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Make Lemonade……. (part 2)

The picture is clearer from the outside looking in than from the inside looking in.

Because of this, despite how frustrating it is to feel judged- sometimes we need to LISTEN to perspective. Not listening to things we don’t want to hear is definitely common and sometimes completely warranted but one of the greatest mistakes we make in life, is choosing to not listen period. By doing so, we miss good intention, good advice, alternative views, things we hadn’t considered, and often the things we didn’t want to hear but NEEDED to. If you don’t want to utilize whatever jewels are offered in these moments, that’s your choice but I suggest that you put them in your toolbox for later. Trust me- one day you may find that they may prove useful.

With age (not necessarily by years but by days) and time comes wisdom. We are who we are today because of what life has taught us through our upbringing, experiences, and what we did with all those moments when we were forced to fight to catch our breath. If we didn’t trust ourselves to analyze those experiences and make meaning of them, we basked in all we didn’t have and didn’t do, losing valuable time wherein we could be accessing better than what we wanted to have and dreamed of doing. We are all guilty of this in some area of our life. Problem is- it defaults us to feeling victimized, robbing us of an opportunity to feel like and BE a survivor. Let’s put this in perspective.

In part one I mentioned assuming the role of victim or wild card. I’ll explore that more here:

VICTIM: When you occupy this role, folks know what comes next. It’s all eyes on you as you structure the grandest pity party laden with “whoa is me!”,  “can you believe he/she/they would do that to me?”,  “I don’t know what I’m going to do now!” and/or any variation of the three. People tend to hate being around you in this state though because people who dwell in problems bring down your spirit. And don’t let this be a repeat situation that you have fallen victim to before because now sympathy and empathy are long gone and folks are completely disinterested in hearing ANYTHING you have to say about a situation they feel you didn’t learn from the first three times it happened.

WILD CARD: When you occupy this role, by the nature of its definition, no one knows what to expect from you. You are unpredictable and your value can only be determined by who holds your card- YOU. In my humble opinion, this is where ALL of your power lies. You let the situation play out and ignore the incessant need to react and be heard. Instead you watch. You allow them to show their hand and remain uncommitted to any form of resolution. This is confusing for your adversary (more so when you have routinely assumed the victim role) and empowers their interest in drawing you out. However, you have the upper hand. You can’t be drawn out because you know that they are trying to revert you back into your previous role. Once there, they can control you and make you resume feeling bad and believing that feeling better lies only within your engaging with them. You have to play smart here. If you are not careful this is where you can get baited and lose control. Nothing is worse that confidently dropping a WILD card only for your opponent to drop a WILD/Draw Four, putting you back under their thumb scrambling to decide which road to take next.

Take home message:  Life sucks. We hurt people and they hurt us. We can’t get stuck here, though. Every experience is a learning experience and sometimes the lessons come fast and furious and sometimes they come slowly. Regardless of their delivery the value comes from your ability to recognize that help doesn’t always look like help. FACT: sometimes the people who hurt you the most, turn out to be the most valuable contributors to your story.

Stay tuned……Part 3 coming soon……

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“When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.”

So cliche that the power of the meaning gets lost. Life deals us a hell of a blow sometimes and while we sit completely engulfed in the distress of the moment and try to catch our breath we rarely focus on what comes next. We spend so much energy and time worrying about how to survive moments that we forget (or ignore) focusing on how to use them as springboards for our next move.

I’m not sure that I ever consciously thought about this before but for years I have prided myself on not dwelling on what feels bad. Whether that was because of my resilience or my commitment to not letting anyone or anything get the best of me, is unclear and probably irrelevant as far as my drive goes. However, this notion has been vital in terms of my survival and growth.

Therapists are considered to be all about the problem. My friends and clients, however, have had the opposite experience with me. I’m not fully solution focused but I do lean more towards the “okay. It’s unfortunate that things worked out like that but what are you going to do about it?” versus “ohhhh. Tell me more about how much that hurt.” The validation comes from my acknowledgment that the situation is difficult but my purpose comes from empowering their identification of the solution.

We tend to think that others are the bearer of the solution because subconsciously it feels safer that way. ‘If I hold the burden of the problem, someone else can figure out how to fix it.’ Makes sense that you wouldn’t want to feel bad about being in a situation and then feel bad that you can’t get out of it, right? Well, failing to realize that the solution lies within yourself allows you to be stagnant and stuck. While absolving yourself from responsibility and putting power over your life in someone else’s hands, you are making yourself powerless to them, which sits you comfortably in the victim role.  Because personally, I see no empowerment in that, in the era of ‘take several seats!”, I choose to duck, duck, goose my way right past ‘victim’ and instead choose to assume MY seat at the head of the table as the ‘wild card’.

I believe that once I’ve turned a situation inside and out, identified the players and the energy driving them (including my own), the problem has served its purpose and now its time to learn from it and move on. Moving on doesn’t mean no longer caring about it, though. Quite the contrary. In fact, I choose to never stop caring about what caused my wounds because for me- moving on is the act of being purposeful with my newfound knowledge and deliberate with my execution and delivery of it. Remembering my pain and discomfort, keeps me honest to my purpose every day. Sounds easy, but could feel impossible.  Well life has proven that those are two sides of the same coin.

Getting past difficult moments and not holding on to negative feelings definitely feels impossible at times. (Point of clarification: holding on to negative feelings is NOT the same as remembering your pain). When people advise us to ‘get over it’ or tell us ‘let it go’, we can feel like we are speaking two different languages. We may vacillate between anger- “STFU! How can you tell me how to feel?” and sadness-“I wish it was that easy! You have no idea what this feels like!”

Fact- NO ONE experiences your pain the way you do so they actually can’t tell you HOW you should feel.

BUT……

Once someone who has worried about something tirelessly realizes it wasn’t worth an ounce of energy they gave it, and witnesses you knock on that door ignorant to what’s behind it, you have made it very easy for them to tell you what you should and should not do. Because, they’ve already walked the path and know where it ends they will try to help. They’ll offer you the map (their map) and try to spare you the pain of climbing the rocky side of the mountain (hurt) and direct you to the smooth trail (eff ‘em) and you won’t appreciate it. Though paved with good intention, this puts you both in the throws of an impossible feat, because neither validates the other. Your journey is not up to them and you can’t rationalize feeling delivered from pain while pain is all you know. 

So although no one feels the same as you about any situation you are experiencing, they may understand and/or relate to certain dynamics of the situation, which brings perspective. And from perspective (as it relates to actual experience) comes a level of discernment that may be helpful in thwarting the depth of your plunge and/or digging you out of the dark hole. Now that’s not so bad, is it? After all, isn’t life too short to make all the mistakes, yourself?

……stay tuned for part 2……….COMING SOON

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Pick Your Poison….

I recently learned a valuable lesson about comfort and exploration. I spent the last nine years working for an agency doing work that I LOVED with a population I have dedicated much of my career to- but work that was not allowing me to fulfill my potential. In hindsight I see that there were many occasions wherein the universe sent me messages to move along my journey, which I repeatedly ignored, until ignoring them was no longer an option.

When the end of that leg of my journey came sooner than I wanted, at first I was sad because I knew I’d miss the work. However, as the days went on and more and more opportunities presented themselves the universe made three things painstakingly clear. First, I did miss the work but I did NOT miss my job. Second, I was doing the work I loved in the wrong environment. And third, and most important, doing the work I loved in the wrong environment at a job I didn’t love, was a huge injustice that so many of us do everyday. Because of that, something that I encouraged so many of my clients not to do, I had been guilty of for nine years. I had done what many of you may be doing right now in some aspect of your life- blocking my blessings.

The people  the universe spoke through, who tried to encourage me to expand my horizon and see my worth, knew I was comfortable and complacent. My defense to them, despite having had other ambitions, was that I knew that I had found my calling and didn’t need to jump ship like everyone else still searching for their purpose. Today I know that though this sounds good in theory, I didn’t just find my calling during those years. I had also picked my poison…the hill I was going to die on.

This blog is part of my new round of blessings. It’s my demonstration of openness to previously unrecognizable possibilities and desire to share what I’ve learned through my transition with hopes of encouraging and supporting all of you as you navigate yours.

This is where we will discuss the everyday struggles that make us comfortable and complacent. Where we address taboo issues and say things that aren’t easy to say. Here, we discuss the universality of our difficulties and together unpick the poison that we’ve chosen to know and instead encourage our many new and unseen possibilities. This is our reality check. Join me and begin to unblock your blessings.

“It doesn’t matter where your journey starts; only where it ends and what you pass and pick up long the way.”

-Melanie Robinson Findlay

Welcome to my…your…our….

Universal Soapbox