Self-Sabotage

This TEDx Talk by Beth Clayton was deeply penetrating for me.

I don't have a specific childhood memory that smashed me flat, but I most certainly can pull up numerous tiny deaths that chipped away at my self-esteem & confidence, and I can instantly feel all the feels today, despite 30 years between them & me.

Take 11 minutes to see if you connect as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7q5I7_FsfI

After watching it, I wanted to spend a retreat weekend thinking about the things I want, and how badly, and how to get them. And so I did, solo, in my home, constantly running through thoughts as I went about my chores, my reading, my journaling.

What If?

Oh man, my eyeballs produced tears of recognition as I read this...profound.

...But sometimes, they have a really hard time BELIEVING that it can happen for them, so they start hiding, settling, lose steam. They have ten thousand examples why they can’t lose weight, how people don’t love them, how they are outsiders, unworthy, unloveable, unsuccessful, that they are broken or defective in some way. They have evidence for their stories, and it feels pretty damn air-tight to them. When we try to dis-prove the theory, it just doesn’t really shift things for them. Again, it FEELS so real. Why bother when you are going to fail anyway? 

...

So, what do you do when the story feels too real?

http://www.soulbodylife.com/the-two-little-words-that-can-change-your-life/

Missing from the blog post, but in her newsletter (so, duh, SIGN UP!), the ending clincher that hit me full-stop:

It may be time to somersault into the inconceivable.

Violence In Daily Life

http://bellejar.ca/2015/12/03/being-a-girl-a-brief-personal-history-of-violence/

I don't even know what to say about this.

Maybe simply "It hit home and I recalled too many similar stories in my own life, and maybe you will, too. And maybe we should all talk about it even though it's uncomfortable and might be painful."

What Happens When You Fail?

A topic with which I am intimately familiar: avoiding failure.

I tend to bail when things get hard, unfamiliar, mentally challenging.   I like to stick with what I know, what I’m comfortable with, where my skills lie.  Because, you see, I simply do not fail at things.  Really, I don’t.  I never have.  School, my business career, starting our own venture, my personal development challenges… I do not fail.  And to be certain of that, I have learned simply to avoid things at which I have a chance of failure.  It’s a brilliant, fool-proof system.  I take on things I know I can do well, and skip over everything I’m not sure about.  My track record is spotless, of course.  (I did say it was a brilliant system.)

Read more from Melissa: http://whole9life.com/2011/05/thats-not-what-ships-are-for/

As an adult, I've learned the hard way that if you never risk failure, then when you DO fail (and you will, because you do not control the world, sorry), you will have abso-fucking-lutely no idea how to handle it. I've been there. I have failed as an adult, received outcomes I couldn't control despite my perfect inputs, and I didn't manage those failures well at all. They took giant tolls on my brain, and years to recover. (Assuming, of course, I do recover...work in process.)

And I think I could have better learned to handle failure if I had EVER attempted things at which I could fail as a child, when the risks/rewards/payoffs were all quite low. I desperately want to tell parents: STOP protecting your children from failure. Let them fail. In fact, MAKE SURE they fail. Then teach them how to handle failures with grace, learn from them, detach their identity from the outcome, and move on.

Sports seem like a great way to achieve those lessons: their team(s) will never have a perfect record, so there will be utter defeats, crushing disappointments, last-place finishes despite their best efforts...all of which will help you to teach them the only thing that matters, the last part: they gave their best efforts. The effort given is worth celebrating and reinforcing, despite the outcome. If they failed, but gave their best effort, they are not failures.

If you fail, but give your best effort, you are not a failure.

If you fail, you are not a failure.

You are not a failure.

Give your best effort, and celebrate it.

What's the worst that could happen if you faced your fear?

Well, the best thing that could happen is that you could conquer your fear. You could accomplish what you thought you couldn't accomplish. You could become wildly happy and successful.

And you could like it.

Imagine how good you would feel to be free of burden. To feel strong and capable.

Now, is your answer to the first question going to keep you from all that?

-Stephen Covey

Word To Your Mother

In 2015, I themed my year with one word. The word was THRIVE.

It worked. 

I didn't THRIVE every single day (I didn't completely change, yo), but I paid attention to the things I need to truly THRIVE, rather than simply survive. I found them. And I chased them hard, I made them happen - but when it felt scary to chase them, reminding myself that I needed them to THRIVE was a firm slap to the voices of fear. "I need this to THRIVE so I will have it. Shut up, fear."

It worked. 

I still plan to use it. 

But now it's a new year, so I feel I need a new word. I've been debating it for a while, feeling as though it should be one of my CDFs (generous, radiant, inspiring, thriving), but none of them felt right, and I finally realized it is because of the things I see coming at me this year that are leaving me scared. 

When I changed my thinking to that perspective, the word BRAVE came to mind and immediately felt right. With the scary things looming (not big-scary, just growth/change-scary), I hope focusing on this word will help me unearth the deeply hidden well of bravery that I normally can't find. I'm full of self-doubt, I fucking runneth over with it, and I often have to tell myself to "act as if" to get the scary things done. I like the idea of using BRAVE more than the "act as if" line, which subtly underlines the imposter syndrome; I am only "pretending" I am BRAVE. I want & need the sharper reminder to step up, be BRAVE, go ahead & shine, or go ahead & disappoint, whatever. For as long as I am BRAVE enough to speak the truth inside, I am winning at life. 

Thriving, you might say.