Tag: learning

Being Strong is Tiring

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It is almost 3 years to the hour that my life took a unexpected turn, very unexpected. I was hit so hard with hurt that I honestly did not think I would survive it. The emotional and physiological tolls were at times unbearable.

This journey has and continues to teach me a lot. I have learned the importance of surrendering to the feelings, allowing myself to feel, to grieve and not suppress what I am feeling. The suppressing just results in other set backs. I have learned that it’s better to cry than not. It’s okay to be angry, to be hurt, to be sad. It’s okay. I have learned to give myself permission to feel the feelings knowing that there is an obligation to then keep moving forward.

I have learned that I can’t do this alone. Friends, family, a really good counselor are very important and necessary factors to healing from personal trauma. I am very fortunate to have all three in my life.

Self-care is not selfish. This has taken awhile to really sink in. I have learned that in order to really have true empathy and compassion for others, I need to be more empathetic and compassionate toward myself. I can see now not doing so contributed to the situation I ended up in. Something I heard at a professional learning session last year has stuck with me. I can’t remember who said it, but they were emphatic that we have a moral obligation to take care of ourselves in order to be any good to anyone else. A big lesson I have learned is that I have spent years doing the opposite. It’s hard not to as an educator, educational leader and as someone who was reared to be caring and compassionate toward others. I am now giving myself permission for as much self-care as I need.

One of the biggest lessons learned has been recent. I have spent the last three years determined to get through my trauma while still facing everyday life and its challenges. Being strong really is exhausting.

As I move into a new year, I will be mindful of the fatigue, perhaps adjust the self-care plan to find more balance. Maybe I don’t have to work so hard at being strong anymore. Maybe I am healing after all. That would be awesome.

Be With

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The title I will admit I borrowed from a tiny, but powerful book my sister gave me this past Christmas. Be With by Mike Barnes talks about a son’s journey as his mother’s caregiver who just happens to face the challenges of Alzheimer’s.

Last year our mother had a medical scare and was hospitalized for 3 months. At one point, she went into heart failure. She rebounded, thankfully. Since then, her recovery and care have been a priority for her family, particularly her six adult children. It hasn’t been easy, balancing work, families as well as the daily challenges life can throw at a person. Care giving can feel, as Barnes eludes to, like “another thing to do.”

What the book taught me was the importance of just “being with” others – being present, connected, free of distracting thoughts, distracting things. We can get caught up in the tasks that need to get done, be done and easily forget the actual person we are with.

I think this applies to life in general. It is so easy to get caught up in meeting the many demands of daily life and the many societal distractions that we miss, or perhaps dismiss, the many opportunities for deep, personal connections with others.

In education, it is well known that relationships are key for all stakeholders: students, parents, staff, colleagues. The strongest relationships are a result of deep connection and feelings of attachment.

As an educational leader, it is my job to foster these relationships first and foremost. I truly believe the learning at all levels in education, with all stakeholders does not occur without meaningful relationships.

There is a line in the book, “I learned to be with the hard way, from the hardest teacher, not being with.”

I am striving to really be with my mom when we are together -be present, hear her voice, appreciate what she brings to our relationship, value the precious time we have together. Our family is so fortunate she rebounded from her health scare. She’s 82. Every minute of every day is precious.

At work and in life I now strive to do the same. I want students, staff and parents to know I care, that I am invested in them as people. I am focusing on being present with each person I come in contact with. I extend this to my personal relationships outside of work as well. I even extend this to myself. I need to also be with myself.

I saw a quote on a church sign the other day while driving home. It said, “We are our best when we serve others.” I want to serve others. I want to serve them meaningfully. I want to also serve myself. I can do this by being with.

Living an Illusion

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Illusion – a false idea or belief

Have you ever wondered if your life is an illusion?

Just over two years ago my life took a very, very unexpected turn.  Since then, I have been doing the work to navigate all that comes with sudden and unexpected change.  A friend gave me the book, Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson.  The book is an original short story about dealing with change.  I wish I had read it a year ago.  Then again, perhaps I wouldn’t have learned then what I have come to know now.

It was after reading the book that the idea of my life being an illusion surfaced.  I see now that I have, for a very long time, lived a false life.It’s only when your world comes crashing down that reality emerges.

Johnson suggests in his book that people are afraid of change because they are holding on to an illusion that is no longer there, or in my case perhaps never was there. Johnson believes people do this because it is comforting and familiar.  It is also easy, easier than dealing with the change. 

Johnson also suggests in his book that when change happens, some people fight the change and stay stuck. Such inaction is based on fear. Others, change with the change and move forward.  Johnson describes in this story how we can “learn to deal with change.”  In order to do so, it is important to, “keep life simple and not over analyze or over-complicate things with fearful beliefs.”

Since that day just over two years ago, I have faced an array of changes. They just seemed to compound and multiply.  A physician friend of mine pointed out that the number of life changing events I faced in a year were what most people experienced in their whole life time. Basically, what she was saying was, I had been through a lot in a very short period of time! This gave me perspective and a sense of relief that no, I was not going crazy, that what I was physically and emotionally experiencing was normal but was magnified due to the concurring life-changing events.I have been working hard to move forward, and it hasn’t been easy. 

Thankfully, reading Johnson’s book was a major “ah ha” in my journey.  I realized that my life before the unexpected was not what I believed it to be, and some of the people in it, not the people I believed them to be. I am realizing now that I had purposely created an illusion of a life that was untrue.  I did this yearly through Christmas letters, by what I was not talking about with friends and family, what I let people see from the outside looking in, what I let myself see.  I convinced myself that life and some of the people in it were a certain way when that simply was not the case.  Presently, I am working on the why behind this.  (That will be learning for another blog post.)

In hindsight, I guess it was easier to live this way than face the truth.  The fear of facing reality and losing what I thought I had was strong, really strong.  Of course, I didn’t see this then, but I sure can see it now.  It’s sad what we normalize until we no longer can, until everything falls apart.  Ironically, I ended up losing the illusion anyway.

Change is hard. There is no doubt.  In the book, Switch, by Chip and Dan Heath, they talk about “bright spots”.  They talk about how often during tough times, we see problems everywhere and then “analysis paralysis” often kicks in.  The Heath brothers believe the way to progress with change and not be paralyzed by it or in it is to focus on the “bright spots” as they are our best hope to bring about change, and I would add, deal with change.

Every night when I journal, I write about the bright spots in my day, the bright spots ahead, the people bringing light to my life, and I end with what I am grateful for that day.  This is helping me heal and move forward.  I am learning to accept this unexpected detour in my life.  I am trying to see this more as an opportunity than not.  This, I will admit is easier said than done.

The reality though is that it’s up to me to determine who has the ultimate control moving forward, me or the change. Put your money on the former. I am determined to not let the change beat me.  As Brene Brown would say, I am “choosing courage over comfort.”