Are you a rock? Are you an island?

What’s your typical response when dealing with a situation?  Do you clamp down and not let anyone know what’s going on?  Do you think you’re strong enough to weather it all on your own?  Do you feel gratification when you’ve proved to yourself that you can handle anything?  That you don’t actually NEED anyone?  If you answer ‘yes’ to all of the previous questions… well, you and I were so very alike not that long ago.  I had a need to prove to myself that I was strong enough, I was good enough and I could accomplish anything on my own.  I could deal with any situation.  Life couldn’t bring me down.  I was a rock… I was an island.

At some very recent point, I pulled my head out of the sand long enough to realize just what it was I had done.  I took a moment to step back and admire all that I had accomplished.  I’ve done well with my career, live in a decent neighborhood, I’ve dealt with some pretty big life issues and I’m still standing on my own two feet.  And I did it all by myself. The puzzling part was that the rest of the world wasn’t cheering me on when I emerged.  Why weren’t they happy for me?  Why couldn’t they see the struggles I had been through to get where I am?  Why couldn’t they understand the reasons I had been working so hard for so long?

Because I was a rock and I was an island.  Tough to the core.  Unwavering.  But here’s the thing: Rocks are hard to work with and islands are difficult to get go.

Nobody was cheering me on because none of them knew what was going on. My self importance, my need to prove something to myself had a much larger impact than I could have foreseen. And it’s an impact that I want to reverse.

I’m still proud of myself for my accomplishments, but I wonder how much easier everything could have been if I had taken the approach of a more malleable, connected material?  As I opened up and began to share more with those that were once close to me, I found something extraordinary happened.  All of those struggles, the trials and tribulations I sought to handle on my own didn’t seem so hard to deal with any more AND there were people applauding me along the way for everything I was trying to do.  

So the questions remains – will I do it differently next time?  You betchya.  Except for me it’s not just about next time, it’s about every time.  One day, one person and one situation at a time to create a new shape for me and a new connection in the world.

The last week of 2009…

It’s the last week of 2009.  This Christmas has been rare in that I haven’t gotten caught up in all of the hubbub.  My stress levels have been at an all time low.  I’ve enjoyed every moment, every person, and every morsel of food more than I ever have.  And now, with the year on its final legs, I think I’m going to take this week to relive and relish the highlights of 2009, and decide how I will set the stage for 2010.

One way people attempt to start out a new year is with resolutions.  And while the intentions behind resolutions are usually good, so many people have set themselves up for failure.  The reasons for not following through on a resolution depend on person to person.  For me, I think it’s been because there’s always that expectation that you try hard to follow through, but nobody ever actually makes them, so if you give up on your resolutions after a month or two… well, heck, at least you tried, right?  This year, I want my resolutions to stick.  And so they won’t be resolutions.  Because taking one day out of the year to look at what you want and setting a goal isn’t enough.  It takes changing our day to day to really make change in our lives.

I’ve been coming across the quote from Ghandi a lot lately “Be the change that you want to see in the world.”  That has been my focus for 2009, and will continue to be my focus in 2010.  Finding alignment in my own life and in what I want to see in the world.  Being the change.

During the last couple of months, David and I have been talking about a New Year’s feature to do.  We’ve gone to our networks for some feedback, and thought through a couple of iterations of what this might look like.  We will be kicking off the New year with a bit of an experiment.  Over the course of the first 10 weeks in 2010, we’ll be posting 10 Things to Inspire and Motivate in 2010.

All the best for a motivational and inspirational New Year.