Getting in my own way
I get in my own way. A lot. I’ve been watching me doing this for a while. Noticing. Observing. Reflecting.
Most often it’s my Righteous One that cuts me off at the pass. She’s the one who insists on holding her ground around her values, who has a hard time seeing any other perspective than her own. She fears that if she bends, she might break.
No, actually, that’s not it. She fears that if she bends, people will think she’s inauthentic. Authenticity is a big thing for her. Apparently. For me, that is.
Unexamined, Righteous One becomes Dead Right. As in dead in the water. Because I’m so busy tending to my authenticity that I lose sight of the bigger picture, the long game, the other things that are important to me.
Cultivating Wild
When I was a child, I was a good girl, a rule follower, in truth, a full-on goodie two shoes. I don’t know that I would have opted in for that role given the full array of choices. But, I was the second of two children, and my sister, Stephanie, had already claimed the bad girl by the time I arrived and got my wits about me. And because early childhood and adolescence is a time of differentiation and black-and-white thinking, I chose the opposite path from Stephanie at almost every turn. The better path. The right path. And, I was rewarded for it.
rehearsing for summer
Months ago, I served as a chaperone for my daughter’s field trip. I took this picture as a way of congratulating myself for recognizing what scaffolds I would need to support me showing up aligned with my intention – to be in the moment with my daughter as she experienced her first ever field trip…as I entered into her space with the companions who fill her daily life. I was quite clear that a 45-minute ride on a school bus with 100 first-time-school-bus-riding third graders was not going to support me in meeting my intention. I opted to drive myself. Yay, me!
Today, on the first day post my kiddo’s school year, I sit on the cusp of another potentially fallback-inducing experience – summer.
Talking to Ghosts
My sister died one year ago today. There’s such immense pain in knowing she is no longer here. It stops me in my tracks. Takes my breath away. Still.
Have you fallen in love with them, yet?
“Have you fallen in love with them, yet?” she asked. We all snapped to attention with this query, so far was it from the actual emotion we were experiencing. Um…no. I don’t even like them much right now.
Eleanor Rigby
Waits at the window
Wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door
Who is it for?
The Beatles, “Eleanor Rigby”
From Fallback to Spring Forward: Bringing our better selves in times of complexity
Do you remember in those old 80’s horror, adventure, sci-fi flicks when the walls start closing in around the protagonist? Think Indiana Jones…or Star Wars. Doorways close, a boulder rolls in to block the entrance to the cave, windows disappear behind the shifting walls. All the while, the protagonist is desperate for a way to escape the impending doom and is forced to become smaller and smaller in an effort to avoid being crushed by the shrinking space he is in. Well, this doesn’t just happen in movies. This shrinking is also what happens in our psychological self when we experience fallback.