On Confidence ~ The Warrior vs. The Worrier

The other night at a party, over dolmades and champagne (realizing Goal 1 of my Vision!), a friend asked me:  How do you just go for things, Anne? You really put yourself out there. You must be so confident.  I have this great idea; but I have so many doubts.  

The truth is:  I have loads of doubts. On a daily basis I question myself:  Who am I to be writing a book?  Shouldn’t I be looking for a *real* job? Maybe I SHOULD have stayed in Mexico.

I have learned over time to notice that little voice, the Worrier, not the Warrior that I really am. I thank the Worrier for its concern. It’s trying its best to keep me in the safe status quo where ‘I belong.’  Then I go back to my vision and proceed forward.  Vamos adalante, as the Mexicans say, forward we go.

Your vision will serve you. If you have progressed through the visioning steps with mindfulness and sincerity, from conception of ideas, to formulating and sharing, to committing to action, your Vision becomes a force bigger than Doubt and Worry. You can glance at it from time to time if you like.  But you will find, without scrutinizing it and checking off boxes, you are REALIZING it.

Like me in Rock Creek Park last weekend.  I was running on the dirt path,  alongside the babbling stream, beneath the canopy of trees, in the oppressive humidity. And suddenly it hit me: I’m doing just what I dreamed of for my new DC life.  I’m back in on the Rock Creek trail, hopping piles of manure, dumping sweat, acclimatizing to life in the swamp, and feeling... happy. In the afternoon, I was meeting my sangha to discuss a new book we were reading on The Power of Meditation. And I was reviewing contracts for a new green roof.

In those moments, give yourself a pat on the back. Whether you have a coach or not, you learn to become your own biggest supporter. Celebrating accomplishments is part of the game.

And back to my friend’s question about Confidence.

Each blog story I write, complete, and post breeds more commitment and diffuses the doubt.  Sure, I still have moments, hours, days of questioning.  But I forge ahead despite it.  The Warrior says to the little Worrier:  Thanks for sharing; now kindly eff*@#%-off.   

Perhaps Confidence, or better yet, Courage is a muscle you build, a byproduct of again and again pushing through the fears and noticing:  my Vision is coming true!  

The Beauty of Transitions ~ Beginner's Mind

That’s what I’ve got, being back in the *first world*, hometown DC, after two and a half years away - Beginner's Mind - the sweet side of Transitions. Everything that was once old has a shiny new sheen, like the Greek medallion necklace that sat in my jewelry box in storage for these last couple of years. I pull it out and clasp it on; it’s dazzling, doesn’t even need polishing, ensembles well with the khaki blazer I liberate from dry-clearer plastic and a pair of brand new strappy ComfortOne sandals I never had a chance to wear before shipping off to the Peace Corps. 

What a change from Chocos. I feel elegant and ready for happy hour on the New U, which finally lives up to its name.  The neighborhood has exploded with life, trendy, spendy, way-too-cool-for-school youts, loud-talkers, hill-walkers. I really can't afford a teeny-ini cocktail in this part of town on a post-Peace Corps Volunteer salary of zero and a well-honed rural Mexican ‘codo’ (el cheapo) mindset.  I’m used to 15 pesito cervezas (a little over a buck a beer) at Rita’s bar, my local Rioverde watering hole. Though until I met Rita, I wasn’t exactly welcomed into the cantinas – for men and ‘mala mujeres’ (i.e., prostitutes) only.  So I was confined to drinking my cerveza and an occasional tequila in my Diaz Rincon, my tiny apartment on the edge of town.

That made my first visit to a bar in my Mt Pleasant neighborhood, my first week back home, something special.  Marx Café was packed that Friday night with men and women, young and old, gay and straight, Latinos and 
 Gringos and even a 100 percent Navajo man named Lamar I got to talking to. Sidling up to the bar and ordering a glass of Malbec from Manny, the Mexican-American bartender, I felt like a real grown-up.  But when the flaming cheese came out, and the entire bar broke into applause, that’s when I felt grateful I was home. 

And there are other little things I marvel over.  The rain!  Sweet, soft, tapping on my roof at night, and the canopy of green that envelops my neighborhood. My runs through Rock Creek Park along the soggy bridle path, across foot bridges, watching red cardinals dart through the forest, hopping piles of horseshit, listening to the rush of the creek, and drinking the moisture into my skin.

How long will these Beginner’s Mind moments last?  I want to hold on to them; but after three months back, I sense that walking-on-air-in-love-with-everything feeling fading. The realities of leaking roofs and stolen iPhones, parking tickets, gluten intolerance, and Whole Paycheck grocery bills snaps me out of my romance.  

And how much rain can I stand?! After the soggiest spring on Washington record, I’m almost pining for the desert again, the prickly pear cactus jutting into cloudless skies, the dull predictability of small town life.

But more than that, I miss my friends Rita and Sergio.  It hit me just how much when I jumped onto Facebook the other night to check messages; and there was Sergio, posting a new entry to his Historias Rioverdences (Rioverde History) page.  Comments were pouring in from friends South of the Border; so I posted my two pesos:  ‘Gracias, Profe Sergio, for your history lessons and antique images. Keep the stories coming. Viva Rioverde!’   

Within seconds there was a message back:  ‘We miss you, Anna!  We’re at Rita’s bar and everyone say hello!’

Huh, to be back in El Fenix with the gang of tomato pickers and muni bureaucrats and car mechanics connecting across the language and culture divide…

Every change requires a loss and a gain – an ending and a new beginning.  Thanks to Beginner’s Mind, on the good days, I'm appreciating the beauty in all of it.

 

Transitional Tremors ~ Homage to the Seashores & Use of Self

While a clear and thoughtful vision is essential, even the most mindful transitions don't happen exactly the way you plan them.  Who was it that said 'Life's what happens when you're in the middle of planning.'

One shock to my transitional system came early on, while I was still in Texas. I’d made it across the border and was staying in Austin with my brother and his family for a few weeks, waiting-out winter in the Northeast. This happy, care-free music town would serve as a sort of decompression chamber before the final leg to DC and the tidal wave to come.  

Via email I received a note announcing the passing of my beloved grad school professor, Charlie Seashore.  He was one of the ones who’d nudged me to take the Peace Corps plunge – and I was looking forward to sharing with him how the Organization Development tools, many of which I’d learned from him, served me in the work of sustainable community development.

They not only served, I intended to tell him; they saved my tocino in Mexico!  And boy did I have some stories to share.

But it was too late.  I would arrive home just in time to participate in the memorial service.

Jumping ahead to March, bracing myself against the bone chill of a belated Washington winter, more bad news came by email:  Charles' beloved wife, Edie, had also died; in the midst of planning her late husband’s memorial service she’d had a sudden heart-attack. 

Edie was the Number One of the two-man husband-wife teaching team. She wore the pants in the family and Charlie wore the suspenders.  Like me, Edie was a Pisces and an ENTJ – one of the Myers-Briggs ‘born leaders.’  She was a tough cookie and as sweet as one too.

Like a pair of doves, Edie and Charlie were in synchronicity till the end.  We would now be celebrating both their lives at the memorial service in Columbia, Maryland.  

Edie and Charlie were instrumental in spawning the Masters graduate program in Organization Development at American University, then called AU/NTL. I chose the program, back in 2000, for its touchy-feely ‘experiential' approach. I’d already spent almost 10 years in the left brained world, working for IT consulting firms with geeks who believed technology was the answer. I was junior and still navigating the Beltway Bandit world; but it didn’t take much experience to see that success wasn’t about the technology – it was about the human element. 

Was I ready to have my ass kicked by such an alternative, humanistic view?

One of the basic underpinnings of the program of Organization Development, inspired by the forefathers of field, Kurt Lewin and Ron Lippitt, was a concept (and practice) called ‘Use of Self.’ 

I was so resistant to the term – it seemed meaningless to me. But it finally started to sink-in in Bethel, Maine, where the Seashores ran a one-week residential course for each AU/NTL grad program cohort called the Human Interaction Lab.

We were warned in advance that our participation in this course would make or break our OD careers.

I was cautiously optimistic for a breakthrough in Bethel. 

And from the moment I met Charlie and Edie, I sensed the possibility – if I was willing to do the work. 

On that introductory day, they talked about ‘holding the space’ for us to learn from each other – that we were a lab of learning unto ourselves – and their job was as guide.

Ah, was that Use of Self?

As the week progressed, I could see how Charlie and Edie pushed our buttons – asking provocative questions – modeling communication tools such as Feedback – how to give and receive it so it could be heard – which we learned was a little different than giving someone a piece of your mind. It was actually about giving someone a little piece of your heart.

Edie and Charlie demonstrated using role plays and made it look easy.  They successfully used in in their marriage and in their consulting business. It was a versatile tool. They showed us that most communication is based on assumptions which are oftentimes incorrect; and if we ‘owned’ our feelings and ‘checked’ our assumptions, sharing them with the other person versus jumping to conclusions, we could transform our conversations and our relationships – even the world, they contended. 

We paired-up and practiced with each other. We were so sloppy and unskillful the Seashores kept boxes of Kleenex around the room for when the ‘feedback’ reverted back to the comfort zone of blame and shame.  They had 30 years of experience with this – we were just infants. 

Charlie would observe from outside the circle, watching your brow furrow, your nose crinkle up, perhaps even your eyes redden like you were ready to explode.  ‘Lookout, here comes another learning opportunity,’ he would interject at just the right moment.  As you sat on the precipice of a revelation, he gave you a kind little nudge.

Edie and Charlie helped us laugh at ourselves – we were breaking deep-seeded patterns – even shifting societal norms.

Was THIS Use of Self?

As the week in Bethel progressed, I started tapping into something – an insidious fear I had never faced:   the fear I would become my father – that I was destined for the same path he took – work-aholism, alcoholism, isolation and alienation, and a complete lack of self-awareness or responsibility to take measures to remedy his own situation. It was all about a rational solution to a problem – a PhD probability – yet his irrationality was over the top.  And I was him!

Why were we doing this? This wasn’t grad school. This was therapy! What could this possibly teach me that would be good for my career?

 ‘But you are not your father, Anne,’ one of my peers reflected back.  ‘You’re here, you’re doing this work.’

It may seem obvious; but it hit me like truck - or washed over me like a cleaning waterfall - not only the truth that I couldn’t see about myself – but the power of the group process to heal. 

THIS was Use of Self. 

A door opened in Bethel that would lead to where I am today. More than ten years later, now a returned Peace Corps volunteer, I was willing to step out of the comfort zone and able to take a risk to serve.

Use of Self as instrument of change means by merely ENTERING the system you change it.  With it comes power and responsibility.

In Mexico, Use of Self was about humility – admitting I had no clue – that my Master of Science credential and first-world advantages were going to get me only so far in such unknown territory.

Realizing this, tapping in to my use of self over time, I became empowered.  People sought-out my assistance – even looked to me for guidance – and I was able to bring the Viva Viveros project to fruition. In collaboration with the women of two rural and indigenous communities I helped to develop micro-business of native plants – transforming neighbors into empowered cooperatives, seeds into sales into oxygen for the planet. 

I hoped to come back to DC and share my success story with Edie and Charlie – but instead I share it with you.

As Edie was fond of saying:  The Universe provides.

Thanks, Edie and Charlie, for your lessons.  I carry them with me through this Transition.

Transition Time in Puerto - Reflecting Back to Zicatela Sunsets

The neon sun just hangs there, an orange ball so playful it looks like a child’s drawing – like it’s painted onto that spot, against a field of lavender, an inch above the swatch of navy blue. But it’s on the move.  It passes through a wispy curtain of clouds and melts into an impressionistic blur.  

In the foreground, heads bob in the dark velvety ripples, trying to catch the perfect wave. One silhouetted surfer is up on his board, but the wave slides beneath him and crashes onto the shore in a fury of white foam.

Fishermen pace by with nets draped over their brown shoulders – even they take time to cast glances at the sun’s show – or maybe they are fish-spotting.  One wades in up to his waist and tosses his net out like a lasso – it lands in an oval on the surface of the sea – he cinches the rope and drags it in – holds it up his sack and little silvery fish dangle like ornaments, luminous in the waning light.

A half-sun now rests on the sea. It’s going quick. I glance down then back up from my page and it’s a mound, like a cupped hand, then a sliver. Now it’s a spark that’s extinguished in a blink.  

Another day done. 

Sunsets are useful; they make you take account. I’ve seen each one since I’ve arrived – ten of them already, time slipping by here on the Oaxaca coast – not the slow dripping Dali clocks of Rioverde time.