Tag: change

Observable Characters

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“Nothing is more painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.” – Mary Shelley

“What are you going to be when you grow up?” must be the most frequent question my young kids are asked. For adults that don’t really know them, it’s a good conversation starter. But I think it also indicates how attached our identities are to our work.

It’s what Vicki Atkinson and I talk about in this week’s episode of the Sharing the Heart of the Matter podcast. Identity at the unemployment office.

One of the fascinating positions that Vicki has held is as a career counselor at the unemployment office. She gives us a glimpse into how the jobs we do become our identity by telling us the stories of some of the people who she coached.

We talk about how being a helper or a boss manifests even when someone is no longer doing that job.

I love Vicki’s powers of observation and ability to draw thru lines – talents that show up when she writes, tells stories, and in the many professional roles she has played.

Here’s a snippet of the podcast where Vicki tells me about the people she met at the unemployment office (with captions so you don’t even have to have the sound on):

Vicki Atkinson and I are big believers in the power of story – to connect us, to create intergenerational healing, and to make meaning out of the events of our lives. Each episode of our podcast starts with someone telling a story in each episode.

Search (and subscribe!) for Sharing the Heart of the Matter on Apple, Amazon, Spotify or Pocket Casts OR Listen to it from your computer on Anchor Episode 72: Smiles from the Unemployment Office

Or subscribe to our YouTube channel to see a video clip of each story: @SharingtheHeartoftheMatter.

Links for this Episode:

Episode 72: Smiles from the Unemployment Office on Anchor

Vicki’s personal blog: Victoria Ponders

Vicki’s post: Different is Good

Vicki’s book: Surviving Sue

Wynne’s book about her beloved father: Finding My Father’s Faith

Related podcast episodes:

Episode 71:  Catching an Edge with Wynne and Vicki

Episode 70: “A” is For Ambivalence with Vicki and Wynne

Episode 69: All You Have To Do Is Ask with Wynne and Vicki

Guides for Transformation

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‘‘Understand that the hardest times in life to go through are when you are transforming from one version of yourself to another.” – Mysticool

This post was originally published on 3/29/2023. Heads up – you may have already read this.

It’s something that I’ve found again and again in life – when I need to transform, someone or something shows up to be the catalyst. The Universe sends me a guide in some form or another. Here are some of my favorite examples:

When I was bored after a break-up with a boyfriend and I drove around a corner and Mt Rainier was squarely in my view. It started my amateur climbing career.

After I suffered from being stuck and closed down for a couple of years after my divorce, I received an invitation for a mediation class from my friend, Deirdre.

In my 40s when I was working out what was next in life, I would see images of the English Duchess Kate and start to cry. It totally unnerved me since I wasn’t much of a royal watcher and had eschewed having a family until then. And then I finally realized that I wanted to have kids.

I haven’t known all my guides. For example, researcher and author Brené Brown has been my guide towards being vulnerable and whole-hearted simply through the act of reading her books and listening to her.

As my meditation teacher, Deirdre says – transformation is what we need to be our best selves. Yes, it involves change but our spirits are wired to keep growing and finding the balance of all we can be when we need to evolve or simply have gone too far in one direction.

For me this goes in waves, I’ve changed my body to become a mountain climber only to find after years of doing that, my mind and soul needed to also get in shape through meditation. That change helped me open to understanding it was time for me to become a parent. And then I transformed almost completely to become a parent only to find as my kids age, it’s time to transform again to someone who remembers she has an individual, alive part that needs to dance too.

Perhaps this goes without saying, but the other part that I’ve noticed is that I don’t always get the message the first time. When I ignore the call, sometimes it builds into a crisis. In climbing terms, it goes from being a part of a team with a guide at the front to a rescue where I have to flail at the end of the rope.

Some of these changes are inspired from within and feel like evolution. Others come from the outside with disappointment and heart break and feel like erosion. However it comes, I’ve found it easier to take when I bow my head, put aside my opinion on whether I want it or not, and then look for guides.

Because I’ve found is that the Universe hasn’t left me to do this alone. It sends a guide or a catalyst to kick off the reaction. If you don’t believe in any Higher Power, I think that statement could also be cloaked in social learning theory – that all the people around us are walking advertisements for what we can be next. Whichever it is you believe, my experience has shown me that the guide may or may not be in our lives for the duration but they show up to help us over the threshold to what’s next.

(featured photo from Pexels)

The Lens We Look Through

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“Gotta move different when you want different.” – unknown

This was originally published on 3/16/2022. Heads up – you may have already read this.

The other day on a weekend I was trying to get my children out the door to go to the zoo. I looked over and both my children were lying on the floor near the back door looking at a lady bug.

When was the last time you laid on the ground to look at something? My dad used to joke that he knew he was getting older because he’d bend over to tie his shoes and look around for anything else he needed to do when he was down there.

There’s a scientific reason that adults aren’t usually found on the floor looking at insects and children are. According to Dr. Alison Gopnik, a professor of psychology at UC Berkeley, young brains are wired to be attracted to the things that can teach them the most. Adult brains are wired to be attracted to things that reward them the most. And unless you are an entomologist, you probably aren’t rewarded for studying bugs.

But there are times when the adult brain gets stuck. In our grooved pathways that Dr. Gopnik likens to boulevards, adults can cruise back and forth much quicker than children but we don’t always rethink how we got there. Kids brains have neural pathways that look more like the streets of Old Paris. Windy, slow-going but able to approach something from many directions.

Getting stuck might be in a mindset or unable to solve a problem. We can be in a rut in a relationship or unable to see the other side of an argument. Or we can just be downright bored and completely unable to see what it could take to change it.

And that’s when we need to do something entirely different.  When we are stuck, the best advice is to do something else. We can go for a walk. Or we can learn to play. Or we can travel. We can even get down onto the floor with some kids. Doing something different will help us come back to what we are doing with newfound perspective and energy.

The other day, my first reaction to seeing my kids on the floor looking at the ladybug was frustration. I was stuck in my mindset of getting us to where we wanted to go efficiently. But after a moment I relented and got down on the floor and looked at the lady bug too. There was awe to be found in a tiny bug spreading her wings and twitching her antennae in a pool on sunlight.

There was also irony that I didn’t want to take time to look at a living creature because I was too busy trying to get us to the zoo. We ushered the lady bug out the door before leaving ourselves, still awash in the wonder of when you do something different.

(featured photo from Pexels)

The Changes We Choose

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“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” – Rumi

The other day I watched from the back door as almost 8-year-old Miss O walked up to my mom as she was gardening in my back yard in the late afternoon glow, and announced, “We have some news. We are growing our family.”

I could have done a spit-take on the micro-expression that crossed my mom’s face. I’m 99% certain she knows that I’m not going to have any more children, but there might have been a fleeting second that my mom wasn’t sure. And then Miss O saved her by explaining we are getting a puppy in three weeks.

Which in many ways is nuts. I love order and getting things done. I’m pretty clear that a puppy isn’t going to tip the balance in that direction. But here’s my counter argument – doesn’t change usually feel like it’s nuts? Of course, I’m speaking of the changes we choose. I think often the changes we don’t choose feel to me like grief.

But there’s another thing I’m noticing as we prepare to “grow our family.” Now that we’ve decided, it’s already started mixing up the patterns we have at home.

I’ve told Miss O and Mr. D that I can’t be one person taking care of three creatures. Miss O has picked up on that and calls it five creatures because she’s including the cat and me. Whatever the number, it’s caused her to step up her game – get her own breakfast, learn how to do the dishes, and follow me around asking, “what can I do to help?”

It’s forcing me to accept the help and start expecting more of my children. For me to see all that they are capable of, and break the patterns started in toddlerhood where I just did things because it’s faster (and usually not as messy).

My requirement for a puppy was that Mr. D had to be potty trained – and he mastered that months ago. But there’s still a little porta-potty sitting in the corner of the family room that has to go away when the puppy comes. Not to mention, that the beloved stuffy Bun Bun will be at great risk if Mr D continues to carry him around, and sometimes leave behind randomly, so there’s another opportunity to step up to more thoughtful patterns.

Yes, we are growing our family. But as I watch in anticipation of this change, I see that we are also “growing-up” our family. Maybe that’s what every change we choose offers us the opportunity to do.

(featured photo is my last dog, Biscuit, as a puppy)

Writing For a Different Result

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“Gotta move different when you want different.” – unknown

I wrote a Wise & Shine post this morning about writing outside of our comfort genres: Writing Outside of the Box

That post and this one were, largely inspired by an interesting post by Jack Canfora I read recently about trying a different style of writing when you are stuck or want to get out of a groove. In the post, The Virtue of Walking in Different Shoes Jack tries his hand at writing Bob Dylan lyrics and extols the practice of writing something entirely different as a way to break away from our habits.

Ode to Joy

I read an article about a man
Playing ping pong in the dorm
He was dropping his son at college for the term
And not ready for good-byes to become the norm.

He said, “one more game” and his son complied.
Finding his own rhythm for the change of the day
The man served instead of cried.
Knowing both he and his son were finding a new way.

I read this article and looked at my two, feeling how soon they’ll both fly.
As the tears welled up and I honked back a wheeze
I thought, “I’m not ready to let go of these wee moments of glee
Sponsored by luck and joy.”

So now I’m on notice to really savor the fun
Complete with spills, drills and mess.
I’ve got you for now, my little ones
So let’s play while you’re still in the nest.

Okay – so I’m not taking up writing verse anytime soon. But it really was a good exercise to change things up – to really think about every word I used and to really listen to the cadence. Besides, I consider any day I can use the phrase “honked back a wheeze” a good one…

Leaning in To Letting Go

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“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.” – Alan Watts

It seems like for every lesson I’ve learned in my life, I can trace it back to a particular story. Is that a sign of middle age? In this case, I’m thinking of the lesson of learning to let go and a consulting project I did for Microsoft about 25 years ago.

My colleague, Bill, and I were assigned by the consulting firm for whom we worked to write a white paper for a client at Microsoft. It was the late 90’s and Microsoft was in that phase where it was growing so fast that there wasn’t a lot of process but instead a lot of hard-working but perhaps egomaniacal cowboys.

Our assignment was to write this paper about how a group of these cowboys rolled out a new email software at Microsoft. Bill and I were experienced at deploying that software and had published a book about it so theoretically, this project should have been a snap.

After interviewing the key players, we drafted the paper. They hated it. We revised it. They still hated it. They would call us to meetings to tell us in detail how much they hated it. The problem wasn’t the technology – it was that we didn’t get the tone right. We didn’t think they were as cool as they thought they were so we missed the mark over and over again.

I can’t remember how many versions of that paper we wrote. Maybe five? But after torturing us for a while, they finally fired us and wrote it themselves. It hurt. I felt like I’d been at a rodeo and had hung on way too long.

I went on to learn that lesson about letting go in many ways as a consultant. I’ve found out that no matter what kind of a job that you are doing, if the person that hired you is replaced by someone else, you will most likely get replaced too.

I’ve hung on too long in those cases as well – trying to pretend it’s not going to happen. I’ve been sure I can make the new person pick me, and like a puppy at the pound, try to do any number of tricks to prove I’m likeable and reliable.

I’ve also done the opposite and just walked away when the staffing changes happen. Finally, I’ve figured out that when the changing of the guard happens, I say, “Here’s what I’m working on. I will continue to support it in whatever way works and if you prefer to have someone else do it, I will facilitate that in the smoothest way possible.”

It’s so natural to want to cling when things are coming to an end. Sometimes, it really hurts and is scary. I’ve found that acknowledging that, feeling it all the way through, helps. Because projects, groups, and companies, like life, have a cycle. I’ve come to learn that to stay loose is the best way to ride the current. That way, I’m ready to lean in to the next thing that comes to fill the opening. Because that happens too.

Leaning in is just one of the things I’ve learned to do the easier way. For a mountain climbing story that taught me the difference between doing things the easy way versus the hard way, check out my piece on The Heart of the Matter: Doing It The Hard Way Or the Easy Way

(featured photo from Pexels)

Catalysts for Change

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“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.” – Lao Tzu

I like to joke that any day that I have my kids yelling “run for your lives” by noon is a fun one. My most consistent tool in the bag is having them make baking soda “volcanoes” and then pour vinegar over the top to start the “lava.” Then we yell “run for your lives” and laugh ourselves silly.

I’ve been thinking about catalysts lately. Was the baking soda (Sodium Bicarbonate with a formula of NaHCO3) looking to be changed? Did the vinegar (formula CH 3 COOH) want to catalyze a reaction?  (By the way, I looked up why the reaction happens. According to Stem Mayhem, it is a very common acid-base reaction. The reaction releases carbon dioxide which bubbles up as gas.)

When I did my podcast with my meditation teacher, Deirdre, last week, she talked about transformation as exactly what we need to live our best lives – a process of continued growth into our best selves. In my experience, we aren’t left to do this all by ourselves. Often people (or things) show up to catalyze the change, walk us to the threshold of what we need to learn next, or maybe even join in as we yell “run for your lives.” It’s the topic of my Wise & Shine post this week: Guides for Transformation

Love No-Matter-What

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“Love is God’s religion.” – Rumi

A couple of days ago, Miss O and I had a mother/daughter day of rock climbing at the climbing gym. As we were buying our after-climbing lunch at the neighborhood grocery story, Miss O dropped the glass bottle of soda she was carrying and it shattered right near the check-out lines.

Trying to ease her embarrassment and horror, I told her that it was okay. She hissed back, “It is not okay. Have you ever dropped something like that?”

And I replied, “Only all the time.”

Which is a phrase I picked up from a recent Ten Percent Happier podcast with Father Gregory Boyle . In it he suggested the most expansive view of love and the power of love that I’ve ever heard. Days after listening to it — twice — I clearly am still trying to ingest the beautiful view of loving people no-matter-what that he presents. So it’s the topic of my post today for the Pointless Overthinking blog: Expansiveness.

The Window

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“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art…It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.” – C.S. Lewis

The moving truck has come and gone and with one last sleepover, it’s official that my daughter’s first best friend and our neighbor has moved away. We ticked through the 90 days since the announcement, some went quickly, others with a happy unawareness and then finally the days when it hung over our choice of activities like a dark cloud. And then the time arrived.

This is the first friendship that I’ve seen through my kid’s eyes. It started when my daughter was 3-years-old, I’d put her on my shoulders so she could see across the fence to talk to the little girl next door. If they were really lucky, Miss O would be up on my shoulders and Miss Z who was then 4-years-old would be up on her daddy’s shoulders and they could talk face to face.

As Miss O got bigger and I got closer to my due date with her brother, I searched for a new solution as the shoulder carry got uncomfortable. Putting my 6 foot ladder next to the fence, Miss O would climb up to the highest step we agreed upon, Miss Z would climb her tree and they’d talk.

The ladder stayed next to the fence even as they became more and more comfortable with play dates and visiting each other’s yards. Then one day I found my 1-year-old son who’d just learned to walk atop the ladder looking as comfortable as can be.

Of course I snapped a picture of it as I ran across the yard to get him down. That night after I got the kids in bed, with agreement from Miss Z’s family, I got out my dad’s Sawzall and cut a hole in the fence. After I attached two little hinges and a doorknob for each side, it become Miss O’s portal into the yard next door.

At the beginning of the pandemic, each girl would put a table on her side of the fence and they’d “eat together” talking through the window. They’ve passed markers, stuffies and shared deserts through the window in the fence. They’ve argued and then put apology notes through the portal. When we’ve accidentally stomped a rocket all the way into their yard, sometimes it comes back through the window in the fence.

This window has given me an insight about friendship. About the little windows in which we are visible to each other. The doorknobs we pull tight when the vulnerability is too much. The transparency with which we are willing to regard our own and other’s lives.

Now the window is closed. Sure, they’ll stay friends and figure out how to talk but this open-window era has ended. If fences make good neighbors, then little windows in them make good friends.

Both And

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“Well, you can’t make old friends.” – Zadie Smith

The other day, my mom asked my daughter how her best friend, the little girl that lives next door, was feeling about having to move 1200 miles away in a month. My daughter replied that her friend was excited. And then she added, “And that makes me feel sad.”

The conversation moved on so thankfully I didn’t have to follow-up on that one right away because I find that subject to be tricky. How to be happy for others even when it means a loss for ourselves.

Years ago when I had a corporate job, I hired a former colleague to come work for me. He worked for me for about a year and I had given him some great opportunities and he had done a fantastic job. Then he announced that he’d gotten a job at Microsoft and was quitting and I felt hurt and betrayed. I don’t think I could talk to him at length for a week. Down deep I was happy for him and eventually I got there so I was happier for him up top as well, but I definitely felt the challenge of summoning my best self.

Listening to a Ten Percent Happier podcast with cognitive scientist Maya Shankar gave me some insight on why it’s so hard. She said “We don’t like change because it almost definitionally involves a loss of identity and that’s very destabilizing. I think as humans we often attach ourselves to specific identities as we move through the world because it gives us a sense of security.”

When I use that lens to apply to my work situation with my colleague, I can spot the identity I was inhabiting easily. The man that I hired was also someone I had championed previously when he was switching into the field of technology from his career in the military. I had spent a lot of time and energy helping him adjust to the change of culture and expectations and hopefully imparted some technical knowledge as well. When he quit, it challenged my sense of being a mentor.

In return, he had done the job beautifully and when I got over myself, I could appreciate that. It required me to disconnect from that specific identity to a more general sense which is that I draw a lot of satisfaction from helping other people.

In a quiet moment at the end of the day my daughter made that comment about her friend, I asked her some more questions and we talked about how she could be both/and. That is to say both sad that her friend was leaving and hopeful that her friend has an exciting new adventure when she moves. And that neither takes away from the friendship they have today.

(featured photo from Pexels)