In my last blog, we looked at our wins and losses for the year as individuals and if you haven’t done that yet for yourself, I would encourage you to do that first.
Last month, I met a young man in an airport that told me about the murder of his brother and the ripple effect it has had on his life. His brother was an up and coming artist traveling through Texas to promote himself. He told me that while in Austin for work his brother, a black man, was shot by eight police officers and killed. Without malice or meanness, he shared that all eight officers were white and that unlike the rest of his family, he was not convinced that it was entirely racially motivated.
The conversation I had with this impressive young man continues to turn over in my head. First, he had initially planned to move to Texas as it seemed like a place of opportunity far greater than where is currently living…. Texas no longer holds the same promise to him.
Second, he sounded alone in his grief. I have no concept of what it must feel like to be mourning such a terrible loss and your friends and family do not seem to be able to understand or even tolerate your point of view on it.
Finally, his grace was moving. He seemed so clear that hating men and women he had never met would not bring his brother back, it would not honor his brother and it would help him live a better, safer, happier life.
The theme for this month for me has been to imagine, “what if…”. In all areas of my life, I have challenged myself and you to think about your life and the world around you and wonder what if it could be different.
Perhaps racial tension is on the rise… Or maybe I am aware of it in a way I’ve never been before. The way I was taught to handle race was simply to pretend that it’s not an issue. It has occurred to me this year, while I look around see so much suffering that NOT talking about it isn’t really going to work. There is no topic I have encountered thus far that is improved by being ignored.
I have no delusions of grandeur here. I know that one blog and one person cannot and will not put an end to racism. But I am challenging myself to think about a county that at least endeavors to be unbiased, kind and fair; that judges people solely on their character and not the color of their skin. Into the new year, I plan to continue to ask myself how do I contribute to the solution and not just the problem? For now, I see my part as being will to have the uncomfortable conversations and being willing to name the elephant the room.
Now it’s your turn. What is your BIG what if? What is one thing that you can commit yourself that you will do your part to solve knowing that you can’t do it alone?
As always, I’m here. If you are ready to live your best life, call me and let’s get started!
This time of year, I often spend some time with myself and with clients thinking about what the wins were for the year. What were your proud of? What did you do that you want to repeat? What happened that you would like to let go of?
Most of the time there is a pretty healthy mix of both individual successes and stumbles but also there are typically a lot of ups and downs in connections with others. “I pushed through a rough spot in my marriage.” Or “I wasn’t the parent I wanted to be this year because I was distracted with work.”
It can be really powerful and meaningful to really sit down with and journal and/or a calendar and really get into these questions. It is really easy for us to get lost in what is currently distracting us to the next ten things we are focused on getting done and forget about the things that happened earlier in the year.
It is also easy to discount or down play the small things you did to set yourself up for what could turn into the big stuff. Maybe you spent the time in 2018 to lay the ground work for possibilities in 2019.
We all tell ourselves stories. Economist Amos Tversky and psychologist Daniel Kahneman proved that adults override rational thought with their subconscious. (Yes, for real they won a Nobel Prize for it, it’s not just you.) Our stories are often closely held and we are often so convinced that they are facts, we don’t even spend the time/energy to let them go.
For some of us, our stories were given to us by our parents. For others, we have told ourselves these stories to make sense of hurt and pain we have experienced. It doesn’t really matter how or why you picked the story up, what matters is… Are you ready to let it go?
What is a story about yourself, that you are willing to put the work in to let go of and not drag with you into the new year? Write it down. Tell someone. Think about how this story shows up in your life. How does it hold you back? Then make a plan for how to deal with it when it tries to rear it’s ugly head. Because it will try to worm it’s way back into your head and your heart, know how you want to love yourself better and fight it off again.
As always, I’m here. If you are ready to live your best life, call me and let’s get started!