"We Can't Save Ourselves By Seeking Safety"

 

There is an old story about a Zen monk who was waiting to greet the emperor of Japan.  Just before the emperor arrived, he turned to a fellow monk and said, “I’ll be back later.”  “Later” turned about to be 12 years.  When his peers asked where he’d been and why he’d left, he explained, “As I waited for the emperor, I felt my palms begin to sweat.  I knew that I was attached to social roles because my body was tense.  I’ve been meditating to lose that attachment.  I came back as soon as I could.”

In our culture, we often think that detaching from something means that we are less devoted to it, that we love it less.  The monk’s story comes from the opposite perspective; when we are attached to people’s roles we cannot see them from a place of simple compassion.

Martha Beck

A situation recently forced my comfort zone to suddenly become very uncomfortable.   After working through feelings of fear, frustration, and anger, a sense of peace settled onto my heart. I fell back on the one lesson that I have learned repeatedly throughout my life; every uncomfortable situation has a purpose.  Each time I have experienced a challenging situation I eventually discovered that the discomfort of the situation caused one of two things to happen.  It either forced me in a direction that I would not have considered otherwise or I simply had a lesson to learn. It is like participating in fate’s giant puzzle where timing is everything.   In this instance, I knew I had no choice but to get comfortable at being uncomfortable while I pushed through the challenges in front of me.

In the midst of learning to move beyond my comfort zone, my friend’s mother passed away and then someone else that I know lost her ten year old son.  The little boy’s funeral was heartbreaking but it was also a poignant reminder that certain things in life deserve the investment of my emotional energy while everything else is simply a circumstance that deserves my attention without the emotional investment.   I had allowed myself to become overwhelmed because of a series of inconveniences but I was treating everything like a problem.

 

“One of life's best coping mechanisms is to know the difference between an inconvenience and a problem. If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire, then you've got a problem. Everything else is an inconvenience. Life is inconvenient. Life is lumpy. A lump in the oatmeal, a lump in the throat and a lump in the breast are not the same kind of lump. One needs to learn the difference.”

Robert Fulghum

 

This epiphany helped me see that I have started developing a set of self-limiting beliefs and behaviors. The fear of failure, and fear of what others would think of me, had begun to creep in and take precedence which made everything look more important than it really was.  The lesson in all of this was reminding me that it isn’t judgmental relatives, the bias of a bad boss, or the sexist view of a colleague that holds me back.  What was holding me back was my own perspective.   

 

 

You either walk inside your story and own it or you stand outside your story and hustle for your worthiness.

Brenee Brown

 

This situation turned out to be a blessing.  I was forced to look at my own life through different lenses and realized that my life had become routine.  For the last twelve months my focus has been task driven.  I was focused on meeting the needs of my job or family and I was overwhelmed with the feeling that I was not doing enough.  My safe zone was to develop a routine that was boring but predictable.     Even as I looked around my house I saw lots of beige and brown.  While beige is a very neutral color it is also a boring color.   If truth be told, I prefer bold color and this is the first beige color scheme I have ever lived in.  

 

 I shared my thoughts with a friend and told her of my plans to invest my energy into things that are important to me, take steps to break out of my routine, and incorporate color into my surroundings.   A few days later I received a card containing photos with wonderful ideas for adding color into a home and the name of a painter friend she knows with a note that read “Be courageous. Bathe your life in color.”  

 We can’t save ourselves from fear by seeking safety, because safety always means there’s something to be safe from—in other words, something to fear. The way out of fear isn’t safety. It’s freedom.

Martha Beck

 

My new perspective reminded me to stop seeking a safety zone.  I began to speak up instead of worrying about being perceived as too aggressive and discovered that for every person who discourages me from being heard there are even more people supporting my views and offering encouragement.  The changes in my surroundings are apparent as I replace beige with green, coral, and blues.  I am scheduling a vacation, cooking a great dinner even if I have no one to share it with, making time to read, catching up on my movie watching, and making time for the important people.     

 

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

The critics are everywhere.  Learning to say no and to disengage by not investing emotional energy into situations that are contingent on the response of others took practice. As uncomfortable as this situation was, it was more uncomfortable to realize how my life was beginning to evolve around the expectations of others and I found it unsettling when I realized that I had almost allowed a predictable existence to take over.  No one should ever become so overwhelmingly busy, so afraid of not meeting the expectations of others that a set of self- limiting beliefs and behaviors can take control.   Breaking out of that safety zone and learning to say no wasn’t the most comfortable thing I have ever had to do but, I must say, I am very grateful for this situation because it turned out to be the very thing that set me free.  

 

 

 

Responding to The Critics

 

"I have always believed that women are not victims, we are agents of change, we are drivers of progress, we are makers of peace -- all we need is a fighting chance."

Hillary Clinton

This is women's history month and I have decided to purchase a book on Hillary Clinton because Ms. Clinton is not afraid to fight for what she believes in, she is not afraid to be unpopular, and she refuses to be silent on issues that she is passionate about.  Since Bill Clinton was president I have watched, and admired, how Hillary Clinton responded to the personal trauma and negative publicity after her husband’s infidelity and then continue to amaze us as she evolved into one of the most powerful and admired women of our day. I personally admire Hillary Clinton because when her personal life is under media scrutiny, or she was being criticized for being too outspoken, she didn’t surrender to the criticism.  She simply continued to hold her head up as she went on to fight for what she believed in.  How can anyone not admire that?

"There's that kind of double bind that women find themselves in. On the one hand, yes, be smart, stand up for yourself. On the other hand, don't offend anybody, don't step on toes, or you'll become somebody that nobody likes because you're too assertive."

Hillary Clinton.

Opposition in life is inevitable.  I still see a discriminatory attitude from time to time but I make it a point to remember that critics are everywhere.  If someone writes a book, makes a movie, or makes an unpopular decision there will always be someone trying to devalue the result.  If we pick up an entertainment magazine the media focuses on the failures and the awkward moments.  When we take a stand for what we believe in, whether we have a valid point or not, there will always be adversaries who try to undermine us.   Our greatest strength comes from having faith in our own value and refusing to let the critics silence us.

I am not implying that we should discount the opinions of others but there are two types of critics. There are those who care about us and offer constructive criticism. Then there is everyone else who only offers destructive criticism.  It is important to identify which is which. 

Do what you feel in your heart to be right because you will be criticized anyway.  You are damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

Eleanor Roosevelt.

My attitude was  defined at a young age.  Shortly after I started my first real job there was a department shuffle and I ended up working with a group of men. I was the only woman and my new boss,  who sort of looked like the Grinch in The Grinch That Stole Christmas, came up to me and asked me to stand up.  He put me in front of the department and walked in a circle around me as he looked me up and down.  Then he asked me “Are you married?”  I said no. “Are you engaged?” I said no.  He then laughed out loud and said “Well, once a woman gets off of her back and out of the kitchen she isn’t worth much. Now you know what I think of you.”  During this era, sexual discrimination was still new to the courts. My sister suggested that I file a complaint but I didn’t.  I pushed forward with the hope that if I was friendly, professional, and worked really hard it would be enough. As it turned out, nothing I could do was enough.  I was being singled out because of  my gender so neither a friendly disposition nor all of the hard work in the world would change the predisposed attitude of this man.  A few months later I quit with no job waiting for me.

I survived that experience, and became a stronger woman because of it, but I also made a commitment to myself that I would never accept that type of treatment again from anyone. This helped me define my own value. I now know that when someone criticizes me simply because of who I am then being friendly and working harder isn’t going to change anything. That experience taught me that people who have predisposed ideas and a closed mind  only offer destructive criticism when they are faced with a difference that makes them uncomfortable.  This is a divisive attitude that shouldn’t exist in this day and age but, even though it is becoming less common, it still exists.  

Only those who dare to fail greatly can achieve greatly.

Robert Kennedy

I sometimes feel that young women today seem to be oblivious of the bias that the women who came before us had to fight.  The women like Gloria Steinem, Eleanor Roosevelt, Hillary Clinton, or the education advocate Malala Yousafzai  helps to remind me that the attitude of others does not define who I am.  We  need strong role models like Hillary Clinton to remind us to be true to our authentic selves and to refuse to let others define our value because there will always be someone to give a voice to the destructive criticism.  

I refuse to settle for mediocrity and I fully intend to continue take risks.  No one has the right to tell me that I do not have the right to a voice because of my gender, ethnicity, or age so I will continue to assert myself.  There is no shame in failing to succeed, there is only shame when we are too afraid to try and, when I am tempted to let the opinions of others hold me back, I will simply remember that those who care about me will offer constructive criticism while the others are simply not worthy of my time. 

“One fifth of the people are against everything all of the time.”

Robert Kennedy