart was heavy, even though I had apologized.

The moment that launched my 53rd year of growth matters very little. But the process and the long-lasting results do.

It wasn’t pretty, at first. I spent a lot of time caught up in the arena of what happened, playing it back in my mind, and telling myself everything I could have done to make it go differently. I armored up against myself and everyone around me. While I didn’t realize it at the time, I was unproductively reliving the moment and creating self-inflicted PTSD. 

My problem-solving tendencies were not solving the problem. They were making me feel a lot of shame and anger, judging myself and others equally mercilessly. I knew I had to take a step back. Reading and re-reading, and listening to, Brené Brown had gotten me far enough to know that I wasn’t helping myself.

What brought me new clarity? It came gradually.

Integral Coaching

Out of the blue and without knowing a thing about my situation, a good friend of mine reached out. She recommended the chance to work with an integral method coach: Jane Black.

When I first met Jane, I was professionally stuck in a rut. Relationships are at the core of my work, and I felt adrift in this relationship crisis. I had also reached a pivot point in my career when I needed to forge my future based on being true to my own professional aspirations, not the needs of others.

The challenge for me was more about my own perspective on the situation and finding a way to move forward with a clear sense of my own reality. Through working with Jane, I realized that my future as a leader relies on being authentic (first and foremost with myself), getting curious about what's going on around me (without judgment of others), and approaching each day and the long-term future like an expedition.

Instead of feeling "at sea," as a result of my weeks of intensive integral coaching with Jane, I have internalized a new way to frame my experiences. I now see myself as an explorer, with an open mind to make decisions based on what each change in weather or territory might bring.

Jane's coaching has brought me new discipline and peace. Every day, I take small but important actions to bring myself joy, including exercise (walking and tap dance), enjoying food that I make and eat, and being aware of the details that change in nature. And in my relationships, I seek to ask more questions, listen, and respond with empathy while keeping my own boundaries to remain true to myself.

Over time, these newfound moments have created meaningful change in my mindset, giving me a growth mindset in its truest sense, not a contrived self-declaration of praise without any follow-through. My work with Jane came just at the right time for me, to get my head, heart, and body moving ahead into a future that I am charting and course-correcting with intention.

By getting curious about challenging situations, not trying to escape them, I started learning more about myself and others. I even started thinking about a path to getting my PhD, but that’s a topic for another post.

Soulful Warriorhood

If you haven’t yet seen the new Disney movie, Soul, you really need to. Kind of ironic that it summarizes a lot about the journey I’ve been on through 2020’s growing pains. Honestly, this kids’ movie is deep.

This movie sums up everything in this book by meditation (and life) teacher and Buddhist Ch?gyamTrungpa Rinpoche: Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior

The book, and the movie, are not about fighting. They are about living with people, in relationships that matter, including yourself. This quote summarizes it: 

“The sacred warrior conquers the world not through violence or aggression, but through gentleness, courage, and self-knowledge.”

I was skeptical when Jane suggested I read this book, but I now see that it contains a philosophy that when put into practice actually works. I am not good at repeating things on a daily basis, but I have started to bring daily meditation into my life. I see how much of a difference it makes — and it's part of being a soulful warrior. Meditation helps me to enjoy each moment, be in tune with the people around me and be more patient with myself.

Feel It

I am an expert in not feeling things, in large part because I've been rewarded for this since I was very young. This has a lot to do with my learned behaviors as well as how I’ve continued to manage through life circumstances by using old coping skills. I’ve always been the one with the cool head when in crisis.

Until I’m by myself and remove the mask. And at that point I can be punched in the gut by my feelings, of sadness, anger, disappointment, or you name it. Integral coaching encouraged me to be present with my feelings and let them pass, and the shambhala philosophy supports that approach. 

Daron Larson, an attentional fitness coach, introduced me to Lisa Feldman Barrett, who has written much about the neuroscience of feelings. One of her illuminating findings is evidence of affective realism, where our perceived experience shapes our understanding of reality. 

Since each of us has a very subjective view on reality, without being informed by the context of others, our own realities are all incorrect. This is another good reason to practice letting the feelings come and go like clouds, rather than reacting to them in the moment. If we honor them, we honor ourselves, but if we let them own us, we can lose ourselves.

Like the practice of meditation, the process of feeling feelings does not come naturally to me. I am still reminding myself that it is a very human thing to do. And being human, I can do this. Also, being a nerd, this is something that I’ll likely study more about for that PhD.

Bringing It All Together

There is no silver bullet to living through growing pains. I figured out that I could keep beating myself up, being a warrior that actually hurts herself, or be a warrior living through and past my own internal battles, embracing the feelings and moving forward to healing. This sounds corny as I am writing it. 

But consider this from one of the world’s most practiced over-thinkers and under-feelers: Finding and living in that spark that they talk about in Soul is really worth it.