Intaglio

He’s just observed a truth I think I'm doing a decent job of concealing.  He’s wrapped it with a reasonable dose of compassion yet I still experience its sting.  I hadn’t realized how transparent I’m being, and what burns more than anything is the idea that I am inadvertently hurting him; I may be driving him away, and this could possibly be more than I can bear.  While I acknowledge he’s right, telling him I’m working on it, I can hear the impatience in his voice.  It’s like he’s wondering what I’ve been doing all this time, why I haven’t fixed this yet.

I’m reading about the root cause of yelling.  The author of this particular piece says yelling is about our inability to deal with our own feelings of frustration, fear or being overwhelmed.  It’s about attempting to feel heard, and at the same time woefully ineffective at helping us actually be heard.  And I can’t help but think about the impossibly difficult climb I’ve made up this mountain over the last several years, coming close to eradicating this invasive disease.

When we’re really open to the feedback others give us about what’s holding us back, whether it’s a potentially career limiting behavior at work or marring our relationships in life, and decide to work on making a change,  we need real life experience to operationalize the change.  This is how we take the big idea we want to embrace and actually start living it.  Many promising, even groundbreaking concepts have died on the table because no one did the hard work to fold them into daily life. 

Although the product we’re developing at the office is still basically in the womb, we’re watching it as it shapes into our baby, almost as a mother looks at her developing fetus through an ultrasound.  And we’re also beginning to think about how we will infuse this tool into the way we deliver our services.  We know the change will be unsettling for many and take time to embrace, just as even the most coveted of newborns disrupts a household. How are we forever altered as that new baby becomes part of how we live?  There is no amount of training or pre-work that will prepare us for the experience of motherhood.  We need to live it.

I think about how communication in my home has changed from yelling to open, honest, even vulnerable dialogue.  I make a concerted effort every time a potentially explosive situation presents itself.  I ask myself who I’m upset with, me or the one I’m yelling at?  I vocalize this process over and over again so my kids learn it too. And over time yelling diminishes, becoming the exception, not the rule.  We’ve come up with phrases we’re trained to use with each other which after years of practice immediately diffuse an escalating situation.  But for this to happen, we need to live it, to operationalize the approach, to make it the way we love, not just some big idea sitting on a shelf to be pulled off and somehow work magic when we need it.

And so when I think about this truth he’s exposed, I’m not defensive about why it’s not yet fixed; I’m not taking his rejection personally.  What he doesn’t realize, because he’s not far enough along on his own journey yet, is this:  When we find another who will listen when we voice even the most painful of observations, digest what is said, own what’s rightfully theirs and make that conscious effort to operationalize change, this is all we could ever want in a relationship.  Not just because the fixing needs to become part of the way we love, but because as life ebbs and flows, there will always be something new to fix. 

Namaste

“Your goal today”, she tells me, “is simply to stay in the room for the full class.”   I smile. Does she know I’ve just consumed Kristin Armstrong’s most recent blog post?  "Pin it On" is all about how setting a simple, achievable goal frees us from the stress of performing, allowing us to bring all of ourselves to whatever we do. In this case, whatever I’m doing is hot yoga. The Polar Vortex has driven me to the opposite extreme; I have no idea what 90 minutes at 105F while exercising feels like.  I’m not prepared for how challenging this is, or for the sweat teeming from my pores.  But it’s 30 days of unlimited yoga for $30, and I’m wondering how low I can get my per class cost.

 

The instructor ensures today’s slew of newcomers that it’s hardest at the onset.  The workout consists of the same 26 poses; we hew and hone our frames each and every time we repeat them. In Bikram yoga the practice never changes, but our bodies do.  She cues us through the postures, confident as she describes optimal form that we’ll all get there. I can actually see my future self in perfect poses and I believe. And I can say it’s taken every minute of my lifetime to find that kind of faith in myself.

Nothing happens overnight, but it takes many years of living to understand the truth in these words.  Seth Godin presents this concept in his blog post titled "Gradually and then Suddenly".

It’s the media equivalent of an overnight sensation, or devastation that seems to come out of nowhere.  It’s the idea that someone has arrived or that they’ve fallen from grace.  In the hoopla surrounding our broadcast world, no one is ever reporting on the slow plugging away at daily life.  It’s not until a momentous event occurs that the spotlight glares.  It’s only after our suddenly happens, that maybe someone may take the time to trace our gradually.

Strangely, we can be blind to our own gradually, too. While I accepted one challenging and (sometimes) thankless assignment after another at the office, I felt like I struggled to get promoted. In spite of volunteering for outside projects to broaden my network, a trip into the corporate office felt like a visit to a foreign country.  And then one day I lift my head up and notice the shift.  I’m where I dreamed I’d be, with an impressive array of accomplishments in my wake.  When I’m able to get outside of myself and look in objectively, I might say I could retire tomorrow the proud owner of a spectacular career.

 

I like to think this works with parenting and relationships too. Teenagers don’t seem to be making much progress on the maturity curve and then you look up and notice your son has a pretty impressive string of good decision making. I would imagine, too, that in a healthy relationship where every day we make the conscious choice to love our partner, we one day celebrate an unbreakable bond.

 

What if gradually becomes the new suddenly?  What if we look a little closer at the ships we’re steering and give ourselves a pat on the back for the sheer power and tenacity it takes to show up every day and slowly turn the vessels we inhabit?  The gradually is what sits firmly in our wheelhouse.

Soaked head to toe in sweat, I’m lying on a yoga mat in Shavasana, or dead body pose, having successfully completed my first session.  I stayed in the room, and am rewarded with respite, for this is the only pose in yoga where energy is gained. The instructor reminds us to hurry back to class soon.  "Your body", she says, "is changing already after one class."  

Artistamp

You would think I am a student again, back at college cramming for exams.  As a Contributing Artist to The Sketchbook Project with the submission deadline looming it feels oddly similar. I've been working all weekend.  Here's a look at the fruits of my labor:

Colorimetry

I am the red.  You are the blue.  Basic color theory tells us that together we make purple.  The purple is where we come together as human beings and create a hue that is unique to us.  So much of our time together is in blending to create that perfect purple.  The trouble is we each see color differently, have a distinct picture of what our ideal shade looks like. And so we mess with the saturation:  You might think we need a red that is a little more jewel-toned; maybe I think your blue should be slightly deeper, because, oh, that shade we’d create together would be nothing less than stunning.

What if, instead, we simply put our colors together and live in the blend we make as we are?  What if we find that sweet spot in our intersection, that vantage point from where you get to adore my red and I revel in your blue?  What if we just stay there, wherever there is, enjoying each other?  Because no one else on earth can create our purple. It’s the joy in love we often forget to behold.

Throes

Knee deep in this year’s submission for The Sketchbook Project, I’m wondering if I’ll come up for air between now and the day the postmark is slated to hit the envelope.  Good thing the weather forecast for the weekend calls for hibernation.

Here’s a sneak peek:

Trove

I dream that time travel or some type of supernatural powers or pure magic allow my grandmothers and I to be present together when we are all in our forties.  We wallow and weep, commiserate and celebrate. Imagining the conversations the three of us could have I’m certain the collective experience, spirituality, wit, grit and wisdom would surely light a world on fire.

 

These ladies both possessed the power to brighten up a whole room with their fiery personalities, although they expressed them quite differently.  My maternal grandmother was fierce, some might say a little brash; hardened from a life lived raising her young daughter on her own while residing with her mother on Fletcher Street in Chicago during the late forties and fifties.  She worked in a man’s world when women didn’t, in the melting pot of the city, taking public transportation to the loop every day; an experience I’d bet fed her old world prejudices, as well as fueled her vim and vigor. She retained an inviting, easy sense of humor bred in mischief, making me believe she was that girlfriend daring you to step out of your comfort zone into wild, reckless, iniquitous fun.

I’m quite sure my paternal grandmother had no idea what to do with her.  Equally fervent, ardent and grounded in her views, she brought irrevocable, unequivocal faith to the equation.  She possessed a kind, earnest authenticity and rawness, almost more than my teenaged self could bear. She had a way of clasping your hand, looking deeply into your eyes when she spoke to you, as if penetrating straight to your soul.  I think it scared me; I didn’t know who was inside me at the time. How could she be so confident I was all goodness, blindly believing in the tangled mess that was me? 

Maybe she just knew beyond a shadow of a doubt what’s inside all of us. Those amazing gifts we’re born with, stored in the exquisite vessel that is our bodies and minds, waiting for us to unearth them when we finally catch that scintilla of light to be broken open into our full sparkle.

I decide to live the life I imagine.  This doesn’t mean a list of prescriptive goals with boxes to check in the New Year, it means a way of being, taking infinite forms.  I want to place myself into the hands of another, in all the diverse, unexpected and beautiful ways this can be:   With people I’ll never know, holding my art in their hands as they turn the pages of my sketchbook, or savor my words in published hardcover.  In relationships with the people I encounter every day, from those waiting to be known in the elevator to that one individual I choose to know deeply, intimately, exclusively.

 

I’ve spent the past year windward to fear, my face in the storm for causes I’m not necessarily passionate about, for someone else’s dreams.  I want to channel all I’ve learned about facing fear into chasing my own dreams and desires.

Life is a cache of glittering, delightful connections to be made in the present moment, wherever you are, with the power to take you exactly where you want to go. I want to be brave enough to make them.  I want to open my treasure chest and brighten up a whole room. Are you in it with me?

This is my 200^th blog post.  In 2014 I plan to catalogue them, to begin organizing them for print. Which are your favorites and how have they inspired you?

Panacea

When she says she’s working on compassion in 2014, but freely admits she doesn’t do empathy, she sparks a debate.  Do you need to be empathetic in order to be compassionate?  Most of us in the conversation agree that yes, empathy is a prerequisite for compassion.  I’m not ready to commit; however, I’m intrigued by this question and want to dig a little deeper.  From a purely academic perspective, vocabulary.com defines the two words like this:

empathy (noun)  – understanding and entering into another’s feelings

compassion (noun) - the humane quality of understanding the suffering of others and wanting to do something about it

I can see why it is tempting, especially for those with a bias for action, to want to skip empathy and go right to compassion.  Empathy is feeling; compassion is feeling plus doing.  Lots of us want to be problem solvers, heading straight to the fix.  The trouble is we often gloss over the feeling part, in favor of getting right to action that will make things better.  We want to get out of the uncomfortableness of feeling which can seem of little value.  When we’re doing it’s easy to see tangible evidence of the support we’re providing.  We busy ourselves with action to avoid the helplessness of living in the emotion.

Empathy gets lost because feelings are impalpable.  We think we’re being compassionate, but as we focus on the action, we’ve inadvertently eliminated the emotion.  To be truly compassionate individuals, we need to do the hard work of feeling; this is ultimately what compels us to act so powerfully humane.

When I look up compassion in the Urban Dictionary, which I love for its Wikipedia-style real-world (and sometimes shocking) interpretations, I see this: “It takes guts to care.”  Not what I’d describe as particularly eloquent, but to the point.  It’s hard to get into other people’s feelings, especially when they are hurting.  It makes us uncomfortable.  We just want to make the pain go away, especially when we’re the person inflicting the hurt. Here’s my case in point:

I ask him if he has New Year’s Eve plans, if he’ll go on a date with me.  He tells me he needs to think about it.  It takes only one heartbeat for the pride and excitement swelling in my chest to deflate; it’s a foregone conclusion that with the need for deliberation, even if he comes back with an affirmative response, the evening is destined to be an awkward disaster.  So I’m more than relieved when his verdict denies me.  He’s cajoling me, though, attempting to make me feel better as I recoil disappointed, discomfited and dismayed.  I put a halt to the text messages when it becomes apparent that he is uncomfortable in my pain and wants me to do his emotional labor by telling him I’m fine.  I know I’m not fine, and I need to give myself the chance to feel the gamut of emotions that exhibiting vulnerability with this invitation fires at me.

This is how we find the guts to care for others, by having the guts to care for ourselves first, doing the hard work of acknowledging, accepting and expressing our own uncomfortable feelings.  We can’t truly understand what another is feeling unless we’ve been there ourselves.  When we sweep our own feelings under the rug we don’t experience what it’s like to live through them and to come out on the other side okay, or maybe even better than we were before we started. 

So here’s what I decide:  I get to feel everything I need to in this situation, and I don’t need to come back to him until I’m done.  For me this means reassuring myself I didn’t misread his oeillade. Attractions are extremely visceral.  We can’t do anything about them, and they are impossible to hide, especially to a keen observer. But we do deny them, all the time.  I wasn’t wrong in my assessment; he just chooses to deny it.  I get to feel proud of myself for my boldness, dismayed by his choice to turn me down, embarrassed for disclosing a feeling he doesn’t share and disappointed that we won’t be going out. And I get to own these feelings outright.

When we do our own emotional labor, practice living in the uncomfortableness pain and suffering bring us, we equip ourselves for empathy. The feeling component of compassion matters just as much, if not more, than the doing. So many times in life there isn’t an action any one person on the planet can take that will right the wrong that’s been done to us.  But knowing that someone understands, cares and is brave enough to sit in the tide of emotion darkness inflicts on us is the most powerful antidote ever made.

Yes, empathy is required for compassion.  If you don’t know where to begin, begin with you.