Tag: writing

Hubris – Then and now

Hard times make us or break us.  While I believe I have seen more than my fair share; I know there is always  going to be someone with a sadder story, a darker past – someone who has lost more suffered more.  Someone whose life and karma have never been fair to.  How do we deal when the world is stacked against us.  How do we cope when all the odds seem not in our favour?  

I seem to be a lightning rod for sad stories and a safe port in a storm for many.  If you have fallen on hard times – ask anyone who knows me – they will give you my number and I will do what I can.  Over the years it has cost me dearly – emotionally, financially  I have even lost friendships and reputation to people who frankly wound up not being worth the effort.  However, I believe if I don’t try,  if the world turns its back on potential, who knows what we have lost.  Sometimes, at least for me,  it  just took the right person at the right time to offer me the slimmest of threads of hope. Lately that glimmer of light has been a train. I am re- writing this to remind myself that even with the very real possibility of losing everything on a bad bet, what I have been chasing will find me in the wreckage.

In my darkest times I promise myself that if I can just get through the next minute, then 5, then 15, then 30 and so on; then I would be okay.  Sometimes the dark lasts a day, sometimes a week, often months and once nearly a decade. I kept putting one foot in front of the other, I kept promising myself hope was just around the next corner.  

During my decade of struggle I had to push hard to make things happen.  Being a women of child bearing years, during a recession as the pendulum was swing back to ultra conservative offered very little light. I had great experience, but it was partisan. I was well educated but either too much or too little.

Times have changed – and things have gotten better but between postpartum, a terminally angry and entitled partner who measured everything in dollars and cents and being sidelined for propagating the race; I feel fortunate to have survived. 

I hope to again,survive that is, but the black dog of the nineties is back, and has a master hell bent on destroying all that I have accomplished. Somehow standing on the rubble that was me will lift her.

It was not all darkness, like I said there was always that one person who at the right time would offer me that thread of hope.  A professor who admired me that offered my financial assistance.  A stranger in a dog park, who offered to train my husband in a different line of work and sold him the company. A friend who would show up everyday and make me walk, myself, my child and my dog. A group of teenage girls who I had read to everyday for the previous 6 years who organised a child care schedule for so at least once a week II could sleep as long as I needed to without having to get up with a crying child.   A former boss who always managed to call when I was about to be crushed by an unforgiving system and would open the doors to let me plead my case and usually win.  

Eventually tides began to turn, however there were many hard lessons to learn. 

1. It doesn’t matter how brilliant – I am not a great employee in a big system. Big systems are slow to adjust to new visions even if they see the right in it.

2. I should not be a stalking horse for every sad story. Most people won’t thank you for fighting their fight. Too many people want to stay in thier struggle. Don’t fix problems that don’t want fixing – this is still my downfall.

3. Get it in writing. Make people commit to what they want. If you can’t write it down and sign it, you don’t really want change.

4. Don’t give it all away.

Once I let go of the hubris and accepted my greatest accomplishment might be giving my two sons the courage to pursue their passions and embrace themselves. Everything began to change.  Everything that I had been chasing- suddenly started chasing me. They say dreams can’t chase you. I would suggest its only because we allow Ego to tell us so.

I would also suggest that the adage those who don’t learn from history are destined to repeat it.

Here we are again. I have given it all away – to someone who is wearing it as a trophy Here I am mental health circling the drain and not knowing where I will find my life raft.

I had hoped my legacy would be more than a cautionary tale. However here I am – at an age that I should be reaping the benefits of my hard work . I have given it away. I am being mocked, scorned and betrayed for trying to help someone out of their dark. I saved their life – literally- only to have them hold me under.

So here are my lessons to share: Don’t save someone unless you are sure you can carry that burden for the rest of your life.

Trust yourself and your inner voice. Don’t talk yourself out of recognizing evil.

Listen to the people who have loved you for as long as they have known you.

Recognize you probably share DNA with your enemy.

When you meet evil slam the door, turn the key pile furniture agains the door, and throw the key in an active volcano.

0

Embracing Unseen Strength: Lessons from Life’s Journey

I haven’t always been quiet. I haven’t always wanted to be unseen. At some point I discovered that mountains can be moved in the silence, and usually it is the unseen hand that changes the world. As I approach one of those milestone birthdays; and having left a toxic situation I have been reflecting on what I have done and where I am going. Have I achieved my goals? Have I made things better? Who have I hurt? Am I doing what needs to be done? What do I regret? What can I do to minimize my regrets? Do I have amends to make? What have I missed?

As I have been reflecting I have realized there are many odd things I don’t know about myself. I don’t know if I was pretty. I certainly wasn’t one of the popular girls, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you are flawed or have a face and a body only a parent could love. I was raised by older parents so both my reference base and conversational choices were not generally things like “Isn’t Leif Garret just dreamy? ” they often were topics like “Can you believe fundamentalists have ousted the Shah and taken over Iran? How are all those women going to deal with the return to the stone age?” My family owned one of the towns major industries and my father was a once in a lifetime boss. You wanted to work for him. I never “had” to wear hand-me downs. Everything I had for the most part was new. I had a pony. I believed renting was a lifestyle choice, not a necessity. I didn’t realize I had a “place” a box I was supposed to fit into.

I didn’t know we were rich. I was continually told that we were poor, look at the Doctor look at the Lawyer. It never occured to me to think about the stories of scrimping and saving and question why they were all 30+ years old. It never occured to me that Hawaiian vacations were luxuries. New vehicles every year were the status quo in my world and if you hung on to a vehicle longer than two years it was because A. it was or was going to be a classic or B. you just really liked it. I didn’t know most people took out loans to buy vehicles and houses my dad alway just wrote a cheque. I knew nothing else.

While I can see why in many ways I was not wildly popular I don’t know if I was pretty. Pretty was not a value to be sought after. You couldn’t be pretty and smart you had to be one or the other. Pretty was one of the deadly sins. – Vanity. After university at my first “professional” job. I was in a bar enraged at a study that made the news saying pretty women were more often hired than their less aesthetically pleasing equally or better qualified sisters, As I, with venom in my voice and rage in my heart, ended my soap box argument, My boss looked at me and said ” Why are you so wound up about this, you are always going to have the advantage. Why are you arguing against your own interest?” I stood there with my mouth hanging open for two reasons 1. I am clearly arguing for what is right and good why would you not be as passionate about it as I am? Answer – he is a man and an a Ph.D this was trivia to him. 2. Was he implying I might be considered pretty? I was 27 years old at this point and the possibility had never occurred to me. I finally stammered.”What do you mean?” He said “you are pretty you will win”. My composed response was to break into a loud and ugly cry, in a neighbourhood pub and run to the bathroom. I managed to convince myself that he only said that because he wanted to sleep with me, I was smart, not pretty. The poor man was at a loss as what to do. He apologized and walked me to my car. He went back in paid the bill and left embarrassed as everyone glared at him- wondering what that mean old man might have done to that young women.

I won’t go on with ridiculous story after ridiculous story. From this more evolved and experianced side of my life here is what I know about my flaws and misunderstandings. The reason I would rather be unseen, the reasons I allow others to take my limelight. It was pointed out to me recently I have done amazing things, I have changed my part of the world for the better, and in a few instances I really have made a global difference. I have spent a lifetime doing without reflecting, because there is always one more mountain to climb, no time to stop and pat myself on the back – that would be slothful and arrogant.

I have believed that Humiliation was kindness and support.

Other things I have believed my whole life and only now am I able to really look and ponder –

Embarrassment for arrogance

Jealousy for love. or for my lack of ability

Silence for scorn or again my causing embarrassment to someone else.

Family for love and safetly.

Marriage for safety, love, and support.

Being notice for arrogance.

Being recognized for achievement was a moral failure

Poverty for lack of desire.

Independence for being unlovable

Tanacity was cruelty

Openness a cry for attention

Compassion was simply arrogance.

Today I own I have done great things, I have made a difference, I have changed lives, I have never given up I will no longer allow anyone else to calibrate my moral compass. I have made I life I am proud of. I do not want a parade or public proclamations. I don’t need anyone to tell me they are proud of me. I am proud of me. The air in the room does shift when I walk in without anyone knowing why – which is my great advantage. I have made peace with quietly accepting that I can make a difference and be great just for me no one needs to validate that.

I don’t have to fit into a box.

I don’t do what I do to be honour or rewarded. I do what I do because it brings me joy. To be able to tell the unseen, the unappreciated, and often the unwanted they make a difference, they are seen. How can they believe they truly do if I stand in there light and declare they matter because I said so. Absolutely that strokes my ego it changes nothing but your own personal hat size.

To have your hand on enough levers that you can tilt a playing field in favour of invisible, disenfranchised and disenchanted, to watch someone from afar and see them take their space, claim their identity and purpose; it is a transformative experience. I realize it was easy to make me believe I wasn’t doing it right, I wasn’t. Like Don Quixote I was chasing the accolades not the outcomes. To be genuine you need to be willing to remain unseen.

The applause with never be loud enough to fill the belly of the beast called Ego. Seeing a shadow become a fully realized valued member of their community. To see them embrace themselves and recognize their value is worth taking a moment to appreciate. It may leave ego hungary but your heart will burst with pride as you watch them take their place at the table. Ego won’t starve and Ego will find itself healthier for having missed a meal or two.

The irony all the erosion and dismissal of my achievements made me work harder, take bigger risks to try to be enough. The more I accomplished the farther away approval got. The less I reflected or appreciated that I had moved a big piece of that mountain the more Ego would tell me. “You didn’t do the work you just had the idea”. However, the idea was the work, or it is work that if I had done it the problem wouldn’t have been solved. Or ” It’s not like that was your idea, you just did the work.” As long as you look in someone else’s mirror you will alway be failing. Build your own box and quietly polish your own mirror, calibrate your own compass and every 60 years or so take a minute to appreciate what you have done.

0

Loud Enough to be Heard

How do I speak in a voice loud enough to be heard?

In all relationships there should be compromise.  Somehow there always seems to be a dominant and submissive partner.  Being the person who believes what they are told and not what they see I always believed relationships were give and take – discussion and finding a middle ground.  

As an adult – married and in other relationships – I find this to not be so true.  None of my parents, siblings or aunts had these kinds of relationships. There was always one aggressively dominant partner and one who bent in the breeze.  I always admired the partner that was willing to bend.  The person who made the relationship work.  They always seemed to lead from behind. This was their gift and I had tremendous respect for that gift..  They quietly change the course of things quietly and without fan fare.  They were the people who flowed with the river.  They didn’t try to swim upstream.  The dominant partners  walk through life with boxing gloves on fighting it all.  They have hard boundaries that are respected.  Because to not respect the boxers boundaries no matter how absurd would create bedlam, and potentially blow the relationship apart with no end of trauma and drama.

Compromisers can have boundaries too – they can draw hard lines and they tend to have them respected.  They are few but everyone knows they are concrete.  It is an art and when it works it is a beautiful thing.  Compromisers bend; they change their course by picking moments, gently and quietly subverting some of the hard lines of the boxer.  Progress is often glacial but compromisers take the long view and can wait for the river to erode the hard lines and immutable personality.  The compromiser believes in the beauty of the road less travelled and is willing to see the possibilities of a different point of view.

Compromisers stand in the storm of derision and venom; they remain silent, or as silent as is possible.  They wait to pick their moment to have a rational conversation, to be loud enough to be heard.  A boxer’s storms can be loud, angry and at great volume with great grand gestures coupled with a few  outrageous lies.  A Boxer can and will weaponize a compromiser’s  every vulnerability and insecurity.  It is impossible to stand in the storm and not be wounded, crushed, battered and bruised but a compromiser’s heart is always  open and willing to forgive.  Their memories are long but willing to give grace to their boxer because their boxer’s love is bigger than their hurt.

While it is possible to withstand the storm – it is hard, be sure to take stock knowing who you are and your worth.  Be careful not to let the boxer erode your sense of value, hold tight to who you are – even if it’s just your secret..  Love yourself first, be able to be peaceful with your own company.  Boxers love the attention fighting the good fight, or being ringmaster of the circle affords them.  Boxers demand to be heard – they speak at volume and enter with fanfare. They are people magnets, and will often overwhelm people with their big emotions and bold actions.  But they can’t always reign in that big personality and certainly alone is not their happy place.  

Compromisers  and Boxers have to work really hard to get what they need.They need to learn to be comfortable in other ways, it often hurts and is hard. Most of all they need to learn to be heard, They need to know how to not lose themselves while giving themselves to someone who functions in foreign and tumultuous waters. The compromisers need to learn to speak loud enough to be heard in a constructive way and not a reactive way.  Boxers need to learn to be still and let go of the drive to win at all cost.    

Relationships are not individual sports – it is a team sport – and you will win as a team or lose as a team.  In relationships that fail no one walks away a winner.  They have lost time, they have lost a piece of themselves.  There will be trauma and hurt.  There will be loneliness and regret.  The best you can hope for is you have learned, and evolved.  You are a little wiser, and a little more resilient for the next time.  That you will be brave enough to let down your armour and love again. Be loud enough to be heard and still enough to listen.

When Compromisers and Boxers come together it can be an amazing thing. Boxers can raise you up. Loan you the passion and courage to reach beyond your grasp and be strong enough to ensure a soft landing should you fall short – or a ticker tape parade should you succeed.  Compromisers can temper the volatility and reactionary tendencies of Boxers.  They can focus Boxers on the longer game and bigger plan and show them the beauty of the small success.  Benders are by nature soft landings. They may not plan the ticker tape parade but they will quietly tell you how proud they are of your accomplishments and recognize it in a very personal way.  

On their worst days Compromisers and Boxers can tear one another apart.  They both look for the win one quickly and loudly – the other willing to spend a lifetime winning a ¼ inch at a time.  Both Compromisers  and Boxers will be the people you see walking in on your worst day – and offering all the help they have to give. 

This entry started off in a vastly different strain – it began in the middle of an ugly ugly fight.  And in this relationship because of its complexity and its long history of push and pull – admiration, respect, frustration, isolation, sorrow, heartache and ultimately love – the waves of anger and fear work themselves out – and the sun shines.  And you realise at the end of the day working together we can probably change the world should we decide to. I will never find a softer landing, a bigger cheerleader, and more love anywhere than I have here in this moment – with this person – in this lifetime.

0

Loud Enough to Be Heard

In all relationships there should be compromise.  Somehow there always seems to be a dominant and submissive partner.  Being the person who believes what they are told and not what they see I always believed relationships were give and take – discussion and finding a middle ground.  

As an adult – married and in other relationships – I find this to not be so true.  None of my parents, siblings or aunts had these kinds of relationships. There was always one aggressively dominant partner and one who bent in the breeze.  I always admired the partner that was willing to bend.  The person who made the relationship work.  They always seemed to lead from behind. This was their gift and I had tremendous respect for that gift..  They quietly change the course of things quietly and without fan fare.  They were the people who flowed with the river.  They didn’t try to swim upstream.  The dominant partners  walk through life with boxing gloves on fighting it all.  They have hard boundaries that are respected.  Because to not respect the boxers boundaries no matter how absurd would create bedlam, and potentially blow the relationship apart with no end of trauma and drama.

Compromisers can have boundaries too – they can draw hard lines and they tend to have them respected.  They are few but everyone knows they are concrete.  It is an art and when it works it is a beautiful thing.  Compromisers bend; they change their course by picking moments, gently and quietly subverting some of the hard lines of the boxer.  Progress is often glacial but compromisers take the long view and can wait for the river to erode the hard lines and immutable personality.  The compromiser believes in the beauty of the road less travelled and is willing to see the possibilities of a different point of view.

Compromisers stand in the storm of derision and venom; they remain silent, or as silent as is possible.  They wait to pick their moment to have a rational conversation, to be loud enough to be heard.  A boxer’s storms can be loud, angry and at great volume with great grand gestures coupled with a few  outrageous lies.  A Boxer can and will weaponize a compromiser’s  every vulnerability and insecurity.  It is impossible to stand in the storm and not be wounded, crushed, battered and bruised but a compromiser’s heart is always  open and willing to forgive.  Their memories are long but willing to give grace to their boxer because their boxer’s love is bigger than their hurt.

While it is possible to withstand the storm – it is hard, be sure to take stock knowing who you are and your worth.  Be careful not to let the boxer erode your sense of value, hold tight to who you are – even if it’s just your secret..  Love yourself first, be able to be peaceful with your own company.  Boxers love the attention fighting the good fight, or being ringmaster of the circle affords them.  Boxers demand to be heard – they speak at volume and enter with fanfare. They are people magnets, and will often overwhelm people with their big emotions and bold actions.  But they can’t always reign in that big personality and certainly alone is not their happy place.  

Compromisers  and Boxers have to work really hard to get what they need.They need to learn to be comfortable in other ways, it often hurts and is hard. Most of all they need to learn to be heard, They need to know how to not lose themselves while giving themselves to someone who functions in foreign and tumultuous waters. The compromisers need to learn to speak loud enough to be heard in a constructive way and not a reactive way.  Boxers need to learn to be still and let go of the drive to win at all cost.    

Relationships are not individual sports – it is a team sport – and you will win as a team or lose as a team.  In relationships that fail no one walks away a winner.  They have lost time, they have lost a piece of themselves.  There will be trauma and hurt.  There will be loneliness and regret.  The best you can hope for is you have learned, and evolved.  You are a little wiser, and a little more resilient for the next time.  That you will be brave enough to let down your armour and love again. Be loud enough to be heard and still enough to listen.

When Compromisers and Boxers come together it can be an amazing thing. Boxers can raise you up. Loan you the passion and courage to reach beyond your grasp and be strong enough to ensure a soft landing should you fall short – or a ticker tape parade should you succeed.  Compromisers can temper the volatility and reactionary tendencies of Boxers.  They can focus Boxers on the longer game and bigger plan and show them the beauty of the small success.  Benders are by nature soft landings. They may not plan the ticker tape parade but they will quietly tell you how proud they are of your accomplishments and recognize it in a very personal way.  

On their worst days Compromisers and Boxers can tear one another apart.  They both look for the win one quickly and loudly – the other willing to spend a lifetime winning a ¼ inch at a time.  Both Compromisers  and Boxers will be the people you see walking in on your worst day – and offering all the help they have to give. 

This entry started off in a vastly different strain – it began in the middle of an ugly ugly fight.  And in this relationship because of its complexity and its long history of push and pull – admiration, respect, frustration, isolation, sorrow, heartache and ultimately love – the waves of anger and fear work themselves out – and the sun shines.  And you realise at the end of the day working together we can probably change the world should we decide to. I will never find a softer landing, a bigger cheerleader, and more love anywhere than I have here in this moment – with this person – in this lifetime.

2

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑