Scull

I don’t recall how old I am, but I’m huddled in the shallow end of a big swimming pool at North Central College, I think, staring into the green water, wearing a rubbery, coral swim cap with ridges etched into the surface meant to mimic curls. I’m sure my mother drags me here, I can’t imagine I ask for swimming lessons.  My recollection is fuzzy after all these years, but I’m pretty certain I never make it out of the beginning group.  I remember how surreal it all feels, the stench of the chlorine, the unnatural echo of our voices, and tracing the pattern on that bathing cap with my fingers.  Pools aren’t meant to be indoors and we don’t cover our hair. It is me and an overweight little girl named Olga.  We never advance.

I can taste my dread and fear and smallness as I dredge up this experience.  Maybe I cry about it, and I’m sure I feel ashamed, like I am too old for this reaction.  I am supposed to suck it up, put my head underwater and swim.  But I can’t. And I can’t for many years.

Life is full of these kinds of moments.  We’re thrown into them against our will, and we fight like hell to maintain some kind of control.  We’re often given teachers, coaches, guides to talk us through.  We think they’re here to explain the technical terms and steps of the process, but what they really do is help us access the faith in ourselves required to put our faces in the water and move forward.  If we’re going to do this, whatever it is, we have no choice but to believe it is possible and we are strong enough to endure. And so we take direction and make hard decisions pressed upon us by experts we barely know.  We put faith in the unfamiliar.  We figure out how to heal ourselves where we’re broken, and to live peacefully in uncertainty. It’s a tall order and I wonder sometimes how we ever get through.

 

“The best way out is always through,” poet Robert Frost says. And he’s right.  There will never be any hope of a life with the right person if you can’t get through the hard work of ending a marriage with the wrong person.  There is no room on your team for stellar performers if you can’t have the conversation needed to move on poor performers. It’s impossible to leave behind your parents’ house and start the life you imagine for yourself if you don’t enroll in the training needed for a good paying job. We get through by addressing what we fear, by actually doing what it is we’re afraid of.  And we do it over and over again in every aspect of our lives.

 

She’s talking about the inspiration for writing her song.  She sees artwork of diving girls, and admires their strength.  She recalls the hard times of her own life, and thinks to herself what a strong swimmer she is. She plays this song, at first for members of her family, and then to audiences of strangers.  Everybody cries. 

You’ve been here before, whether you realize it or not, on the edge of many different pools, tugging nervously on that ugly bathing cap, diving into unfriendly waters and cutting through, one stroke at a time, to the other side.  You can do this.  Whatever is in your way you can push aside, you can push through. 

You are a strong swimmer.     

Bust

It starts with futile attempts to replace a cell phone that went for a swim in a vat of gravy at a certain fast food restaurant which shall remain nameless. “File not found” is the message I receive upon clicking on links to the materials I’ve been anxiously awaiting to incorporate into a big presentation.  The dog has eaten my homework, or at least this is how I sound to myself as I answer a colleague’s request for updates on multiple initiatives we’ve made little-to-no progress on. As I crawl over the finish line at five o’clock a candidate I am trying to recruit to my team has mercy on me saying, “You haven’t sold me on it, but I’ll consider it anyway”. 

The universe is conspiring against me today and it’s time to cut my losses. Everything I try to do is met with an extra level of resistance.  Even the manager’s manager (yes I’m that persistent) at the AT&T store can’t find a way to take the $700 I’m ready to fork over for a new phone because “the system” won’t allow it.  I fail to explain to my colleague that we’ve been in triage mode for the last three months on this assignment and while her strategic priorities were assigned to others, they weren’t deemed critical to our survival, and therefore didn’t get enough of my attention.  I let my emotions get the best of me with these failures, and it impacts my day.  I can’t muster the excitement to entice a candidate to take on a new assignment. I can’t find the energy to search other avenues for my presentation materials.

There is a part of me that says these are signs to step away and do something else. Maybe I’ve done all I can today?  I’ll come back tomorrow when things feel easier to tackle.  I’ll be successful then. But, wait a minute, what if I’m not successful tomorrow? 

Few of us expect to fail when we set out to do something.  I know I don’t.  Yet the reality is things can and do go wrong.  Regularly, in fact, unless you’re somehow more than a mere mortal. What if we walked into new situations expecting that we will fail a few times before we figure out how to get it right?   If we can get better at expecting failure as a precursor to success, I’m wondering if that would leave us with more emotional energy to invest into picking ourselves up and trying again.

Getting into an argument with the AT&T representative doesn’t make me feel any better, it’s not who I want to be, and it doesn’t get me a phone any faster.  However, giving some feedback about my experience and suggestions to empower his team on the sales floor means maybe something will change for the next customer. I can beat myself up for not being Wonder Woman, able to single-handedly stop the blood flowing from every orifice of my current assignment, or I can look at the decisions I’ve made around delegation and why the expected results weren’t delivered.

At the end of the day we all want to feel good about what we do.  We’re programed to believe that good feelings only come with success; that failure must equate to bad feelings.  I’d like to change that dynamic.  Not because I’ll settle for failure, but because I can learn from failure. Failure alerts us to what’s broken and creates an obligation to make change.  I can’t think of a faster way to success.    

Divisive

I’ve never been one to pay much attention to politics, let alone political rhetoric.  I don’t seek out information from this sector of news. When it’s pushed in my face every four years, I assume if I can just ride out the campaigns and election season, I can then settle back into the bliss of ignorance, going about my daily life relatively unaffected by the decisions our elected and appointed officials are entrusted to make. I’m not proud of it, but I’ll own it.

It feels like the campaign is still raging on; there is no place to hide, no peace to be found. I ask a seasoned follower of politicos if it’s always been like this, if the parties have always been diametrically opposed.  Have I just been under the covers my whole adult life, immunized by my own privileged self-interests to be unaware of the extent of the divide across our country?  What’s different now? 

From where I sit, the difference is how we talk to each other.  It’s how the White House speaks to the citizens it serves and our fellow human beings around the globe. It’s how we as citizens, in the various roles we play in society whether we’re journalists, legislators, comedians or laypeople, speak to the White House, and to each other.  It’s sobering to watch what we know about psychology play out as one side’s disrespectful comments cause the other to sink equally low and respond in kind.  It’s starting to feel wrong to laugh at Saturday Night Live. And it hits home as families struggle to retain harmony. Our dignity and respect for each other as human beings is nowhere to be found. Our mothers would be ashamed.

I’m spending a lot of time these days wondering how we restore common courtesy. Decorum is an old-fashioned word, one invoking pictures of southern belles fanning themselves calmly while sweating bullets on a hot summer day, but showing some decorum is essential if we’re going to tamp down the flames of the inferno raging in the hearts and minds of our population.

The easy answer is that the tone is set at the top.  It’s a fairly well-known leadership lesson that the CEO, the team leader, the teacher, the parent sets the tone for how we’ll treat each other as we go about getting done whatever it is that we do.  When a respectful and kind tone is absent from the top, it takes some very strong and courageous individuals in the ranks to uphold basic values of decency and humanity.

 

As I watch panelists and moderators struggle unsuccessfully for calm and composure while opining on the state of the union, I’m tempted to turn off the TV and walk away.  It’s hard to be in the discomfort of two sides arguing vehemently and often vindictively for their positions.  But it’s important we sit in this awkward space.  It’s important we challenge each other in these challenging times.

So I’m forcing myself to keep the television on, to listen to the painful dialogue.  I’m rooting for those who can maintain decorum and still get their points across effectively, regardless of whether I agree with them or not. I rally around those with the courage to answer, rather than evade, the hard questions. I cheer for those who can give the other side credit when it is due.  These are the true leaders, the voices of reason, and I have to believe they will prevail. 

Interstice

My book club takes a detour in January; we decide to devote our first meeting of the year to creating vision books and boards to help us get clear on what we want to achieve, where we want to take our lives over the course of the next 365 days.  It’s an art project, so of course I’m in.  I spend a day in preparation, corralling my pens, papers, markers, stickers, glitter, scissors and glue; loading them into my beloved Fat Max, so I can wheel them down the street to our meeting place and share with my friends.  I also use this day to develop my vision for myself so I’m ready to go to work with the girls.  I think I want to center on finding balance, and as I consider how I might do this, the theme that emerges for me is the space between. 

The space between is ubiquitous.  The Dave Matthews Band sings about it. We all recognize it as fraught with anxiety and pain, the time we want to wish away.  It’s the fear in the pit of our stomachs when we’re suddenly kicked off our beaten paths and forced onto roads we’ve never traveled. It’s characterized by that unsettled feeling that consumes us when the next step is identified but we can’t take it immediately, or taking it could mean a bad outcome. Maybe it starts as stalling to avoid at all costs what we’re afraid of and ends with just wanting whatever it is to be over with so our fear will subside. Any way you look at it, the space between doesn’t feel good. 

For me, I realize the space between grabs a hold of every ounce of my energy and uses it for awfulizing, a term I recently heard on NPR that means imagining terrible outcomes.  The space between holds me hostage, strangles me in fear and robs me of time I could be using to embrace joy.  Whether worried about delivering a presentation to a client or having a hard conversation with an employee, I often don’t realize until after the deed is done that I have held my breath, trapped in the space between, unable to allow myself to smile, feel carefree or enjoy the good life has to offer.  This, I decide, needs to change. 

  

We think practice can help us overcome the discomfort.  This mindset may be where the mantra “Do one thing a day that scares you” comes from.  We believe we can train ourselves to let go of the anxiety if we just put ourselves in vulnerable situations regularly.  But in reality, as Brene Brown proves through the research in her book “Daring Greatly”, the discomfort never truly goes away.  We are far better served accepting this vulnerability as normal and getting ourselves used to dealing with the uncomfortable.

 

So I try this.  I tell myself the space between isn’t supposed to feel good.  And it is amazingly liberating. I’m not sure exactly why, but maybe it’s because this new perspective releases me to give myself permission to be afraid and uncertain. When I accept my vulnerability and express rather than suppress it, room is created to let some joy in.

I make it my goal this year to pay attention to how I’m using the time I spend in the space between.  In this space I tend to be unavailable to the people who matter to me; I don’t make time to take care of myself.  I lose faith and can’t trust the mess that is life.  My vision book reminds me to recover the space in between and repurpose the energy I expend there for activities that nourish me:  to eat regularly, vacation liberally, create earnestly and practice gratitude.  I’m the girl holding an umbrella on the tight rope, not only to find better balance, but to learn to let go and celebrate life.

Strive

Photo by @floretflower

I start following her when a gorgeous photo of an old pickup makes its way into my feed; the truck bed filled to the brim with a carefully curated rainbow of dazzling dahlias.  Instagram is my social media of choice; it is all about the pictures.  I follow artists, bakers, foodies, travelers, yogis, writers and photographers, and I’m particularly drawn to women who chronicle the stories of their entrepreneurial highs and lows. I can’t get enough of the intimate details they share about what it is to be a small business owner.

 

I watch her remodel, turning what looks to be an old greenhouse into a workshop where her wares are stored, seed packets pulled and packaged for shipping. I live through the crush of her crashing servers, hear the thunder as she’s nearly trampled in a stampede of on-line orders she can’t fulfill when technology fails her. I feel her humility and despair as she shares her dismay at both her overwhelming success and her inability to keep up with it.

 

Today I question my own success. I drag myself home after dark from my latest assignment, mulling over problems this intense, non-stop day of onion peeling reveals, only to hole up in my office for another hour replying to all the e-mails stuffed in my in-box.  My commute is nearly 4 hours round trip, trapping me in my car with that voice in my head primed to beat me up with a merciless critique of my day.  The one who likes to scream loudly that I’m not enough.

 

I find inspiration in the creativity of my fellow humans on Instagram.  And she doesn’t let me down when I scroll through my feed tonight. She tells the story of her most recent failure and why she plans to jump right back into the fray, quoting “The Man in the Arena”, delivered by Theodore Roosevelt on April 23, 1910 at the Sorbonne in Paris, France. In the few moments it takes me to reacquaint myself with his words, I’m reminded the voice in my head has no business bringing me down, for it can never stand on its own in any arena.  There is no success without failure. I’m out here trying and I’m certain I will pick myself up tomorrow and do it again.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” 

Twinkle

She strategically places timbers around newspaper and a pile of sticks and branches our little boys transport in a small red wagon from the woods to the clearing.  With a match she sets the kindling ablaze and settles in, furiously waving a makeshift bellows she crafts from the cardboard box recently emptied of cans of soda, or some sort of imbibing adult beverage. She’s called the President because no one does this better than she does:  I have learned everything I know about building and maintaining a campfire from her.

   

Sometimes little effort is needed to grow a tiny flame into a steady, crackling blaze. Other times painstaking patience and earnest tenderness are required for flickering sparks to catch and finally roar. 

She’s invited countless new friends to join this warm circle around her fires.  These flames have witnessed the gamut of emotions:  Raucous laughter, shameful admissions, fierce debates, bitter regret, hopeful promise and wild celebration. If they could talk they would surely tell the stories of joy and pain, fears and dreams, aches and desires both sated and starved.

Light fascinates me with its determination and deference, its positivity and promise.  Gleam, Efficacy and Trove are past year-end ponderings I’ve posted about glittering, sparkling, glorious light. My favorite message this year, by a landslide, comes from Krista Tippett’s “Becoming Wise”. She connects a plethora of fascinating interviews into a collective wisdom for our time, and maybe for all time, including the recounting of Rachel Naomi Remen’s take on “Birthday of the World”, a Jewish teaching about repairing the human condition. It’s the story of how a giant ray of light creates the world, and soon after, an accident breaks this light into countless sparks that bury themselves inside every person on the planet. It’s our responsibility as humans to uncover this hidden light in others and bring the world back together again.

I read this section of the book over and over; it is a lodestone for me.  This is a message I’m compelled to spread, and my Christmas card is the vehicle. I love that while this story’s roots are Jewish its meaning is religion agnostic. It speaks to the power we have as individuals.  It is proof, yet again, we are enough to change the world if we each do our part. I am willing to bet this light buried within us is the powerful gift, unique to each of us, that when unlocked and released fulfills our purpose.  Many of us spend a lifetime searching for this.  What if those around us chose to listen, to question, to seek to understand us, and in doing so helped us find and release our light? 

I want to say now, more than ever, this message is needed and should be heeded.  But instead I have to believe each generation’s storytellers have felt this just as strongly as I do in this moment.

   

It is hard work, striving to listen for common ground, seeking the light I know is inside every individual I encounter. It requires extraordinary self-control to tamp down my own opinions, especially when I’m cleaved to them so completely, and make room for another to unleash his equally passionate beliefs.

The light within us, like the light of the campfire, is ever-changing.  Maybe this is what makes us so complexly compelling and wonderfully sparkling as humans. At times we flicker nervously, struggling to survive in challenging conditions; other times we are a stoic, steady burn.  We can soar to spitting and crackling heights, and die down to smoldering embers.  Sometimes we’re certain even the glint is gone, only to be surprised when the wind kicks up igniting us back to life.  We all have a spark inside, this I know for sure.  The question is how do we find the courage to raise our voices, to put ourselves out there, own who we are and what we’re about, and allow those around us to help stoke that tiny flame into a brilliant blaze?  As I reflect on what I want to be different in my life in the coming year, answering that question becomes paramount, for this is where it becomes obvious we are enough.

Believe that light inside of you is bright enough. 

The light of the world breaks open,

Buries fragments within us all.

When we choose to discover,

This light in each other,

We heal the world,

We answer our call.

Relinquish

She’s cited this research many times, my former weekend running partner, the woman in lockstep with me all 13.1 miles of my one and only half-marathon:  It doesn’t matter whether we walk or run, it’s the miles we cover that keep us healthy and fit, not how fast we cover them.

Every time I see her she tells me the same thing. She’s a clinical massage therapist, trained to unfurl and smooth out the muscles we stiffen and shorten in the name of physical fitness:  The best exercise for our bodies is to stretch for 20 minutes daily.

 

By my rough calculations of classes attended, I’m pretty certain I’ve heard this no less than 300 times; it’s the mantra each instructor repeats verbatim in the opening posture of the Bikram Yoga series: “Breathe as much as possible, as long as possible, as slow as possible.” 

I know they’re right. I’ve realized the benefits of being kind to my body, heeding the warnings my knee began to whisper eight years into constant running. And yet there’s a part of me still wincing in guilt and shame as I admit I’ve quit because I needed to dial it down a few notches.

It’s not just the way I look at exercise.  It’s the way I look at life:  The growth strategies I’m plotting for my clients, the search my boys are on for the right pair of wings. While I know it all takes time, I can’t help but feel like I should be moving things along faster. I can’t seem to accept that slower is better, that less is actually more.

 “Where has the year gone?” we ask in puzzled amazement.  We’re here, on the brink of New Year’s Day, and can’t understand what happened to the last 12 months.  It seems a little ironic to be so surprised time moves quickly when we spend so much of our time with the accelerator pressed to the floor.

 

We are conditioned to attack life with speed and intensity.  We want to graduate early, win all our races, ascend up the corporate ladder on jet packs, we want our relationships to zoom into commitments, our families to grow on demand.  The ticking of a biological clock is deafening. The knell of the grave is terrifying.  What if we die before we’ve completed the bucket list?

I wonder if life gives the appearance of moving so fast because we’re so unwilling to accept a slowdown.  Is it a vicious cycle?  If we stopped trying to cram so much in, stopped trying to be so many things to so many people, if we stopped intervening in the name of moving life along, would we actually feel like life moves itself along at a more reasonable pace?

 

What if, instead of shaking down the tree of life for all the fruit we can knock loose, we could learn to rest and reflect in the shade of its branches until the fruit falls on its own?

In 2017 I want to become comfortable with slowing down, with giving life the time it needs to reveal all it has in store for us. Ultimately it means giving up this illusion of control I think I have over the universe, and calling a truce on what I know to be true:   Slower is better.