I’ve long felt the culture around me has lost sight of the significance of marking rites of passage. I’ve blogged before on the value of Divorce Parties. More recently, in a community I’m in, my teacher* encouraged us to celebrate progress around a project. What did I do to celebrate?…..I fell into tears of grief and sadness!

Difficulty celebrating is not new for me. I cried at my college graduation, not from leaving friends behind or honoring the work I did to graduate a year early with honors, but, because I still felt like I was letting my parents down. There was a leadership award I had not pursued, so I must not have tried my best. I “should have done more to make them proud.”

I’ve come a long way from living my life for others, but the times I’ve leaned into celebrating have often been derailed. I’m a December baby, so birthday celebrations are overshadowed by Christmas. My divorce party was overshadowed by my birthday. The things I’ve been most proud of in my life are not the things my family understand to have value. So celebration has become fraught for me, with anticipation of disappointment or feeling Unseen…and that little voice creeps up to say, “See? You must not deserve it.”

So I had tears, and let that part of me be Seen in the group. I grieved the past times I’ve not been able to celebrate, so I can make room for the joy. It is a reminder that in all transitions, there are both gains and losses. Grief and celebration are two sides of the same coin, honoring rites of passage. Those tears honored the letting go of the fears and impostor syndrome that made the project difficult. Now that that’s done, NOW I can feel the pride of accomplishment and inspiration of the work. Now, I can seize the joy and celebrate, and find amusement in the extra way I had to claim the celebration as Mine with a different timeline. Goodbye strife, congratulations Me on a job well done, with extra credit to boot!

* Gratitude to Francesca de Grandis, for creating a safe space and community and fostering growth and healing!

Containment. It’s a focus of organization and tidying efforts, the purpose of books and journals, homes, and wombs. We value independence and often part of what gets us there is being held and supported. It is space to learn and develop the skills we need before venturing out. It is also a place to return to when we need to rest and recoup.

Schools don’t often hold us in the way we need, for adulting skills, homeownership, life challenges. This is part of what we can create in a coaching relationship. It is a unique sandbox to explore real desires, values, and implementation of new ideas. We can have fun in the playground of exploring using your voice in the real world in a fulfilling way.

I grew up inheriting perfectionism from my family; this makes trying new things quite anxiety inducing. Youtube instructions are helpful, but it’s not the same as having Dad there when I attempt a home repair. The “what ifs” of doing it wrong, water spewing everywhere!! might be minimal chance, but a high cost to deal with. Presence and handholding can make all the difference.

One tool I’ve been learning is to embrace, “I’m trying a hard thing, it’s ok for it to feel hard.” This permission to feel the challenge takes some work. Being a good student in school, I learned things “should be easy.” If they weren’t, it meant somehow that I was defective and shameful, not simply “new at it”.

I also break things into steps. Some steps are scarier than others. If I can at least tackle some of the easy steps, I can get started, instead of the fear paralyzing me. Once I’m started, sometimes I feel the courage to try “a little bit more” and make a lot more progress!

How have you tackled scary new challenges? What did you find helpful?

Fear of failure is a more commonly known topic. But fear of success is a very real thing as well. Exploring our tendencies to sabotage the things we want can be useful.

What do you imagine *success* looks like in your case? Sometimes we put it so high on the pedestal, we get neck pain looking up at it. We can imagine a fear of heights at the top, so to speak.

We’ve become so familiar with struggle and strife, and our society has put so much pressure on an ethic of hard work that sometimes we get lost in simply working hard for the sake of being hard working, and the imagined elevation, success, or respect that that entails. Sometimes “success” is envisioned to finally mean not having to work so hard..which has the appeal of rest, but then, oh no, might mean we’re not hard working anymore!

Or it’s a matter of purpose. We’ve been striving for so long, if we finally achieve…then what? What do we do with our lives once we “make it”? It can be scary to not know what that next aim is. Maybe the tension we carry is how we know who we are, and we lose our sense of self without something to strive for.

One “in” to understanding any fear of success you may have is to state the outcome definitively. “I WILL _______”. You will get a sense of how much you believe it as truth, but the fear may pop up and say hello. I tried this around a grant I had applied to. What I thought was a fear of failure and unworthiness was in good part, a fear of all the responsibilities I envisioned would come with my stated goals, and I was shying away from that responsibility!

Once we identify the thoughts that are holding us back, we can make changes. Maybe it’s further defining the goals, becoming more specific, or exploring other ways it could look…or other ways we can *get support* to not carry the weight of it all by ourselves. Talking about our goals with others can both keep us in touch with our sense of inspiration and clear blocks delaying our process. If you’re interested in having a conversation, reach out to me and we can schedule a time to chat!

My blogging here has obviously fallen by the wayside. It doesn’t mean I’ve stopped having “thoughts” but I’ve found myself in the very circular loop of not bothering to write, if I don’t have an audience, and of course I won’t have an audience if I don’t say anything. The more social media grows, well, I can’t say I have any desires to be an “influencer”. My fears pop up of being “canceled” or, really, in any way misinterpreted or “wrong”. And since I can’t be perfect, and SEO is something of an everchanging mystery to me that I don’t really have desire to learn, it’s easier to just back away quietly.

So for now, this journal isn’t for you, it’s for me! My coaching relationships move along in their real-time formats, one on one with people, and I get good feedback. I like *conversation* not monologuing. I like knowing how my words land, that I’m speaking about something useful, that I’m being helpful. I don’t get that from a one-way blog.

One thing I’ve told my self-employment clients is to keep a business journal. Since I’ve probably adequately let this site die off to the point of not having any readers, for now I’m going to use this place *as* part of my business journal! Relationships are powerful, and I am trying to develop a relationship to my website. That means engagement. Familiarity with writing more frequently. What do I want to use this space for?

Something I’ve been working on personally lately, is to stop getting caught in decision paralysis. I can be something of a perfectionist and a public forum and SEO evaluators play into that. I’ve learned I can get a lot more done if I stop caring so much about making it perfect. Progress, not perfection, and all that, but overdone phrases don’t land. For me, lately, it’s “Just give a :poop: (can I even use emojis here?) This mentality has been helpful lately. As I used to say…”S*** happens but it beats constipation.” I’ve spent too much time constipated and it’s not comfortable! So here’s my s*** for you to read :P

We didn’t interview three people before hiring for insulation work to be done, and now the job is done. I don’t time myself to “practice for a half hour” when I sit down at the piano, I just have a goal to do something with it daily- maybe one song/page, only more if I feel like it. *and it’s working*. So for now, frequency not quality. Poop can also make good fertilizer, so by spreading my words around here, maybe something green can grow.

Some days I wake up wanting to stay in my cozy pajamas, make some eggs, and have a mocha. Today was one of those days. I saw the sunshine beckoning through the window, though, knowing that in this rainy season, this might be a good opportunity.

But..so comfy in my bed!

I spent a few minutes laying there, evaluating. Mentally reviewing my schedule for today. The possibility of exercise later in the day, while possible, did not feel likely to happen. And it wouldn’t include that glorious sunshine.

Today, the value of a somewhat cozy, indulgent morning could not outweigh the value of being able to say, “I ran today”. I ran to avoid future regret.

Intrinsic rewards for getting out.

I approached the traffic light a half mile from my house and found it already to my direction, reinforcing that my run was a good decision. And then there was the sunshine, and the view. Yup, glad to be out.

It wasn’t the most fantastic run I’ve had. But as I drove to work, I reveled in the deeper effects of my choice. Motivation unlocked! Feeling confident, alive, positive! I want to hug the world! I’m eager to start on my tasks for the day!

One of the biggest challenges to fitness is frequently inertia. Making the decision to DO IT. Once started, the workout may be good or bad, but nothing can take away from you the fact that you stepped up and made a decision to honor yourself, and move toward your goals.

Empower yourself today! If you want help breaking that inertia and another voice of encouragement to start moving, reach out and let me inspire and support you!

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Toward the end of the yoga video I was following, I knew I was struggling to get into “Yoga Mind” of a good focus on my poses. I was still finding myself distracted by other things around me.

And then it happened.

I looked down.

I saw my feet, and suddenly I felt gratitude for them. I thanked my feet for all they do. I can criticize myself for “not running enough”, or I can sit in this space, grateful for all the distances my feet have carried me. The balance and strength that carries me, one foot in front of the other, or sometimes sideways or other directions if dancing. My feet connect me to the earth; they get me to interesting places, walking, hiking, climbing, doing all sorts of interesting things.

Some workouts feel good because they are something I wanted to get done; I can check it off a list. Some workouts help remind us what we’re capable of, and find gratitude for things we often take for granted.

All that being said…what are you going to appreciate today?