Write your 2021 story

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2020 has arguably been the greatest disruptor of the way human beings live their daily lives since WWII. In fact, people will be writing books making analogies like this for decades to come, just like people wrote books about how humanity was changed forever after the Spanish flu, the World Wars, and after 9/11. I am not a historian and clearly will not be one of those authors, but as a Gestalt trained practitioner, I am deeply interested in systems. While the above events, and the context surrounding the events are very different, what makes the analogy hold up is the scale of the disruption. COVID 19 didn’t just impact you, your immediate household, your work place, or even just your country, it caused a full system disruption. All inhabitants of our planet have been impacted.

Human beings are resilient creatures, and they are also resistant creatures. We are significantly more adept at forming new habits and behaviors than we are at changing or eradicating existing ones. Here’s a simple example you might relate to, your clothes closet. Do you throw away an item of clothing every time you purchase a new one? Maybe, if so, good for you! Most likely, your clothes accumulate over time, and you predominantly wear items you purchased in the last 1-3 years. They are the clothes in the best condition, they fit your body in its current state, and they reflect your current personal and professional identity. You also have clothes in your closet that you have not worn for many years that reflect a past identity, that you bought for a specific event, or fit a body shape you once had. I have a closet full of ‘executive’ clothes that I bought when I became a CEO in 2018. That part of my identity ended unexpectedly in 2020 and I find that I’m not ready to donate them as they represent a recent part of who I was. Most likely, I will purge that section of my wardrobe the next time I move. A move is a large enough disruption to warrant taking a hard look at the clothes I really like, need, and wear. To make significant and lasting change in our lives, we need disruption. While the disruption is occurring, we experience discomfort, pain, and loss. But in it’s aftermath, we know and understand more, and if we act on that knowledge, we are profoundly changed. As Buddhist monk Pema Chodron so acutely said, “Having the rug pulled out from under you is a big opportunity to change your fundamental pattern”.

As we turn into 2021, I think we all understand that that we are participants in a global paradigm shift. I sense, and hear that people want that. We desperately want to look back on 2020 and say ‘If it wasn’t for COVID 19, or the murder of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, or the wildfires in Australia and the western states, as terrible as all that was, we would never have...” Things have to be better moving forward. How do we get there? I don’t know. I’m aware this sounds trite, but how about we start with bite size chunks. Let’s start with you. Change happens one person at a time. It’s the smallest system level there is, the quietest disruptor, but perhaps the most powerful.

Everyone has a 2020 story. But it’s your 2021 story that will matter. Writing that story will take reflection, reclamation and reimagining. You’ll need to make space for it, be intentional, and gather people around you for support, and to hold you accountable. We need to do that for each other if we are going to make positive and lasting changes to the way we live our lives.

I’ve launched a coaching offering specifically designed to assist people in gathering their 2020 experiences, and using what has been learned to inform decision making for 2021 and beyond. Write YOUR 2021 story will kickstart your response to the great disruptor. Through deep listening and powerful questions, I can surface information that brings structure and action to your story. To learn more, click on the link above.

It’s going to take a long time for us to see progress on a full systems level. 2020 has brought into the light the deep rooted inequities of humanity. We can’t wait for others to make the changes for us. Start with you. Start now.

“This is just a beginning”

When the results of the 2020 election came out on Saturday, Michelle Obama’s message was clear. In her usual wise and compassionate way, she said via social media:

“After we celebrate – and we should all take a moment to exhale after everything we’ve been through – let’s remember that this is just a beginning. It’s a first step.”

For me, this message would have been less powerful, and I would go as far as to say less accurate, if she had said “This is just the beginning.” The use of the word ‘the’ might signal a false sense of having ‘arrived’. While this might have temporarily increased our confidence (and reduced a significant build-up of anxiety!) it would ultimately have promoted a false sense of security. The subtle difference between the determiners ‘a’ and ‘the’ makes a lot of difference when it comes to our seemingly endless struggle to accept that the ground shifts beneath us constantly.

As I have mentioned in past blogs, my work as a coach and consultant is centered around the work of organizational consultant William Bridges. In his landmark book ‘Transitions’, he reframes our long-held simplistic notion that everything has a beginning, a middle and an end. I use the word ‘reframe’ because he is in fact a huge proponent of this tri-structure. However, he does not believe that they happen in that order, or that they are even sequential. In fact, he stresses that they often happen simultaneously, they always overlap, they repeat, and loop, and cycle and… well, you get the idea. Only the last 18 pages of his 185-page book are dedicated to ‘new beginnings’. “We forget how indirect and unimpressive new beginnings are”, he says.  The other 157 pages focus on the significance of ‘endings’ and most importantly, the work that lies in the space between what was, and what will be. It’s in the middle, (he calls this the ‘neutral zone’) where real transformation happens.

Even though the external new beginning may happen very quickly… the internal re-identification and re-engagement always occur more slowly.

When the first black man was elected President of the United States at the end of 2007, we celebrated hard and for good reason. We partied, marched, wept, sang, wrote poetry and created art. We fiercely believed and hoped. Surely this was a ‘new beginning’? Undoubtedly, this was a long overdue leap for this country. Many black people thought that they would never live to see the day. This was progress. Things will be different now. Right?
But, at the end of 2015…

When Michelle Obama said “It’s just a beginning” instead of ‘It’s just the beginning,’ she is reminding us that the work is ongoing, and always ahead of us.

Voting in one election isn’t a magic wand, and neither is winning one. Let us remember the millions of people who voted for the status quo… We’ve got a lot of work to do to reach out to those folks and connect with them… The path to progress will always be uphill.

Here’s Bridges again:

Genuine beginnings depend on an inner realignment rather than on external shifts, for it is only when we are aligned with deep longings that we become powerful motivated.

In westernized culture, we remain more comfortable with bright lines, fixed timelines, and clear structure. We like strong signals that an ending is final, and that after a new beginning, there is no need to look back. Eastern philosophers are thankfully relentless in their efforts to soften these behaviors, encouraging us to embrace uncertainty and find comfort within chaos. We are slow learners, aren’t we? The pathway to new beginnings is paved with more than sheer perseverance. It’s paved with beginnings and first steps. Thank you Michelle, for your words of wisdom. You join company with so many wise women teachers who continue to inspire me every day. I’ll close this week’s ramble with the words of another, Buddhist monk, Pema Chödrön:

What does it take to use the life we already have in order to make us wiser rather than more stuck…The answer to these questions seems to have to do with bringing everything that we encounter to the path. Everything naturally has a ground, a path, and fruition. This is like saying that everything has a beginning, middle, and end. But it is also said that the path itself is both the ground and the fruition. The path is the goal.

Unpack your saturation point

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Last week I heard the phrase ‘concurrent pandemics’ for the first time. Wow. Yes.

Clients have recently been sharing that they are experiencing a build-up of pressure; saying things like, ‘I just can’t take one more thing thrown at me,’ and ‘I am beyond maxed out.’ My favorite was ‘The s**t is hitting the fan from too many directions.’ One client expressed that they felt like a ‘sponge that cannot take on any more water’. He was saturated. For him, that felt like numbness. For others, panic.

At this point, 8 months into COVID (the umbrella pandemic), we are feeling the cumulative impact of multiple and concurrent underlying stressors: parenting anxious children, increased pressure at work, being out of work during an economic downturn, serious concerns around short and long term financial stability, staying safe and healthy, the impending election, lack of socialization, and the list goes on. And on.  

As it looks like we might be here for a while, it seems necessary to figure out a way to ‘wring out your own sponge’ when you reach a saturation point. I went through the following exercise to wring out my own sponge. Perhaps try it for yourself.

• Imagine COVID is a large river that dams, and the related (or unrelated) stressors as tributaries flowing into that river

• Make a list of your tributaries

• Acknowledge that each of these tributaries by themselves would be stressful enough

• Realize that individually, the tributaries have their own cycles, energy, flow, and specific challenges

• Notice that you respond to, and cope with each of these tributaries differently. Not all the tributaries are the same length. Some are deeper than others. Some flow quickly, some flow so slowly they appear stagnant

• Chart the highs and lows for each of these tributaries over the last 8 months. (See visual below). Notice that the tributaries peak at different times

• Observe that sometimes, one or more peaks occur concurrently. They flow into the river and dam breaks. You’ve reached a saturation point

Here’s why this exercise was helpful for me. When I feel the pressure reaching saturation point, I remind myself that I’m experiencing the cumulative impact of multiple stressors. I look at my list and figure out what’s peaking and focus on accessing the coping mechanisms for that particular stressor. If it’s two, or god help me, three concurrent stressors, I step back, or away. When I’m ready (which might not be until the next day), I prioritize, and tackle the individual challenges in bite size chunks, Releasing the dam one tributary at a time.

Ok. I feel like my ramble is rambling, and my analogy is getting unwieldy! Take what resonates with you and explore. If you try the exercise yourself, I’d love to hear what was useful and what you learned. If you want some support unpacking your saturation point, please reach out to me, or a loved one.

One. Stressor. At. A. Time. Please.

We’re all in transition

I think I speak for all 7.8 billion people on the planet when I share that at least once a day I fantasize about midnight on December 31st, 2020. I am not sure if I believe in the concept of 'a reckoning', but it sure feels like that's what's happening. There's this feeling of absolute saturation as we continue to manage multiple life changing challenges, simultaneously. Enough already. 

AND... I wouldn't presume I speak for everyone on the planet when I share that I find myself constantly needing to make meaning out of 2020. If we are going to go through all this, can we please, please, make it matter. Is it possible to come out of this terrible time a little more... (complete this sentence with whatever is top of your list today)?   

2020 has upset a long-standing arrangement. Humanity is in major transition. Lockdown has pressed pause, and forced us to take a step, no, a leap, back from our normal way of doing things. The result is undoubtedly chaotic, but there's also an accompanying emptiness, a collective inhale, while we wonder, and wait to see how life is going to look on the 'other side'. This much I know, 2020 is one for the history books. For the next 50 years shelves will be full of books examining the way in which COVID 19 permanently changed how human beings live and work. The big question is, will we have learned anything? Will things be better on the 'other side' because of it? 

In a recent poll conducted by OnePoll, 55% of 2000 respondents looked back on their values pre-quarantine with some 'embarrassment', and 70% of those polled expressed that life post-lockdown will look very different as a result of what they've learned and experienced; more time with friends and family, better work/life balance etc. I did my own poll in mid-June asking people to summarize how they were feeling in just one word. While I received back plenty of 'lost', 'anxious', and 'overwhelmed', I was also interested to see the word 'grateful' repeatedly. In follow-up conversations, people expressed gratitude for things that in 2019 they took for granted; health, having food on the table, a home, employment etc. When digging a little deeper though, what surfaced was gratitude for the fact that COVID, as terrible as it is, has forced people into reevaluating well, pretty much everything. By pulling us away from all that is familiar, and locking us up with ourselves, COVID holds up a mirror, forcing deep reflection into well-established behaviors and ways of moving in the world. Would we ever have done this kind of soul searching without an external intervention the size of a global pandemic?

As a coach and consultant I have been heavily influenced by the work of William Bridges, whose book, 'Transitions, Making Sense of Life's Changes' published its 40th anniversary edition in December of 2019. I find this insight helpful:

'One of the difficulties of being in transition in the modern world is that we have lost our appreciation for the gaps in the continuity of existence. For us, emptiness represents only the absence of something. So when what's missing is as important as relatedness and purpose and reality, we try to find ways of replacing these missing elements as quickly as possible... we hope it can only be a temporary, if unfortunate situation to be endured.' 

Earlier this month, I launched a flexible 8-week coaching offering for individuals, teams or organizations, ‘Write your 2021 Story'.  Using Bridges 'Transitions' model, I am working with clients to make meaning out of 2020, to recognize what chapters are ending, to stay curious about the 'emptiness', and to possibly make choices that will lead to increased happiness and fulfillment. Based on everything you have learned so far in 2020, what do you want your life to look like in 2021? If this sounds like a potentially helpful mindset shift for you, please read more about this coaching offering by clicking on the link above, or simply contact me to schedule a time to talk.

Bridges goes on to say, "Divorces, deaths, job changes, moves... disengage us from the contexts in which we have known ourselves. They break up the old cue system that served to reinforce our behavior... As long as a system is working, it is very difficult for a member of it to imagine an alternative way of life and an alternate reality. But, with disengagement, an inexorable process of change begins."

I imagine Bridges, who passed away in 2013, would be busy right now penning the 41st anniversary edition to help us make sense of 2020. Add to cart and next day delivery please.