Breathing Butterflies

I’m not good at saying wrong things and shrugging it off.  A fairly calculating person, I tend to think before I speak or not speak at all, to wait before I do especially if my action affects another person, and to take in my surroundings before I settle in.  Even further, as a writer the words I choose are extremely important to me, even if not to anyone else.  So when my guard is let down and the filter between thinking and speaking becomes ghostly or nonexistent, it’s possible that I’m going to say something foolish or choose my words wrong.

This happened recently.  I wasn’t hurtful by design, and what I said was really only a passing thought, but the person who it was directed towards heard me differently than I intended.  Later in the day when I learned this, the unintentional misstep bothered me.  My guard went back up.  I scolded myself.  I felt like stones had fallen out of my mouth and become shackles at my feet, the weight of not being able to erase what’s said out loud causing my steps to be slow and hindered.

The next morning, still reflecting on my inability to “fix it” beyond my feeble attempt to explain better, I made a decision.  Those stones aren’t weighing me down unless I let them.  I’m the one holding on to them, storing extras in my pockets and allowing myself to be reminded of their presence.  I still don’t like saying a wrong thing, but I have to be able to move on from it – especially if the other person has.  So I found myself imagining butterflies coming out of my mouth instead of stones.  Pretty, multicolored butterflies finding their freedom from me and being carried away on the wind.

I don’t know how to let my practiced guard down around someone and be ok with all of the results, but I can try to learn to breathe butterflies.

A Trust Story

One year ago today I was in Austin, Texas on a bus tour across the country.  I was sitting in the auditorium lobby of a high school with two girls who were chatting with me about boy trouble and other high school things. I heard myself say to them what I often say to women/girls who are younger than me: Have patience with yourself.  There is so much good in life that is yet to come. Think further ahead in your life to the woman you want to be.  Things just get better and better!  And as I watched the sun set over Austin out the glass double doors, I considered those usually comforting words and wondered to myself if it was all a lie.

You see, the man I loved lived in Austin – the only man who I ever loved from the very first moment I saw him – and he was supposed to be there at the event with me that night, only he’d stopped returning my calls or texts the week before.  So I sat there that night and wondered if everything, even what was in my own heart, was a lie.

Fast forward several months to May. I had just moved to New York and was staying on a couch in Brooklyn, sick as a dog and technically homeless, watching Millionaire Matchmaker and sorting emails on my laptop.  In an old email account I rarely use I came across an unread email from him, dated about the time I’d stopped hearing from him.  The email explained why he couldn’t call or text, and another one that followed later said he assumed I was angry and that it was over, but that he was so sorry and he’d love me always. I was relieved he still loved me, but how much could one heart take? I no longer knew what to believe.  My trust had been broken.  The ability to feel secure in that relationship no longer seemed possible.  I told him I had to move on.

Fast forward again to November.  I was typing away at my desk one morning when my phone rang.  Almost the first thing he said when I answered was this: “I’m putting my foot down.  I love you and I want to be with you. I want us to commit to this.”  I said no.  He said, “My life is different and I understand why you don’t believe that, but I want the chance to show you. I want us to work together to find a solution,” and then he said, “I’m going to call you every day.”

Right. Ha. I thought. We’ll see about that.

But he did.  He called every day.  Sometimes we would talk for an hour and sometimes he would just have a minute to say hello.  He called every day.  And when I asked him a difficult or uncomfortable question, he answered sincerely and openly.  When I asked how on earth we would make this work, he said, “I’ll come there.”

Right. Ha. I thought.  We’ll see about that.

Two weeks ago he showed up at my apartment.  I went out to the curb to meet him and as he got out of the cab, in one swift move, he lifted me in the air and kissed me – right in the middle of the street.  In one way, I still can’t believe he’s here, and in another way it feels like he’s been here all along.

People will tell you that people don’t change.  That others don’t deserve second chances (or thirds).  I’m sure I’ve said those words myself to a girlfriend or two.  But I listened to myself on this one – I had to.  I was my choice to define what I believed in, and when not to trust it, and when to be open to it again.  And it was his choice to fight for me.  He battled his own demons, he bravely faced my mistrust, and he boldly came to be with me in a strange land.  (Are my fairytale references here subtle, or not so subtle?)

Every time he says “I love you” my heart leaps.  And you know what?  I believe him.

Playing Small

On occasion, someone comes into my life around whom I make myself small.  It’s not something I know is happening until much later, usually, and therefore am not as apt to exit the relationship or learn how to respond differently to that particular person.

It happens in friendships, romance, business, even family.  My particular experiences have fallen into a couple of these categories.  I once dated someone who praised what he liked about me and ignored what he didn’t.  He wanted me to fit into this box of what he hoped I was, and when I couldn’t live up to this imaginary person he thought I should be I felt rejected and I berated myself.  Eventually I was able to see what was happening and I have chosen not to be with someone who didn’t see my own unique brightness.  I’ve also worked with people who emit a sense of needing to be in the know, to have all the right answers, at all times. I’ve caught myself pretending not to know something (“Oh, really!  How interesting!”) or just keeping quiet when really I do know the answer and it might be better.  Or at least a different, also valuable, idea.

No more.  I am not small.  I have important things to say.  I have experience and ideas and there are certain subjects on which I can claim to be an expert.  And that doesn’t make me egotistical – it’s honest.  You don’t get to say it all.  You don’t get to assume who I am or what I think or of what I am capable.  I do.  And I’m going to say so.

This quote is pretty well known but there is truly nothing better to share on this topic.  Thank you Marianne Williamson for reminding us that we are permitted to shine:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

I Don’t Hate Valentine’s Day… This Year.

I’ve been a long-time hater of Valentine’s Day, but something’s gotten into me this year and it’s not all the lovey-dovey romance stuff (although this year has the potential to be my most romantic February 14th to date).  Really, it’s not.  It’s something about love in general, in all its forms, given and received.

My Artist’s Way Artist Date this week was a 90 minute yoga class I took yesterday.  Toward the end, as I was on my stomach on my mat, thanking goodness for a break from the sweat dripping off my chin (attractive, right?), the yoga master said, “think of what motivates you in life.” And I thought… “The continuous reach to be my best self…No, wait: Love.” And as I considered which to focus on, it occurred to me: I can’t love if I’m not being my best self, and I cannot be my best self without love.

Boom.

Throughout the day, I kept coming back to that epiphany and exploring deeper and deeper in my heart all the loves in my life.  One of the greatest things about being thirty, or if you’re in your late twenties I’ll give you this one too, is that the friendships are different.  Looking back, my friendships of five to ten years ago were many of convenience, maybe filled with a lot of jealousy or mistrust, perhaps not all that intimate or else codependent, and often fleeting.

My friendships now… It’s hard to even talk about them without getting emotional.  These are women who have walked with me through fires.  Not just cheered me on, but took my hand and walked with me.  They tell me the truth, but they also give me the benefit of the doubt.  They allow me into whatever it is they’re feeling or struggling with.  They want to be their best selves too.  It’s more than just that these friends are a better fit, though.  I can hear it in our conversations that something is different.  This is grown up love.  These are lifetime friendships.

Another of this week’s exercises was to describe myself at 80.  Aside from details like “I still have all my teeth!” and “I own a lake house!” I made sure to write that these women, my valentines, would not be far away.

*Not all of you are pictured, but I hope you know who you are.

A Dose of Empathy

I want to start this off by saying there are plenty of times that I’m insensitive.  Not on purpose of course, but being human and such, it happens.  Also I’m not a naturally curious person.  I listen, but I don’t ask a lot of questions.  I leave it up to people to tell me what they want me to know, and I take it all in like a tape recorder, but you’ll rarely hear me ask for additional details beyond what you offer up.  Maybe because I myself am a private person and therefore don’t want to be one who pries.  Also, I am a very particular person and can be a little judgy sometimes when people don’t do something the way I think it ought to be done.  These thoughts often I keep to myself, but I admit it, I have them.

Ok, now that I’ve said all of that I think I can let the pendulum swing the other way and I can admit that I mysteriously absorbed a big dose of empathy regarding the way I deal with people.  I think it stemmed from the strong desire I have to feel understood – perhaps, I’d say, stronger than most people feel that need.  And if I want so badly to be understood, then the best way to put that  into motion is to be understanding toward others.  So somehow it became this thing where it’s easy for me to say things, to myself or out loud, like, “it’s impossible to know where that person is coming from.”  “We’re all broken.  I don’t know what her demons are.”  “Some people approach things differently than I do, and that’s ok.”

If you have a conversation with me in which we’re discussing another person, it’s likely I will end up putting myself in that third party’s shoes, because I know the feeling of being criticized by people who don’t know.  (Of course, I’m plenty guilty of the opposite on occasion as well.)

I think the thing that scares me the most about imagining myself in a serious relationship slash marriage is that even “unified,” you’re still two people coming from two different ways of thinking, with two different sets of battle wounds and two different agendas.  Of course, I wouldn’t commit to someone who didn’t have an agenda that matched mine in many ways, but there is no perfect version of this.  And that scares me.  That’s where I hope my empathy can kick in and I can find myself understanding that person’s differences, even if I don’t agree with them, and that the relationship can work and be for the most part happy and a lot of fun.

My goals are to be more courageous about this, knowing a relationship won’t be perfect and that I won’t be perfect but to love and be loved I have to be brave.  I have to allow myself to make mistakes.  Also I want to ask more questions.  Let’s start now:

In what situations do you find it hard to be empathetic?  When do you find it easy?  Are any of your goals or resolutions to change the way you think about or deal with people?

Gravity

What is perhaps the greatest lesson I learned in college has nothing to do with economics, sociology, or finance, (definitely not finance!), but rather was something my favorite professor said without a lesson plan or even a whole lot of emphasis at all.  He said, “surround yourself with people who are better than you”.  Nine words with so much truth and importance, and the power to transform.

I’ve made an effort to live this advice. In work, I like to meet and create relationships with people in my industry who are doing what I’m doing, only have been doing it longer or do it exceptionally well.  I watch them, I listen to them, I learn from them and I improve.  In my personal life, I find friends who have strong character, who are inspiring and have faith and love well.  In love, my greatest goal is to find someone who challenges me.  An advisor from a church I was attending told me, “there is no such thing as standing still.  If you aren’t moving forward you are moving backward.”  I want to cultivate relationships with people who are moving forward, too.

Think about it this way.  If you connect something in the air to something on the ground, a la the shape of a slide, what happens to the thing on the top?  It moves downward.  It, well, slides.  It’s the Law of Gravity.  Your metaphoric playground must provide you with higher rungs to reach for, to swing on.  Something on the ground cannot propel you to great heights.  Speaker/Author Rory Vaden posted recently, “most people don’t want to acknowledge what they are good at because they are afraid that they’d have to do something great with it.”  Or as Marianne Williamson famously said in what is overall a beautifully written piece, “We are all meant to shine, as children do”.

Pay close attention to the company you keep.  Your friends, co-workers, boyfriends, girlfriends, family, should make you stand taller, shine brighter.  Examine the impact you have on others, too.  Hopefully you do the same for them!

Look at yourself in the mirror today and say (or sing!) these words.

“Here I am and I stand so tall.  Just the way I’m supposed to be.” -Sara Bareilles