Articles
Fitting in
It’s starting to happen. Approaching seven years old, my daughter’s becoming preoccupied with what others think of her. And what they think is starting to inform her choices. She no longer chooses to wear her cute and kicky hats indoors. No one else wears them, after all. That pre-historic amygdala at the base of her brain is starting to run the show. It tells her, in its lizard-y rasp:
“Keep your head down, kid. Take your hat off. Fit in. Play with those girls even if they’re mean because they’re cool. Put down the salmon and pick up the cheese pizza (I mean, seriously…what’s WRONG with you? All kids like cheese pizza and French fries). Pretend you’re crushing on Justin. All girls your age like him. Above all else, fit in. For the love of God, Child. FIT. IN.”
Excruciatingly painful to watch.
Because all I want, as her Mama, is for her to recognize and love herself as her own person. As she is. For her to not need/want to be “less than”, “more than” or anything “other than” the wonder that she is. Naturally.
And if I’m being honest, I want the world to appreciate her for all that she is…without insisting that she fit in.
I wish the same, of course, for myself.
I have made countless choices in my own life that have been informed by my own lizard brain: I have used a voice that wasn’t my own; shared opinions that weren’t my own; exhibited styles that weren’t my own; and professed love that wasn’t my own. Every one of these choices has led me down a path of discontent, all in the name of fitting in.
Fitting in with whom, I am not sure. With the cool kids, I guess. Fitting in to what end, I am less sure. So no one will see me for the magnificence that I am? Meh, that doesn’t sound like me. Besides, we’re all cool kids in someone else’s eyes.
Here’s what I’m learning:
I think that fundamentally we don’t want to fit in. I think fundamentally we want to be appreciated for who we are. In fact, I suspect that is our deepest desire.
Try this on for size and see how IT fits:
“I’m different. And I like it.”
No screaming hand-waving LOOK-AT-ME-AND-HOW-CRAZY-OUT-THERE-DIFFERENT-I-AM. Just different. Naturally so.
A final thought. Next time you feel pulled to be other than (less than, more than) glorious YOU, take a moment to pause. Breathe. Then ask yourself these two questions: “What do I REALLY want here?” and “How do I want to show up?”
I bet that quiets your lizard brain. It detests those questions (the ones that bring you out of your head and into your heart).
That’s the work. It starts with you. It starts with me. It starts with my kid.
Off we go…wearing our kickiest hats.
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
Seth Godin went and took the words out of my mouth. And said it better. Again.
This is the second time I'm quoting Seth Godin this morning. And it's only 9 am. The first time was at 4 am (I was coaching a client on the other side of the world). We were talking about "lizard brain". Mostly, I've been thinking about "big plans" and how the lizard brain LOVES to shut 'em down. So I wanted to write about it. And then I received THIS in my inbox.
I cannot, EVER, top this.
In all its reprinted glory, I give you what Seth Godin scooped from my brain:
Make Big Plans
...that's the best way to make big things happen.
Write down your plans. Share them with trusted colleagues. Seek out team members and accomplices.
Shun the non-believers. They won't be easily convinced, but they can be ignored.
Is there any doubt that making big plans increases the chances that something great will happen?
Is there any doubt that we need your art and your contribution?
Why then, are you hesitating to make big plans?
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
Love+Joy+Clarity
Happy Love+Joy+Clarity Day, y’all! “What, huh?”
Well, maybe you’ve noticed all the red hearts and cards floating around today. "LOVE"! Chocolatey, spicy, colourful and kissy. Whether you’re in love or not, it’s hard not to appreciate a dazzle of hot pink in an otherwise drab and gray month.
So, Valentine's Day = the LOVE piece.
That leads me to “JOY” (love has that effect on me). Am beyond thrilled to introduce the little eBook that’s been in my heart: The Joy Pages. Inspired by my Mom’s beautiful mantra “don’t postpone joy”, my hope is that it inspires the same in you. Go ahead and get yours by subscribing over there in the pretty right hand column. (Don’t you dig the branches spilling out where they have no business spilling out? As Carrie said when she designed it: “I love the idea of joy that will not be bound by sidebar delineations.” What a fabulous metaphor). Please take some time with the exercises, enjoy it and spread it around. With huge thanks.
And finally: CLARITY. I A-D-O-R-E clarity. For me, clarity is the birthplace of genius. Oh, it’s elusive all right. It taunts, it teases, it dances just out of reach. And yet. YET. It’s there…ours for the taking. So let’s get you some, shall we?
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
Something else, in Fear’s clothing
This week, I was stumped. Am writing an eBook reallllly close to my heart about Joy. It’s inspired by my mother, whose beauteous maxim was “Don’t Postpone Joy”. I had already called Fear out and told it I was going through with my eBook(s) whether it liked it or not. I believed we had an understanding. I’d write, it would show up and I’d write in spite of it. Push on through.
Besides, what’s easier for me than writing about Joy? I know this like the back of my hand. And it’s in honour of my Mom’s approach to life. (Also known to me like the back of my hand.)
So I wrote up a neat and tidy outline for the free eBook that looks like it’s going to be really truly valuable, and then…nothing. NADA. White space. Blank page. Staring moonily back at me. Blink, blink, blink goes the cursor.
I get up, shake it off, make some tea. I coax, I cajole, I get coached.
I back up. I surge forward.
I try a role call of saboteurs who may be trying to stop me. It doesn’t seem to be the “this is gonna suck, sucka!” or “who do you think YOU are to write about joy?” varietals (because, as my bud Leslie said and Rock Star Pam confirmed, I AM an expert on joy).
And the Words. Will. Not. Come.
Still something else.
Shit.
February 14th (launch date) creeps closer and closer. And closer still.
Then Carrie (who is designing the stunningness that the eBook is becoming) asked me this:
I also wondered if your mom had a favourite flower we might slip in somehow, or a particular colour that made her smile. Your intention, alone, makes this project special... but if there are other little details we can stitch in, do say.
I immediately respond:
My Mom had sublimely eclectic taste (friends LOVED our homes because they were fun and lived-in). Art everywhere (nothing “valuable” just lots of pieces from travels...none of which “matched”) Massive colour (like salmon-coloured walls) though she searched her whole life for the perfect “butter yellow” wall colour for her kitchens (never found it). Yes flowers...the showiness of hibiscus and the subtleties of lily-of-the-valley. Trees were huge for her (we have a commemorative one in her name on the beach that reads: Brenda Geisler – Lover of Life and Trees – Requisciat in Pace – she was proud that she knew Latin!) and made sure she planted several in every home we lived in (and there were many). Coffee, fall macintosh apples, good cheese, a mohair blanket I knit her, good books tat could take to her to far-away places she couldn’t afford to visit herself, and bubble baths, and heart-to-heart hugs (she would actually get pissed off if you didn’t touch hearts in a hug or look into each others eyes when you clinked glasses in cheers).
Didn’t spellcheck, didn’t reread, didn’t edit. Just pressed “send”.
Then I cried. Blubbery, slobbery and completely. My husband walked in and gave me a hug (heart to heart, of course). Didn’t try to dry the tears, just knew they needed to be released.
And boy howdy, did they ever.
I sat down to write The Joy Pages that same day. Easiest thing I ever wrote. (Still not entirely sure how it’s all going to look once my beloved editors have their way with it, but I know it will be purposeful, useful and from my heart.)
For me, the stuck wasn’t fear as I had assumed after all. (Fear has such fabulous PR that it gets the credit for pretty much all stuckness). In my case, it was profound sadness masquerading as fear that had its grip on me. And not surprisingly, it’s bloody challenging to write something useful about joy when sadness is holding down the fort.
Fear is your lifelong lover and will show up, time and time again. I continue to say we ought to all move forward in spite of it. And that may look like getting clarity around whether it’s fear or something else. Then dealing with THAT accordingly.
Am learning that the enemies of fear are: love, joy and clarity. This Valentine’s Day, those will be my gifts to you.
Stay tuned.
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
Fear sucks...
Today is the day I get over myself. Today is the day I actually begin to WRITE the eBooks (PLURAL) that have been dying to be expressed from my heart for a long, LONG time. Not plan, not research, not outline, not hem and haw. Actually WRITE.
(Hear that? It's the collective sigh of my inner circle.)
And today's not just the day because my type-A excel spreadsheet tells me so. Oh, I can ignore IT. No, today's the day because that right there on the left is what I pulled over to the side of the road and HAD to write in my notebook on the way home from the gym this morning.
I am scared. That what I write won’t be very good. That no one will care. That I’ll have wasted my time. And so much more.
And still.
Fear sucks…doing nothing is far worse.
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What’s keeping you awake? What is dying to be expressed from YOUR heart? There. THAT thing. The thought that made your stomach do a back-flip. That’s it. Now go do it. Please..
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
Who are you cutting along the lines for?
I love running my own business. I love calling the shots. I love being able to focus on what I want AND turn on a dime if that’s what I choose. I love the support structures I have in place. I love picking my clients, picking my projects, picking my partners. I am accountable and responsible for my actions and outcomes. Liberating. I love being the boss of me. In life and in business.
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Last night, I was cutting out some French words to be used as flash cards for my daughter’s reading. I had asked her teacher for this resource earlier in the day and he complied, giving me handouts with words of varying length and instructing me to glue them onto construction paper (for sturdiness) and then cut them out.
I settled in on the couch, intent on the task while sipping my shiraz and absent-mindedly watching husband and daughter wrestle. It looked like fun. After a time, I noticed I was starting to get a blister on my thumb and my hand was beginning to cramp. I had been at this for a good 25 minutes. I was growing weary and a little agitated. Only half-way through the pages. The laughter of husband and child started to grate on my nerves. How come THEY get all the fun while I get all the drudgery?
I looked down at my perfect little piles of perfectly cut paper.
And stopped. Then this thought bore down on me:
Who the hell cared if the words were cut along the dotted lines with surgical precision?
How neatly they were cut would have zero bearing on my daughter’s ability to read “salon”. Who was REALLY calling the shots here? And if it was ME, why was I being such a tight-ass about LINES for the love-a? And what was all this type-A crap costing me?
I was being the world’s worst boss.
I chuckled at the absurdity of it all and proceeded to hack up the rest of the pages in minutes and joined in the wrestling fun.
Sloppily cut and perfectly fine, no?
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Who are you cutting along the lines for?
My invitation to you: hack ‘em up. It feels goooooooooooood.
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.