The beauty of a beginner's mind (and other random thoughts)
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The beauty of a beginner's mind (and other random thoughts)
Happy Sunday, Soothers. As I do sometimes, I was drifting through the file where I keep all of my half-formed ideas for Sunday Soother essays and realized it was getting a little unruly in there. (Sometimes I have lines in there that I clearly typed at some point while not really paying attention, and I'm like, "What did I mean when I wrote... "the thing about the cow"???").
I figured it was time for some trimming and weeding of that document! So without further ado, here are some concepts, thoughts, ideas that maybe one day will warrant a full Sunday Soother treatment, but for now, I'm offering up in little morsels.
The beauty of a beginner's mind: I've started running again, and here's the thing: I used to be a pretty good runner. Not like, AMAZING, but I've run several marathons, halfs, and 10 milers and used to be able to bang out an 8 minute or below mile. But I haven't really run in 4-5 years and these days though... I'm hanging around in the 9 or 10 minute mile space as I shuffle through a very tough 2-3 miles every few days. But instead of feeling frustrated, it feels kind of cool that, if I so choose, I get to learn how to be a pretty good runner again! I'm relearning techniques, getting to practice, read up on running tips again. And I did it once so I can probably do it again! So if you dropped a habit that you used to be "good" at, and now you're "bad" at it, but trying to get back into it, instead of bemoaning the distance between your previous skill and now, try focusing on the joy of re-learning this thing that you once loved so much. It's helping me.
Seasonal self care shifts: Speaking of running, I have about a 3 month window where I will enjoy running, and it goes from June to August. Right now, because the sun is rising at like 4:30am or some ungodly hour, I am generally waking up at 6am and have the energy to journal first and then go for a morning run. I know from much experience that this will stop come late August, because I am a solar-powered baby who once the fall starts inching on, I will go back to lower energy levels and needing more sleep in the morning. So take this: Just because you're not doing a practice 24/7/365 doesn't mean anything other than what will feel supportive and what your body and spirit need and can handle will shift throughout the year. As it should. Because nature is cyclical and so are you.
Watch out for the concept of "politeness": I got some, let's say, sassy or passive aggressive (and in one case, outright hostile) responses to my previous Soother essay about guilt and boundaries. One emailer chastised me for not being "polite" enough to respond to every message or DM or offer I get. (Though not that I can discern what is "polite" to email a stranger and tell them how they should be making different life choices...) but what I want to say is watch out for where the concept of being "polite" has taken evil root in your brain. Politeness will squash you. Politeness is "properness" which is white supremacy. Politeness will hold the reins on your life that is dying to be unruly. Politeness tells you to be the good girl instead of the true woman. Don't worry about being polite. Worry about being true and loving to yourself first and foremost.
Entrepreneurship as a method of liberation: As I promote Secretly Ambitious, my business and entrepreneurship course for highly sensitive people, I've been thinking about my path to entrepreneurship and where my audience might be in theirs. I was thinking that I don't actually really know I was like, "I want to run a business." I think it was more like a slow dawning of, "I don't know if I can work inside a 9-5 anymore and I need to free myself from this system because it ain't working for me, or the world." I was reflecting that in nearly 20 years in corporate I never worked for a woman boss or a person of color leader, I never worked for a company founded by a woman or a person of color, and I never even worked for a company that had more than one woman or person of color on their leadership team. It was like, a big fucking deal when my last company gave moms 12 week's paid maternity leave, which I mean yay, but also... crumbs? I also fought for myself, too, for raises and promotions and benefits that never came, that I was made to feel ungrateful or unrealistic for even asking. For a really long time I thought my obligation was to stay in these companies and get on committees and speak up in town halls and keep fighting for the micro changes but I think in my mid-30s I was like, this isn't working, and it's time to go outside of this system and that's when I started to feel really called to working for myself. It wasn't so much that I necessarily wanted to really be an entrepreneur, but I wanted to exit that fucked up system and build one that reflect my values and I was finally starting to get that I couldn't make the change I wanted to see from the inside. I really think as long as we're tied into a 9-5 system that was built on the foundation of white supremacy and the patriarchy and capitalism, we're locked into a system that doesn't work for us. I tried so hard to change it from the inside out and so did most of my colleagues and the truth was, almost nothing ever changed. So, I left. Now I am building a company where I work for my first woman boss ever -- me -- and I get to set the rules. I get to invest my money in primarily WOC businesses and products. I get to take Fridays off. I get to pay myself whatever I want and give myself whatever titles and promotions I want. When my grandma died, I was by her side as she took her last breath. When my boyfriend's dad died unexpectedly last winter, I could take off to Indiana for six weeks. At my last jobs, I got three days bereavement for deaths. Man, fuck that. Who the fuck can fly to a funeral and grieve and settle affairs in THREE DAYS? When I grow, I'll decide who I get to hire full time and how to build a company and working values that supports our lives and desires and humanity, not one that extracts our maximum value and demands gratitude for the crumbs of support it gives our human bodies. Ugh. Lol, I have literally worked myself up into a lather typing this. RAGE IS RISING! Come join Secretly Ambitious. You may not think you want to be an entrepreneur, but you may be equally fucking tired of the current 9-5 system and looking for a way out, and entrepreneurship is a path to that self liberation. Let's go.
Aging shifts: I'm 42.5 almost exactly, and the physical aspects of aging are 100% hard for me, especially as somebody who often counted on her societally-approved body and looks to help prop up her worth. I finally get what Nora Ephron was talking about when she said she felt bad about her neck, for example, and I'm probably the heaviest weight I've ever been. So I could be directing my brain into how I need to get back to what I looked like when I was 29 — a total impossibility! — or, I can do more of what I've been trying; Instead of trying to be thin and pretty and young, which was basically what I tried to do my whole life, I am promising myself that I want to focus on being strong and interesting and wise. I am lifting weights and focusing on gaining power and strength in my body. And I want to look INTERESTING and feel WISE. Whenever I do a future self meditation, I come across myself at what seems to be around 60. She's got a gray bob, really cool looking glasses and jewelry, flowing outfits, and she's always telling me to calm down because everything is going to be okay. She looks super interesting and super wise. So those are my shifts that I am working on. When I choose an outfit, I don't want to think about if it makes me look lithe, I want to think about if it makes me look interesting. When I freak out about my neck or whatever, I want to instead focus on all the accumulated wisdom I have shared and will continue to share through my gorgeous throat chakra. I can't ever again be pretty and thin and young, at least not like society tells me I should be, or that I was 15 or 20 years ago. But strong, interesting, wise? Those are 100% in my control and so much more worth aiming for.