resilience

Last weekend I attended a meditation retreat, which was uneventful.  A lot of sitting on a bumpy meditation mat.  But it was a much-welcomed opportunity to slow down and reconnect with myself, particularly as I’ve been running hard the past few months.  I soldered on and struggled through several hours of sitting meditation, walking meditation and lecture on the four aspects on mindfulness.  I left thinking it was somewhat useful but probably not the most effective use of my time. A few days after the retreat, I was down in the dumps.  Thursday of last week I walked around in a sad fog, it was almost as if a large heavy cloud had descended upon my head and was raining down on me wherever I went.  I thought it was particularly odd considering nothing had really happened to cause it.  Or so I thought. Then I remembered what my friend Michelle had said when I mentioned I’d be going to the retreat – “Wow, a meditation retreat.  It will be interesting to notice what comes up for you in the week or so after.  These things are so powerful!” Were the two things connected I wondered?  Indeed they were.  And then a realization hit me like a ton of bricks.  The immense amount of change I’m currently going through but hadn’t thought to acknowledge or show myself any tenderness or compassion for.  Change is an interesting thing.  It can often creep up on a person, where we don’t even recognize we’re experiencing it.  I’ve seen this many times with my clients.  They solider on bravely and stoically, through job changes – maybe a career transition or a layoff, changes in living arrangements, changes in relationship status.  There is no escape from the universal human change curve There is a way that humans tend to experience change, and it’s called the change curve.  It often looks something like this: This model was developed in the 1960’s by Elizabeth Kubler Ross and if you look closely enough, you’ll notice that it tends to follow the grieving process.  This model underscores the journey of change every human goes on, whether we consciously realize it or not.  And when you think about this, it makes perfect sense. Change means the death of something old and the birth of something new.  And it will be stressful and chaotic,  even if the change was a wanted change, which in my situation it was. My husband decided to take a sabbatical and spend some much-needed time determining whether he wanted to make it permanent and retire early or go back to work.  He’ll still not sure.  And I’ve been super supportive considering he traveled a lot for his job and was away over half of the time we’ve been together.  The first six months were great.  A joyous time for us to have fun together and do all sorts of things that had been put on the back burner for years.  And then the reality of the […]

I’ve recently taken up a most curious sport – boxing.  I kind of fell into it, not knowing what to expect, as it’s offered at my local yoga studio on Sunday mornings.  Considering I have an unlimited monthly pass I figured what the heck and signed up.  And after a few classes, I discovered the most wonderful secret.  The first few classes I was just trying to get my bearings.  I clumsily threw a 2 (right hand) punch when my trainer would call for a 1 (left hand). There’s a lot to remember regarding the numbers of the punches, the footwork, to remember to duck defensively.  And then it just kind of clicked and something interesting happened. The power of the punch My punches got more powerful, my stance got increasingly steady, and I wasn’t just exhaling as directed by my trainer as I punched. Along with the exhale I started to emit a yell with every strike.  The first time it happened I turned beet red, and my trainer Danna smiled and said to me, “Let it out.  This is what boxing is all about.  There are no rules about noise.” And so I did.  And I increasingly do.  And I gotta tell you folks, there is something about this boxing thing that is beyond cathartic.  I now look forward to my Sunday session every week.  It’s my release, my opportunity to let loose, to let the mad, crazy, and downright undesirable woman buried deep inside me out.  I’ve started envisioning people on the punching bag, situations and problems that are annoying me, and I punch and punch and yell and yell to my heart’s delight. It’s quite a change from the refined southern woman I was raised to be.  The one who was told to smile and be sweet and to behave like a good little girl would.  Who learned to bury her anger and sadness and resentment lest it escape and make others uncomfortable.  I let these feelings out on the bag and each time I leave I leave just a little bit lighter.  This experience has also gotten me thinking about how we express emotions in general, particularly the undesirable feelings.  The ones we don’t want to admit to having, things like anger, jealousy, vanity, pride, resentment and even guilt.  Ignore feelings at your peril I’ve noticed over the years that we (and most often women) do something really interesting when it comes to our “negative” emotions.  Firstly, we try to pretend that they don’t even exist.  And when they’re especially powerful and we’re super worried they will bubble up to the surface, we shame them.  We shame them into submission by saying things to ourselves such as: “You’re such a horrible person for thinking that.  There’s obviously something wrong with you this thought even crossed your mind.  If you were a better person this situation wouldn’t bother you at all.  Just let it go.  Let it go!  A bigger person than you would be able […]

2022 was big.  Big for me at least.  Biggest revenues, biggest number of clients.  Biggest number of challenges I had ever taken on.  Explosive growth on the personal and on the professional front.  I don’t think I had ever felt as comfortable in my role as a career and leadership coach, as a leadership facilitator, a mentor coach.  The pressure was high, but I was enjoying it for the most part.  I was flying high.  I had finally arrived!  Then I Crashed and Burned And then something strange happened at the start of this year.  I started hesitating before sessions with clients.  I started second guessing my reactions to things, the words coming out of my mouth, my interactions with people.  Did I show up with a compassionate open heart???  Maybe I’m being too hard on them…Maybe that thing I just said was really stupid…What a lame question!  I’ll never be as good as a facilitator as X.  I started thinking I had lost my edge.  And then I wondered if I had ever found it to begin with. I stopped the diatribe and instead started to ponder why – why these thoughts?  Why am I torturing myself?  It reminded me of when I was a fledging yogi, at yoga teacher training in LA.  One of the opportunities of said yogic experience was being forced to listen to our esteemed guru rant on about any number of topics for hours on end.  But one rant stood out, where the guru was talking about achievement.  “Achievement is nothing.  Anyone can achieve anything they want to.  Maintaining it over time, now that’s a different story.  That’s near impossible!” Achievement versus Maintenance I think he was on to something there.  And then it dawned on me what was causing me to hesitate.  To second guess and doubt my every move.  The gnawing feeling that I didn’t have what it takes to go the distance.  The success was a fluke.  An anomaly.  And what was hiding in the wings (although very cleverly disguised) was my inner critic.  Whispering soft things in my ear like, “You should know this already.  Someone with your level of training wouldn’t be hesitating right now.  If you were emotionally intelligent you wouldn’t be over-reacting right now.” I spent this morning in tears, having a good cry.  (Crying can be extremely therapeutic if you’re so inclined to try it…) I made a list of all the things I’ve been struggling with (it was a long list in case you were wondering).  All the things I didn’t think I had gotten “right” lately.  And then I just let the tears flow.  Tears of forgiveness for all the things I haven’t navigated well over the last few months.  Things maybe I got wrong.  Or maybe I didn’t get perfect.  Because no matter how long I’ve been doing this coaching and training gig, I still: This list could go on and on by the way. And I still just allowed the tears to […]

On my desk I keep a small statue.  It’s a beauty pageant participation trophy I got off the internet for $4.99 plus $19.99 in shipping and handling.  I even had my name engraved on it.  She sits proudly on my desk looking at me, all smug with her right hand coyly resting on her hip, standing up perfectly straight in her big poofy skirt with her sash draped proudly over her chest.  She sits on my desk not to remind me of the beauty pageant I never won (or even entered for that matter).  She sits there to remind me of the evils of striving for perfection.  And when you think about it, many of us get caught in this trap.  We get caught in the trap, and we don’t follow through.  We get caught in the trap and we give up before we’ve even started, because whatever we produce just won’t be good enough.  We won’t be good enough.  So why even bother? Or maybe we try and we don’t exactly meet the goal, or the target.  And then we beat ourselves up about it.  Here’s an example.  I set myself the goal of writing this blog once a week on January 1st of this year.  I’ve dutifully done it every week, except one in September when I was on vacation.  And then the end of the year rolled around and I’ve missed a week or two.  And then my thoughts the other day turned to – “See!  You didn’t do it.  You never follow through!  What kind of coach are you, you can’t even finish strong when you made a big deal about starting something.  You might as well give up, you hack!” I could really listen to that voice.  Tune into and wallow in my misery of failure.  Revel in the fact that I’m an impostor that doesn’t deserve to use the word coach.  I could do all that, and don’t think I didn’t think about it.  And then I took my own advice, and remembered sometimes it’s actually helpful to practice what you preach.  One of my favorite books which I often have clients read is one called Mindset, the new neuroscience of success.  In it, the author Dweck talks about the difference between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset.  Fixed Mindset = Proving The fixed mindset is all about proving.  Proving one is good enough, smart enough and gosh darn it, that people like you.  (I’m hoping someone will catch the Stuart Smalley reference here…)  Many of us go through life locked into a fixed mindset a lot of the time.  As a result of it, we often have difficulty accepting criticism, rising to the challenge of something new or unexpected because we might fail or collaborating effectively with others because we view them as competition.  We have difficulty because the emphasis is on proving.  I have to prove I can finish what I start, and if I don’t, I’m an impostor.  Growth Mindset […]

In today’s blog we are continuing the story of Nora Pirsch, who recently transitioned from a yoga instructor to a UX designer.  Nora credits her strong mental attitude in being critical in making the transition! Nora Pirsch is a User Experience designer that specializes in human connections. The desire to improve people’s day to day lives, has been a theme throughout her adult life. She has spent 15 years of her life mastering her craft as a yoga instructor and now she has begun her path to improving her skills as a UX designer. Nora has always enjoyed a challenge, from facing stage fright to showing extreme patience with her naturally fermented bread baking, she never goes down without a fight. When she is not interviewing users, you can find her baking fresh pizza and going for long walks with her dog Finch. Shelley: Let’s talk about of interviewing and as it relates to resiliency. You told me it was something like 80 jobs you applied to, and I was blown away by that and just how resilient you are. How did you keep yourself mentally strong, considering that there were probably a lot of setbacks in this process for you? Nora: I had amazing support from school from colleagues that I went to school with, even from people that my mom reached out to that were in the tech industry, and they would tutor me, and find people to help me walk along the path. That’s step number one. And then, part of the after-graduation program was applying to 10 jobs a week, that was the criteria. So that was very difficult in the beginning because I was spending too much time on writing pretty and elaborate cover letters. I really recommend getting a very basic template, and then just add two to three sentences make it a little bit more directed at that company. And that’s it because you will wipe yourself out writing those cover letters. And honestly, what is it 92% Of the companies don’t look at your cover letter until you’ve gone through the ATS. Shelley: I normally tell candidates, don’t even submit one unless they specifically asked for it. Because a lot of times they don’t even get read. Create a Process – Work Smarter Not Harder Nora: A lot of the times they don’t, but my school did encourage it. Because if there’s a candidate that if you’re side by side with, and one has a cover letter and one doesn’t, they’re going to go with the one that paid a little bit more attention. I came up with a simple template and started applying to more jobs. And then I closely shadowed a couple of the students in my class that were very big go getters, and we became quick friends. She told me what she was doing and her tactics. And I was asked, “Can I can I steal that from you?”And she said, “Oh my gosh, of course.” Forget the requirements […]

A proud child of the eighties, I’m sometimes reminded of that Whitesnake song, “Here I go again on my own.  Going down the only road I’ve ever known.  Like a drifter I was born to walk alone!” Catchy huh?  Except for the fact that the songwriter was more concerned with finding the perfect rhyme than sharing an important truth about life.  Which brings me to the point of today’s blog:  how to develop a support network.  Cultivating a robust support network is an important ingredient in the multifaceted recipe of resilience.