Tag: personal growth

Existing Or Living: It’s A Choice

Is he existing or is he living his best life?

We’re sitting at home watching Queer Eye on Netflix (full disclosure: I’m only sort of watching because I am doing on some online shopping with my eyes) and someone on the show mentions there’s a difference between existing and living as you get older. This caught my attention. It is easy as you age to fall into habits and get into patterns that don’t leave much room for new experiences and personal growth. After all, you’ve been around 5, 6, 7 decades and you’ve got a history. People hold you accountable to that history. You’ve been defined, and being thus defined you settle into place like gum stuck under a table. You are stuck, and you exist in the well-worn grooves.

I’m going to be 54 in May. My husband and I will celebrate 27 years in August, and later that month our youngest will begin college. This is when the gum can get stuck to the wall. I know a lot of people my age and older (and even younger) who are stuck. There is nothing new in their lives. There is no freshness, no growth. They are existing.

I don’t want that for my life, but I know that since March 2020 that is what I have been doing. I have been simply existing. I’ve been lazy about self-care and home care. I have been going through the motions. And, yes. There has been a lot of change, stress, anxiety, and adjustment these past two years just trying to negotiate our Covid-19 world, and I have to give myself a little grace for that. But I am ready to move beyond this stagnation and start living again. I’m ready to carve out a place to care for myself and not self-soothe by checking out. I’m ready to accept myself where I am at and move forward and live again because time isn’t slowing down, Covid isn’t going away, and the longer I stay stuck the more difficult it will be to pry myself loose.

If you did a self check in right now, where are you? Are you living or are you existing?

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Out Of The Rubble, Into The Reconstruction

My happy place

A few months ago, my sister sent me a journal so I can practice some narrative therapy. Narrative therapy helps an individual become an expert in their own life through telling the stories they have carried around. Putting the stories of your life into writing gives meaning to your experiences and influences how you see yourself and the world around you. When my sons were younger, I used my blog as a form of narrative therapy to help me rearrange my negative perceptions about their struggles and create a better path forward for all of us. More recently, I’ve used blogging to tell stories from my childhood as a way to validate those experiences and increase my own voice and messaging around those pivotal events that shaped who I am. Through these exercises, I’ve begun to understand myself more fully. I am more aware of why I am the way I am and more capable of making adjustments in areas where I’m not fond of the trajectory I’ve taken. The process is helping me have greater self-compassion because I understand that my fears, coping mechanisms, and judgments didn’t originate in a vacuum. These behaviors arose to protect me. Now that I understand why they existed in the first place, I can begin to jettison habits that once protected me but no longer serve me .

One thing my sister and I have challenged each other to do is start some reconstruction. We are creating lists that outline what we like so we can recreate ourselves fully as the people we actually are and not the people we were told we were. We are rewriting our stories. That may sound odd or even disingenuous but, when you have spent your life in a pattern of reaction borne out of the fallacy that you are not an expert on your own self, you need to start with the basics to reclaim your identity.

Today my sister threw a gauntlet down. She sent me a photograph of a page where she has started listing things she knows she likes. To keep things equitable, I too started a list. My criteria? Things that make me happy or give me a sense of hope and possibility. Here’s what I have so far:

  • sunrises
  • dogs
  • a sunny day in the mountains
  • medium roast espresso
  • attending concerts
  • puzzles and word games
  • all types of travel, including long road trips
  • writing
  • cheese
  • smelling lily of the valley and lilacs
  • long, hot showers
  • deep conversations about faith, life, death, philosophy, space, current events, politics, or anything that avoids the pointless drivel of small talk
  • skiing, camping, hiking, cycling, kayaking, snorkeling, being active out in nature and not in a gym
  • documentaries and foreign films
  • anything with the flavor of passion fruit
  • the color of a green apple
  • lectures presented by experts in their field
  • Coca Cola and Bugles
  • the Buffalo Bills
  • hammocks
  • Wes Anderson films
  • wool socks
  • satellite radio
  • flip flops
  • down comforters

I will keep adding to this list in my journal as items come to mind. In the meantime, I know that being bold enough to enumerate here these items is the first step reclaiming my story. I know who I am. I know what I like. No one knows me better than I do. And I’m finished letting others dictate to me who I am.

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I’m Not Quite Old Enough For A Solid Doris Day Reference, But Here Is One Anyway

The other day I wrote about perfectionism. I like to think of myself as a recovering perfectionist. I no longer strive to have things perfect, as if such a thing ever existed for me to strive for in the first place. I have learned to make do, to meet myself where I am, to try my best, and to accept whatever outcome arises from my efforts, be it impressive or meh or better-luck-next-time. I do, however, still suffer from another illness that is related to perfectionism. This illness is the setting of expectations.

Most of the time, I don’t even realize I am setting expectations at all. I’m like Clark Griswold in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation; I think I am just making plans, but those plans have expectations tacked on that might not be met. Tonight, we hosted a party for our neighbors. We hand-delivered invitations about a month ago with an RSVP request. Out of the twelve couples we invited, one kindly RSVPd to say they could not attend. Five couples RSVPd yes. We did not hear from the others. I planned for 10 guests and felt a little disappointment when one couple could not attend at the last minute. This was when I realized I had set expectations based on the RSVPs. I had thought, “Okay, with five couples we should have enough people to make the white elephant gift exchange fun” and when one couple had to go out of town unexpectedly, I immediately imagined everything would go to hell. I imagined the remaining four couples would be bored. All I could picture was it ending up a lame party that would be over 8:30. I was borrowing trouble I needn’t have borrowed. Because, as it turned out, one couple who didn’t text me with an RSVP showed up and took the place of the other couple who had RSVPd but ultimately couldn’t make it. All my consternation about a failed party was wasted. In the end, we had five couples after all. We had the right amount of food and beverage, everyone socialized with everyone else, and the white elephant gift exchange went well too. It was a Clark Griswold holiday dream.

The best neighbors ever

It all got me to thinking about how much energy I waste putting expectations in place when I ought to practice having none. No one knows what any outcome will be because the future has yet to be written. So, we’re fooling ourselves with our perfectionism and our expectations because, in the end, we are in control of not a whole hell of a lot. I could have done everything “right”, thereby setting up expectations that everything would go swimmingly, and in the end there could have been any number of things to interfere with my desired outcome despite my best efforts. As it turned out, I imagined gloom and doom and none of that happened. In fact, everyone had a great time. Silly girl.

Now, to play devil’s advocate, it could have all worked out because we truly do have the best neighbors ever. It could have worked out because my careful planning set us up for success. Or it could have worked out because the stars aligned. In any case, my ability to control the situation was minimal. My ability to control my expectations, however, is something I can work on. I’ve heard it said that “expectation is the mother of disappointment,” and that is the only absolute truth of which I am aware (I mean, outside of the one that says that a piece of toast with jam that falls to the floor will land on the jam side every damn time).

You can work on curbing your perfectionism, but if you don’t work on bringing your expectations to heel you will still suffer. So, I guess I know what I need to meditate on and devote myself to next. It’s time to pull a Doris Day and sing Que Sera Sera.

“Que sera sera, whatever will be will be, the future’s not ours to see, que sera sera.” ~Doris Day

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The Perfectionism Predicament

It’s me! On a ski slope in Utah.

The other day during a Peloton ride, the instructor said something that I have been turning over in my head since then. He was talking about how often we will do something, like say a Peloton workout, and be upset with ourselves if we don’t meet the challenge placed in front of us. He was encouraging riders to do their best for that day, but to know that some days you won’t achieve the goals and that is okay. Every day is different. Some days are harder. It’s okay to meet yourself where you are. Then he said, “Perfectionism is a disguise for insecurity.”

Whoa. I have struggled with the ugly beast of perfectionism most of my life. I’ve also battled insecurity. But it never occurred to me that the two might be linked, or at least I’ve never heard it expressed quite that way. It’s accurate, though. When you are feeling insecure about something, be it person or circumstance or item, you may feel a need to control it. Like my parents before me, I was raised to believe if you can’t do something well, you shouldn’t do it at all. I can’t attribute a number to the times I’ve walked away from opportunities because those opportunities meant I would have to be new to some place or some task or some one. Appearing “stupid” (a stand-in term for any number of different negative adjectives, like incompetent or pathetic) became my biggest fear.

Around the time my husband and I were first married, we went skiing with some friends for the day at a mountain known for more difficult terrain. Of the people in our group, I knew I was the least experienced skier. I was nervous about it. After our first run, I knew my fears were valid. If skiing expertise ranked from 1 (never tried) to 10 (world’s best), my husband and our friends were solid 8 skiers and I was maybe a 4. I struggled to keep up. At one point, we were at the top of an expert run and there was a tow rope to the top of the ridge. The group decided we would take it and ski a nearby bowl. I had never ridden a tow rope. I was terrified of them. I’d seen countless videos of people being dragged up the slope by one of those contraptions. I was not about to take one now for the first time in front of 7 other people I knew. No way. No how. I told them I’d meet them down in the lodge. The rest of the story got ugly for me. My friends tried to convince me. I rejected their arguments. Back and forth, we went. Until finally, completely exasperated, I had a meltdown on the slope. Raised voice, flailing arms, animated speech. The whole nine yards. The only thing I didn’t do was throw myself down and bang my clenched fists in the snow. It was a toddler tantrum. I basically told them, “You can’t boss me,” and took off down the slope in a big old drama queen flourish. You know what? That was when I realized that my fear of appearing stupid might be a self-fulfilling prophecy. I traded the potential to appear foolish if I didn’t navigate the tow rope correctly to the reality of appearing foolish by having a hissy fit on a mountain about a tow rope. Oy.

Off the top of my head, I can think of at least a dozen times when my insecurity about something drove me to embarrassing extremes and, sadly, some of them weren’t that long ago. So, I’m still working on this. I’m working not to worry so much about what other people think of me. I’m working to accept that good enough actually is good enough most of the time. I’m working to remember that even Michael Jordan probably missed his first shot. We’re human, and we do all have to start somewhere. And because there is no objectively perfect anything, no final destination, we really are pretty stupid for wasting our time trying to get there.

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You Don’t Know Him

Photo by Sergio Rota on Unsplash

As I was driving home after school drop off this morning, a guy in a lifted Ford pickup was tailgating me. Because of the vehicle he was driving, I’ll admit I had some preconceived ideas about him and what kind of person he must be, especially because he was tailgating. But, I have been working on not being quite as judgmental and giving people the benefit of the doubt. In situations like the one this morning, I try to remind myself that I have no idea who this person is or what might be going on his life. I remind myself his aggressive driving behavior is not my business. I take a deep breath in, wish him well on his journey, and try not to stare at him with daggers through the rear view (which I am sure he could see since he was that close).

He did eventually pull around me and, due to traffic, landed directly in front of me instead. This provided an opportunity to see his myriad bumper stickers. He had a Marine Corps license plate, so I thanked him mentally for his service. Then I noticed his Blue Lives Matter sticker, an automatic rifle sticker, and a Let’s Go, Brandon sticker. I took another deep breath. These things for sure told me that this guy and I would not see eye-to-eye in a political conversation.

In these situations, when I am even further inclined to judge someone I don’t know a thing about other than what their bumper stickers say, I like to play a little game with myself. I imagine something about them that would make me change my mind about my negative thoughts. So, today I imagined this gentleman owns three rescue pups and visits his grandmother in the Memory Care Center every Sunday. For good measure, I imagined the reason he was tailgating me was because he was late on his way to a parent-teacher conference for a daughter he adopted out of foster care. I don’t know him. This could legitimately be his story. Who am I to say? I don’t know him from Adam. Hell. His name could be Adam.

I mean, it’s probably not. And he probably does hate Joe Biden and think masks and vaccines are for sheeple, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t a decent person with many redeeming qualities.

My point here is that we’ve put a plethora of superficial determiners in place that allow us to dehumanize each other and make each other perceived enemies, which is a lot to do to people we don’t know at all. We can try to be better. We can at least give each other the benefit of the doubt. We’ll be wrong part of the time. Sometimes, the jerk tailing you will be exactly who you think he is, but sometimes he won’t. Sometimes he will be more complicated and not just a caricature that can be conjured up based on some bumper stickers, a lifted truck, and poor driving habits.

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My Tin Anniversary On WordPress

“Be not afraid of growing slowly; be afraid only of standing still.” ~Chinese proverb

This morning when I logged into WordPress to respond to comments on my post from yesterday, I was greeted with a note telling me I’m celebrating my 10th anniversary on WordPress. This seemed a little crazy to me, that ten years have slipped by since I made the commitment to begin writing again, so I went back to revisit my first post. Sure enough, it was written on December 6, 2011. In December 2011, our sons were 10 and 8. Most of my posts were about their crazy antics or our family life, which makes sense because in December 2011 my primary focus was our sons.

Fast forward ten years. Our sons are now 20 and 18, one is in Washington at college and the other will be heading off next fall. So my primary focus needs to change. In my early forties, I was pretty busy becoming what I thought I was supposed to be. I was working to be a better mother, a better child, a better spouse, and an overall better, more informed, more fit, more attractive human being. I was working at becoming something, which was kind of pointless because I already was something. Now in my early fifties I understand that I don’t need to become anything to be valuable. In fact, I am busily engaged in learning how to simply be and to meet myself where I am at. I’m busy learning how to just be me.

Image credit to Gary Larson of The Far Side

I started this blog ten years ago to hold myself accountable. I wanted to be able to track progress and growth. Mostly what I’ve done, though, is create a catalog of my life. I’m still an over-thinker. I still take on more than I should. I still don’t know where I’m headed. But I do have a record of where I’ve been. I’m growing slowly but, thanks to my blog, at least I have proof that I have not been standing still.

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Limitless

Let’s go back to the beginning when my identity was fluid and limitless

The best part about being where I am in my therapy journey is that many of the hardest moments of discovery and realization are behind me. I’ve faced that I was emotionally abused by people who I thought were looking out for me but who never were. I’ve digested the fact that I spent my entire life thus far trying to measure up to expectations that had nothing to do with me. I’ve mourned the loss of what might have been if the actors in this play were different. I’ve also grieved the loss of opportunities I was incapable of accepting in my past because of who I was at the time. I’ve accepted that it is unlikely that my relationships with these people will ever be anything other than what they have been or what they are now. I understand that many of the choices I made in my past were made to keep me safe rather than move me forward. I acknowledge that while I can’t go back and make anything different, the pressure of the sadness, isolation, and rejection I experienced hardened me into something stronger, more resilient, and better than I might have been otherwise. All of this is to say that I’ve done the work. And, while I’m sure I will continue to peel other layers from time to time, I think I finally have a pretty good handle on what triggers me and why it does, along with how I can do better for myself going forward. Progress!

My sister and I have been talking about this a lot. When you grow up being told who you are rather than being allowed to explore and follow your heart and interests, it’s a bit like arriving at adulthood wearing someone else’s cast-off, ill-fitting, moth-ball-scented coat. It’s as if you came into the world naked and instead of getting to choose your clothing, you got handed this ratty old coat and because it was all you were allowed to have you used it to cover your nakedness and protect you from the elements. Now, though, with so much work behind us, we understand that this coat is not ours. It was never meant to be. And even though we’ve been wearing it for years, we didn’t realize until recently that it never suited us and we didn’t like it in the least. It simply was what was, something we were forced to wear when we didn’t know any better and weren’t better equipped to advocate for ourselves.

Now, though, now we get to start over. We’ve arrived at the fun part. We’ve ditched the coats, throwing off the mantle of what we were supposed to be according to someone else, and we’re standing here asking ourselves what we would like to wear in its place. It’s both exciting and stressful. Like a puppy let loose in PetsMart, we’re overwhelmed by the options. There are so many aisles to explore, so many shiny things to distract us as we try to figure out what most appeals to us. The only thing I know for sure that I want is to be a better mother to myself. I want to give myself love and acceptance and to feel comfortable in my skin. I want to feel safe and unconditionally loved just as I am right now. And after I get comfortable with that reality, then I will start figuring out who I am, what I want, what I like, and what I am willing to put up with.

The other day after therapy, I was driving home and the word “limitless” popped into my head. Limitless. I started to think, for just a moment, that maybe this is where I am at. If you remove the obstacles that have kept you boxed and trapped and there’s nothing holding you back, maybe, just maybe you are limitless. I’m going to need to sit with this because this is big.

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Walk This Way

Mondays are my therapy day. On Mondays when I do some EMDR, I spend most of the rest of the day exhausted, filled with thoughts, and emotionally raw. Today was that kind of Monday. So, while I am still processing some of what I worked on in therapy today and plan on writing more about that soon, for now my brain needs a little break.

One thing has recently become clear to me in this journey I am on. When you’ve spent your life kowtowing to other’s wishes, plans, and ideas for and about your life, it takes a lot of effort to step away from those people and bring your subservience to an end. I thought for many years that I could extricate myself slowly and deliberately from relationships with those who were holding me back without affecting other people in my life. It was a ridiculous thing to ask of myself, but boundaries can be difficult to negotiate. If you are trying to extract yourself slowly, you are likely doing this because you are looking out for someone else. You don’t want to hurt anyone. You don’t want to ruffle feathers. You don’t want to cause trouble for someone else. But what is the cost to you when you are acting against your best interest to make situations easier for someone else? Sometimes you need to choose the nuclear option and immediately disengage without worrying about the fallout because that is the fastest way to get yourself safe. Besides, once you decide to be free, you want your freedom to begin now and not eventually. The hardest part for me about walking away from people who don’t and can’t have my best interests at heart was the feeling that I had to explain myself to others by answering their questions. Why wasn’t I speaking to my parents? Were things really all that bad? And then, one day, it hit me. I don’t owe anyone an explanation about the steps I take to protect myself. I am on a break from my relationships with my parents while I get my head in order, and that is all there is to say about that.

Freedom from negative relationships and abusive cycles is not a luxury. It’s not a frivolous thing that you should put off because you don’t want to trouble anyone or make anyone uncomfortable. Taking steps to secure your mental peace and physical well-being matters in the short and long term. And if that means you have to block contacts and upset a few people, that is the price of taking back your life and your power. Don’t let anyone talk you out of it or talk you into doing the “right” thing (which is only the right thing for them). Look out for yourself. The people who care about you will understand. The ones who act troubled or inconvenienced by your choice have done you a favor by identifying themselves. Don’t give them another minute of residency in your brain.

Life is short. If you’re lucky enough to be able to discern what is holding you back, jettison it. And then walk on.

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Moonlit Inspiration

I saved this meme to my phone a while back, and it popped up in one of my memories for this date. This message is one I think many of us need to hear. When we’re going through difficult times, when we’re questioning our lives, our loves, our hopes, our plans, our history, or our choices, it’s easy to decide we’re lost and to feel we have nothing to offer. But that simply is not true. It never is. We don’t stop exuding the positives we have just because the negatives are raging in our heads.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. Looking back on my life, I see the disconnect between the person I thought other people must see and the person I actually was showing the world by being myself. I spent decades feeling broken and unlovable and not actually even likable. That was my sad, internal view of myself. It was all I knew of me. That was not, however, what other people saw of me. I’ve always had friends; some of them have stuck around since my childhood. In my dating years before I met my husband, I nearly always had a boyfriend. No one else saw me as the worthless potato I saw when I looked in the mirror, but I was so indoctrinated by the voices I had heard growing up that I was not able to see the reality of my life. If I had truly been unlovable, I wouldn’t have had friends. People, god bless them, continued to see in me what I could not see in myself. Maybe I wasn’t whole, but others still saw my shine even though I could not. This revelation has been amazing to me. And I am grateful to every single person who has been able to recognize my value even as I continued to assert that there was none there.

We all have a shine that others witness. We all light someone up, a spouse, a friend, a sibling, a parent, or even a pet. When we’re feeling at our worst, others often fail to see the same dreadful image. If the people in your life aren’t holding up a mirror to show you how special and loved and worthy you are, maybe it’s time to find new people. And if people are holding up that mirror to share the reflection of the beautiful light bursting forth from within you, I hope you are able to see it, own it, and revel in it. If you aren’t ready to acknowledge that eternal light in you just yet, hang in there. Someday, somehow that light will get through and force you to reckon with your imperfectly perfect, shining, beautiful, kick ass self.

If you get a chance today, take a few seconds to hold up a mirror to someone who looks like they could use a little encouragement. You just sparkle their radiance right back at them. Tell them they are luminous. Remind them to shine on.

“Who on earth d’you think you are? A super star? Well, right you are. Well, we all shine on, like the moon and the stars and the sun.” ~John Lennon, Instant Karma

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Leave The Door Open And Growth Sneaks In

Thought for the night:

“Nothing ever goes away until it teaches us what we need to know.” ~Pema Chodron

I ran across this quote on my phone today. It’s one that never really leaves my heart. When I was growing up, my mom told me that if you pray for patience, god gives you something to be patient about. I think that goes hand in hand with Pema Chodron’s thought here. If you are working through something, which most of us are on some level even when we aren’t completely tuned in to it, it will keep showing up in little ways to give you an opportunity to unpack it, understand it, make peace with it, and finally move on.

I used to struggle with boundaries, but it happens a lot less these days because the universe kept sending me people who wanted to test them. People who refused to listen to what I wanted made me even more emphatic about standing up for myself. Through their annoying and troubling inability to understand when to stop pushing, I’ve learned that it’s absolutely okay to ask for what I want. I might not get it, but I should at least feel deserving enough to ask for it anyway. I’ve learned that if I set a boundary and it makes someone else angry, it is likely that the other person was previously benefitting from my not having had any. So, I set boundaries carefully now. They are like the ones that accompany an electric fence. I’ve marked them with warning flags but they are largely invisible otherwise. If I feel uncomfortable with how close you are coming to the edges of them, you will get a warning and then possibly a shocking consequence for crossing them. I’ve learned that I’m not going to please everyone all the time, which is totally okay because that was never my responsibility. And I’ve learned that I deserve peace, and that keeping the peace for someone else at the expense of my own is poisonous. I’ve eliminated some people from my life because I realized that being around them made me less kind, less understanding, less forgiving, and less happy.

I’ve noticed that if you’re paying attention in life, a skill that involves mindfulness and self-reflection, you realize that the universe is constantly providing you with opportunities to grow, expand, and change your life for the better. This doesn’t mean that there is something wrong with you or your life. It means, instead, that there is more out there for you. When I was struggling mightily with setting boundaries and wanting to do better for myself in that area, situations kept presenting themselves that required me to figure out what I wanted and summon the courage to ask for them. It was through the practice that I improved, that I found my voice. And it was through finding my voice that I started to feel confident in my choices about my boundaries or my wishes because I’d had to take a few minutes to elucidate them clearly,

The things that keep coming up in your life as areas of struggle, areas where you don’t feel quite right or comfortable, they will keep presenting themselves until you’ve had the opportunity to learn from them. If you struggle to deal with your emotions, you will be put in situations where you have to do just that. If you struggle to ask for what you want, you will keep being given chances to speak up. And if you struggle with patience, you’d better believe situations that require your patience will continue to be a thing you encounter. Once we name our issues and stand face-to-face with them, we can begin to recognize the opportunities we are given to remedy those issues.

At least, this has been my experience, and it seems like Pema Chodron agrees. So, I’ve started to name the areas that I don’t like about myself or my life, and when I do this I become more aware when a crack has opened to give me the chance to work on rising above or putting behind me the negative belief or behavior. I have issues with asking for help because I grew up believing I could only count on myself. I have issues with trusting others because I felt betrayed by those who were supposed to be looking out for me. I have issues with perfectionism because I was made to believe that I was only worth something if I was without fault or flaw. I’ve named these things here now, so I expect the universe will begin to provide me with opportunities to work on these soon.

The good news is, while I may still have areas in which further excavation and practice should occur to help me live my best life, at least my struggle with boundaries has improved. Thanks for offering the chance for growth, Universe. I will keep my eyes and ears open for the next opportunities you have for me.

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