Reflections on professional growth

After a month and a bit of being very busy, to the point of overbooked, a training event I did yesterday marked the end of the total madness! The event went well despite my reservations, and on the drive home I thought on recent issues that had arisen and what I had learned from them. Usually I let a few comments or feedback make me feel badly, but then I thought HEY! This is all new to me! I am trying, I am learning, I am developing. And there is nothing like a mistake to make you VERY aware of how you need to grow!

Here are a few of the 'realizations' I have come to since I started in this position over 10 months ago:

My intelligence comes off negatively at times.

It hurts not being liked and the line between professional and friends is a tough one to walk.

Change requires building a relationship before even BROACHING the subject!

You can set everything up right, create potential for success but people will still decide whether they want to get on board with you or not.

People only hear what they want to, even when they ask YOU!

Scapegoating is easy, we all do it and it is not productive.

It sucks being in the middle, hearing both sides, and having the sides look to you for feedback.

Our best asset is often our biggest liability/fault.

Less trying to fix and more trying to listen.

Sometimes it has to be smashed and not just broken before people believe what you say!!

Asking for what I need

I was recently reading "Eat Pray Love" and was struck by her willingness to openly admit to being a gaping hole of emotional need. Well, she said it better of course but that was the jist of it. It hit me like someone had whacked me with the book itself!! Ow, what a painful thing to acknowledge and admit to. And why was it so significant to me??? I think that just maybe... I too am a gaping whole of emotional need.

The statement made me think about what it is I need. I am unsure if I can pinpoint it exactly but I so desperately need to be SEEN and seen for me. Connected with. Challenged. Accepted. But I also recognize that the things I believe in saying and doing for others are probably the very things I need to allow others to do for me.
i.e....
1. I believe in telling people the good things you are thinking about them. Why wait until they are dead or ill or gone to let those thoughts out!?? If they are beautiful, tell them. If their hug really caught you at just the right moment and made a difference, tell them. If you admire a skill or see bright potential in someone, tell them and encourage them. DON'T JUST THINK IT! Why are words so hard to say? Why are we so afraid to tell someone we love them? That they touch us in a magical way that brightens each day? Or that we admire them and are inspired by them? Because really, do you honestly think it will give them a swelled head? So often it is these people who rarely hear it because others assume they 'just know'!!

2. Shelter me, protect me, care for me. I am the giver. The one who worries about getting it done, supporting others, making it right for all. And yet it is so difficult to let someone else do this for me. As my brother and I have said, we brought each other and ourselves up. We are used to building our own strengths that allowing someone else in is terrifying!! I need to let my wall fall, let someone comfort me, and I need to let them do that. What a bloody challenge. Can't I just do it for everyone else?

3. Encouraging other's dreams. I try hard to support other people and friends dreams. To celebrate those dreams and maybe be a part of their 'people' who encourage them and change that dream into a goal. I love to hear other's ideas. I revel in their creativity. Marvel at their capabilities. Yet seem incapable of truly seeing my own. I am so damn critical. Feel lodged in a space where taking my dreams and forcing them out into planning mode is not possible. I need to see the potential in myself, that I see in others. My own unique light. Not just my weakness and failings. Can I manage? Oh man, don't know.

So what has all of this thinking taught me? I must admit that despite my incredible strength, management of personal challenges, and seeming 'having it togetherness' I am still desperately needy for those emotional foods from others yet I make it impossible to receive it. Fucked I know. And really, I think I am no different from many over-functioners and those who end their lives prematurely. I am a seeker and know I need more. I've never been one to just sit and take it as it comes or be cool with the status quo. I want more, know it is there. I know sometime I will get to a point where having too little will result in a choice to end it all or risk it all. This terrifies me but maybe if those around me give me the emotional food I need and I let them, maybe I will never reach that fork in the road and instead, will enjoy the trip instead.

Truth has a way of coming out

The statement "truth has a way of coming out" was posed to me today. My response was to question to what they were referring. What truth did they mean? Truth is so multi layered, multifaceted. Wrapped in context and emotion. Often my fast and constantly whirring mind has ripped away the first few layers and delved deep only to find the other person remains at their surface while I plunder the lesson. Hence, my question to what truth they referred. Where were they leading me??

As a child, life is composed of truth and un-truths. As you age it seems that the space between the two poles grows wider and wider. You realize the importance of where someone stands in life when it comes to their vision of truth. Truth is less about a moral judgement, and more a decision based on the place someone stood in the moment the 'truth' was labelled.

I think in my life most things that happen are direct results of energy I project out into the world (partly why i am careful to look for the positive and good, it is what I want back!) and what the universe is willing to give me. Synchronicity or coincidences that happen are like little tests handed out to all of us. Will you admit the deepest truth or just the upper layers of this moment? Sometimes like an onion, we know that peeling each layer back will make tears fall and we simply cannot do it on that day. And so we turn from acknowledging the truth that is in front of us inherent in the coincidence. I think those times I refuse to act, to acknowledge or take action... this is when I make opportunities pass me by. Are we only cheating ourselves? Or we also cheat others around us by living less than authentically? By not being true to myself and learning as it comes, I am taking a backseat in life. Not driving. But sometimes we are afraid of the tears that fall as the onion sheds its layers. Terrified of what will remain. Too unsure of our own deepest needs to accept the lesson in that coincident and moment.

Coincidences are not accidents but signals from the universe which can guide us toward our true destiny ~ Deepak Chopra

How ready I am to be let in on just what that destiny is. Time to slow down, be less busy and listen to the inner voice. Be true. Busy is preoccupation. Preoccupation is a diversion. Diversions keep us from finding that truth and destiny. Coincidences are perhaps like road signs, yet when we are preoccupied with the map it is impossible to see the signs making accurate travel impossible anyway. We go nowhere important without looking around.

Insanity and what defines it

Just saw the new Scorcese flick "Shutter Island". Well done plot, really starting to like that DiCaprio chap as he ages... (LOL!)

Not to give away the ending but what a great twist. If you take yourself out of the film and look at it somewhat academically, you can admire the way they portray the 'so crazy you are sane' edge. I like that. As someone who has dealt with others who clearly are delusional, it felt authentic. Made me ponder what reality is.... is it what physically happens or our perspective. Ahh you say, perspective is everything. But if perspective/perception is everything, then what is wrong with letting people live their fantasy. Of course ruling out harm. Why WOULD anyone want to medicate when their construct of reality allows them much more breadth and safety for their own psyche?

Are we any less guilty of this, albeit on a smaller scale? Our rationalizations of behaviour. Our explanations or excuses? All just a way to soothe that psyche and ego. Truly, how WOULD you know whether you are living in your reality or someone elses? Almost like living a parallel world. What proves we are alive? Our experiences.... but are experiences not just what happens and our take on it?

Ahh.... she IS crazy they mutter in the background....

what is the sound of settling?

.... what is the sound you ask? I don't myself know but I imagine it differs for each person. I wonder at times whether I myself am settling. When reality forces me into the here and now, not where I feel my inner self leaning.

This question popped to my thoughts after listening to a song with that line in it. Perhaps the sound is different for each person. Willing to bet a huge majority are unwilling to even hear the sound. We have all done it and then clasped our hands to our ears (metaphorically speaking of course) and refused to admit it. As I type this I cannot help but wonder if the 'settling' so many of us do is what results in the oft talked about or blamed midlife crisis. Hmmm.

In the past 8 months or so I have put myself under a microscope for me to see my inner workings. Looked closely and cringed silently at times. Smiled happily also. Stood proudly. The result is that I am now standing here and no longer feeling less than whole for being who I am. If I intimidate you, that is your reaction and not me forcing that upon you. Should you take the moment to see me... open to me and not what you perceive you will feel my full warmth. I am beginning to see my own beauty amid the cracks and crevices and imperfect self.

Have I settled. For sure. In everything? No way. To settle is to never challenge yourself. To never try and never fail. Is settling a permanent state? I hope not. There are areas in which I have settled, and hope that as I gain wisdom and see my own path more clearly that I will be able to move away from simply settling... and take that active step towards something else.

Is it bad to settle? Nah. Not if you only do it sometimes. Not if to engage in one area you must settle in another. We cannot have it all at the same time. But we can have it all... I think just not on a time frame we set.

I want it all.... but I will take the pieces I have for now.

I tell you everything that is really nothing, and nothing of what is everything, do not be fooled by what I am saying. Please listen carefully and try to hear what I am not saying. ~Charles C. Finn

Ahhh. How I love this quote. This is the difference between someone knowing you and truly seeing you. To your depths. Under all the layers, over the walls, and through the disguises. When you talk with the people who hear what you are not saying you sense it. It can be unnerving, for they see all of us. Not just that which we project. When we meet those "kindred spirits" as I like to think of them, they hear the words we say and feel those we do not.

I have a few of these people in my life. Interestingly, it is in the past year that I have added a few of these very special people who see me. We seek out each others perspective because their opinion is so valid, for they KNOW us. They often force us to see what we perhaps would not like to.

When in turmoil, when struggling.... it is these few people I turn to for advice. I am lucky that one of these people is my brother. He is one of those people who 'gets' it. Do I always like his perspective? No. Do I always appreciate it in the long run? Yes. Sometimes, it is small comments that set me spinning. Like his observation that since my personal re-discovery in the last year that I am back to being Krista once again. Krista + more. I am fully seated in myself again.

I hope so. But this path is scary. I so love and appreciate those that see and hear what I do not say. How rare these people are. It is their contact that redirect my path, provide me with a mirror on life. This quote is so applicable to me... the outgoing talker. I say much, but little of it is truly personal or exposing. It is what I do not say.....

Back after a long 'away'

Work has been crazy busy, demands of life have stripped me of all my energy and most creative time. I did however, remember to bring my camera on my way to work the other day. It was a really beautiful morning in the country where the moisture from the previous day's melt had frozen in the air and deposited upon trees and hung in the air. It was magical looking. A part of me was mesmerized and felt it was like a fairy world!

It is moments like these that I am so glad I live in a small town and when I travel for work, it is largely through rural areas. So many people stuck in suburbia miss these small moments of great beauty. They miss feeling suspended in time while surrounded by nature. Moments of "slow".

Almost as though prompted, when I started reading a chapter in a book I have at my bedside, the article was on "slow" and "anti-consumerism". The people the article was about chose to live via a 4-4-4 method. Four hours for the labour that kept them alive and well, four hours towards a professional/personal goal, and four hours towards their community and social causes. It was not a disengagement with the outer world, but a living thoughtfully. Instead of whirling about, it was being decisive. I like it. It was inspiring to think about being more connected to the production of food and the items that sustain us. Planning time to do the socially engaging things that build community and connectedness and the time to do what our own talents and abilities drive us to do.

By allocating their time thus, it allowed them to be less dependent on the consumer economy and gave them the time to express-- not work. I so identify with these people. How little I care about the working for money except that money allows flexibility to do other things! Yet, the more I work, the less time I have to spend that money on art classes etc! I find it hard to fit in the community connections that I value, in addition to the work schedule and family. It is exactly this complicated balance that is the problem with modern society. What gives? Community connectedness. Shared social committment. People are just too busy.

Do I have the answer? Nope! But when I got my professional teaching magazine and read the employment stats on certified teachers I knew that my transition from a higher paid job, towards a lower paid highly satisfying job was worth it.