Sick Day

Off my game.

Frustrates me because I feel the weight of so many tasks that need to be planned, against goals that have yet to be well articulated, and I'm swimming through jello. Ugh.

My littlest is also unwell. Day 3, which is a little scary. He usually bounces back after 24 hours. So I'm house-bound for him, mopey in my own body, and feeling the frustration of not getting anywhere (in terms of progress).

Not a Breakthrough Thinking day.

But this QUEST is not about whining, or complaining. So enough of that.

I was listening to several podcasts (again, my new obsession), in the pursuit of new thinking and ideas that can help me develop the marketing around my new consultancy.  And I was inspired today to consider creating educational content. Training. So I starting thinking about stuff that I love and that I know well (or would be interested in studying deeply) and that would align with what my "brand" is.

It strikes me that these particular podcasts get me excited about all the ideas of things I could do - but they don't actually create the work, because (duh) that's my unique job. And today, this jello swimming sick day, is not the day to create that work.

My Too Easy

Today is an investment in myself. I'm sitting in a room with amazing professionals at a Gap Executive Mastery class, staring at my interpretations and being called out (gently) for allowing those files to roadblock my progress. They're truths I have been telling myself, but they are not TRUTH.

There are some beliefs that are not serving me well, and I need to assess them and move through them, and complete them.  Move that shit out of the way. It isn't true, it's all fear based.

The woman here coaching our table shared a first impression with me, about me. She said, "I watched you walk across the parking lot, and without knowing who you are at all, I turned and said to Bryan, 'Here's a woman who has the world by the tail.'"

I want to be that woman!

Visionary. Intentional. A little swagger.

My entire career, I was able to advance in responsibility and influence. Then I took a leap and left for a new challenge and two years later I was out of a job. In my head, this meant 1) That my career had been too easy and I actually didn't have the credibility I thought I did, 2) That I was given my career by a large, insulating corporation that compensated for and hid my weaknesses, and 3) That I now had proof that I wasn't good enough after two years of painful fighting in a company that didn't want me on board.

This story that I told myself, my interpretation of the past 20+ years of my career, left me without credibility, expertise, or any value really. Questioning myself at every turn. Imposter syndrome to the Nth degree.

None of that serves me.

Instead, I will choose possibility. I will choose to remember the great relationships, the great launches, the great learning that I have gained in my career. I have a fabulous record, and an even more fabulous network of people who support me and encourage me because they believe in me.  For the two years I took on the challenge that ultimately ended when a new president took the helm of my division, I know I did my best - and dammit if I didn't build a great team, articulate a strong pipeline of product ideas, and install a development lab that everybody told me was impossible to do. In just two years. So yeah, maybe I wasn't selected to continue on in the new organization - but I'm good with that. I would have stayed. I would have continued to suffer through their toxic, non-supportive, back-stabbing culture. I would have. But luckily for me, the universe shoved me out and forced me to find a new path. And I'm super excited about it - because I can see a future full of successes and learning and new partnerships and a life balance that would NEVER have been possible if I hadn't stepped out onto this scary new platform.

Too easy? Nah - I've worked hard to get here. And I had amazing teachers and supporters along the way, and a great team to work beside for so many years. I will not discount my journey. It's still rolling out in front of me, as long as I stop building roadblocks for myself.

Wings, Not Wheelbarrows

Carl Jung has that famous quote: “The greatest burden a child must bear is the unlived life of the parents.” 

As I think about what I've already burdened my children with, ever-evolving human that I am, my biggest concern is that they have witnessed anger in me. I've thrown it at them, at our dogs, at their father, at the frustrated man in the balloon line, at the lady who braked out of nowhere in the lane ahead of me... and I consider my poor anger management to be part of this unlived life of mine. Work that I need to do. And I better hurry up. Ev is already 9, the age that starts looking externally for role modeling; the imprinting from me and her dad is near completion. Crap!!  I haven't done this the way I want to! There's no Do-Over!

Shit.

Thankfully, I do think I'm living a pretty full life - I am amazed at how full my life is, actually. And I have lots of bucket list stuff that I fully intend to keep checking off. I think I'm living in a way that gives my children freedom to pursue their own passions - there are no gaping voids that I've dug out under them to try and make them fill for me.

Right?

I think that's right...

But the piano?  Yeah, I want them to learn to play it. Am I forcing them? No. But heavily promoting it, yes. Ballet? I encouraged it. Did she do it for me? I hope not...  Is there other stuff that I subconsciously corral them toward...? That's something to observe, to build awareness of.

The most important thing to me is to know I'm doing my best for them. I don't want to dump all my neurosis on them, though I know at least some of that is inevitable. So my goal is to keep the dialog open so we can at least talk about it. And they can at least be less neurotic than I am. They have their own weight to lift and carry - I sure don't want them bogged down with any of mine.

Expectations...Kill Joy?

Much better to float along without expectations and be happily surprised when things go well, than to have grand expectations that erode into puddles of disappointment. Yes? Maybe?

I always said, when helping to raise my step children, that setting expectations was key. The excuses they'd been raised on by their mom didn't seem to get them too far. When you hear, "I knew you could do it," that goes farther for building a child's self esteem than, "Yeah, that was too hard for you." I believed it was far better to expect a good decision, to believe they could reach a higher goal, than to dish out excuses for why they shouldn't try so hard.

Today, as I feel the sting from yet another disappointment that slipped off the back of an out-of-reach expectation, I wonder about the whole notion.

A while back I heard somebody speak about expectations in relationships, specifically marriages. That the real killer of relationships was expectations. You expect him to read your mind. He expects you to be cheerful everyday. You expect him to pick up his shoes and put them away. He expects you to love his mother the same way he does.  And so on.  Essentially, the wrong expectations. The kind that aren't communicated or agreed on. The kind that erode the ability to see a whole person, with all their faults and talents.  The less your partner meets your expectations, the less you see them as part of your team, the less you feel connected to them, the less you want them around.

In my case today, I eighty-percent expected a meeting to happen that was key to getting a great project up and going. And it didn't happen. Shifted to an undefined future date.  That's the second great project to slither out from under me. I have no control over this - it's the client's prerogative. Yet, my expectations are dashed, at least for the moment, and it stings. It's scary. I start questioning everything. Seems my patience is getting yet another lap around the track.

The question is: How do we set the right expectations to enable joy?  If I expect my husband to read my mind, obviously I am setting myself up for disappointment. That isn't realistic or fair. But if my expectation is that he listens and respectfully considers my thoughts when I share them with him, I think that's reasonable. And when he does, it feels amazing. If I didn't expect him to do that, I might never bother sharing my thoughts with him at all. If I expected my step children to be perfect citizens and conscientious of everyone around them, that was a recipe for disaster. They were still young boys, still growing their frontal lobes, for crying out loud. Expecting them to finish their homework, that was reasonable. But the foundational expectations that came before that had poisoned the well, so everything that came after was doomed to failure.

Our expectations are an exercise in balance and grace, just like everything else.  Will I settle for lower expectations in this consultancy challenge I've taken on?  Maybe...but I don't intend to give up too easily. My grit will allow for some healthy disappointment along the way.   Will I lower my expectations for my marriage and settle for a shallow relationship? Never. And I know that means I'll have many moments of frustration with my spouse (and myself) as we work through the chapters of our life together. Some of that is great because it pushes us. And some of it will be damaging and we'll have to decide if we want to work to heal those bruises. But it all makes us stronger, and able to manage the rough stuff a bit better.

Being intentional with our expectations seems to be a worthy exercise. Not just setting intentions for ourselves, but allowing for some consideration of the context and the flavor of how our goal will materialize. That allows for a long reach, honors the joy of the stretch, and respects the risk of juuuuust missing the trailing edge...

Elephant in the Room

I somehow managed to completely miss the biggest Hot Topic in my post yesterday.  Is that Freudian?

I was laid off in October 2017. That's over 1 year ago (!). The new leadership decided she wanted to build her own team, not inherit one, so we all got the boot. I was essentially fired, if I am truthful with how it felt. I felt rejected. Spit out. Dismissed for not being good enough.  There was shock and ugly crying and outright panic. Didn't even see it coming, optimist that I am.

And the next 10 months were spent collecting more rejection. I attacked the job hunt like it was my JOB, getting up on the same schedule at 5:15AM, pouring over job postings, contacting people in my network, joining industry organizations, setting up meetings to build up my network -- All the stuff you're supposed to do to find a new job.  And I failed. Or, rather, I gave up after 10 months. Literally, one day I said, NOPE! No more. DONE with that.

And that's when I decided to use what I know, to use what I'm good at, and start my own thing.

NONE of this has been easy. I have been grappling with my self-worth, my ability, my sense of purpose...  I am on a roller coaster of doubt and delight.

How could it be that nobody wants to hire me? 

How great is it that nobody hired me because LOOK at what I've been able to do! 

How will I possibly make this consultancy work? 

Wow I can totally make this work!

So yeah, I got cut loose. And yeah, it gouged me pretty deep. But I'm working hard to find trust that it was exactly the right detour for my journey. And maybe when this blog is done, after 365 posts, I will have a stronger answer, and that elephant will be triumphantly decorated with celebratory bells.

What I'm Not Writing About

Looking at what I've been choosing to write about so far (about a month's worth), it strikes me that there are a bunch of hot topics I've neatly avoided so far. In the 11 months ahead, I'm thinking it might be tough to avoid these and have much of an authentic quest to bloom...since they are fairly foundational.

Perilous topics I've avoided so far:

• Step parenting and step children
• What it looks like at the brink of divorce
• The case of my missing brother and his family
• My mom and how I don't want to turn into her (because I am my own person)
• My dad and how we don't connect in a real way
• Being a biological parent and how I almost missed out on that, and how the experience is flavored by having first been a (crappy) step parent
• Losing a friend to alcohol, and what being a poser feels like

In particular, I think there's a bunch of stuff to revisit on the step-parenting phase of my life. Lots of unresolved stuff. I don't have a good relationship with my stepsons. I don't have "any" relationship with them actually. And they lived with us full time for 8 years.

How sad is that?

And, of course, I'm married to their father, who loves them dearly. So there's that.

That list could be crazy - full of violent survival or illness and surgeries. But it isn't. That's my hard-to-talk-about list.  There are things I remember about childhood that I feel badly about, but they're normal growing up things:

• I distinctly remember making fun of S.R.'s wrap-around plaid skirt and pulling on it until it unraveled on the playground, and then laughing (UGH!). 
• I remember joining a sing-song group of girls poking fun at A.B. on the playground until we made her cry (UGH!!!). 
• Begging for an elaborate (expensive!) pirate ship play mobile set, getting it for Christmas, and then never playing with it.
• I remember being targeted by mean junior high kids who graffitied my locker, and being teased for wearing a red home-sewn A-line skirt and a new yellow cable knit sweater to school (never wore that skirt again, despite all the work my mom put into it and how much I told her I loved it). 
• Being abruptly dumped by my best friend A.D. for another girl whom she met once we got to junior high; she pretended I didn't exist any more.
• Utterly and completely mortifying myself by trying out for the high school play without ANY preparation (OMG that was awful).
• Bringing a boy back to my college dorm room and pretending I didn't know my roommate was there, trapped in the upper bunk while we made out in the lower (hot flush of shame....).

Like I said, pretty normal, dumb kid stuff. 

But looking at the top of this post, there's those old bones for me to chew on. As I work through my quest to bloom, I don't want to be held back my guilt, old regrets, or lingering resentment. I want to address and move ahead. Learn and grow. Practice adulting. What's really dragging on me that I can't see? Am I really okay? I don't think so -- I'm too quick to anger. Too insecure and unbalanced. Too quick to feel that I don't belong. I want to be present and fully self-aware and able to give authentically in a loving, calm and relaxed way. All the time. That's my goal. And I want to find my purpose, at least my "next purpose," and figure out how I'm supposed to contribute and what I want to say. Doing that with a bunch of anchors dragging is not the way.

I intend to peel it back. Flay it open. Let it bubble out. And let it go.

"Loose Brush Work - You Go Girl"

Amazing compliment I received from an incredible artist. And I really love that she got that from looking at my painting, because that has been my entire goal. Loosen up! Flow! None of this cramped, tight, restricted poking with a paintbrush. That never felt good, never looked good. I don't have the talent to pull off fine brushwork. Give me a big flat brush and force me to focus on movement and shadow. That was the genius of Carmelo, and why it's so amazing that I ended up in his workshop - that was the hand of a higher power. Really crazy to think through how I found Carmelo -- completely by chance (destiny?).

I had an experience yesterday that seemed to parallel this. I gave in to something and didn't try to structure it, just followed my instincts and it was wonderful. It was powerful. And the person I was with picked up on my trueness, my authenticity in that moment, which created a stronger connection.

What if I could do that all the time?  It was relaxed, it wasn't negative -- I fear my instinctive responses so much but this was all good. It came from a place of self, a place of calm.

I believe that the more I paint in this new way, the more it will grow as a practice in my life, beyond painting, and become more available to me all the time. This is a FANTASTIC excuse to paint more. 😆