Novaturient

A friend posted this on  Facebook recently, and "tagged" me in it.

Why, yes. That's me. I'm going to not concern myself too much about this word not being found in dictionary.com and accept this not only as a description, but a compliment.

It's probably no secret that I'm feeling a bit shocked to not yet be in the next job on my career track. I've gone through a variety of emotions about this from angry about my title and paycheck disappearing to grateful to be released from a job and set of expectations that was weighing me down to optimistic about new work possibilities to pessimistic about new jobs back to angry about the vagaries of unemployment and optimistic about applications to pessimistic about how "the system" (doesn't) work and all the way back to grateful again.

This trip I'm on is a funny ride. It seems to drag out much longer than the tickets I exchanged to get myself a seat on this roller-coaster would normally give me time for. It seems somehow as though I've been around the roller-coaster track more times than I thought I was signing up for. But at the same time, I blinked and it was September. I put in one breath at a time and before I noticed, I was one week away from the fourth quarter.

Roller-coasters being what they are, parts of this ride have been exhilarating and thrilling and even fun while other parts have been harrowing and crazy-making. But like the roller coasters I rode at Busch Gardens last fall, I'm never sorry afterwords. I get that not everyone is an adrenaline junkie, but I kinda am. I used to spar BIG men who were faster, taller, and stronger than me because the rush of getting a strike in was . . . well, a rush. I used to cliff dive. I fully intend to jump out of a plane someday and I love me some roller coasters. (It didn't hurt that I was riding with a stone-cold awesome pre-teen who also loves him some coasters and was stoked to share the experience with me.)

In part I love them because my dad trained me up early to love them. My mom suffers from serious motion sickness and my dad really wanted me to be able to get on rides with him so he started early by putting me on rides that spin and go up and down as soon as carnivals would allow it. But mostly I like these rides because the experience is thrilling and often thrilling+unnerving AND it never fails to make things look and feel different afterwords. Things we take for granted like walking and balance are suddenly not to be trifled with, my senses are sharpened and colors are brighter. I like the quick "boot to the head" perspective change.

This metaphorical ride shares characteristics with real roller coasters. I feel things differently. It causes me not to take things that seem "basic" for granted. I am forced to evaluate things in a different light and . . . while it's scary to step outside the bounds of how I always thought things should be, it's not all bad. For one, as I recently reported to a friend I had not been in as frequent touch with as I'd like to be, "This is scary and hard, but strangely, still happier than I was in my job at this time last year. "

The other thing that is not just "not all bad" but actually GOOD is that I am very, very awake and aware that I'm not just hoping/wishing for things to be better, but seeking change actively. It's not that I was completely unaware of this before . . . I mean, let's be clear. I knew I was unhappy and that things in my world had reached a dangerously, precariously, out of balance place in my personal sphere when I started this blog. But, I had no idea what to do about it. I had no perspective on the whole picture and so I could see good days and bad days, days where I wanted to live inside a box of cheezits and days where salad and chicken seemed reasonable and even preferable, and individual unhappinesses with work or family or myself or relationships. But all my senses were dulled by accepting less, expecting too much from myself, and not seeing the whole scene. Sometimes it takes things getting turned upside-down in order to see the whole picture. This is the use of roller-coasters.

And breakdowns. For some people this is the reason for drugs and mind-altering experiences. And for others jumping out of planes does it. But every once in awhile we need to remember that there's more than one way to look at things. Every once in awhile we need to have the snow-globe we're trapped in turned over so we can see THAT view and notice the things that seem commonplace otherwise completely anew.

Brene Brown jokes about her breakdown/spiritual awakening and how it rocked the foundations of her internal assumptions (roughly 11:20 in this video if you're interested). The joke isn't that she saw things more clearly and made changes to the way she walked through the world, and the impossible track and pace she had set herself to. The joke is that without what felt like a complete earthquake to her, she couldn't have had that epiphany and awakening.

I know the feeling.

My therapist and I have discussed that I was never going to pull the trigger. I had just enough in the tank to turn a vague "break" (one of many I will add) into a break-up but it took enormous piles of data showing me that that person was irrevocably locked into a cycle of denial and dishonesty with me. And I was left so miserably exhausted by the process that not only did I not have it in me to leave my job (even when the piles of evidence that the job had grown  unhealthy for me were so big as to nearly block out all other views), I had halted what (at that point) had been a year long job search because I just didn't have it in me. I was in line to board, but I was never going to get on this particular roller coaster on my own. I needed a solid shove to the center of my back.

This is why my therapist wanted to congratulate me on the day I lost my job. I get it now just as surely as I wanted to smack him in the face for saying it at the time. You know that "aha" moment you might remember having when everything came together as you completed a long algebra problem? I have this  in terms of LIFE on a near daily basis now.

Without a powerful force working to jolt and shake me out of the routine of being ok with things being less than ok pretty much all of the time I never would have calculated up the numbers this way and seen how sub-par had become so normal for me that I felt helpless to do anything but numb it. And as Brene says (and others, to be sure) in her TED talk about vulnerability that one cannot "selectively numb emotion." (15:30)  You can't say I don't want to feel X without numbing the more comfortable emotions. As she predicts, I numbed everything, and that meant I couldn't feel my pain fully but this also meant I couldn't feel my joy. Without joy, I couldn't reliably steer towards anything better. But without my pain, I couldn't be informed about what was truly wrong and wounded and needed to be tended to.

As Pema Chodron says, prophetically I think:

"In life, we think the point is to pass the test or overcome the problem. The real truth is that things don't get solved. they come together for a time, then they fall back apart. Then they come together again and they fall apart again. It's just like that.

Personal discovery and growth come from letting there be room for all of this to happen; room for grief, for misery, relief, for joy.
....

Let the hard things in life break you. Let them effect you. Let them change you. Let these moments inform you. Let this pain be your teacher. The experiences of your life are trying to tell you something about yourself. Don't cop out on yourself. Don't run away and hide under the covers. Lean into it. "

- When things fall apart: Heartfelt Advice for Hard Times

It's hilarious to me (in a head-smacking-palm way) that THREE DIFFERENT PEOPLE recommended this book to me starting from last October . . . a month which we are now a week away from again. This is to say, a year ago, it was apparent that I was in trouble and needed some strategies and that was when I was with-paycheck as opposed to now, sans-paycheck.Wow, Christie. That was time well spent avoiding the truth, avoiding things that would help me. Siiiiggghhhh. (shakes head)

This is my ("fricken" 8:00) breakdown/spiritual awakening. Of course, as Brene calls us to admit . . . it may not be possible to have one without the other. I have to be angry. I have to be sad. I have to have the long, hard, two days I had last week where I panicked, cried, felt crushed by the weight of "what if" and then, ultimately, my face and head a mess, looked at my person and said, "I can't be tough about this all the time." And a few days hence followed that with the difficult question, "Can you please tell me something I'm doing right - I feel like I am utterly sucking at everything right now."

I have to remember the other parts of Brene Brown wisdom about vulnerability and shame (6:00 or thereabouts). "Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity, and change." She also says, prophetically I hope, "Vulnerability is our most accurate measure of courage. "

When I am feeling . . . untethered and scared and dark and pessimistic, there are a few things I can point back to and know I am still better off on those days than I was on days I felt sure and grounded and had a plan I thought I could/should count on. For one, even when I'm feeling pain, I am feeling. For another, the realization that plans aren't always where it is at shakes the foundations of my life. But I think those foundations were pretty cracked and worn from all the weight of the plans I had piled on and on and on. I am still working on separating out could from should, and that is a dark rabbit hole for me to travel through. My whole life has been about what I SHOULD do. When my therapist said, "You have the kind of personality and ability where you could do things that change the world. But you never will UNLESS you make a complete break away from how you've done things in the past, the judgement, and the constant weight of expectation," I cried not from sadness but from recognition of truth staring me down.

Finally, pessimism is an interesting marker of hope. As a very wise friend said to me about my religious musings, "you can't be angry at a God you don't believe in." True story. I'd add to this that one can't be pessimistic about things they don't harbor some hope for. Another way to say this is that even when I'm feeling rooted in anxiety about this not turning out well, it means that somewhere I have some thought that i could turn out as a full bowl of awesomesauce.

Seeking powerful change can't come without fear, and that fear can't be navigated without vulnerability. This is a profoundly opening experience. I feel raw and skinless on a regular basis. (As I relayed to one of this year's bestest gifts, my new friend, the other day, this is not always helped by the fact that I am trying to learn three brand-new things all at once right now.) I make harder and harder decisions each week and am scared each and every time that I am on the precipice of the next choice that I will make the wrong one. But once the roller coaster turns on the track, I don't much find myself looking back. (Perhaps this is the gift of roller coasters - the velocity is so  great that it physiologically prevents us from looking backwards.) This means, I think, that despite all my vulnerability and dark and twisty moments, I am more confident about my core worthiness, my ability to build a life of meaning, and what may come than I was when I was working.

I have learned not just about leaning into pain and being it's student, but also that vulnerable moments are my best opportunities to be honest and brave. I have considerably more courage than I had ever plumbed the depths of. It's one thing to ride a roller coaster, and another to do it with your eyes open. But there is someone else very literally driving that train. So, getting on a bike that has to be powered by me (and perhaps more notably, balanced by me. Eeeeeeee!) is far scarier. The thing about doing scary things is that they leave you exposed. But it's that feeling, it's the "here I go, sparring someone much better than me" or singing on stage (alone!) that are most thrilling. I am most inspired and feel so much via those experiences that are most intimidating because taking charge of them, moving through them, leaning into them, reveals the me under-my-skin that is more powerful, authentic, and lovable  than I could see with my armor-skin on. "Do it anyway" has become a bit of a motto for me. "Risk it anyway," is the only way I can navigate this.

I say this by way of apology to my readers (who are also mostly all my personal friends. Nice how I can kill two birds with one stone, eh?) because my breakdown/spiritual awakening certainly wreaks occasional havoc on my writing. At the moment that I'm most dark and twisty, the tears and swollen eyes and second guessing don't lend themselves much to writing . . . hence the pause in the blog the last couple of weeks. And I can't promise a steady pace moving forward. I can't say what will happen next, or how I'll feel about all of this tomorrow. And I know that for every dose of wisdom and positivity I feel, there's probably enough negativity and difficulty and dark and twisty to seep in here anyways.

What I can tell you is that I am changed by these 9 months, and even on bad days, I know I am changed in good ways. I can tell you that reading Brene Brown's book, The gifts of Imperfection, speaks powerfully to me because perfect is so damaging in my life when joined by it's evil twin judgement (and it is ALWAYS joined by the evil twin. They are conjoined, for sure). I can tell you I should have listened to advice sooner to read Pema Chodron and I know that this won't be "solved" but simply change, and then change again. I need to be able to roll with that and so this ride is teaching me not to focus on much more than today (whenever possible. Ahem. Ok, let's be clear: I am still a planner. I still have a color coded calendar. Three, really. It's a process, ok?).

I know that I have to feel this much, and it has to be this alarmingly, gapingly open and vulnerable in order for me to really change. And I know I want the creativity, the innovation and the change. Novaturient, yes. Powerful change, progress towards a better me, regardless of jobs and title and paycheck, I HOPE.

I spit for thee

I know someone who is always speaking of how bad her luck is. Her luck is terrible with dating, she says, while turning down people who have expressed interest in her and manufacturing reasons that it is bad timing, the wrong person, or not a planned date up to her standards. Terrible luck at work, when others lose their jobs, and she keeps hers. Awful misfortune in life because her car needs normal repairs, that, yes, cost money, or because normal mishaps happen at stores, in her kitchen, when making plans with friends.


Another person in my life has done something both illegal and very, very risky multiple times, and as a result, has been in more than a few life-rattling moments, and been arrested about that number of times. He walks away physically whole each time, having not hurt himself, or anyone else. But talks always of how unlucky it was that he got caught. How a series of events lead the police to get involved, not his actions or mis-steps. Meanwhile, I privately think he has been exceptionally fortunate to be alive without harming anyone else, and know that that luck won't likely last.

So, pardon me if I say luck is sometimes a bad joke to me. It's hard to know, for sure, what I think about it. I'm unlucky that my last Toyota caught fire on the Garden State Parkway, but I'm lucky that it did so feet from the exit, and literally, 4 days before the planned purchase of my next car. I'm lucky that my new Toyota has a an even newer engine, but unlucky that that happened because Jiffy Lube ruined the engine that came with the car (don't get oil changes at Jiffy Lube!!). I'm unlucky in that I probably can't have children, but lucky in that I always had interest in adopting. I have terrible Scrabble karma - I mean really, I always have like 6 i's and a j - but, ummm, who cares. It's a game. (Maybe one I cheated on in a past life, causing someone else to lose their fortune?)

So, luck is a concept I don't always know how to handle. I will tell someone, "Good Luck!" because it's what we say, it's what we do. And it sounds better than, "Go forth and do as you will and see what you get in return." (Which, really, would make me sound like an ass.) But in actuality, It's hard to know what role luck actually plays in things. Often, as in the examples, above, luck seems to have nothing to do with anything. People ascribe bad luck to consequences they may have tacitly chosen but aren't willing to accept, or overlook that there are far more chances than they are willing or able to work with.

The other thing I think about luck is part and parcel with some of the examples from my life, cars, child bearing, Scrabble . . . those things may be part of a wider pattern, one we only get a glimpses of. What looks like bad luck today could end up being part of something far more positive tomorrow, or 4 years from now. Or, maybe, never. It's not so much that I believe in fate, or pre-ordination, because I think we are choosing, carving our path, deciding things all the time, every moment. Just that . . . things can work together for greater purposes, good or bad, I suppose. And we can't always see that in the moment that we are holding the parking ticket and cursing the Gods for the thing that made us late, for the meter-maid who got there RIGHT as our last minute ran out, for the 2 hour limit to begin with (why can't I just PARK there for 4 hours?).

Of course I think about this a lot as an unemployed person. Is it lucky or unlucky that I lost my job? Both probably, in the eyes of me, and also good and bad, for different people supporting me and trying to love me through this. Do I sometimes want to claim bad luck for not having gotten a couple of the jobs I interviewed for an wanted? Or, maybe even more so, for the bad interviews I went on . . . most notably the one that had me invest so much time only to change the details out from under me at the 11th hour (almost literally). Yep. For sure I sometimes begin to think, "What bad luck I have!." But then, when I land a job (yes, WHEN) I don't want someone to take the reverse and say, "You got lucky." All of the hard work I've done preparing myself, writing cover letters, applying, interviewing, networking, and fighting with my self-esteem would feel minimized by counting it as "luck" instead of accomplishment

At this point, I pretty frequently hear the phrase "numbers game" in that it is supposedly the case that getting a job is somewhat dependent on "a numbers game." I'm sure this is true. I have applied to over 100 jobs, and of course, I need to keep growing this statistic until I find the right one. But here's what this doesn't mean to me - that if you spew resumes out into the void at a high enough rate a job will boomerang back unto you. Because being ready, qualified, presenting well, and demonstrating a fit of skills and personal qualities has to matter too . . . doesn't it? It can't all just be chance and accumulation of attempts. Well, let me say this - for me it can't because it matters to me that I did more than stay on the treadmill.

On the other hand, having said all of these rational, perhaps overly logical, Spock-like things about luck, I'll admit the other side to you. I recently told the person I'm in a relationship with that we couldn't go out anywhere nice - nowhere that I need to dress for (this is a real measure in Boulder, where jeans and flip flops appear in abundance, everywhere). When asked why I said, "Well, you had mentioned doing this when that job was supposedly checking my references (which they did not. They instead asked for my references to keep me on the hook while they decided they couldn't afford to hire anyone full-time, in case they ended up wanting to hire me. Arg). And then I said we shouldn't celebrate until there was something to celebrate. No jumping up and down. So, now I don't want to jinx any other options." And so when we go out, we eat burgers and burritos, which are super tasty, but which I'm sure he'd rather take a break from.

I also have been doing a lot of spitting. this is because I am a massive West Wing fan (ahem, nerd). And on election night there is a whole thing where one of the characters is shocked to find his boss has written a concession speech for an election he is sure the incumbent President is about to win.

Sam Seaborn: You wrote a concession? 
Toby Ziegler: Of course I wrote a concession. You want to tempt the wrath of the whatever from high atop the thing? 
Sam Seaborn: No. 
Toby Ziegler: Then go outside, turn around three times and spit. What the hell's the matter with you? 

I can't afford to tempt the wrath from the whatever from high atop the thing. So, I spit. And when another friend was jumping through the hoops academia asks some of the most highly trained and educated people on the planet to jump through to get jobs, I spit for him too. (Literally. Yes, I know it's gross, but that whole week of job talks and committee meetings and dinners I went out on my porch each evening and spit.) Apparently I have earned that favor being returned because I informed him today that I am on a strict program of merely noting pros and cons of jobs I'm applying or interviewing for, but that nonetheless, I thought it was worth mentioning an interview for an intriguing non-profit. He replied simply with, "I spit for thee."

Smile.

I'm not that superstitious. Though, I spit, and am pleased to be spit (spat?) for. I do not want to get dressed up and go out to dinner prematurely, because . . . well, partially because that dinner will taste better when I know I earned it. And partially because I'm afraid of the wrath, of the you know, up atop, wherever. I know athletes that need to wear certain things for luck, or surgeons. My brother, when he wrestled, had a hand-me-down Grateful Dead tie-dyed tee shirt that my uncle rescued from the liberal arts college he worked at. And wearing that t-shirt became a necessity at every wrestling meet. (It wasn't even his shirt originally!) This is all fine. Some of this, I think, is security and habit. And for all that I am attached to my routines, I don't have a lot of these. At least not that I can think of off the top of my head. "Depend on the rabbit's foot if you will, but remember, it didn't work out for the rabbit." R.E. shay comes to mind. And this is also a reminder that what seems like good luck to my neighbor, might be very bad luck for me . . . or the rabbit.

I do think that what we call luck is often a strange combination of factors, and that we attract opportunity to ourselves, but not always easily. And, it's worth noting, we can attract bad opportunity to ourselves, as when those who have been victims of muggings become victims a second or third time. (It's important to note, I am not saying this is the victim/survivors fault. As a survivor of a violent crime, myself, I know the pain of blaming ones' self. What I am saying is that I took it as my responsibility to make sure I would not appear vulnerable in that way again . . . and it has worked out. So far.) I can't say for sure what counts as luck and fortune, but think, "Being deeply learned and skilled, being well trained and using well spoken words; this is good luck." Buddha. That's the kind of luck I'd like to attribute success to . . . once I find it.

Like my person said recently, "Luck, to me, is simply the vision to recognize the opportunities around us, and the ability to take advantage of them . . . Being able to see what good we can make of what we have in front of us. Not everyone gets all opportunities in front of them but . . . I think there are a lot more opportunities around than most people are able to grab hold of." The ability to see what good we can make of what's before us has been present for me for several months now. My blog-assigning friend quickly jumped on my job-loss as good fortune, intended to be a way out for me. And it brings me back to my dear friend who happens to be in jail and still able to say he is choosing to be happy, choosing to take this time to plumb the foundations of his faith.

But I will also note that my person said all he said about what luck is to him, and then he said, "I'm not 100% sure." No, none of us are.

Mostly, I don't want to fall into treating my good days and bad days as being random, or worse, somehow a punishment visited on me, as with the people in my life who fall back on "bad luck" to explain everything they aren't happy with or aren't prepared to take responsibility for. I'd rather believe, simply, "I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it. " Thomas Jefferson (man, do I love him as a writer, founding father, and perplexingly contradictory figure)

I am working hard, on all fronts. I will make a slight nod towards the wrath from high atop the thing (much like Bell-ringings at Hampshire College. When I first arrived I used to intentionally walk under the bell to see the heart-stopping looks that DivIII students would give me, thinking, "Umm, yeah. It's a BELL." After seeing a few of these celebrations though, the myth had power, if not for belief in it controlling graduation, for the people I had seen earn their way to it and the respect I had for them. Honestly? By the end of my third year I was carving a wide path around the bell and by my 4th year, trying not to even walk on that side of the building.) but mostly, I'll just keep trying to bust my ass to get what I want. And spit.

We are bound together

You will all remember that last week saw me reflecting deeply and walking through the emotional quicksand of my past employment in order to start the process of working with the recruiting team I have contracted with.

In theory, I adore their approach. They are very intent on determining what pushes people to perform and show their best side, and to help people identify the jobs and opportunities that will contribute to a career - not just a paycheck. Clearly, this is what I was aiming at when I wrote a description of my ideal job. And in other ways, writing about my core values and thinking deeply about what matters to me, and how I know rightness from wrongness, is about finding the right fit too. I can't go back to how I was before, to that lifestyle, certainly, to giving too much for too little in return. But also, I can't go back to being numb and only letting myself measure myself against my values when on the therapy couch. I'm awake now: I feel. I see. I remember.

I can't go back. this means I have to go forward. So, in theory, the idea of testing my skills and competencies, but also having a recruiter strap on a harness and a flashlight and go caving with me to deeply excavate what motivates and excites me is exactly the right step. But in practice, it's hard emotional work for me right now to try and stay present, in this moment, but think ahead to what I want at the same time.

Wanting things is akin to expectations. And expectation can lead to attaching myself to outcomes that may or may not happen. And that is one slippery slope away form disappointment. So, wanting things feels scary to me right now.

But, of course, I do want things. I want a job I can stay in for 3-5+ years; long enough to not just build skills and extend my experience, but to grow into different responsibilities and/or titles and influence positive change. I want not to move out of my condo. I want to go see my friends on the east coast. I want things.

So, when they asked me to write about what motivated and inspired me, what I thought was, This is the mission statement I can't quite get condensed and succinct enough to write yet. But I sat myself down and made myself write the following:
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I care about people being the best they can be, for themselves first, and for one another as an extension of that. As James Taylor says in one of my one of my favorite songs (If you like this blog AT ALL please click the link and listen, as a favor to me), "We are bound together by the task that stands before us. By the road that lies ahead. We are bound. And we are bound."

I believe people owe it to themselves to be aware, to develop core values and to try and check themselves, their decisions, and their impact on others around them against those values. To be responsible for what they bring to others, and for themselves, and to be thoughtful about who they become. I came from a family that was dysfunctional in most of these ways, but had formative experiences that showed me how deeply people are connected, and how powerful it can be to share positively, and to inspire people to investigate their limitations and make a plan to reach for more.

"There is a feeling like the clenching of a fist, there is a hunger in the center of the chest. there is a passage through the darkness and the mist. and though the body sleeps, the heart will never rest. "

I sing because it opens me up to the vulnerability needed to investigate my deepest emotional motivations. I write because I can’t not write. I pursue photography because it helps me stay awake and aware to how I see things and how they can be seen differently. I am not an artist, but it makes my heart stir to create and contribute.

"It is a hunger in the center of my chest, oh yes."

I spend time with children, and students, because it is a reminder to me of the importance of asking questions, seeing things in new ways, and the excitement of seemingly ordinary things. I am a committed life-long learner because stagnation and complacency are the enemy of the kind of considered growth I care about contributing to.

I care about data, because analyzing information is how I form a picture of what has happened, and where new potential lies.  I run and swim because it gives my mind time to process these things. I organize, and plan because I want to be able to do the most I can do, and get the most out of what I am doing.

I give to charity because I know there are problems I can never fix, but not doing what I can do to make things better isn’t something I can live with - not and look at my reflection in the mirror.

"Oh let us turn or thoughts today to Martin Luther King. And recognize that there are ties between us. All men and women, living on the earth, ties of hope and love. Of sister and brotherhood." 

I place deep attention on being honest and maintaining integrity, even when it costs me, but I try also to balance this with being fair and sensitive to other people involved in any process I’m engaged in.

"Shed a little light, so we can see. Just a little light." 

I am an introspective extrovert, and that allows me to reflect deeply on my motivations, and to listen carefully, collect the data on others' passions, and to draw them out to share that information with me. Knowing people, their plans and passions, allows me to best counsel, consult, and train towards better outcomes. I want to create the opportunity for people to be just uncomfortable enough to experience real change and growth, but not so uncomfortable that they turn away from the moment where they can truly not just see potential for change, but can actually put it into action. I put a lot of my energy into careful articulation and communication in both verbal and written form because persuading and exciting people starts with trust and belief, and communication is one of the best foundations for that that I know or can offer.

I want to impact positive change in the world, in my community, in my loved ones and friends, and in myself by carefully considered analysis, thoughtfully matched goals and action plans, disciplined and inspired life-long learning, and providing and accepting the support to see areas of improvement and work towards taking responsibility to change and grow. 
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Ties of hope and love, my dear readers, hippie and tree-huggery or not, it's what I really think. I didn't use all of those song lyrics in what I wrote for that office, (in fact, I quoted James Taylor only once) but the truth is . . . I have seen that the thing that most stops work, productivity, creativity, and growth are problems between people. Its the moments when people stop talking, and start assuming, blaming, yelling, striking, or giving up on each other that alters the path irrevocably. I've also seen how getting things done, how momentum and growth and contribution is so powerfully impacted by people working and playing well with one another. When we connect mindfully, when we use it to do good things, it is the best thing.

Some day I'll be able to boil all of this down to a mission statement, but for today it was enough that I could articulate that on paper for my consultant, and have deep conversation about it and related topics. Whew. And now . . . I'm tired!!!

Change and inspiration

A new friend and I have found ourselves in a recurring conversation. The conversation goes something like this. There are two different kinds of people in the world. Almost everyone sorts themselves primarily into one of these two categories, though of course, almost nobody is an absolutist about this. There are people who enjoy following a process, having a routine, and completing tasks generally by checking things off a list. They may or may not have been involved in creating that process or generating that list, but once there is a flow chart or operations process in place a process person will follow it unless there is very strong motivation to do otherwise. Then, there are people who look at a process, list, or assignment and instantly start thinking of improvements, ways to be more efficient, or something cooler to do. These are the people who would not do well as a personal assistant or as a prep chef - they're not going to do it the way someone else wants them to do it, but rather in the way that makes the most sense to them given their knowledge, experience, what seems most pressing at the moment, and what results they place weight on. These people won't follow a recipe, but they'll happily make one up. Or take a recipe and completely deviate from it and re-invent it. And it will at least be interesting, and likely be very good.

It will not surprise anyone to hear me say I am more the former than the latter (I know. Me, solid and boringly process oriented. You guys are all going to have a heart attack and die from that surprise). At least in things I am less confident in, I really want external validation or need to be seen as clearly doing a good job and so I'll revert to a process or shadow someone else's footsteps before I carve my own path. I once stood in a friend's kitchen an chopped root vegetables into a dice finer than a Kitchen Aid could have delivered, and was completely happy for that hour. (And if I do say so, made a fine white-goy-girl contribution to a Sephardic Orthodox Pesach with that salad) When I bake cookies, they are placed in rows as they cool. (Unless Rob is around to make fun of my and push my boundaries all at once by quietly and wickedly rearranging and de-row-ifying them. Smile) And I am the queen of checklists.

It's not an absolute for me, and there are places where I am more creative. There's no right and wrong in my writing life, so there's no operations process to measure myself against. More to the point, my writing isn't anyone else's writing so it's not really worth the time to compare apples to watermelons when I consider my writing. But if I'm baking, my mother is somewhere metaphorically over my shoulder, so yes, I am following the recipe exactly. Then again if I'm cooking? Anything could happen. I'll cook following a recipe only a few times a year and when I do, I'm usually starting to alter it about two steps into the process . . . vegetable broth here instead of water, less sugar there, and this should have rosemary in it!! I also stopped following anyone else's process for teaching after teaching my first course and find it reee-heeally constraining now if I'm limited by curriculum, materials, or too-specific expectations of what I'll deliver in any class meeting. So, I'm not all process, but I'm certainly not firmly planted in the camp of innovation either.

I am driven, often, by concern about doing things well. I suppose I never felt particularly competent at anything growing up, and didn't have a lot of confidence. That started to change for me in college, but it was late in coming. In the back of my head, there is usually a recurring floating thought of, "Am I doing this well enough?" And doing something well is easy to confuse with doing something right. I often feel like what I'm really hoping for is an unambiguous right way to do something so that there is no question of how well I'm going about whatever is in front of me. So, if handed a checklist, I'm likely to follow it for a decent bit before questioning if it's actually working to get the results I want. Over the years, I've gotten better and better at really analyzing what I'm doing or what I'm being asked to do to in terms of what goals I'm trying to achieve and then thinking about the process I'm following, working backwards from the result I want to the process to get there, further back to the starting point I'm standing at present. But if pressed, if it's important to me to seem like I'm doing a good job, or to be seen as being reliable or competent, I'll stfu and follow the process, whatever it is.

There are good things about this, in that I have learned how to be extremely driven, determined, and to make a process work. I am reliable and can often get significantly reproducible results. If given a goal, I will set to meeting it, and then exceeding it as soon as possible. I take everything seriously, even blog "assignments" my friend gives me . . . which this topic is. I will get things in on time, and early. I can translate what someone else was doing into a process, and then write a manual on it. And, no bed that I sleep in ever doesn't have hospital corners. Process people are good for some things, methinks.

The downside is that I often get . . . stuck on things I don't like or aren't working, and fail to evaluate if there is another, better way to tackle it. If I'm teaching, I'll back out and try again. If I'm writing, I'll take a break and then come back and see a better route to go. If I'm cooking, or if I'm doing a job function I've already excelled at, I'll suggest better ways to go about things. But, the rest of the time . . . hospital corners, cookies in rows, and assignments done the day before they're due.

Recently my therapist said to me that with "my personality type," skills, and accomplishments, I am the kind of person who can do something that "changes the world." (Not my words. His. I thought, "umm, really? The WORLD?") He said that people like me who have balanced out all of the pathologies, analyzed, processed, and integrated can write books, give speeches, become president, start movements. (Sidenote: It's always a little hard for me when he talks about "my personality type" because he hasn't really told me what he thinks that is . . . but I'm going with it.) This shocked me, since I'm such a routines person and fall so heavily on the "process" side. Aren't we the boring people? Aren't we the people who become the quiet backbone of the exciting, innovative people's work? Then again, I did very deliberately go to a college where absolutely everything was open ended and structure was there only if you created it for yourself so . . . maybe.

Of course, at the end of this impassioned speech he was giving me, there was a huge BUT. And it was, "you can do amazing things BUT you won't be able to do anything but make the same choices over and over if you don't change this pattern right now. " He was deeply convicted and passionate about this. Any of you who read this blog will not be surprised that some of the things he named as needing to change were making the safe (easy) choice, steeping myself in judgment and obligation, leading to feeling resentful, and taking care of others or considering it my responsibility to fix others before myself. We had talked a lot about patterns in my life, patterns in my family, and hard choices I had made in the last 20 or so years so none of this was surprising to me. And he's not the fist person to note that the overwhelmingly negative voices in my head sometimes outweigh my ability to function as highly as I could - to hear the creative muses, to feel my feelings on time, to think bigger than my little corner of the universe.

I don't actually want to become president, or be a politician of any kind. But moving people, making people think, generating and sharing big ideas does sound like the person I set out to be when a much younger me left home. So I had to sit up and pay attention when he said this. Not because he was flattering me, but because he was describing the painful way in which I have often found myself painted into a corner, holding the offending brush, paint gleaming as it drips down my arm and wondering how I got there.

But changing things means more than just not picking up the brush. It means not going near paint for a long time. It means avoiding corners and their very tempting gravity.

It means doing almost everything differently and shedding all the things that were holding me back before. It means that when I think about working out, I have to remind myself that it's now my pleasure to work out, and get out of the house and out of my head. It means seeing food differently, and giving myself a hand when I get it right. It means I have to find the "grateful" in folding my laundry, which I used to avoid. It means I have to not spend time on people or places that aren't good for me or that hold the same kind of dark gravity corners do. It means considering possible jobs I didn't in the last couple of years, and imagining myself making not just those tasks work, but that lifestyle work. It means asking potential employers hard questions instead of just nodding my head and accepting a job offer in a parking lot an hour after my final interview (which . . . perhaps I did about 6 years ago. Perhaps).

If I look very thoughtfully and brutally at the last two years of my life I see that I fought to find the time and opportunity to put singing back into my life, but somehow stopped listening to music for fun. Not at work, not in the car, and rarely at home. I made lists of what I should and shouldn't eat, but basically stopped cooking - which is really sad since I cook pretty darn well. I started writing, but only read about 5 books last year. How does that make sense? All of this speaks to me that I was very, very unhappy but avoiding staring that unhappiness in the eye. Had I looked long and hard at it, I would have been forced to make some changes, and as I wrote to a friend earlier this week, "You know how flexible and gracious I am about change." (He was my boss and the lead Sensei at a Karate studio and once, at work, gave me the "Most flexible and adaptable" award. Ha! It was ironic because I could do full splits but would have to take a moment to get over my attachment when he needed me to change lesson plans. )

So, now I'm scared . . . you know, more than a little . . . but happy. Sometimes it takes a scary moment, or 2 months of them, to force change. It's funny to me, actually, how I got launched into this by other people's decisions. I am not sure I would have made these decisions on my own, but I am weirdly grateful for them, and learning to find the grateful in folding my laundry too. It's also amusing to me because there are people in my life who see my rows of cookies, and want to mess with them to point out how structured and "process" I am. (I'll note, some of those same people roll their eyes at my itemized shopping lists but are forced to admit that they helped get the shopping done faster, and with no return trips. Ahem.) But then there are people who look at me and say, "you are so brave. You'll just go out there, see what needs to change, and do it." Those are actual words from another friend.

I suppose process vs. innovation is relative. I won't keep doing things once I'm sure they aren't getting me where I need to go. But, I don't always see what isn't working for me personally. As a consultant, I was incredibly skilled at examining other people's data and summarizing what I thought was the right story to tell about successes and areas of improvement from that data. I would do my homework with this data, engineer a conversation where someone would begin to see for themselves what I had already seen, and then use it to convince them of some things we might work on changing together. I think my instructors thought of me very often as being the harbinger or agent of change. Or maybe they just thought I was pushing them to break out of doing the same things over and over and making them change . . . sometimes painfully.

If I think very carefully about it, then, change for me is about three things. The data demonstrating the need, the will to do it, and a thought about how to change or how to go about doing things differently. But then, I also have to say, I need to unglue myself from whatever structure existed before, and that requires some inspiration to motivate me because who has two thumbs and loves structure? Not me. I have no idea what you're talking about. So then . . four things.

But, here is something else I know. There is a limit to how much change a single person can make. Running an entire region by myself for more than three years, I learned that lesson over, and over, and over again at work. I'm not sure it's different if the thing I am trying to change is me. Someone I really think highly of commented early  in this blog that the crux of what I was writing was boiled down to, what would I change, how would I change it, and how much can I change. I think that is still the main focus .  .  . just a lot of things have changed since then! I still need this accountability and mirror. And I'm still seeking other opportunities to push me when I feel like digging my heels in and pointing to  a process I'm comfortable with.

An important friend told me recently, that you never know who is watching you. Who is inspired by you. Who is moved by you. I hadn't thought about that in a long time. I think I . . . focused so deeply on the process that worked for me at work last year, that I stopped thinking about how I looked from the outside. I stopped thinking of myself as an agent of change for those people, even though that's what I was, to them or anyone. My friend is, I think, a little supernatural. She and I hadn't spoken live in weeks when she gave me a blog assignment last week that spoke to the exact thing I had been struggling with in that moment. This week she asked me to write about this just as I started digging deep down into what needs to change for me in order for things to be truly different. And in the same moment where someone else said to me, "I see and appreciate what you've done, what you've walked through, the struggles you've done. You have more courage than anyone I know."

I want that to be true. I want to be brave enough to do the right thing, even when it's not the easy thing. I want to always walk out the door with the courage of my convictions. I want to have the insight to look at my own life the way I used to analyze business data, and pick out what is working, what isn't, and how to change things so I keep the things that are working, and kick the things that aren't straight out the door.

The thing is, I want it to be true more these days because I want to inspire myself to do things, than I want to do it for others. I want, more than anything, to stop caring so friggin much about other people's expectations. I want to define for myself what winning looks like, and then do that. And. Nothing. Else. All the time. I recently said to someone, "when it comes to getting through school, I think inspiration matters more than we often talk about." I was inspired when I was in school. I haven't been since . . . I'm not sure when it wandered off but it now seems to me to be the only way for me to get back to being happier.

It's strange, right? To say I want to be more self-centered? I think it is, but it is also probably the only way for me to be the change I want to see in my own life.

I might be onto something. I sleep better now, read more, write more, listen more, eat healthier, enjoy my runs, and feel somewhat released from judgement. I've made it this far in the process, able to sleep at night (more than I used to!) and look myself in the eye in the morning, and I've done it mostly by not caring what other people think I should do. So, now the voice in my head is usually mine, and not the voice of what I think someone else thinks. That means, if I lie very still, I can hear what I really want and need now, and if I'm feeling judged or penned in by a process or habit, I'm doing it myself.

Change is painful, but funny too. I laugh a lot these days.

Inspiration

The importance of inspiration was never more clear to me than last year. I made it through my knee surgery, the physical therapy, and I finished my 365 photography project, kept up with work while taking only two weeks off, and  and turned things into my writing group. After all of that, I. Was. Tiiiiiiirrrred.

I started another 365 self-portrait year right away, and found that it was actually really really hard to keep taking interesting pictures just then. I took a sabbatical from my writing group because all of a sudden the creek was dry. I was struggling at work too, feeling that the things I was doing were sub-par and not very meaningful. Most pressingly, I found myself feeling the effects of not having been able to exercise fully for a year, and it depressed me. It made it hard to exercise. I felt slow, and uncreative, and inarticulate, and I felt hopeless about my body and powerless to fix it. I got into a rut, and it was so hard to get out of it. I had many, many weeks of paying my trainer and then not doing the workout he sent me home with.

I looked for inspiration for a long, long time. I wasn't unaware that I needed to exercise. I wasn't unaware that I needed to find my mojo again. I just didn't know where to look.

I posted notes around the house for myself saying things like, "It will feel good after you go," or "This appointment is as important as any other you make." I watched the weight loss shows and told myself, "If people who weight 500 pounds can do it, you can get your ass off the couch." I looked for classes that would get me excited about exercising. I read books about getting into the groove of writing. I tried shooting other things with my really fancy camera. Nothing.

So, I did a few things. I forgave myself for starting a 365 I didn't finish, and for not having any writing for my group. I took a vacation. And then, when I came back, I just made myself start exercising even though it wasn't and still isn't the thing that feels most fun to me most days. (I actually went running a lot on vacation, and I remember the running "assignment" I took with me and how hard it was to get it done, even with three weeks to do it and how much it pained me to not master it. So when I returned I started making exercise a big priority in my weekly schedule.)

A friend started sharing her results on the eating plan I tried to make work for me. She had lost more than 50 pounds. for the first time in a long time, I felt really excited to work on myself. And as you can see, it made me find something inside worth writing about. I changed my eating and I kept working out, and as I started losing weight, it became more interesting to me to keep working on these things. As my friend continued to lose a lot of weight, and share her process with me, I did get inspired. I measure inspiration by how excited I am to do things I that would normally make me want to burn my eyebrows off. In other words, if I am inspired, I see things differently and delayed gratification is ok.

Inspiration wasn't a flash that hit me all at once, it was a slow process of realizing that feeling better about myself was worth it to keep trying. And I still have to dig down deep to find it a lot of days. I still have days where working out is the last thing I want to do, and eating a pizza is on the top of the list. But inspiration for me means having the presence to question that and work on other habits. I'm still not finishing any of my poems or other creative writing projects. My writing is pretty much confined to work reports and this blog for now (though I have half ideas for a children's book and may write more about that in another post). I'm still wondering if I have the commitment and creativity to do another 365, so my camera is just a sometimes habit for me right now.

With all of these potholes in the road I'm on it shocks me when people tell me I'm inspiring them. It humbles me. It scares me. It makes me want to be more accountable. It feels like a gift. When friends tell me that they are journaling, that they are thinking about different things, that they are running or walking, it makes me think more about my choices, about my writing, about what I'm putting out there when I talk about the work I'm doing to find better ways to be me. It makes me think this blog is doing what I hoped it would - keeping me aimed at working on these things and thinking about what is working and what is not, but also letting me connect with others. I don't do well when isolated; it's so much better when I have opportunities to teach and learn and let the thoughts out of my head that would otherwise cycle around not really going anywhere. When I can say it out loud, or write it out, I'm forced to hear the things those words are telling me on the inside and make sense of them.

So, I want to thank some of the people that inspire me. I am inspired by my brother who has never, ever looked at anything athletic and said, "I can't do that." He just DOES it. I am impressed beyond words by my friends who keep doing 365 projects, and one in particular who just reached his 1000th consecutive day of self-portraits. His steadfastness and determination are astonishing, but he is also an impressively gorgeous photographer. I am inspired by realizing that I have friends in wheelchairs who probably wish they had the privilege to have foot cramps during a run. I am inspired by remembering myself a year ago, and all the things I couldn't do, and all the time I had already spent not being able to do things and feeling limited. I am inspired by my friend who started a blog a couple of months before me. Even though she chose to end her blog and give that time back to her family, her courageous writing, humor, and honesty showed me that blogging could be serious writing but also have a lot of self and heart. I am also inspired by another acquaintance who continues to blog and has made the courageous choice to move his family to follow his wife's career and be a stay-at-home dad for now. That shouldn't be such a remarkable set of choices, but it is, and so those choices move me; and his writing, by the way, is hilarious. I have a friend who has six kids. I knew her and babysat for them when there were half as many children, and her grace, presence, and faith are constant reminders of a place I want to achieve. She also recently decided that in addition to running her own business and raising six children she should start training and running - wow! I am I am inspired by this little girl, and the grace with which she grows past her health challenges. I'm inspired by her parents, who went through the pregnancy under a death sentence for this baby and were rewarded in the end with a different answer and hope to learn and grow with her. I am inspired by the people in my life battling addiction, and finding the courage to be more honest than their addictions have allowed them to be in the past. Even when I am angry and hurt and disappointed, I admire so much my boyfriend for his ability to accept people for what they are, to be humble and loving, and to forgive. I am moved beyond words by my friend and her journey as a wonderful mom to her two boys. She has faced down more demons and disappointments than I can fathom, and somehow keeps a smile on her face and a lightness in her heart whenever we interact, and still has enough left over to reach out to me with sincere concern and advice. Its amazing an heartwarming, and it is clear to me that she has amazing challenges and amazing gifts, and revels in them daily.

And on a regular basis, when I get in the pool with my good friend, I remember three years ago when I had spotted her working out with my trainer and that was all I knew about her. I remember finding myself on a treadmill next to her a few months later, and trying to think how to start a conversation with her without it being an awkward, "Soooo, you work out with Nick too?" kind of interjection. And once we started talking, I wondered why I had ever worried. She is warm, approachable, and funny. As we saw each other more and more at "the changing of the guard" (the point at the end of her workout when I would arrive and be stretching and she would be finishing up) we enjoyed each others company more and more. We worked out together a couple of times, and when I heard about her duathalon, I was so inspired and excited that I said, "Wow, you should do a tri next year!" She quietly said, "Oh, no, I don't swim."

I said, "What do you mean?" It was hard for me to process this, not just because I love to swim so much, but because she is so incredibly strong and fit. I had heard how she decided to conquer her issue with heights by jumping out of a plane, and was so impressed by how she identified something that was holding her back and sought out a way to dominate it. So, we talked about it and I just casually said, "Well, if you ever want to swim with me, let me know." She vehemently shook her head. and I thought that was that.

So, a few months later when she approached me and said, almost shyly (for her), "I'm signed up for a class. A beginning swimming class. After I'm done can I swim with you and get some pointers?" I was so excited (and impressed with her courage). She had learned a lot in her class, but we started from the basics. Here was a woman who had gone through decades of her life not wanting to get in the water and having had traumatic experiences with water getting into the pool with me.  She went from being her usual bubbly, goofy self to being defensive and guarded, so I knew she was really feeling a lot of fear. We started not being able to make it across the pool, and within a week had two strokes that she could swim to make to from wall to wall. Now, 7 months later, she got in the pool, swam 300 meters, and 100 of it was the stroke she least likes and feels the least confident in. It reminds me that at all times in life, people can choose to change, and grow and take on new challenges. She keeps on thanking me for my help, but I don't think she realizes how much she inspires me. She gets in that water every time feeling concerned and unsure, and does real laps and makes real leaps in her ability every time. This weekend, she said, "That's all? Can I do more?" This would have been unthinkable even 2 months ago, and 7 months ago she was PISSED when I even suggested she do the stroke she most struggles with.

I feel proud to have been able to be a part of this transformation, but I also feel lucky to get this boost every time we swim. She doesn't understand how much she gives to me. I need inspiration, because like I said, I don't get hit with inspiration in the religious sense. I don't wake up and feel it in my marrow, at least not right now. I need to locate it every day, and some days I have to look deeper under the bed than others. Some days I don't find it at all, but just make myself do it anyways.

I hope over time that inspiration and belief will stick a little closer to me. I hope that I will keep finding sources and reminders of inspiration. I hope that the creek will fill up again and I will relocate my creativity. But for now, it's enough to know I have enough people and things to point to that keep me going. Thank you to those people who give me every day reminders. Thank you, thank you, thank you.