Just A Reminder

In case you’ve forgotten, I just wanted to remind you of something important. I needed to be reminded about it, and I have a feeling you do too.

A few weeks ago I was having coffee with a friend. I hadn’t seen her in months, but she’d been receiving my email newsletter so she had some sense of what I’d been up to (really this is not a shameless plug, just part of the story, but it would be odd to not link to it, right?).

When we sat down, lattes in hand, she told me how impressed she was that I had jumped into this career change to coaching and writing so boldly and smoothly. She said she admired the huge confidence I had that it would all work out, my trust of my own voice. She could never do something like this so fearlessly, she said.

Um, excuse me, what?

What planet did the subway drop me off on?

It is true I had not set up a webcam to show the world the times I banged my head against the wall, fell onto the couch in a whining heap, and retreated into watching TV so crass I shall not name the show. It was also true that in my newsletter, I reported my successes more than my failures. The thing goes to hundreds of people and it doesn’t seem the place for me to share a story about who ignored my calls that week.

But still, I don’t think I’m to blame for her little misunderstanding. Our weird habit of projecting perfection on to others is the culprit here.

This habit is pervasive. So far, I’ve been blessed that the people who show up in my coaching practice are fabulous, creative, smart, women. Also, a few fabulous, smart, creative men. Fantastic.

Most of these special individuals long to do something significant, creative and meaningful with their lives, and coaching helps them get there.

Here’s the funny part. Somewhere along the way in the process, usually around session four, every client thinks they need to have a heart to heart with me, in which they let me down gently about just how crazy and screwed up they are.

This is very sweet, and very funny. The crazy, screwed-up-ness they think they are candidly revealing to me is nothing more than the kind of crazy I’ve learned that we all have. It includes

• unrelenting, irrational insecurities and fears
• the need to learn the same lesson ten or one hundred times before we actually get it
• the incredible ability to obscure from ourselves what we really think and want
• and more, generally, the talent to delude ourselves in all kinds of ways.

I’m always happy when clients decide to bring up the heart to heart chat with me, because I can dispel them of the delusion of their special defectiveness. But it also makes me really sad that most of us carry around the feeling that we are uniquely crazy or especially screwed up or not-as-good-as-so-and-so

I fell victim to this habit earlier this week. I love Janice’s blog, Sharing the Journey. Janice is a fabulous writer, and she writes about personal growth and poetry at her blog. She’s developed an amazing community of loyal readers at her site. From where I sit, her blog might as well be mid-town Manhattan, it is so crowded with comments and fans.

I was shocked to read this week, in a typically gorgeous and articulate post from Janice, about her ups and downs with blogging, her disappointments about her own subscriber count at various points along the way.

“Janice?” I thought. The Janice in my head didn’t have these struggles. As I read along, I began to see all of the people in my new field that I had put on a pedestal. There were dozens of writers I assumed had effortlessly, smoothly, build a wide and active readership. Probably that’s not exactly how it happened.

So I reminding myself and reminding you too: Nobody is gliding through life with ease. Some of us have areas or times of gliding, but if we are alive and awake to life, we have areas of struggle too. We all have blind spots, areas of life where we really miss the mark. We all have work to do. We all have fears and insecurities and inner voices that are well, pretty crazy.

So, an interesting thought experiment. See if you can sit in perspective that you are equally crazy and equally brilliant to those you admire. You don’t have any injuries or flaws worse than theirs.You don’t have to believe this perspective, but for now, just try it on. Try it on for a day or two and see what happens. If that’s true, how does the world look different?

As I write this, I can start to feel a little fear fluttering around my chest — because something in me knows that if that is true, it’s time to just be me, do my thing, and see what happens next.

That’s it. And Happy Passover.

Love,

Tara