Tag Archives: Stength

The Well of Strength

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I have to admit I am struggling, more than I could have ever thought possible.  We haven’t had power in 24 hours and I was sick for about 8 of those hours, I slept for over 12 of the rest.  We haven’t had internet all week. I am so used to being connected to my family, it just feels like a huge loss not to have them there every day even just virtually. 

Physical strength requires exercise.  When we exercise, it can hurt or be difficult but it is what will make our muscles strong.  I believe emotional strength and resilience is similar.  It doesn’t get stronger when everything is perfect all the time.  Emotional strength is gained through struggle.  Somewhere, down deep inside myself, is a well of strength that I have cultivated over the last years that I need to draw on. When I was going through my divorce, that was my mantra:  The pain I go through today will become the well of strength I will draw on tomorrow.  I need to reach inside myself and draw on that well right now.  I am made of sterner stuff than I am demonstrating.   

I don’t remember ever crying as much as I have in the past week.  I will not just turn tail and run away because things are a little challenging.  I have to give it enough time.  Usually, when I write this blog, I find the act of typing out whatever I am whining about helps me turn things around so that I can see the good side of the situation.  I need that ability right now.   June seems so far away.

So, what am I whining about?  Lack of power, lack of internet connection, the inability to communicate, and just the enormity of being in this strange place where hyenas howl at night, roads are rivers of mud, and I have no sense of connection to anyone here.  I am trying to build relationships at the same time as juggling the strangeness of the land and the environment.  I just have to figure it out and get in a routine and it will be better.  Having regular times for internet usage, routines for going to the store, etc all will help normalize things.  Right now it is almost overwhelming with all the differences.  Not almost, it IS overwhelming.  

I wish I had a bike.  Riding my bike would give me a way to find my center.  

The Journey of 1000 miles…

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Sometimes, I think life tests us.  Every time I have had some kind of insecurity about this decision, life will throw some kind of obstacle in my way which I have been interpreting as “see you can’t do it”, but I think the question life is trying to get me to ask is “how important is it to you?”.

I leave tomorrow for Washington DC.  Then fly out Wednesday morning for Africa.  My big worry was my obscene amount of baggage and how I will negotiate it all around the Addis Ababa airport.  I have 3 checked bags and a small carry on and backpack.  I think I need to cut one bag out.  That means either leave some of the clothes or some of the school supplies I wanted to bring.

That was my big worry, until the fire ants struck. Mean little beasties, fire ants are.  For those who don’t know me, I am deathly allergic to fire ants.  I was coming home from the store yesterday, in a hurry and not looking where I was going and stepped in a mound of fire ants.  Fortunately, thanks to reacting quickly, I am fine except for a painful foot.  It was an inconvenience but one that had me saying “you can’t even watch what you are doing in your own country, how are you going to go to another country, negotiate baggage, find your way around, figure out how to teach a class that doesn’t speak your language…etc etc”.  The litany of “I can’ts” began.

So today, I have to purchase the last of my supplies.  Spray my mosquito net with Permethrin, have lunch with a friend, repack and try to get rid of a suitcase full of clothes.  Sometime in there, spend my last day with my son, daughter-in-law, and grandbabies.  I really should have finished the packing thing earlier.  There just hasn’t been time to get my stuff done and visit with everyone also.

So I am stressing and when I get anxious and start to panic, I start focusing on all that I can’t do rather than on what I can.  Right now, it is full-blown panic time, so the “I can’ts” have possession of my otherwise positive attitude.  I have to remember that it is one step at a time. I need to start with the first item on my list and go until I have finished the list.  One step at a time. The journey of a 1000 miles begins with a single step. I just need to begin.  I can figure the rest out as I go.

Deep breath Robin.  Remember to breathe, stay present, and be aware.  You can totally do this.  I wish Matt was here.

First Class

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I fly often enough to be in premier class. That means that I get upgraded from coach to first class whenever there is an open seat but I only pay coach fares.  Out of the last 20 legs of trips I have taken, I have been upgraded 15 times. I like boarding early, comfy seats, and larger overhead bins, but the rest of the first class experience feels odd to me.   One thing that always surprises me is how quickly the crew is there to meet your needs. That level of service is one huge difference between first class and coach.  One of my friends calls first class “princess class”.  I guess I am not used to a level of service that makes me feel like a princess.

I also have first class friends. Through their words, time, and care, they make me believe I have value to them.  They consistently demonstrate that they believe I am worthy of love and belonging even with all my imperfections.  They go on vacation with me, support me emotionally when I have difficult issues to deal with, come to my rescue when I have done something foolish, and believe that I can accomplish great things.  But the real key is that they are simply there for me.  I am convinced that is what it takes to be a first class friend, just being there for people.

I was thinking that everyone should feel treated like they are first class by someone.  Everyone should have someone who is there for them, who meets their needs on some level.  But as I allowed myself to think through it, I realized that what I need (and maybe everyone does) is rather than focus on how others treat me, I have to treat myself like I am first class and be that person who is there for  me. I should meet my own needs first before I expend all my energy on others.

When I was newly single and trying to redefine my life, I instituted “Friday night date night for one”. I would come home from work, get something special to make for dinner (including dessert) and a nice bottle of wine.  I would put some music on, light candles, have a lovely meal and then dance around the living room by myself.  I would treat myself like first class all the way on Friday nights.  But it was always something “extra”.

Unfortunately, the first class treatment never transferred beyond Friday night.   I am not sure why.  I guess I got busy with life, trying to be a first class mother, grandmother, colleague, friend, and there just wasn’t any time to treat myself the same way. Maybe I didn’t think I deserved the same treatment I gave everyone else.  Whatever the reason, I think that is something I need to change.  The next time I am cutting corners on self-care and not striving to meet my own needs before the needs of others, I need to remind myself to upgrade to first class.   I need to be first to recognize my value and to demonstrate that I am worthy of love and belonging.  I am worthy of being treated as first class.

Today as I sit in my third airport on the way home to visit my kids and granddaughters, when I have only had 2 hours sleep, I realize I am exhausted and without patience.  It might be time to practice some of that first class treatment right now.

The Great Equalizer

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I can’t believe how fast the summer has gone.  All of a sudden, I only have on week left in Seattle, then a week in eastern Washington before I fly to the east coast to see my family in Maine and North Carolina.  And then I leave the country. Where did the time go?

I have been surprised by the responses to this blog.  I get emails and messages on a weekly basis from people both known and unknown to me. One of the common threads in all of them is to thank me for sharing my story and then to tell me how courageous I am.  I always chuckle at that. If I give off the impression of courage, it must be because my terror isn’t coming across via the interwebz.

One reader told me that she always thought that people who are more well-traveled or intelligent than she was are unapproachable, that surely they have never been insecure or vulnerable.  She told me she would try not to carry on a conversation with people like that because she might be seen as a “dunce”.  All I could think of when reading her letter is that she is depriving all those people of the unique beauty and life perspective that she alone has.  Because all of us, every single human being, has a unique story, outlook on life, pearl of wisdom, etc.  And the only way to figure out who will connect to us is to risk vulnerability and share our stories.

I spent the last week doing professional development for teachers in a very rural place.  In that time, I had the privilege to have dinner with three other women.  The only thing we all had in common was that we were all teachers and we were all within 15 years apart in age.  We came from very different backgrounds, ethnicity, lifestyles, etc. We spent four hours sharing our stories of joy, heartbreak, betrayal, mistakes, success.  We laughed at the unpredictable nature of life and the blessings that come from unexpected places.  It was wonderful and I have a greater appreciation for each of these women because I understand their struggles, the risks they have taken, the overwhelming courage they have shown to carve the lives they wanted for themselves.  They were spectacular.  I look forward to seeing them again.

When I first started writing this blog, I debated making it personal. I was just going to make it a travel blog.  Then I realized that if someone wanted to travel to a place and find generic details they could just use Wikipedia or Lonely Planet.  Those details mean nothing without the emotion and insight of my travels attached to them.   Sharing those personal details are difficult for me, I struggle every time I hit the Publish button.  But I always come to the same conclusion, let the readers take away what they need. If there is nothing there, they they can delete.  Simple.

When I started, I figured I would be the only one reading this blog.  So to have a reader tell me that one of the things they have learned from reading it is that “human emotion is the great equalizer.  We all laugh, cry, feel joy, get scared no matter how smart, wise, famous, or wealthy we are.”  If putting my feelings out there in this blog helped one person get to the understanding that all of us have a commonality of human emotions, then the discomfort of pushing the Publish button and letting myself be vulnerable is worth it.

Many people write and ask me for advice.  For someone whose life has been so out of control for so long, I still am amazed that anyone would want my advice.  People ask me how to get the courage to try new things, how to take risks, how to make decisions without worrying, and how to handle when someone laughs at you. Well here is what I know so far that worked for me:

1. Although hiding would feel good and safe, fear is where the fun starts. Changing my life started with facing my fears, one at a time.  You have to do something you think you can’t do. Anything, just try something new.  And then do it again. You gain confidence as you experience success.

2. Keep a journal.  We have to believe our thoughts are important enough to write down. I keep a handwritten journal, I have kept it for the last 7 years.  Those journals contain all my fears, desires, thanks, joy, anger, my crazy moments…all of it.  Sometimes I have typed my handwritten thoughts out, like in this blog for example, but that isn’t the same as keeping a journal for just myself.  I have to believe that my thoughts are important, even if no one else ever reads them.

3. Get laughed at.  One of the things I know about confident people is that they realize that getting laughed at doesn’t matter.  My amazingly confident son is a great example.  He would be at the mall on an escalator and just not get off and fall. He did it on purpose just to get a reaction out of people.  The trick is to laugh at yourself with people as they are laughing at you. You have to OWN it, whatever you did that made them laugh at you. It is all about confidence. One of my favorite TED videos: The shared experience of aburdity.  My advice: be absurd and own it.

4. Go to a bar, restaurant, park or coffee shop (anywhere in public) by yourself. Yes, in public, alone. After a lifetime of being married and having kids and lots of friends, I didn’t know how to be alone in public.  So I just stayed inside all the time.  Finally, I realized I needed to get out because I was sad and lonely.  When I first started dining alone, I would bring a book, sit at the bar, get a beverage and a nice meal and read.  Now I can go anywhere alone, it doesn’t bother me at all. I love to sit and watch people.  I remember those first times, it was scary.  So here is the tip, if you are sad and lonely at home, go be sad and lonely out in a park where you are in the sunshine and there are people around.  Watch people. Just sit, put a book in your hands and pretend to read, and watch people.  You will realize they are just as insecure as you are.  Or go and actually read or write in your journal, but get outside your house.

5. Tell someone something you don’t want them to know.  Start with someone you trust. When  I am getting to know someone, I always ask them two questions, one of those questions is “what don’t you want me to know about you?”.  If that person can risk and tell me something that they think is a dark secret, the thing that they think would make me want to reject them, then I am interested in knowing them.  Because it means I can risk the same back with them and that I don’t have to hide who I am.  People who can’t do that with me are the superficial people I keep on the outer circle of my friends. I know them, I see them at parties or gatherings, but they aren’t someone I am going to be invested in keeping up a relationship with.  I learned this lesson the hard way, by giving my trust to someone who was superficial.  It was the worst mistake I have ever made.

If you want to be inspired to risk vulnerability, watch The Power of Vulnerability.  Yeah…I know, I have a slight TED video addiction.

If you plant peas, you are going to get peas… ~Ella

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I am not sure why it is so hard for me to recognize that fact. It is a pretty simple thing to understand. We reap what we sow, so if we sow pea seeds, we can’t expect strawberries to pop up.

Like attracts like. Isn’t that the universal law of attraction? The people who are closest to us and the people who we are attracted to mirror who we are.  They reflect back our inner selves and we also act as mirrors to them.  You can tell a lot about a person when you look at the people who they value, the people who are closest to them.

I have said it before, I have the best friends ever. They are all men and women of courage, integrity, humor, compassion, thoughtfulness, deep feelings, and authenticity.  I admire them greatly and feel like I am always striving to be like them. They challenge me to be my best.

What I tend to forget is that I act as their mirror also, it isn’t a one-way thing.  They are attracted to me for the qualities they see in me.  That is the hard part for me to accept because it blows all my inner doubts and issues of self-esteem out of the water.  Those self-doubts are of my own making.  I am planting peas.  If all I do is put out my fears, insecurities, self-doubts, I will cultivate people in my life that have those same doubts.  I will cultivate friends who don’t reflect my values.

The problem is, I am not living up to my end of the relationship bargain. I am expecting these incredible people to be supportive of my struggles and they are.  But in my insecurity and self-doubt, what I am not doing is supporting them in their struggles in return. I have to ask myself, when they need me to mirror back to them those same incredible qualities, am I doing my job?

Part of developing a new identity is deciding who I want to be. I have chosen these people to be my friends, so I am choosing those attributes as characteristics I want to mirror.  So it is time to step up and accept that is who I am.  I am a woman of courage, integrity, humor, compassion, thoughtfulness, deep feelings, and authenticity. I have been planting my crops and I will harvest what I have sown.  It is time to act like a grown woman and be the friend I need to be.

Marianne Williamson said it better than I ever could, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? … Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do…. As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

It is harvest time.