Embracing the Wilderness, the “Suck” and Writing a New Narrative…. 2021 Begins

I’ve never been one for New Year resolutions; it’s been more of a gateway to “loose promises” and a gentle review of possible lifestyle modifications all which are generally forgotten by January 2nd or 3rd. “Lose five pounds” has been on the list for a few years now demonstrating that I’m not a beacon of hope or a standard of resolution excellence. I’m great for anyone who is looking for a low bar to step over.

January 1, 2021 was different. I was eager to slam the door on 2020. Enough of the COVID chaos, enough with the physical distancing, the travel restrictions, the job loss, stress, worry, financial impacts, social impacts and fight for a balance in mental wellness. Does anyone watch movies and stare in amazement when characters “shake hands“? How bizarre that in less than a year, that this traditional form of social engagement now seems so foreign?

Pandemic changes have been swift and have choked so many connections leaving many feeling alone, isolated and depressed. Hugs were always healing and an elbow bump is not a suitable replacement; rather a place holder for when we can once again be free to embrace all who we love. So much change and so many casualties with various degrees of burns and wounds that have been left in the wake of this pandemic. Yes, I am DONE with 2020.

I wanted to embrace 2021 with enthusiasm, optimism and faith that we were turning the corner. I double locked the door to 2020 and flung open the window to welcome 2021 only to find that little had changed. Delays in vaccines, extended travel restrictions, growing cases, mounting deaths, no gatherings and the proverbial “bubble” concept that hadn’t yet popped. The tide wasn’t changing. The “tide” was merely the building of a “second wave” which I believe is a description for a tsunami. Great. Now I have to buy an umbrella.

All new beginnings need a new notebook. Blank pages begging new story lines. I liked the symbolism and on January 1st, with the sun shining, I headed out early to find a beautiful vista where I could write out new goals and lay out new ambitions. I wrote down phrases that would trigger different actions. On one page, I boldly wrote “make week-ends fun”. The fact that I even had to write that makes me cringe. I often spend week-ends cleaning. Mopping is not a characteristic of a week-end warrior. I have serious work ahead of me.

On my vista, with my notebook, I spent time writing about the usual life topics….health, finances, family, fun, personal goals, professional goals and otherwise. I challenged myself to let go of habits that don’t support goals, redesigning my daily routines to become more productive and motivating myself to say “yes” more than “no”. I also took on a personal challenge and wrote down three words that would describe my best self and contemplated five skills I would like to develop along with five actions that would support all of the above.

By 10am I felt like a new person and was feeling rather invigorated. I headed home.

My 14 year old son, Owen, met me at the door and said “Come hike the ski hill with Dad and me”. This was a hard no. Yes, I know what you are thinking. Didn’t an above paragraph cite a commitment to saying “yes more than no”. It did but hiking the ski hill on New Years Day was only going to make me feel bad. The ski hill is steep. I would be gasping for air. I would likely berate myself and say negative things like “how did you get so out of shape?” or “what the hell have you been doing all pandemic that you can’t walk up a hill?”.

Hiking the ski hill would be a rerun of my 2020 life experience. I had just spent two invigorating hours purging myself of 2020 and planning a new way forward. Sorry Owen. It’s a no. Feeling the suck of the ski hill was not a good way to start 2021. I retreated to the comforts of the couch and wrapped myself up with cozy words that inspired positive vibes. End of story.

Until it wasn’t.

“Mom, you need to come”. I explained my state of not wanting to feel the suck. Owen persevered. “Did you hear about the guy who did 150 pushups?”. I shook my head. Owen continued. “There was a guy who went to a fitness trainer. The trainer told him to do 150 push ups.”

Guy: “I can’t do 150 push-ups”

Trainer: “Can you do 1 push up?”

Guy: “Yea, I can do one push up.”

Trainer: “Good. Just do 1 push up, 150 times”

“Mom, it took the guy an hour and a half but he did 150 push ups. If he can do 150 push ups, you can do the ski hill. You just have to do it one step at a time.”

Seriously? When I wrote about starting fresh, I really meant January 2nd. I saw January 1st focused more on “concept planning” not immediate action and I was sure that motivation was going to be found on a fridge magnet, not in the form of my fourteen year old son.

I put on my boots. I was positive I wasn’t going to love this.

We arrived at the ski hill and I looked up. It was still steep. This was going to suck. Big time suck.

We started up. My husband Wayne is part mountain goat and just powered forward. Owen followed him but being part rabbit, he scampered up and then back to make sure I hadn’t quit or died.

I plugged in my headphones and instead of listening to my usual playlist of “loser” or “can’t”, I listened to Dax Shepard talk about overcoming addiction and moving forward. He told his story of living free of addiction for 16 years only to stumble for 3 months. Whereas many might have focused on the falling, he focused on the success of 16 years and started again. Three months wasn’t going to rob him of 16 years of success; it was just a stumble. Good point Dax. I kept going.

When I reached the top, I felt great. I did something I didn’t think I could do and I happily proved myself wrong. Owen gave me a nod of approval.

Since COVID shut the world down, I have felt bad about myself. Really bad. I’ve written a great deal about my self lamenting and loathing. In March, I watched twenty years plus of hard work die due to the pandemic. To stay afloat, we raided our savings and I wondered if there was any hope for the future. What was a 52 year old middle age woman going to do next? This business had helped raise our family, support our kids in their ambitions and it was financially necessary. Without this stream, what was next? Who would want to hire me? Could I shift the business? How were we going to manage? I imagined a new retirement plan that didn’t come with a cheque, rather a plain wooden box. Wayne would likely have to bury me in the backyard and throw together a homemade tombstone with some cheesy tagline like “and then it was over”. Middle of the night story lines were scary.

Going forward, I needed a new narrative. My thoughts had to shift and my belief system needed a shake up. COVID wasn’t holding me back, I was. My notebook held my goals, hopes, dreams and ambitions but how do I make it happen?

I needed a team so I filled my bedside table with books written by some of the best experts in the world. I needed insight into what others had done and what I could learn from them. It’s a tall stack of books. Jim Collins, Brendon Burchard, Erin Falconer, Mel Robbins and the legendary Zig Ziglar and Dale Carnegie, just to name a few. I have them all; it makes for one heck of an A Team.

Have you ever read these types of books and then said to yourself “well, that’s great for you but how is that going to work for me?” I’ll put up my hand. Sure, they did it and so did all the thousands of people that they reference but how is that going to work for me?

Cue the music, dim the lights…… here it is, the big thing that I have been avoiding…… I AM AFRAID. I am scared that if I actually committed to my goals, I am going to fail again. There it was. Fear. Said out loud.

What if I put everything I have into a new concept and it doesn’t work? What if I apply and get rejected? What if I work my ass off and I screw it up? What if I open my heart, face what scares me and I fail…..again? Ugh.

I wear “Failure” around my neck all the time. It’s so heavy that sometimes I can’t move. Fear and failure; like uninvited guests who come into your house, eat all the food, make a mess and then steal the china. They are not good friends. They are mean.

It was time for a shake down. I needed to get into the ring and face them down once and for all.

“Once we begin to transform, it ceases to be that [failure] any longer…..once we are ready to talk about it, we often call the event something else – a learning experience, a trial, a reinvention – no longer the static concept of failure” Dr. Sarah Lewis

I got in the ring to face Failure and Fear stood right beside me. My eyes were squeezed shut, my knees were knocking and I trembled. I tried to shake off Fear and opened one eye. I gave another shrug and opened the other eye. Standing right in front of me was Failure. Failure was big and menacing. Ugly too. I recalled a line from the book, “We’re Going On A Bear Hunt”: “we can’t go over it, we can’t go under it, we’ve got to go through it”. Although the book then says “tip toe, tip toe“, I threw a punch.

I punched hard and my eyes flew open wide. I had what Oprah would call an “AHA” moment. Failure isn’t real. It’s not a person. Failure is a descriptive of something that happened. Don’t get me wrong. Failure feels real and it’s a terrible place to be but this is what my A Team has been trying to get me to understand. Everyone who faces the humiliation and shame of something not working out, they work through it and “failure” transforms. “Failure” takes shape to become a lesson or a catalyst. People who have faced the “crash and burn” don’t speak of failures as “the end”, they speak of new beginnings and what they learned. They describe what they gained and how the experience moved them in a better direction. Crushing experiences propelled them to become better versions of themselves. We don’t always learn from winning. We learn from the losses. Aha.

When the business tanked last March, I got scared and allowed my worst fears to take hold deep in my heart. It has been a painful place and I have wallowed wondering how to move forward. Do I have it in me to rise? Am I good enough? Smart enough? Brave enough?

Thunderbolt. Here is my awakening. The business failed in the face of COVID, not me. I am not a failure. For months, I have felt so burdened by humiliation and shame that I could barely breathe. I am not a failure. Once and for all, I can lay that burden down. It’s time to move on.

2021 is my commitment to turning to a fresh page where I get to write a new chapter. It’s a beginning. I can’t promise that it’s going to be easy. Likely there will be times when it sucks. Admitting what wasn’t working is the first step. In truth, I realized that I had allowed myself to become a bit complacent. I chose Easy Street and the trade off was watching joy fade from my life. I lost my sense of purpose. To be really honest, I think part of me had already died before COVID 19 finished the job.

Slowly, I am beginning to see that failures are generous gifts if only we are brave enough to accept them.

I don’t think of myself as a failure anymore but I do think I failed myself when I stopped on Easy Street. I traded in for a sense of comfort and by doing so, lost the creativity that was exciting and invigorating. I played safe and it sucked the life out of me.

There is no creativity without risking failure. I got into the ring and knocked out Failure. Now I have to get back in there and practice courage. That’s my commitment for 2021.

Already, with a changed mindset, I feel a new surge of energy that feels authentic and pretty fabulous. I know what has to be done to make my life changes. Now I just need to do it. It’s kind of like my “loose 5 pounds” goal. Eating cookies doesn’t help me reach my goal. Procrastinating and find excuses isn’t going to help me reposition. Full disclosure, sometimes I pretend that “one cookie” won’t hurt. Same with “organizing my paperwork”. It doesn’t hurt but it sure doesn’t help. What is helping is spending time each day envisioning my future self. It’s a fun exercise but without cardio and having to wear tights.

Will I miss 2020? Not a hope in hell. It was chaos. Every corner of the planet seemed to be fraught with unrest, upheaval, pain, disease, death, social disruptions, angst and divide but some gifts have already arrived which was proven on January 20th, when we watched a brilliant young woman of just 22 years of age take the stage to speak of truth, healing and the possibility of a brighter tomorrow. Gifts after the storm.

Our people diverse and beautiful
Will emerged, battered and beautiful,
When day comes, we step out of the shade of flame, unafraid,
The new dawn blooms, if we free it,
For there was always light
If only we’re brave enough to see it
If only we’re brave enough to be it.

The Hill We Climb –
Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman at the Biden/Harris Inauguration Day

Change is possible for all of us – “If only we are brave enough to be it“. My father is a red Republican and I lean with the blue of the Democrats and yet, the first woman to become Vice President chose purple as a promise to unity. Exhale. Breathe. Feel the promise of fresh starts.

I felt palatable relief watching Joe Biden make his promise and my skin tingled when he said “My whole soul is in….” Here is a man who lost his wife, his daughter and his son. He admits to being broken, of not wanting to stand and yet, he rose to stand and at age 78, he committed to giving his whole self. Gifts to heal the madness.

I am so grateful that he rose and I feel inspired. I hope that I am not wrong. I hope that he is the man he says he is. I hope that his life experience and his pain give him strength to lead with courage, compassion and move the country forward on the many issues that have caused deep divide. I choose to see his humility and I believe him when he says “with my whole soul….”. This is how I want to live again. With my whole soul, even the broken bits.

Now. Don’t think that my rising is that of Presidential stature. It’s far more mild. My challenges are how to build a business plan, learn how to use a flat iron without burning my hair and figuring out how Instagram works and why Twitter is all the rage. I might even tackle the workings of this Blog and learn what a widget is. Yes, there is more. I’ll keep you posted on my aspirations. I have thoughts on non-profits, leaning into the hurt of my community that exists because of COVID and yes, I will even exercise when it sucks.

Owen, I don’t know how you became so magnificent but you are right. It truly is one step at a time.

Here’s to taking the jump, to new beginnings, new narratives and to making 2021 the year of opportunities that see us rise and heal our hurts.

With love,

Shelley