Category: export

If I was a literary figure my tragic flaw would be that I give up too easily.  Hopefully without sounding too full of myself I have to tell you that for most of my life I’ve had enough things come easily to me that I haven’t had to work hard for much (I know… I know… I know how it sounds.  Really, I do).  And as a result, I don’t have much grit.

Grit is that thing that keeps us going.  It’s perseverance and stick-to-it-iv-ness.  It’s essential to success and conversely related to intelligence (chew on that, eh?).  I’m working on becoming more gritty.  My six year old son is a model of grit development and I’m following his lead on this one.  But, before I go and get so gritty that I can’t even remember not being this I want to impart some of my giving up expertise.  So I’m debuting a series of posts, right here, right now about giving up.  T

First thing you can go right ahead and give up: People Pleasing.

Earlier this week I did a presentation at a conference.  It was a new workshop that I had created specifically for the occasion and I was curious to hear what people thought.  So curious, that I dismissed all offers to help clean up and once the last participant was gone gathered up all of the evaluations and hunkered down to read them.  Most were good, several were great and then there was one that said I was being preachy, they felt talked “at” instead of “with,” and that my voice lacked passion.  OUCH.  It stuck with me and may have for the whole night if lower on that pile of evaluations hadn’t been one that said “too much group discussion/activity, more lecture.  we came to hear from the expert.”

What could I do but laugh?

It hurts when people don’t like something we’ve done.  We tend to jump right into them not liking “us” and that’s where the hurt really starts to grip us.  For some reason, their opinion can feel like it’s strong enough to knock us off the foundation of our own self worth.  But only if we let it.

If we are intent on the goal of people pleasing then yes, it will be like a wrecking ball plowing into a paper doll balancing on a needle…  but let go of the need to please anyone but yourself, and you’re you–your human form–standing on a mountaintop and the opinions of others are like soft breezes brushing by.  Do you feel them?  Yes.  Might one blow some dust in your eye every once in a while?  Yes.  Do you get blown off that mountain into a valley of doubt and shame?  No.  You stay where you are, strong footed in the stance of your worth.

Go ahead and give up on people pleasing.  And stay tuned for more things to give up on!

Lately I’ve been having a fair amount of those “it’s all worth it” parenting moments.  Keep in mind (I’m talking to those of you who still haven’t decided whether to take the plunge), it took six years to get here.  Sure, there were a few before, but not until now do I stand the chance of getting several in a week…  Worth the wait?  I’ll get back to you on that (right now I’m leaning toward yes).

Yesterday my son and I decorated the house for Christmas.  The heart warming began when he helped me (moaning and groaning the whole way while I giggled and simultaneously validated his dramatics) haul the tubs up from the garage downstairs, and then made a big showing of valiantly moving things out of the way so I could carry in the final load on my own.  He made it through 75% of tree trimming before his “hip was killing him” and he needed to rest, and before that he was joyfully exclaiming “I love decorating for Christmas!  It’s my favorite part!”

I can’t even begin to describe (although I’ll probably try) what it feels like to experience these moments.  When I realized last year that he was suddenly a kid and not a baby anymore I was freaked out to all hell… I didn’t know how to be a kid-mom, I had gotten really good at being a baby-mom.  I didn’t want a new job!  Ah!  Without noticing when it happened we must have successfully transitioned into our new roles, because now when I see my six year old son express his humanity my heart feels like it’s going to explode, I get tears in my eyes, and my skin feels frosty and tingly warm all at the same time. It’s a little a lot like falling in love.

A whole lot of Christmas cheer and an unusually small amount of whining made it no surprise that I found myself grinning from ear to ear on the couch that evening.  I turned to my partner, still grinning, and said “I’m happy.  I love my family.  Really cool people live here.”  Heart warmed.  Flying high

Then I learned, via Facebook, that someone I went to elementary (and middle, high, and even some college) school with died a few days ago.  And within moments I felt myself falling fast.  I was aware enough to watch it happen, but felt helpless to the drop.  I tried holding back the tears, unsuccessfully… and when I couldn’t hold those back I worked on holding back feelings of embarrassment for my reaction.  I hadn’t spoken to this boy (more accurately a man) since… he was a boy-quite literally, but even without a present day relationship his death brought up so much in me.  What do I do now?  Do I reach out?  Do I go to the funeral?  Do I post on Facebook?  Should I have reached out sooner?  Does my sympathy matter?  Why am I so upset?  He was my first crush (back in 4th grade) is that a good enough reason to feel so devastated?  Am I sham for having all of these feelings?

And I fell all the way down into a mush pot of doubt and fear.

Suddenly the heart warming nature of parenting felt like the heaviest oppression: oh my god.  i am responsible for another person’s life.  shit.  My appetite was gone and the the thought of another slice of pumpkin pie nauseated me: still, I found a way to polish off half a bag of reese’s peanut butter cups.  I had been out that morning doing errands and making smart financial choices: and all I wanted was to go back out and buy everything.  EVERYTHING.

It was amazing how quickly everything felt different.  It was amazing how real both felt.  And it was amazing how helpful reaching out and writing about it was.  And how different it felt to look at my family through a lens of gratitude rather than fear.

It’s hard to understand why young people die.  Beliefs in higher power, fate, karma… all get tossed front and center and challenged with “whys?”  I don’t claim to know why this young man left this earth.  But I know for me it created another opportunity to realize and remember… it’s all real.  The joy AND the fear and everything in between.  A human brain can only handle so much at once, and what we give attention to is what we will feel.  I’m going to choose joy today.  I can feel the fear behind me still…  eventually my awareness of it will fade.  Until then, I’ll just work on learning to fly again.

I love the holidays.  I love the lights and smells and sounds.  I love decorating for Christmas.  I love eating way too much pie (and then eating it again for breakfast).  I love presents.  I love it all.

I also think that I love holiday gatherings.  I watch holiday movies or the holiday episode of my favorite TV shows and my heart is warmed by the family togetherness… and for most of my adult life I tried over and over and over again to replicate the feeling I got from watching those scenes in real life.  And it never worked.

It’s not because I don’t like my family, I do.  It’s not for lack of the dramatic moments, we have plenty.  It’s not for lack of any of the essential sights, smells, or sounds, they’re all there.  It just doesn’t feel the same as watching it on television.  Which makes perfect sense, because it’s not television.  It’s real life.

And in real life I am far more of an introvert than an extrovert.  I get overwhelmed in crowds.  I am sensitive to loud noises, temperature conditions, and lighting.  I have a million dietary sensitivities.  I have both gift giving AND receiving anxiety.  And I REALLY like wearing sweatpants and watching holiday movies (in a room where I control the temperature, sound, lighting, and available snacks).

Last year, for the first time ever, I opted out of the family Thanksgiving dinner.  My son will always spend Thanksgiving with his father per our divorce agreement and I was starting to realize how little I actually cared for the whole occasion.  The plan was to bake pumpkin cinnamon rolls, go to the movies, and eat chinese takeout for dinner with my girlfriend.  I don’t think we ended up finding an open Chinese place but overall, it was a great day!  A day of celebration completely free of obligation that set unrealistic expectations and got in the way of pure enjoyment.

We repeated it again this year.  Went up to Idyllwild and then ate a horrifically processed tasting meal at IHOP on the way down the mountain.  It was awful, yet there was still something about being able to do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted that felt delectable.  A binge viewing of House of Cards on Netflix rounded it out.  Today, I spent all day in the kitchen roasting a chicken, baking a dairy free pumpkin pie (with a gluten free gingersnap crust), grating potatoes, frying latkes, and smashing the leftover potato chunks with heaps of butter and garlic.  More House of Cards is on the menu for tonight and I couldn’t be happier.  I am comfortable.  I nurtured myself by doing things I wanted to do.  I love my family more than ever and can’t wait to see them for Christmas.

This Thanksgiving, more than ever, I am grateful for the freedom to choose to be authentic to myself.  To care for me and put my own needs first.  Happy Thanksgivvukah!

No matter what you believe, you probably believe you have a purpose.  Either because you’ve discovered it and you can feel it running through your veins like electricity in the moments you get to plug into it… or because you haven’t yet and you can feel the gaping space where you think it should belong.

And either way, you’re probably in a hurry to do something about it!  Ack!  Must.  Live (or find).  Purpose.  It’s a totally natural and expected reaction.

The thing about purpose, finding or keeping pace with it, is that you’ve got to slow down to make it work.

Slight detour to tell a story before returning to make a point: When I was a kid I didn’t know that any other musicians existed besides The Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, & Carole King (maybe including a duet with James Taylor) until I was on the bus in 4th grade and people were asking whether I liked Michael Jackson.  Michael who?  It was embarrassing then, and for some reason the embarrassment lingers (because whenever anyone asks me what kind of music I listen do–which is a question that LUCKILY slows to a trickle once you pass 30–I realize I would still prefer to stick to those three).  Anyway, detour over.

One of my favorite songs as a child was the 59th Street Bridge Song by Simon and Garfunkel.  I had no idea what it meant then, and even reading the lyrics now… I’m not sure I do… but the first few lines are pretty straight forward.

Slow down, you move too fast.
You got to make the morning (although, I thought it was moment–which made more sense) last…

And I hear them in my head all the time!

The thing about purpose is that it’s about being connected to those forces (no matter what you believe they are) that are bigger than us.  And it’s not just being able to see each other from across the room, in our mind’s eye, or sensing awareness… it’s about keeping pace with those forces.  Anyone here ever been in marching band?  You know what it means to be in step?  If not, you can probably imagine… it’s moving your feet to the beat of the music taking a step with your left foot when everyone else does and a step with your right when everyone else done.  Being in step.

To live your purpose, you want to be in step with (I’m going to take liberties and call it…) the universe.  And to be in step with the universe you need to slow down so you two can (find each other if you need to) come up alongside each other, figure out the beat, decide on a direction, and step off together–left foot first–rolling from heel to toe to keep your upper body steady (wind instrument players get that part).  Then, you can take off running.

Go for it.  And go slowly.

Over the last six months or so two, somewhat contrasting, scenes have been on repeat in my household.

Scene 1: Opens with some variation of the line “Momma, is Santa real?” starting at a place that’s relatively benign and when my response of “what do you think?” wore on his nerves, worked it’s way up to “Momma.  For real this time.  Tell me the truth.  IS.  SANTA.  REAL?!”  To which I responded “oh look, a squirrel/lego movie poster/pizza place/cloud shaped like a hammer/insert something fascinating here.”

Scene 2: Is triggered by a discovery of a lego that wasn’t supposed to go to school hidden in a backpack, vitamins tucked into the shag carpeting, or a handful of Pokemon cards showing up out of nowhere and tends to end with me saying something like “I need you to understand how important it is for us to be honest with each other.”

The lying, sneaking, and hiding occurrences were starting to get uncomfortable.  I almost typed “out of control” but really… he’s six, he’s experimenting, it’s normal, he’s still bad enough at it that it’s easy to spot, and it’s no more out of control than any other part of life (which, of course, means that it’s completely out of control, but that’s not usually what people mean when they say that).  The conversations always went well.  Each time he seemed to be persuaded that being honest was, while sometimes difficult, ultimately less painful than the consequences of deceit.  Then, because he’s six… and no matter how good our relationship is I am his primary oppressor (read: person who sets limits on the fun stuff like screen time and junk food!), something else would come up and he’d try out lying again.

I always dreamed that my parenting style would have resulted in a dreamlike relationship of mutual trust and intrinsic respect… but no matter how good (or not–because I have my own connection-breaking moments) a parent I am, it doesn’t change the fact that a whole lot of shit went wrong.  It’s about as stable as it’s going to get and his life is still a mess.  There are new transitions every other day and even though he’s getting used to that as a lifestyle…  inconsistency (even being consistently inconsistent) doesn’t breed confidence and trust.

My whole job as a parent is about connecting and repairing when connection is lost and it was getting a little hypocritical up in here.  I was firmly rooted in my chosen values when explaining the importance of honest being a two way street.  I wasn’t just saying, it’s important that YOU be honest with me and I get to do whatever I want depending on the moment… yet, when the moments of truth came (pun intended) I tended to answer questions with questions and change the subject.  And the lying and sneaking continued.

A few weeks ago he asked again.  About Santa.  And I told the truth.

Here’s what I think the truth is.  Santa abso-fucking-lutely exists (I didn’t use that language).  I happen to believe, similarly to what I believe about the other supposedly old, bearded, white dude who lives far north (ahem, g-o-d), that he isn’t the story that has been concocted about him… but instead is an idea or spirit.

When I was 12 and discovered the wrapping paper “Santa” had used that year under my mother’s bed I had enough information to conclude that my mom was the one putting the presents under the tree every year.  I was also completely unwilling to let go of the idea of Santa Claus so I decided then that Santa just didn’t visit the homes of middle class kids like me.  Santa and his magic were reserved for the people who were truly in need.

I hung onto that belief for a long time… long enough, in fact, to see it come true.  A few Christmases ago when I was in need, and couldn’t provide the Christmas that my son had become accustomed to, loved ones (acting as the spirit of Santa) sent gifts to our home and filled the space under our meager tree.

So that’s the truth about Santa that my son learned.  Momma is the one who puts the presents under the tree (then we had to clear up that they are purchased in advance and hidden and that he isn’t left home alone, sleeping on Christmas eve while I go shopping).  Santa’s magic is there for people who really need it.  I also fessed up (after multiple lines of questioning) to being the Easter Bunny and the tooth fairy (which was met by a squeal of excitement and “THANK YOU FOR THE TEN DOLLARS!”)

And just like I hope he learns (eventually), the honest conversation I had been dreading turned out to be painless… it was quite lovely, actually.  And since then we’ve been able to have all sorts of rich conversations about the intentions of Christmas and managing expectations and it feels damn good.

So that’s it, Santa.  In the name of family values I told the truth about you.  You will no longer get credit for the work I’ve been doing (5 of 6 years).  Hope you’re okay with that.  xo

This may require some stretching, but we’re going to try it anyway.  Stretching often feels good and is good for you too!

I recently read something about Olives being an “alternate bearing crop” which means they don’t produce fruit every year.  The produce, they rest, they produce, they rest, and so on and so forth as they move throughout their lives…  Here comes the stretch…

Olives (at least the olive branch and subsequent extension of it) symbolize peace, right?  There must be a connection then, between rest… and the essentiality of rest to production of fruit (replace fruit with whatever your purpose is on this earth)… and peace.

My whole life peace is all I’ve ever wanted.  Happiness yes, but more than that–peace.  Love absolutely, but in that love–peace.  Every feeling I want to have or object I want to possess or status I want to achieve comes from a longing to feel peace.  To live without worry or frustration or the frantic numbness (yes, frantic numbness… it’s a thing) of overwhelm and stuckness.

And I’ve been convinced for far too long that peace is something to work towards… when really, as the olive trees know, perhaps it is something to rest for.  Perhaps, peace comes in the stillness, and while there certainly is stillness on the summit of a mountain trek, there is also stillness in hiding in your bedroom while your son plays a computer game because you’ve had enough stimulation and heard your own name (momma–i need, momma–i want, momma–i’m hungry, momma–my stomach hurts, momma–come praise the amazing thing i just did) enough for one day (lifetime).

So, that’s the stretch.  Because the olive tree knows that it needs to rest to bear its fruit and it’s fruitful purpose is to generate peace, if I want peace… I need to rest to.  I give myself permission to rest.  I give you permission to rest too.

Go do that.  now.

This is Post four in a four part series about worth.  Catch up on parts one, two, and three!

The truth about this series is that the theme is the only thread… the stories all stand on their own.  That has its benefits I suppose.  If you’ve missed one through three you can go ahead and start reading here and go back if you desire.  You’re not going to be missing any essential details, just some good stories.

Let’s recap.  At first I didn’t know if I my voice on this blog had value, because how can I have value as a writer without having books to show for it?  Then I didn’t know if the pleasure of my company was of enough value to balance out  inconvenience for someone else.  Finally, I almost skipped out on reaching a mountain top because I am not running a program that tells me the peak is within reach.

It’s a little exhausting to discover at this moment how much a lack of self worth is impacting my life.  Thank goodness it no longer has me in a relationship that doesn’t support me or a weight that holds my body away from health.  Thank goodness I know my own worth enough to establish boundaries that protect me, to give enough to myself that I know I have dreams and pursue them.  I’m out of the valley, I’m packing up my stay in the midlands, and I’m heading toward the peak now.  Thank goodness I know life’s a journey, not a destination or I’d have to change the qualifier from “a little exhausting” to VERY exhausting!

When I was in New York City last month I saw an astrologer (intuitive, psychic… call her what you will.  if you need her number, call me).  She is the same person who predicted to Beloved, shortly before she met me, that she was about to meet her “soul mate.”  She laughed about it at the time because she hates terms like “soul mate” or “the one” or “spiritual.”  I expect, if for no other reason than they are terribly overused…

Beloved came in with me to say hello and thank you and the astrologer (we’ll call her S) got chills (and was thrilled by them) confirming the truth of the prediction in living color in front of her.  That was fun, but it got better.

My time with S involved a review of my Natal chart (a picture of the planets/stars at the time/place of my birth) and a tarot card reading.  It was so wonderful to hear an explanation of so many experiences I have had in my life.  I heard about how importance it was to have balance in my life because of the presence of polarity in my chart. I heard about the lack of fire in my chart (hello lack of enthusiasm!) and how to get things warm when they’ve cooled down.  I heard that my soul deeply desires purposeful partnership and without it I am unlikely to reach any of my potential.  I heard so much more.  Maybe I’ll do a recap post at a later date…

Ultimately I heard that I am here to make meaning.  I am seeking that in everything I do.  I don’t just climb mountains, I have epiphanies.  I don’t just get anxious about meeting long time friends face to face, I excavate issues of worth.  I don’t just say “this is scary but I’m doing it anyway” I look for the why and then the how to make the scarier more manageable.  And then I write about it all.

My purpose: meaning making (turns out to also be a key ingredient to resilience… it’s not just what brought me here, it’s keeping me alive).  S mentioned Victor Frankl in our reading (it wasn’t lost on me that Donald Miller also mentioned Frankl at #WDS2013 where I returned to my roots as a writer, best be going out to find “Man’s Search for Meaning”) and a quote that I can’t find and she didn’t know verbatim about those who survived the concentration camps being the ones who were focused on the purpose of their moments.  I hesitated at associating myself with the gravity of a comparison like that… but again I was lost in a moment of worthlessness.

Even after realizing that I didn’t need a book to be a writer, I had a GREAT time with my friend, I climbed a fucking mountain…  all I knew was that I had a worth issue, I hadn’t found the answer yet.  Knowing was half that battle, but only half.  It wasn’t until letting all these stories take shape and sitting with the audio recording from my session with S that I found my worth.

Like most things it’s something I knew all along… I’ve been telling others the same is true of them for years!

My worth is in living my purpose (psst–so is yours).  My purpose is finding the meaning and sharing it.  Yours may be something else.  Some will be big and others small (only in scale, not in value).  When I do what I’m meant to be doing I have worth.  It’s as simple as that.

So the next time it comes up… the next time I hear: am I worth it?  If I can match “it” with meaning making then the answer will be yes.

Do you know your life’s purpose?  Do you want help figuring it out?  Turns out, I can help.  Feel free to contact me and let’s draw it out.

This is the third post in a four part series about worth.  Catch up on Parts 1 & 2).

I climbed a mountain last Saturday. Mount Monadnock in New Hampshire. 3166 feet to the summit. Went all the way.

Mountain climbing isn’t really my thing. Feats of physical prowess aren’t in general. They say mountain climbing is just as much mental as it is physical and I figure I do enough mental mountain climbing why drag my body through it as well?  Still, I can appreciate the rush of endorphins that comes from pushing my physical limits and am competitive enough to take on a challenge.

I had fewer meltdowns on the climb than I expected. I stopped often, whined, asked Beloved if the top was over the next crest, and wanted to know when it would be over but I only cried twice and got a little snippy once .

When we did make it over the crest that finally put the summit in sight I had a very clear sense that I was done. I could see the top and see people up there but I had no desire to go any further. I would have been completely satisfied turning around and going back down.

We carried on because I am driven by social pressure and the desire to inspire… that’s all really, I truly didn’t want to be at the top.  I just wanted to be able to say I did it and have people I admired admire me for my pursuit.

At the top I took a classicly posed victory shot not feeling attached to my accomplishment, complained about my nausea, and we got on our way.

The way down was just as grueling, if not more, as the way up and when staying in the present moment wasn’t getting me through the burning of my arches or trembling of my knees I allowed my mind to wander.

I started to remember what it felt like to see the summit and not want to reach it and I started to judge myself for not feeling the way I “should.” Gently dismissing the judgement I asked myself, why didn’t I want to go up there. The conversation went a little something like this:

It’s just not in my value system. The peak isn’t what I’m aiming for.

What are you aiming for? What is the goal if it’s not the peak? Why climb at all?

To get out of the Valley

And where does that come from?

A long time of feeling stuck in the valley… And not knowing that the peak was within reach, or that I was worthy of seeking it…

Ah, another fissure in the self worth revealed.

I spent a lot of time in the “Valley: (and I ain’t referring to the San Fernando Valley for you LA locals).  My “Valley” was living a life that appeared satisfactory but wasn’t attached to what I truly desired. It was the “should” plan that matched what I wanted. I wanted to have a happy family so I got a husband and had a baby. I wanted my work to be meaningful so I gave every ounce of myself to it.

There’s no value judgement in this, by the way. The way my valley looked on paper may be someone else’s mountain. And I don’t even mean to suggest that we’re all meant to live at different elevations (figuratively, literally we probably are). Rather that the mountain or valley or midlands in between is simply a symbol for how authentically we are living our desires. Someone else’s path to happy family might be the husband and kid(s) or the great job. I think we’ve learned by now that my way tends to be a little less mainstream than what I’d been force feeding myself.

I’ve only recently climbed out of the valley. I’ve been up in the midlands for a little over a year and despite pressure on myself to keep going I had a clear sense that I needed to hang out around here for a while to see what it had to offer. So far, a lot. I found a partner here, I’ve even found more of myself, I thought I would be content here for some time. But maybe I’m ready to start aiming for the peak.

Maybe I’m ready to climb mountains.

Maybe the ascent has already begun.  For this climb I don’t need sturdy shoes and a liter of water, I need to remain attached to my own worth.  I need to believe I’m worth the trouble.

Part Four is coming your way…

This is Part two in a four part series about worth.  Catch up on Part 1 here.

In September 2006, shortly after I puked up my then-husband’s birthday breakfast and realizing I was pregnant, I discovered an online group of women on iVillage.com who were also expecting babies in June 2007. Now known as the “June Jelly Beans” we’ve been connected through our children’s corresponding birthdates and now our friendship for over six years now. We are spread all over the United States and Canada and several of us have been lucky enough to meet in person. When an opportunity to meetup arises, most of us will take it!

I am doing a lot of traveling this summer. There was the long weekend in Portland, Oregon for #WDS2013 and then a week in New Hampshire and New York to meet my Beloved’s family and eat our way through the city. In August I’m departing on an Alaskan cruise from Seattle. As a result I had the opportunity to initiate some in person meetups with friends I’ve had for six years.

I hesitated at first. Social awkwardness sometimes takes the wheel from me and I default to what’s easier: just doing my own things. Managing my own wants in balance with my son’s and my Beloved’s; a delicate balance that’s challenging for me to maintain without the addition of other people and their needs and expectations and values and (oy, just thinking about it overwhelms me!)

But enough of what I push through results in damn good stuff so I waited until almost the last minute and let the locals in each trip area know where I was going to be. Both the Pacific Northwest and North Eastern groups were looking promising and then as the North Eastern trip grew closer we were down to one other person and myself.

Then the anxiety started to come back. It came in these waves that just say “give up” or “turn back” or “stop now before it’s too late” but I knew I wasn’t in any danger so I pressed pause on the panic and explored the feelings more.

Underneath I found the social anxiety rearing its head again. Sigh. I realized a few months ago that I would rather do something uncomfortable than ask someone else to do something ucomfortable on my behalf. ie, I’d rather go to a party with my Beloved where I don’t know anyone than ask her to come out to dinner with a friend of mine. Because what if they don’t like each other?  Will I be able to entertain them both/keep them happy?  ARGH?!

Is that what this was? Maybe… I kept exploring.

I also tend to be a bit of a Pollyanna, thinking that everything will work out all the time (it does, by the way) and because of this I oftentake on too much. This meetup we were working on was going to be in New York City, near the port authority (equals, not an easy area) and we would have luggage in tow, will have been fresh off of six hours on a bus and four days with Beloved’s family. We would also be a solid hour away from our final destination in Brooklyn. Maybe I was just realizing how impossible this all was turning out to be and wanting the comfort of doing what was easiest instead of what was the most fun?

Beloved and I talked it over and I was pretty clear that although there were some social anxiety triggers at work there was much more of the latter and it made more sense not to meet up. I reached out to my friend and as I started to explain my feelings around the situation I started to realize that I was worried about more than inconveniencing myself or Beloved, I was most worried about inconveniencing my friend. She was coming from two hours away and I was likely to be a hot mess. Was I worth it?

She and I communicated honestly and openly about the situation and when I received much reassurance from her about it being a pleasure for her to come into the city all of my anxiety faded away.

That’s when it became abundantly clear.  When I realized I was willing to put inconvenience aside what was really underneath was that I didn’t think I was worth two hours of driving for a short chat over cupcakes. If I couldn’t promise someone a good time I wasn’t confident they would get anything of value from time spent with me. What if I wasn’t up to being my best self, would I disappoint her?

We met.  It was great.  I wish it was longer, but I don’t feel like I did her a disservice (nor would I had she not had reason to be in the city anyway).  The brief bonding in person was totally worth the effort on both of our parts… but woah.  What’s up with this worth stuff I’ve got going on in my head?

More to come on that journey, stay tuned for Part 3.

Anytime I’ve ever said the phrase “for what it’s worth” to someone, what followed next was of value to them (known because they so much as said so). Still, I’m realizing that worth and the value of my voice aren’t something I’m confident about yet.

If you’ve been around lately you’ve already heard I’ve made a commitment to do one small thing each day to remain connected to my “writer” self. If you haven’t, you just heard it for the first time and you’re also all caught up.  I started out with a list of tasks I wanted to accomplish and broke them down with my Reminders app to plot out the following two weeks. I lasted about 10 days before I realized:

A. Some of my “small things” were really quite large and too large for the days I’d scheduled them on

B. I may be better off looking back at the end of a day with the question “what have you done today to connect to your writer self?” Rather than prescribing the action ahead of time. Even if the answer is only that I reflected on the question I don’t have th agony of defeat that comes from an unchecked box on my to-do list.

Why am I telling you this?

Because after posting the Big Brave Beautiful post and my intention to seek contributors my next tasks were, naturally, to start seeking contributors. And that is where I was stopped dead in my tracks. First, I can attribute the lack of progress to the misstep of scheduling the “start writing to folks to invite them to contribute” on the weekend that my son was home in full summer vacation mode before heading off to spend two weeks with his dad. Not a lot of quiet, calm, quality working time to be found in that scenario.

Second, I found myself lost.  And when I found myself I realized I was consumed by self worth issues.  Some of the questions I had for myself were:

1. What would an audience get by coming here?
2. ‘How do readers benefit from this blog?
3. What is the value/worth of my voice?

All of these are important questions. Knowing the value of what you’re offering is essential in any venture… but instead of engaging in a marketing exercise with myself instead my answers sounded something like:

1. nothing because I don’t have a book to sell them
2. I don’t know–not at all
3. diddly squat.

‘Twas not exactly confidence inspiring.

Exploring this further I realized I was needing to excavate yet another “should.”

“Writers should have books,” said my small mind.

This assumption was silently directing me behind the scenes. Sure, I have some books in me and they’ll come out eventually but writing this blog has been my most treasured writing experience so far. So much more than any contest entry, school assignment, or attempt at book authoring.

In revealing the hidden belief as the self worth(less) thinking trigger I was able to refocus.  I didn’t necessarily feel confident but I felt reassured that the path I am on now is right and is enough. I can continue seeking an audience for what I’m doing now. I don’t need to have more to offer my readers right at the moment, what I’m doing here is plenty.

But the Pandora’s box of self worth has been opened and there are at least three more stories to be told on the topic… Stay tuned for Parts two, three, and four.