I just returned from a road trip to Long Island to see dear friends. The kids were plugged in to movies in back, so I actually had a long time to think while navigating around the edges of NYC. I also had a lot of time to listen to music and sing loudly, to listen to podcasts, and to talk to people on the phone, but the thinking is the point here.

This coaching enterprise is my first foray into really being (and feeling) self-employed. I have done some contract work where I was technically my own boss, but I made my client my boss. Now, I am, without question, the boss of my business. And that reality has a lot of pros and cons that go with it. The thing that I was mulling in the car as I stopped and went between Brooklyn and Canarsie, and between Canarsie and JFK, between JFK and the Southern State Parkway, was that perhaps the most important decision I make as my own boss is what kind of boss I intend to be. And the funny thing is that this same decision applies to all of us, self-employed or otherwise, because no matter your employment situation, you are surely your own boss for some part of your day. If you are not ever your own boss, I would seriously like to talk to you about that.

But I digress… being the boss of yourself at any time means you have some decisions to make about how you are going to handle that responsibility and what kind of boss you want to be. My old tendency was to be the taskmaster boss: making big (often unrealistic) lists of things that need to get done, cracking the whip on “down” time, demanding high levels of performance and imposing emotional consequences for a job not completed or not well done. My employee self was always scurrying, trying to get those items crossed off, but also always afraid of underperforming, rushing to move from one to the next but occasionally becoming paralyzed by the sheer amount being asked or the difficulty of making a clean decision when faced with harsh penalties. My employee self had trouble sleeping, would wake up early and run To Do lists mentally to ensure everything got covered. My employee self was not terribly productive, but sure was busy, and tired, oh so tired.

That’s not the kind of boss I want to be, and it really isn’t the kind of boss I am to myself anymore, although there is still the occasional pull in that direction. The boss I am now uses words like “learning curve,” “creativity,” “experiment,” and “balance.” The boss I am now sees value in her employee as an individual before, during, and regardless of the list of tasks that “need” to be done. The boss I am now wants to value growth and integrity over productivity and checklists. The boss I am now reassures her employee when things get hard and when she can’t, she calls in a friend to do it: “You can totally do this. You really can.” The boss I am now celebrates successes (even the really small ones), ensures adequate time for training and thinking, and occasionally insists that I go home early on Fridays.

And all of this is a choice. It’s a choice I make as a boss, as a self-employed boss, but it’s also a choice I make as an adult human. I get to choose to value my own growth and integrity over productivity and checklists. I get to choose balance and time with my family alongside of ambition. I get to choose how I talk to myself when I don’t get something right or when things don’t turn out the way I expected. I get to choose, even if it’s only for part of the day. Sometimes seeing myself as boss and employee in my non-work life helps me remember that these are all choices. The boss in me gets to choose how I will treat the oh so willing employee. The employee in me gets to ask questions and occasionally put her foot down if the boss is getting all kinds of crazy.

And here’s the funny thing, the part that will surprise absolutely nobody who’s worked for an excellent boss, when I am the best boss, I am not only honoring my values and feeling confident, I’m also insanely productive. It really does work best this way. The scolding and hardness only breeds discontent and feelings of incompetence. The encouragement and confidence creates new opportunities, abundant energy and creativity.

I love my boss. She’s awesome. How’s yours?

Okay, okay, I understand the biological nonsensicality of that, but play along with me for just a few minutes. I wrote last time about the fact that my mother’s leap into a downsized life has brought some new items, some new STUFF into my house. I chose these items, so it’s all stuff that I either like or means something to me, but it is still STUFF and we already have, well as much as I hate to admit it sometimes, a LOT of STUFF. I’d love to tell you that I am a mindful minimalist and every thing in my house is perfectly curated for my education, entertainment or joy, but yeah, that’s an avenue I’ve not walked down yet. I still have a lot of stuff of ambiguous origin.

Integrating this new stuff into our home has prompted some furniture moving and some questioning of how rooms and spaces are being used, which has prompted more furniture moving and amongst all of this shifting and shuffling, we could no longer avoid the alligator in the basement. The alligator in the basement started in the “tool room,” so-called because we used to keep the tools there, along with a backup fridge, extra paint from various paint jobs, some gardening supplies and the crab and roaster pots. Somehow, over time, the tool room became a dumping ground for out of season decor, bulk purchases that didn’t fit neatly elsewhere, and old curtain rods that had been taken down. We also began to keep tools for specific jobs in trays or boxes with the necessary parts and when those repairs got interrupted, we simply dumped the tray, to pick up later… you know when we decided to do more of that work… I think you see the trend here. What started as a few misplaced crates of Christmas lights became the beginning of a hoarding situation.

The thing is, it didn’t stop there. We became so accustomed to this catch-all space catching all that even when it was difficult to find a reasonable place to put things, we just kept bringing them down there, as though it was really the Room of Requirement and would grow to meet our needs. And so we began stacking things OUTSIDE of the “tool room.” In case you are wondering, searching for tools in the so-called tool room became increasingly difficult throughout this time. Over time a situation developed where walking down the steps into the basement meant walking into a haphazard pile of stuff that didn’t have a home. A giant wall of chaos and indecision. It drives me completely insane. In order to accommodate my annoyance with the wall of chaos, I simply stopped going down there. I don’t have anything I really need to do in the basement. Children can be sent for milk when we run out upstairs. People can bring things up when they come. I avoided the crazy way all of that stuff made me feel by literally avoiding the cause.

Now we have stuff to move around and things to repair. Now we have a vision for what SHOULD be happening in that space at the bottom of the stairs and implementing that plan would make this working Mom’s life SO much easier. Now there is incentive, but it’s still a giant wall of crazy. So crazy it makes my stomach hurt. So crazy I can’t possibly figure out where to begin. That’s what I mean by a frog turning into an alligator.  See, this problem started small. It started with the kind of task that you just do to get it over with and move on, the kind of problem people call a “frog.” When you have something you don’t want to do, you “swallow the frog” (which is really gross, why did I settle on this analogy anyway) and then get on with things that are easier, more enjoyable. This task could have been just that MANY MANY months ago. But now it is SO much bigger, it feels impossible. It feels unapproachable and even a little scary. I know I can’t swallow an alligator.

What to do in these situations? When we’re faced with something that is too big to tackle, consider, comprehend? The only way I’ve ever had any luck facing a giant looming wall of crazy is to stop seeing it as one BIG thing. Did you know you can scare otherwise aggressive animals by having many people group together and make noise together – to be ONE BIG THING? Now, I don’t recommend doing this on purpose, don’t test my anecdote with a grizzly or something, but I have heard, from Canadian park rangers, that this is the case. And it’s because to that big aggressive animal, a huddled group of people looks like ONE BIG NOISY THING. The bear (or whatever) retreats because it doesn’t want to fight a big noisy thing; it just wanted to get to the berry bushes on the other side. The bear doesn’t know that if it just took a minute to see that that big noisy thing was actually made up of several less noisy pieces, it might be able to get to those berries after all.

The truth is that most of our messes that seem unapproachable, intimidating, too big to ever really accomplish are really lots of little messes, which might not make them any more appealing, but most certainly makes them more approachable. If we can just be still and quiet long enough to look at that ONE BIG THING and see how it is composed of smaller pieces, we can get a handle on how to tackle it.

For my initial attempt to resurrect the purposeful tool room I used a method I favor for any housework related task that I don’t feel like doing (which includes most of them). I grabbed my phone and pulled up the timer and set it for 15 minutes. I then figured out a category of stuff that I could collect and put away. I work best that way, but I could have just as easily decided to clear an area or a specific space first. I worked at it for 15 minutes and because I focused on one part of the whole, I could actually see a difference after only 15 minutes. Now, there are many more 15 minute increments to go, and it still looks awful, but it’s not such a big deal in my head anymore. The alligator is gone. It’s just a bunch of frogs in the basement, and they need cleaned up.

What project or change have you been avoiding because it just seems to big to even think about? What frogs are you letting turn into alligators? How can you break it down? What are the smaller pieces making up the whole? What piece can you tackle that will help you on your way? As always, I’m just a digital message away if you need a frog whisperer or someone to huddle with and make a lot of noise.

My mother and stepfather are downsizing. The emotional result of this for me is that they will have friends and medical care close by. The logistical result of this for me (and my sibs) is an influx of STUFF. The process has been interesting for me as an observer of my Mom, and for me as a recipient of said stuff.

This move has been a challenge for my Mom. She was pretty much in charge of all of the logistics of this kind of undertaking, probably for the first time in her life, and she did manage to get it all done (or at least found people to do all of the parts, which is essentially the same). I was prepared for it to be hard for her, but I had it all wrong about  WHAT would be difficult. I assumed that letting go of a lifetime of (at least some) meaningful objects would be really hard. I was dead wrong.

The part she struggled with was organizing the whole mess, making the big decisions and following through with the practical outcomes of those decisions. Once she had made the big decisions, the rest just followed. Once she knew she wanted to make this move, the only hard part was navigating the list of phone calls and services, negotiating with buyers and real estate agents, wrangling her way through scheduling movers. Getting rid of the stuff? No problem.

I like to imagine that the ease of this part of the transition, something I thought would be so difficult, has everything to do with that initial decision. She battled with that decision for years. She considered all of the aspects. She changed her mind at least half a dozen times. She toured places and tortured herself trying to figure out what the best answer would be. At some point, I stuck my nose in, as I often do when I smell self-torture. I asked if I could offer her a tool. She said yes (she always says yes, in part because she’s my Mom and in part because she was a social worker and I think she finds my work interesting). I suggested that she cease the spreadsheet-making for a few minutes and simply try to imagine what the best days would look like for her. What would she most like to do? Where would she most like to be? Who would she like to be around? What options would she like to have? If she could script a regular old Tuesday, what would it look like?

That seemed to help her find a path through all of the facts and figures, and the conviction she has behind the choice she made has made the “emotional” part of this move infinitely easier. She knows why she’s moving. She knows what she’s signing up for. She knows how much she wants it and suddenly glass baubles and extra seating just isn’t so important. She can shed them as unnecessary for the part of her life she wants to create next. There is liberation in releasing the things that tie us to an old vision of what we want.

And so now I look around, at all of these things that have come into my life, and I wonder how they fit into the days I want to create. What can I shed from the last era to make room for the kind of home, day, life I want to build next? The answer comes from the vision and the vision is my own. I just need to give myself the space, the time, and the freedom to see it without all of the other mental clutter getting in the way.

If you need some help dialing in to your vision, if you have decisions to make and don’t know where to begin, I’d love to help.

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I used to imagine that the best thing in the world would be to be able to eat whatever I want, whenever I want, and suffer no health or weight consequences. Now I’m pretty sure that the best thing in the world would be to have a thriving coaching practice AND be able to travel as often as I like whenever I like. Food, my old friend and companion, doesn’t really figure into it any more.

The thing is that I used to think about food pretty much all of the time. When I was trying to lose weight I spent a lot of time planning what I would eat, procuring specialty ingredients that would allow me to maximize my experience while staying inbounds. I spent a lot of time preparing complicated and elegant dishes that followed all of the rules. I made it a point of pride. And I thought about food all of the time.

In a later phase I pursued food thoughts with ultimate health as the goal and again I embarked on food thinking with vigor. I planned, I experimented, I cut out toxic elements, I cut out unethical elements, I cut out ingredient after ingredient and then searched for recipes that would recreate the flavors I missed. I made it a point of pride. And I thought about food all of the time.

The question a coach would ask is if I felt happy and satisfied, fulfilled in this food obsession. Did I want to be a food writer/health chef/food guru/restaurateur? No, then what are you trying not to think about? Where else could all of this energy go? Is it really necessary to think about food all of the time to achieve goals that are important to you? Are there other goals besides the shape and condition of your body? Have you thought about those lately?

I both had and hadn’t. You see the latter part of the food obsession occurred when my twins were small and I was still staying at home with them full-time, and there was a tugging at the edge of my psyche that told me it was time for me to begin some work again, and I had to face the question I couldn’t ever answer comfortably before then: what do I want to do in the world? How do I want to make a living? I had tried to figure this out many times with the methods our culture supports (spread sheets, personality assessments, guidance counseling, interest surveys) and the results had been, while not a total failure (I did some cool and interesting stuff), I hadn’t found anything I wanted to return to. I felt like there was a better, if not a newer, answer to the question and it terrified me. My inadequacies as a parent (yes, we all have them) frustrated me. My sense that I was losing myself in all of my care taking made me feel like I was drowning. And so I tackled the most concrete problem I could find: feeding myself and my family in the BEST way I could. I was excellent at it, and I thought about food all of the time.

Flash forward to now. My life has expanded; my soul has stretched. I found something that I LOVE to do (that was a bumpy road) and I willingly put lots of time and energy there. I took my own BARE journey and stopped seeing my body as a collection of flaws to be sneered at. I unearthed a deep and abiding love for the body that carries me through this world. I stopped avoiding all of the stuff that was keeping me from having a better life as a woman, as a wife, as a Mom. And as I stopped avoiding it, as I began to address those worries, problems, concerns, cares; as I began to forge pathways that felt like progress, adventure, and celebration, I stopped needing to think about food so much.

I stopped needing to control it. I stopped needing to eat it to entertain/distract/cheer myself up. I stopped even finding it as interesting as I used to. My pleasure takes on so many deeper and richer forms as I grow new wings and see how much power I can have in all of the parts of my life, not just on my table. Food is necessary to me, and we can be friends, but I don’t NEED it; it doesn’t COMPLETE me (a la Jerry Maguire). Having put food in its place, I can now dream and plan trips and programs and time with friends, and that feels like freedom.

If food is taking up a lot of your time, maybe it’s time to find a little freedom. I can show you how. If you want to explore how to change your relationship with your body to make a shift in your food relationship easier, check out this free MiniBook.

On some excellent advice from a brilliant coach (thank you Brooke Castillo), I have been daring myself to take action on my business daily. I choose a task that I know could prove helpful in getting the word out or making potential clients aware of what I’m up to, and then I think about what’s going on internally that’s keeping me from doing said task, including what I’m afraid of and how that makes me feel.

THEN I look at the whole thing again with the assumption of feeling confident. What would I need to think? What would that do for me? How would it change my action? What COULD the results be? It’s been really powerful. Some of that power, I think, likes in the simple act of reaching for something every day and having it written down as a commitment. I commit to do something just a little outside of my comfort zone every single day. There is power in simply deciding to DO.

Another part of the magic here, however, is in figuring out what I’d have to think in order to have the confidence to do these things that I think might help my business. As a result of going through this very conscious process, I have been reminding myself very intentionally of the things that I really DO believe about my business, but that get buried under self-doubt from time to time: “I have a lot to offer. My clients value the work we do together. People will recognize that value. People could benefit from my programs. I am proud of myself for what I’ve accomplished. This is a great program…” The list actually goes ON! There has been such power in this moment of consciously finding those thoughts and pulling them to the surface where they can do some good.

The last bit of magic in this whole truth and dare game I’ve got going with myself is at the very end, when I’ve completed the task in question. I’ve thought my thoughts. I’ve done the thing (sometimes with physical symptoms, but done it nonetheless). And when I have finished I invariably notice two things: 1) actually doing the task is never as scary as I make it out to be and 2) when I describe my business and my programs from a place of confidence and complete these tasks, I actually gain MORE confidence. I feel more legitimate. I feel more like I may actually achieve my goals professionally. This is both logically and emotionally true. I certainly have a better shot at doing well if I’m talking about what I do, but that chance can only be helped by the confidence that comes with consciously recognizing my own value and describing it to other adults. Confidence born in action taken from consciously created confidence. Whoa.

That’s really how it works, isn’t it. It’s not a fake it ’til you make it, because it’s all real, but it does sort of give some credence to that saying. If you don’t feel like you’re up to the job, the task, the dream, maybe you just need to think something different. And maybe you need to break that dream, task, job into tiny little discreet pieces that you can then consciously create enough confidence to achieve. What would you need to think in order to take a step towards something you REALLY, REALLY want? How could you consciously create the feeling that would help propel you through something scary or difficult? What’s holding you back? Are you sure it isn’t you?

If you know you’re holding back, but aren’t sure how to change that, I sure would love to help.

Monday was the first full day of summer vacation for my kids. Now, the first week of break is often punctuated by adjustment bumps in the road as I try to make my work day WORK for us and the kids realize they will still have to do SOME of the things they don’t really want to do, but this Monday, WOW. My daughter was dreadful. Just dreadful. Everything was an argument. Everything caused outrage. Everything I said or did was unjust, stupid, and mean. This went on all day.

By the time her Dad got home, I was completely finished. I let him know he was welcome to take over and began licking my wounds by giving myself a foot rub with some coconut foot cream (heavenly). He got a taste of it too, which I admit was a bit of a relief. When I went upstairs to say goodnight, she seemed different, quiet and reflective rather than poised for battle.

I asked her if something was wrong. I asked her if there was something going on that was making her so angry. She took a deep breath and said: “Mommy, I’m just so sad. But I don’t want to be sad, so I keep trying to NOT be sad and be happy and this is what’s coming out instead.” Yep, there it is. We were at a funeral for my uncle yesterday, and while they weren’t close, the echoes to my Dad’s funeral a few months ago were powerful, and she felt them, or almost felt them and then did what we so often do. She decided she was not having it. She decided she would NOT be sad because she wanted to be happy. She did this by simply stuffing that sadness, trying to shove it into a teeny tiny little box, just like UniKitty in the Lego Movie. (For the uninitiated, UniKitty is a determined happy pusher who has a few clear moments of rage resulting from bottled up negative emotions.) It didn’t work for UniKitty, and it didn’t work for my daughter. So instead of being sad for a few minutes, or for a little while, she had a day of rage (rage might be strong, but it was pretty dramatic).

I reminded her that it is okay to be sad. She said, “But I don’t want to be sad!” I asked if she wanted to be angry. And then I told her about the beach ball. This analogy comes from Brooke Castillo and I really think it’s just perfect. Imagine your emotion is a beach ball. When you try not to feel it by shoving it away, it is just like trying to hold a beach ball under the water. What happens? My daughter indicated that she sits on beach balls to hold them under the water (very telling) because she’s not big enough to do it with her arms, so she puts ALL of herself into it. She resists with EVERYTHING she’s got. It’s not just an analogy; she really is that way. I asked her what happens eventually… she admitted that even with her WHOLE self involved, she can’t keep the beach ball under the water and it eventually shoots up, dumping her, and flies into the air. The resistance, holding the ball under the water, just creates pressure. The pressure builds and eventually overpowers us, just like Unikitty.

I suggested that maybe just being sad for a little while would be better than being furious ALL DAY (like, at me, kid). She was dubious but didn’t yell at me, so that felt like progress.  It was so interesting to me to see such a clear example and to have it laid out in such simple terms. Adults go through much more trouble to hide from their feelings, and usually throw some exceptionally good storytelling in on top of it: “I don’t have time for that. Feeling bad isn’t productive. I should be more positive. What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I just get over it?” We throw those stories on top of the feeling to be sure we get the double beat down of feeling badly AND berating ourselves for it. And then maybe we overeat or drink or get lost in a social media rabbit hole to numb out, or we explode like my daughter and take it all out on the innocents (or mostly innocent) around us. It’s like a rotten onion, layer after stinking layer.

And for what? Just so we don’t have to feel a feeling, a vibration, an emotion. Doesn’t that seem like an expensive trade-off? What would happen if we just stopped resisting how we feel? What would happen if we just felt it for a minute or two? I know, we’ve got all of these stories about why that’s a problem, but I have to say, this other way, holding the beach ball under the water, it isn’t working. Maybe all of those stories are wrong. Maybe you can trust yourself to feel for a minute or two. Maybe there’s a reason we work like that. Maybe you’ll feel better if you let that happen. Maybe then you won’t yell at your Mom and have to apologize at bedtime.

If you are pretty sure that you haven’t been feeling your feelings, but you are unsure about how to begin, I’d love to help.

 

Summer vacay has officially begun for my twin ten year olds. We were about 1 hour into the day when the first strains of boredom were played by one of the two; he shall remain nameless. I made a few suggestions, then visibly shrugged when he dismissed them all as inadequate. “Sorry, kid. You’re on your own.” And they are. The three of us decided we are going to have a meeting today so we can lay out some basic parameters and expectations (so I don’t have to take heat EVERY time I ask for a chore or ask for presence at meal times), to give a little structure (very little) to our days together, and to keep this from becoming Mom’s maid service, but the truth is that they are now going to face the hard part of the freedom they’ve been anticipating for so long.

In my last post I discussed the deliciousness of the anticipation of freedom and the importance of seeing possibility, how that helps our creativity and our ability to come up with great ideas, great art, great everything. Using our freedom can be a whole different ball game, and it often trips people, not just my son, up.

I remember my mother, who had just finished her graduate degree at the age of 48 telling me: “You can be anything.” She was offering that take in wonder, having grown up in a time when careers for women were discouraged and limited to just a few options if they were absolutely necessary. She was reminding me how much had changed. And I remember exactly how I heard it.

Something in me recoiled at the size of that decision. “If I can be anything, how will I ever pick? How will I know? What will I ever do? What if I change my mind? What if I pick the wrong thing? What if I’m actually not good at that choice that is now open to me?” I did a number on myself. In college, I took several classes to “keep my options open” that were unnecessarily torturous and awful for me. My sense of the possibilities was unrestricted even by my own preferences. The vastness of the freedom that was presented to me terrified me.

Now, let me say something. I acknowledge the privilege in that statement. This is not a woe is me tale about the fact that I had a parent who believed I could be anybody I wanted to be. I realize that is a good thing. What I’m interested in is this dynamic that seems to play out when we sense freedom, if we’re lucky enough to even get to that point. “I’m free to do what I want, any old time… so I’m going to just keep doing what I’m doing because THAT is scary and a lot of work and I don’t really want to figure it out, besides I might fail, and then what? I’m fine. Really, it’s just a mood. I get restless sometimes, but I should be grateful.” Ever done that to yourself? Sensed a moment when you could make a big, bold choice that might actually make you happier, more successful, more FREE, and you shy away from it because you’re scared, or tired, or uncertain?

For most of us, there is a big gap between seeing that greater freedom, or sensing possibility, and actually taking steps to do anything about it. Taking those first steps can feel SO difficult. We talk ourselves out of it, using our very best strategies and arguments. We find fault in our own ability to be satisfied. We take on a gratitude practice (which can be great sometimes) so we can recognize what’s good even if we’re miserable. We do  A LOT to avoid taking a step toward something that feels like a buzz in our chests and occasionally wakes us up extra early. We say a LOT about what’s realistic and what’s not. We prevent ourselves from moving forward because it just seems too hard.

But we have a perfect model for how moving towards freedom can go, right? We’ve done this before; we’ve faced the fear of the first steps towards freedom. They are wobbly; they are uncertain. They often end abruptly and with a thud, maybe even a few tears, but that end is not an END. The baby who is learning to walk doesn’t shy away from the freedom. The baby learning to walk tries once and then tries again and again, and it is in the trying, in the repeated pulling up and falling down that leg muscles develop enough to make the walking steady, faster, less prone to ending with a loud thump.

The road to greater freedom has bumps, and we see them. We have stories about bumps in the road that deter us. We have stories about our ability to do difficult things that stop us. But what we forget is that we don’t have to know how to do it all; we don’t have to have the strength to do it well. We just have to be ready to take the first steps that will build our muscles and teach us how to walk that road.

If you have a sense of greater freedom, a little whiff of possibility in the breeze, but can’t seem to get yourself walking, I’d love to help.

I know, I know, it hasn’t really started yet for those of us in this part of the world, but having been through a few of these, I have some confidence in drawing some lessons in advance, in hopes of remembering the learning as we go…

My kids are so excited for school to end. And as I put them on the bus in the morning, I am continuously grateful that I am no longer a teacher. Those last few weeks are completely ridiculous. As I talked to a friend who has older kids who are NOT excited about not having this daily scheduled meeting with their friends, I started to wonder this morning exactly what it is that my kids are so excited about.

And I think it boils down to one thing: freedom. There is a lot of other stuff too, like the anticipation of repeating some of the good stuff from summers past (pool trips, lake trips, vacation), but mostly it’s about freedom. So much of their time is spent in activities that are mandated, required, forced. We sort of chuckle at that as adults (especially if we don’t like our jobs) because to US school looks FUN. We also spend so much of our time in mandated, required, forced ways. But the kids know better.

The kids know that they are being forced by us (well, and by the state with its pesky truancy laws). The kids also know that we adults force ourselves into our own daily prisons. We get to make the choices that get us stuck; they don’t have that luxury. So they see summer as a vast expanse of unfettered time, a chance to explore, a time to stretch the boundaries on bedtime and regular meals, a time to read a whole book from start to finish, a time to finish the whole Monopoly game in one sitting. They see limitless possibility unfolding before them. They invent the best games, have the most creative fun, and learn all of the things.

The reality is usually a little more fettered, a little more encumbered. The realities of summer camp and childcare, the realities of working parents and conference calls, the realities of waking up in time for school by biological habit. But still, that sense of freedom persists in the most gentle hot sticky afternoon in a hammock kind of way. And in this they find great joy, sheer happiness in imagining a greater level of freedom in a time when we both speed up (running, swimming, batting, swinging) and slow down because the air is thick with heat and humidity. They experience the freedom in savoring the notion that summer is free, that they are free, that their possibilities are unlimited, even if it doesn’t turn out to be quite that simple, they get to experience that feeling and dream.

When do we allow ourselves this luxury? When do we anticipate more freedom and drink in the delicious taste of doing precisely what we choose (even if for us, just like them, it doesn’t quite work out that way…)? When do we look forward and, in assuming limitless possibility, come up with the greatest thing we’ve ever done, seen, made, learned, written, read, thought of? The luxury of summer break is available to all of us; we just have to see it. And when we can see that unlimited horizon, drink it in regardless of the limits reality may impose upon us, regardless of how it all may pan out in the end, regardless of the adjustments we may have to make. We will be richer for having dreamed that freedom in a hot, slowly swaying hammock.

A few days ago, my uncle passed away. So quickly on the heels of my Dad’s death, there is this sense of a larger shift in our family. I had a moment the other day when the thought: “My family is dying,” just drifted through my head. I grabbed it for a second to see what THAT was all about. And it really did give voice to this sense that I have of the end of one set of experiences for us. And then it struck me that there are rarely endings without something else beginning.

My family is dying and simultaneously being born. As the older generation passes, the younger step up and help them through the door, make arrangements, comfort each other. The next generation below them work and play to discover inspirations and aspirations, find love, make commitments. And as the oldest generation passes, the youngest among us learn to walk, pack their lunches, and ask even better questions.

My family is dying and coming to life all the time. And likewise the ways that I exist, learn, love, and define myself die and are brought to life and maturity all the time. The passing of my former selves, of the things and qualities I used to define myself, can be painful, drawn out or shockingly sudden, and full of new challenges and opportunity: opportunities to let go of that which has had its time and is done, opportunities to love and live that which is birthing itself in me, in my life, in this time.

We have rituals to say goodbye to family members. We have traditions welcoming new ones and marking milestones. How can we mark the changes within ourselves that will allow us ease and gratitude in letting go of that which no longer serves? Can we accept and welcome the changes we experience with delight and joy, just like when we watch a toddler take first steps? Can we offer ourselves and others the grace necessary to navigate in a world (or sometimes just a room) full of people who are changing and growing all of the time, just like we are?

We can do all of that the same way we get through these moments of grief and sorrow. We breathe deeply. We do what we feel we must in order to take care of ourselves and our loved ones. We drink in the connection and warmth of the group if it soothes. We find the time for quiet reflection. We surrender to love and all of the joy, beauty, and grief that it can bring.

“Can I think those both at the same time?” she asked, with a little wonder and a little doubt, my client who wants to both love her body and desires to change its shape.

Yes. Yes, you can.

I’ve been encountering this a lot with clients and with myself in the last week. A theme of growth and contradiction, so I figured it was a good time to bring it up with you.  Let me tell you what I mean by way of an example.

My Mom is getting ready to move. It’s a big move, not geographically, but in terms of downsizing and letting go of the stuff that has been a part of her life for a long time. There are a lot of tasks associated with this move, a lot of junk to get rid of, a lot of furniture to distribute between siblings, a lot of planning for trucks and heavy lifting. Ugh. All of it. Ugh. I know it’s ugh for her. I can’t imagine how difficult it must be to choose what to keep and what to shed. I can’t imagine simply facing the size of the task. But the truth is, I don’t want to do my part either. I don’t want to help clean out her basement or load my van with stuff or discuss who gets what with my siblings. I don’t want to do any of it. I acknowledge that thought. I really don’t want to do it.

But I DO want to support my Mom. These thoughts are a little contradictory. They don’t line up very well. In the past, I would have stifled the “bad” daughter. I would have gagged her and put her in the closet until the job was done. There is no room for your opinions here, “bad” daughter. Only “good” daughters are allowed. But that wily “bad” daughter would have found a way out. She would have been rude to someone or snapped at somebody else, or just oozed under the door in the form of a contagiously bad attitude.

So now, instead of trying to shut her up, I just acknowledge what she’s saying. Yep, don’t want to do it. Who would? Sounds pretty miserable. Does that mean I won’t do it? No, it does not. It DOES mean I might be a little nicer to myself, making sure I’ve left enough time for those tasks, making sure I’m getting enough rest, taking a few minutes to just sit with the muck of going through all of this old family stuff. I want to support her, so I will do that. My action is a choice, but I can hold a thought that doesn’t support that. If I don’t work so hard to stifle that thought, it actually feels lighter. I can just see it there, give it a little pat on the head and go back to moving boxes.

It takes practice. It takes patience. It takes being open enough to recognize the possibility of holding more than one thought about something and choosing to love and respect both. “It’s okay less good daughter, you can stay. You don’t have to throw a tantrum; you’re right. This sucks, but we’re doing it anyway. If you’re good maybe we’ll stop for one of those fancy teas you like so much.”

This is how we respect ourselves, right? Acknowledging what we think and feel, allowing the dissident voices within to continue to exist, seeing them for what they are, just a part of the whole, a part of a growing changing whole that can be complex and cherished.