Which Me are You?

You get to decide how low you want to go and how high you want to fly!

Some time in 2014

Which me are you? How low do you want to go..and how high do you want to fly?

Here I am at the age of 59 still trying to figure this out, but after a one day National Speakers Association ‘From Free to Fee’ workshop held recently in Brisbane I am one step closer to the goal.

We will all have pearls of discovery! Those life changing moments when you meet someone..or read something… or attend a workshop that is either instantly life changing or sends you in a direction you would otherwise not have gone.

For me another one of those moments was when I attended an Enneagram personality typing workshop. I discovered I was an 8 personality type which fits me nicely thank you! I like being an 8! The mind blowing discovery in this work is the range of 8's that I can be!

I can be a healthy altruistic 8 or an unhealthy self sabotaging, annihilating, vindictive 8 or somewhere in between.

At that moment, when I attended that course, and most times since I decided I wanted to be the healthy altruistic 8...and I succeed a lot of the time, but the truth is that life sidetracks you from your goals

at times, so I do slide into being the 'somewhere in between' person more often than I care to admit.

I'd like to think that I don't drop right down into the unhealthy range very often, but the thing is, it takes a wake up call every now and then to remind me that I'm not living up there in the clouds any more and I have to rise up again!

So how low do you want to go? ....and how high do you want to fly? Which me are you?

Are you the you that wants to be at the top of your game most of the time...or the you that wants to wallow and skulk around in the gutters with the ‘wanna bes’ blaming everyone else for your woes?

How do you go from being a worker bee to a Queen bee? A caterpillar to a butterfly? Good to great, great to elite?

How can others recognise your talents if you aren't out there demonstrating them or showcasing them in some way?

Mid year 2024

I first wrote this introduction way back in 2014 and here I am now at age 69 still trying to work it out! ?I’m still as passionate about working hard to recognise and acknowledge my inner self and my connection to source, now as I was then.? I’m happy with that though as I’ve always believed that once you know all the answers you die, or go onto the next realm, whatever that might be..and I’m not yet ready for either.

As a child, I was the 6th of nine children.? Our parents tried their best to make us all feel special.?

‘The oldest child, the child with a heart condition, the rebel, the first born son, the pretty one, the smart one, the cute twins – a pigeon pair, the blue eyed strawberry blond baby of the family.

I was the smart one.? To this day, I don’t truly know if I really was the smartest one in the family.? I wore ‘coke bottle thick’ glasses from the age of 1 until about the age of 56 when I had lens replacement surgery.

Was it just because I wore glasses that the ‘smart’ label was stuck on me?

I don’t know, but true or not, it certainly made me work harder to maintain the mantle.?

I felt a tremendous obligation through childhood and well into my adult years, to use my brain for the greater good.? To ‘do something with all those smarts’.

As a result, over the years I’ve worn many ‘hats’, had many jobs and to some extent felt that my ‘me’ was in my job.? I was nothing without a good job.? A job that was a ‘step up’ from average or at least different.? I was nothing if I didn’t receive acknowledgement for my efforts.

Flying high, then, for me, meant earning more, achieving more, doing more.? Being all things to all people, a great wife, wonderful mother, excellent employee, fabulous boss.

Blending in..and yet, at the same time standing out.

I have worked in the café of a road house, as a dental assistant, one of the first female spare parts assistants, a glass and aluminium clerk, a small business owner of a variety of businesses, and a real estate salesperson. ?I finally found my niche in shopping centre marketing and management, first as promotions assistant, then Marketing Manager, then Centre Manager and finally as General Manager.? An industry I worked in for around 30 years.? I even had a stint in public service somewhere in there and finally retirement village management for the last 3 years of my full time working life, when I was, perhaps, considered past my use by date in shopping centres.

We have lived in 3 states in Australia, travelled in all states except WA and been overseas only twice.

I was unceremoniously sacked twice and made redundant once. That’s a whole other story that will be told another day, but suffice to say that the truth of the matter is that my purpose and the purpose of those organisations were not aligning.? Was it their fault or mine? Or perhaps, a bit of both. I was simply not in the right place for me. I think I was doing too much of what I was doing for the wrong reasons, even though there was much of the work that was valuable and important.

Now, flying high means much more.? It’s more about the inner me and how I can contribute to community in a way that makes me feel good for all the right reasons.? For the sheer joy of it rather than the need to prove myself worthy of the ‘smart one’ title.

Community involvement has always been a part of everything I do, the common thread, but what I didn’t realise is that this was my purpose, my reason for being.?

Being retired and not always striving to do better has been truly refreshing.? A weight lifted from my shoulders.? I no longer feel the need to achieve, just to be.

Be me, contribute where I can, do nothing when I feel like it, help others when I am the right person to help, be helped…accept help when I need it, even when I don’t.

No matter whether my version of the me I want to be meets with someone else’s expectations or not, if I am in my happy place, if I am doing what I feel gives my life purpose and contributes to the joy of others, I am the altruistic 8 doing what I’m meant to be doing.

I am flying high.

Which me are you?? How high do you want to fly?? How low do you want to go? Be you, for you. Look forward to tomorrow!

About the author

Desley Cowley hashtags herself #eclecticdabbler[DC1]!

Why?

Because she likes to know a little about a lot. Probably a little more than the average person, but a little less than the ‘expert in the field’.

She sees herself as a conduit between community and corporate, having a background of 30+ years in Shopping Centre Management and Marketing, her role was pretty much working magic (not always) to satisfy the conflicting needs of all stakeholders.

Not an easy task and not always successful. She’ll tell you herself that she has been sacked more than once in her time. “Negotiating with people under extreme duress is never easy. Some people recognise this. Others don’t.”

It was all experience that brought her to her retirement passion.To help ease the pressure by helping people plan for their death.