Nothing To Prove

Do you remember the Sims computer game? I was a Sims champion! Admittedly, it wasn't that impressive of a feat - you just needed to employ this winning strategy: rock your job, erect your McMansion, start a family, and buy things. It was all about fast-paced accumulation, and it was pretty thrilling for the first six hours of play. However, around hour seven, a full body numbness would set in - an excruciating boredom.Perhaps this was the law of diminishing returns in action? But I would carry on: accumulation, accumulation, accumulation. Stepping back, I realized that my Sims strategy summed up my old approach to life: satisfying the proverbial checklist to show the world how awesome I was. Checking off each item wouldn't feel as fulfilling as I had imagined, but no time for sulking! Onto the next one...

Recently I've adopted a new approach: there's nothing to prove. In my own experience, the desire to prove something has been a recipe for unnecessary suffering. After all, we have to ask ourselves what and to who are we trying to prove? This frame has allowed me to get very clear on my motivations: is this goal aligned with my values, or am I simply trying to show myself/someone else/the world that I can do this? If something is only motivated by the latter, time to reassess.

I was excited to share my new mantra with peers and surprised to hear that some of them found it impractical or downright depressing. If there is nothing to prove, then who/what holds us accountable for our actions? If there is nothing to prove, then what is the point? These are fair questions. My response stems from a belief in basic goodness: we have an internal accountability system, and we are motivated by love and belonging. We can become incredibly destructive and distracted when we get caught up in proving ourselves, but the heart and intuition can lead us home.

Bottom line: I'm over demonstrating to myself or anyone else that I deserve to be here. Enough is enough. I am enough. There's nothing to prove. Join me?

Taking Up Space

To take up space means to own your experience, to accept responsibility for your choices, and to participate in conversations that mean something to you. Do you feel entitled to take up space in this world?

A number of authors have discussed this idea in the context of gender: women and girls are encouraged to stay small, to accommodate others, to shrink their bodies and their ambitions. Men and boys are expected to play rough, to outperform others, to dominate the room and bring home the accolades. It's easy to see how these contradictory expectations could contribute to an imbalance - a world in which men occupy more space than women. However, this model for space is far too simplistic. Obviously gender roles are a factor (and hurt men, too), but there are many other variables, including expectations associated with race, sexual preference, and class. But here's the real paradox: you can have every societal card stacked in your favor and still feel excruciatingly unworthy. 

Plato

I believe widespread unworthiness is one of the major crises facing our society today. We struggle with vulnerability, we struggle with imperfection, and we struggle with intimacy. Our pain leads us to drive ourselves and others into further isolation (e.g.). We criticize, we blame, and we exclude. Or we retreat and become disillusioned and bitter. We start believing that people are inherently bad and not to be trusted, and eventually we start believing that about ourselves.

Despite all of the pain and suffering in the world, I still believe in basic goodness.  We are built for community. We are built for intimacy. We are built for connection. Hell is what we do to each other on earth in the absence of those things.

Healing involves relationship. Kristin Neff, an academic and author, identifies common humanity - the recognition of suffering as a shared human experience - as one of three key elements of self-compassion. The practice of compassion requires the acknowledgment of connectedness. In fact, moments of suffering can serve as opportunities to create community, to become intimate, and to connect.

That being said, it is difficult to navigate suffering. We may find ourselves falling into one of two traps: why me? or it could be worse. The why me? story paints us as victims of circumstance, disempowered and stuck. The could be worse story shames us into thinking that we are ungrateful and selfish.Both responses are dismissive of our experience, and both responses are isolating. How can we participate in our world if we feel powerless and/or guilty? 

I believe that taking up space is an exercise of worthiness. We all have the right to participate, to connect, and to love, BUT we have to believe this to be true in order to stand tall, to contribute. The recognition of our common humanity is a stepping stone to worthiness. It reminds us that there is no need to go it alone. It reminds us that many others have felt and/or feel the same way. It encourages us to share ourselves by occupying space and contributing our own unique gifts.

Uncertainty = Possibility

The experience of uncertainty is uncomfortable; sometimes it's downright excruciating! Navigating uncertainty requires patience, open-mindedness, and trust, but the problem is we do NOT trust uncertainty. No, sir! We like to plan for and anticipate our life events. We have timelines and strategies. We like to call the shots.

However, life offers no guarantees (with the exception of death, of course). Perpetual uncertainty has always been a part of the human experience despite our best efforts to deny it, and much of our suffering stems from resisting uncertainty by playing it safe, bracing ourselves for the worst, or trying to control people and/or situations.

So onto the good news...

Pema Chodron, a brilliant spiritual teacher, has a more loving take on uncertainty. She refers to uncertainty as "fundamental openendedness." I love Pema's frame because an openended life implies a life ripe with possibility. If there are no guarantees, anything could happen. In fact, the freedom from guarantees allows us to be more creative and daring as we define our respective paths. It allows us to shed those limiting stories about our lives that we've carried for far too long. In this sense, uncertainty is liberating.

***

What are you waiting for right at this very moment?

The job? The promotion? The move? The relationship? The acceptance letter? The first home? The first child?

Waiting can be so uncomfortable; it even has the power to make us physically ill. We often believe that if we JUST knew how this one little thing would pan out, everything else would be OK. But we're kidding ourselves. Instead, we quickly divert our attention to the next thing - the next milestone. The waiting begins again, the what ifs? overwhelm us, and we think to ourselves, "man, I'll feel so much better as soon as I have resolution on this one last thing." And in that moment, we sincerely believe that one more resolution - one more piece of certainty - will curb our appetite for more. But then there's the next thing....

***

Life is a waiting game. The stakes get higher, and the uncertainty is perpetual. BUT uncertainty doesn't have to be the enemy; it could, in fact, serve us well. Maybe it will empower us to exceed our own expectations of what is possible for our lives? Maybe it will remind us that if nothing is guaranteed, we essentially have nothing to lose?

Anything could happen.

What Would Bring You Peace?

I recently found myself in a difficult situation - one that literally hijacked my thoughts, emotions, and sense of well being. It was driving me crazy (!). Fortunately, a dear friend sat me down and asked an insightful question about my conundrum: what would bring you peace? So simple, but so revolutionary. Her question cut straight through my stories about the events that had transpired to the heart of the issue, and the solution became much clearer through this new frame.

But I'll tell you one thing...

The lack of peace I experienced was the most unsettling part of the whole ordeal. Harboring resentment, judgment, and anger is DRAINING; that was the real birthplace of my inner turmoil - not the situation itself. Sure, we are destined to find ourselves in a number of situations that make us want to read someone the riot act or run the other way as fast as humanly possible, but ultimately we must decide how to move forward without making ourselves collateral damage in the process. And it's no easy task!

Speaking of "easy," Rachel Cole makes a great distinction between ease, or inner peace, and the easy path forward:

it's easy to keep doing what we're doing. It’s easy not to ruffle feathers. But it’s ease that we’re given when we’re deeply fed. It’s ease that we feel when we stop resisting what’s calling us.

As we contemplate what would would bring us peace in a given situation, we'll most likely find that the answer lies in an interruption of our go-to coping mechanisms and/or a difficult conversation. But it's those very daring acts that will restore ease to our lives. And that, my friends, is worth everything!

p.s. Trish, thanks for sharing your wisdom.