Category Archives: mindfulness

Walk a Mile

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NaBloPoMo 2018:  What I’m Learning

These last 5 years, I have had the privilege of caring for designated leaders of all kinds—business leaders who also lead their families, their faith communities, their professional societies, and myriad other entities. I have studied and presented on the intersection of health and leadership, the reciprocal relationships between self-care and care of others.  Each day I ask probing questions of my patients’ habits of thought and action, and they answer with honesty and candor.  It’s particularly fulfilling when I hear, “Huh, that’s a good question, I’ve never thought of that before.”  In those moments, I feel I bring value beyond interpreting blood pressure and cholesterol results.

I’ve been interested in leadership for a long time, and had opportunities to lead in various small ways through the years.  In January 2018, I was given a more visible title and designation than I had ever had—YIKES.  I was surprised and unsuspecting, though not totally unprepared.  And, like parenting, nothing can quite prepare you fully for the experience.  I spoke to a leader in my organization about a year ago, who expressed loneliness in his position.  I admit that I half dismissed the idea, thinking there should just be a way to balance collegial, friendly, and leader-led relationships.  I think I was about a week into my new role when I fully, viscerally, understood his perspective and humbly admitted my own loneliness.  I felt guilty and a little ashamed for my reflexive disregard for his confession of vulnerability—because even if I did not fully dismiss his experience, I did judge it.  And that speaks more to my own fear of loneliness and isolation than it says anything about him.

Thankfully, I did not wallow in guilt or shame for long.  “How fascinating,” I thought.  Being judgmental like that is not consistent with my core values.  These ten months have been a practice in navigating and managing that loneliness—cultivating relationships in new ways to maintain connection while simultaneously practicing the required discretion in information sharing.  Often I have felt profound humility (and now more embarrassment than shame) at how I thought I knew so much about effective leadership, mostly from the point of view of being led, and only sometimes as a leader myself.

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This fall Brené Brown saved me from further self-flagellation over my lack of skills and understanding of what it takes to be a good leader.  The thing I admire most about her is how she walks the talk of vulnerability and courage.  She shares her mistakes, missteps, and learnings so openly, and anyone who reads her books or sees her presentations gets to profit from it all.  I will always remember where I was, because I laughed out loud in sheer relief, when I heard her read from her latest book, Dare to Lead:

Over the past five years, I’ve transitioned from research professor to research professor and founder and CEO.  The first hard and humbling lesson?  Regardless of the complexity of the concepts, studying leadership is way easier than leading.

When I think about my personal experiences with leading over the past few years, the only endeavors that have required the same level of self-awareness and equally high-level ‘comms plans’ are being married for twenty-four years and parenting.  And that’s saying something.  I completely underestimated the pull on my emotional bandwidth, the sheer determination it takes to stay calm under pressure, and the weight of continuous problem solving and decision making.  Oh, yeah—and the sleepless nights.

I thought, well, if Brené Brown still had stuff to learn after assuming a new leadership role, then I’m doing okay!  I am both freed from self-imposed, unrealistic expectations of perfection, and also still responsible for continuing to practice self-awareness, humility, and honesty.

I have learned to look harder at the cynical stories I tell about my leaders, and seek to understand better the divergent and competing interests they must balance every day.  I can withhold judgment of their motivations until I have more information, and if I’m not entitled to all the information, I can decide how much I trust my leaders to act in my best interests, or at least in the best interests of the organization.  I can hold myself accountable to my own standards of honesty, candor, and integrity.  I can ask and challenge, inquire and resist (or accommodate), all with curiosity and respect, and making the most generous possible assumptions of others.

How lucky am I to have this remarkable learning opportunity?  To practice the skills I have observed, admired, and studied in others for so long, to own them.  I have walked a mile in these new shoes.  I have a few shallow blisters for the journey so far.  But the shoes are the right size, and the leather is softening.  I’m still feeling fit.  The path will wind and climb, and that’s okay.  I don’t walk alone; I have mentors and role models walking ahead and by my side.  So bring it!  We’ got this.

We Are Tested

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9-2018

What a shit week.  I wonder, how are you doing, my friends?  Because I look around and it really seems like I’m not the only one feeling it.  A friend’s young, healthy sister-in-law was diagnosed with metastatic lung cancer and possibly also lymphoma.  Another friend’s cousin died from a drug overdose after recently completing rehab and getting back to her young family.  Patients are sick with mysterious and disconcerting illnesses.  Pipe bombs were sent to a slew of Democratic leaders and supporters.  And today a man commits yet another deadly, hate-driven shooting.  Seriously, WTAF?  And I honestly think we have yet to hit rock bottom.  I don’t see any of it turning around anytime soon.

I have barely made it through—so much psychic energy required to simply move from one task to the next, taking care of many (and not so much some others).  This past year, actually, sometimes I’m barely holding it together.  First the knee injury, then taking on a new big role at work.  Then surgery/rehab, and another personal crisis that derailed all of my health habits for spring and summer.  As I go around the country talking about personal resilience and culture of wellness, I wonder, am I being a hypocrite?  Am I really walking my talk?  Because if I’m not, I had better just sit down and shut up.

I wrote to a friend today, “I hope you are able to take care of yourself and recharge.  The energy in the world is so tumultuous and agitated.  It’s no help to blame and lament (well maybe lamenting can be a bit cathartic—for a while).  I guess this is a time to exercise our best skills—sharpen them against the harsh and jagged surfaces of challenge and trial.  I feel like all year my professed self-care practices have been called out and called forth—TESTED.  And I’m still here…  Still doing some good every day (I think), alongside the mistakes, the sub-par moments, the not-my-best words, actions, and thoughts…  But hey, who’s perfect?  Nobody.  And are we all here doing the best we can?  I agree with Brené Brown’s husband Steve, the pediatrician: It helps me live better when I choose to believe that we are—all visible evidence to the contrary.” (Here is another article that describes well the benefits of this mindset.)

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Similar to last week, as I consider this idea, I am met with readings and conversations that deepen the exploration.  Friend and author Donna Cameron published an op-ed today in which she, in her typically kind and gentle style, encourages us all to be our best and see the best in others—on November 7, a day full of potential for vehement loathing and gloating celebration.  In her wisdom, Donna urges us to think ahead and decide in advance how we will choose to think, speak, and act.  How can we be our best on that day, to ourselves and to one another, no matter what the circumstances?

Recently I have had conversations with trusted friends, my coach, and my therapist, focused on my own most cavernous arenas of personal self-loathing and shame.  How lucky that I have such generous, loving, wise, candid, and brave people holding me up.  With their help, I can move past shame, take a step back, and recognize that I simply have some dysfunctional patterns, just like everybody else.  I slide into these deep grooves when I’m stressed, exhausted, and distracted—they are the default. They are part of me, and also subject to change—to intentional modification, gradual evolution.  These days I meditate often on the distinction between perfection and healthy striving, and I’m also reminded daily of the benefits of cultivating a growth mindset.  These days, instead of berating myself for falling into the same deep hole in my sidewalk, I can hold it more lightly, laugh, and exclaim, “How Fascinating!” climb out (often with a little help from my friends), and walk—ever onward.

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Today as I walked outside, slowly (I’m so tired), I noticed the leaves again.  I think autumn is my favorite season.  It reminds me of the wholeness and beauty of transitions.  They are inevitable.  They are temporary (or constant?).  They are unpredictable, at times prolonged, at other times sudden and acute.  They can feel at once painful, joyous, terrifying, shocking, enlightening, overwhelming, confusing, awe-inspiring (or simply inspiring).  It occurs to me that the best way through them involves practicing some combination of mindfulness, self-compassion, empathy, generosity, deep breathing, sleep, connection, self-awareness, magnanimity, and of course love.  The only way out is through, and if we do it well, we can grow a little at a time in the process.

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Who knows what shit will be flung our way and hit the fan next week?  How will we cope?  I know I will be leaning on my tribe and looking to make our ties ever stronger and thicker.  Thank you for being here to share the journey.

Moving On From the Last Two Weeks

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N 10 Mile Creek Trail Aug

Hello again, friends!  Is this the longest I’ve been away since I started this blog?  Can’t remember, doesn’t matter!  Good to be back!  Hope you all are well. J

I aim to get back in the swing of writing before November’s National Blog Post Month, or NaBloPoMo, as it’s known… I have my list of potential topics all laid out, can’t wait can’t wait!  So here is the first of four weekly posts I hereby commit to attempting in October.

Soooo…  Is anyone else as mentally and emotionally exhausted as I am these past few weeks?  It would take too long to write it all out, and I am really trying hard to get to bed on time these days, so suffice it to say here that it’s been ugly and damanging to many, and we had all better figure out how to move forward lest we eat each other alive.

Throughout the debates on sexual assault, teenage promiscuity, alcohol use, judicial temperament, character, and integrity, I have truly appreciated voices that speak to our higher capacities for connection and understanding.  More specifically, I have sought people on one side of an issue seeking to bridge the gap between theirs and the other.  Now that the deed is done, I look back on the most thoughtful articles, the ones that give me hope for the future of civil discourse.

First, Benjamin Wittes wrote two pieces for The Atlantic.  Initially he laid out how Brett Kavanaugh could present himself such that we Americans could sleep at night with him on the high court.  Despite the impossibility of proving or disproving the allegations against him, Wittes argued, it was his responsibility to convince us that he is truly worthy of the post.  After his rageful and disrespectful performance at the second hearing, Wittes wrote again, expounding on why the judge, despite his legal qualifications, should not be elevated due to his apparent lack of candor and the caveat that would always follow his opinions.  In both pieces, Wittes makes clear that he has no problem with conservatism and Kavanaugh’s jurisprudence.  But as a progressive myself, I felt reassured by Wittes’s words that someone on ‘the other side’ understood my concerns and validated them.

I read a lot of social media posts pointing to the devastating sequelae for men when falsely accused of rape and sexual assault.  I felt gratified to find at least one article reviewing evidence and statistics for this, basically showing that the number is vanishingly low, compared to the incidence of actual sexual assault and violence.  When I post such articles, though, my friends who support Kavanaugh’s nomination are unlikely to read, and more likely to feel I simply ignore their concerns.  So when I found this article, written by Emily Yoffe, a victim of sexual assault herself, advocating due process for the accused, I wanted to share.  I thought that by acknowledging and validating ‘the other side,’ I might open a window for my point of view to enter my “opponents’” minds and prompt consideration.

I admire Senator Murkowski from Alaska, for voting and speaking her mind, pointing us all to the larger picture of the integrity and reputation of our democratic institutions, while also pointing to and maintaining the humanity of all involved.  And then this article by Howard Zinn from 2005 came across my feed this weekend, reminding us citizens of our role in the workings of government and societal progress.

Finally, I was able to unwind with the kids today by watching some Avengers movies.  We like Black Panther in particular, with its epic vistas, futuristic technology, and rich cultural backdrop.  At the end, when King T’Challa addresses the United Nations, his words struck me as exactly what we need across our country and indeed around the world today.  I may print and post them by my bed, to remind myself of how I want to think, speak, and act:

“We will work to be an example of how we, as brothers and sisters on this earth, should treat each other. Now, more than ever, the illusions of division threaten our very existence. We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another, as if we were one single tribe.”

Now is the time, more than any in my life so far, when we must call loudly and desperately on the ‘better angels of our nature.’  How can we manifest them the most radiantly?