Leaning In
I was listening to an interview of advice columnist, Ask Polly, aka Heather Havrilesky. The interviewer asked her for advice on how to Be a Person in the World (the title of her upcoming book) and this was her answer.
You’ve gotta lean way into what you already are. Lean way the fuck in except look right at the so called worst things about yourself and figure out how to celebrate those things. ~Heather Havrilesky
Yes. So much yes.
Figuring out how to celebrate my faults has not come easy to me. I often take great pride in noticing and being aware of my faults and doing self-work to address them. But celebrating them? Fuck. I don’t know if I can say that I honestly do that. I mean I have done a lot of work to accept myself as I am but still I don’t think this is the same thing as celebrating. How different is it from my gratitude practice? I find gratitude for bad days, ugly situations, grief, tragedies and loss. Can I use my gratitude practice to find authentic gratitude for me at my worst?
Well here goes. I guess it starts with confessing these dark parts of myself. I am incredibly quick to irritability. No one is safe from this: an innocent baby, my dog, a sweet old man filled with love appreciation smacking his lips as he eats, to name a few. I have literally been in process of experiencing and writing my gratitude and my girlfriend will be listening to music on her headphones. When I hear the sound of the muffled music I am overcome with irritability. I am so tempted to delete this. I can’t believe I am sharing this with you. What will you think of me?
That brings me to the next one: my ego. I can be downright obsessed with “being right”. Even when I know there isn’t a right and wrong I am still judging myself and judging others and comparing everything. Sometimes I am proud of myself and satisfied with just thinking that I am right. But more often I want you to know that I know. This shows up as me correcting you, by sharing my opinion in a matter of fact way, or by researching and finding data to prove my point.
Both of these are not shown to everyone. I guess that is part of what makes our darkness so powerful. We further hide it from the light. Only those closest to us see these parts of ourselves. These two things I can easily turn off when I am at work and in some social situations but they don’t stay off.
These two characteristics and behaviors, being irritable and striving to “being right”, have a terribly high price. They stand in the way of connection, close my mind, limit possibilities, they hurt feelings, and keep me from learning. So in short they are the opposite of my values. Can I celebrate them? I am open to it. But I don’t know the way other than to start with some authentic gratitude.
I am grateful for being quick to irritability because it is a signal that I need to be alone. I need alone time but I get lazy, indifferent or oblivious to my needs until those needs burst at the seams in the form of irritability. I am grateful for being quick to irritability because reminds me to take care of myself. I am grateful for being quick to irritability because I appreciate my hearing. Most of the time my irritability is related to sounds. I have very sensitive hearing which I am grateful for.
I am grateful for striving to be right because I have strong ethics. I am grateful for striving to be right because it has showed me with great certainty the way forward. Some of the best decisions I have made in my life came from the deliberate and meticulous gathering of information and intuition and weighing all of the options. I am grateful for striving to be right because it has led me to a lot of personal growth.
This is a start. I definitely do not think I am at the point of celebrating the worst things about me but admitting them and finding appreciation for them was a huge step in the right direction. hahaha the “right” direction. Have I figured out a way to celebrate the worst things about myself? I think I have. But the practice has only begun.
The dark does not destroy the light; it defines it. It’s our fear of the dark that casts our joy into the shadows.
~Brené Brown
In what ways are you grateful for one of the worst things about yourself?
LEARNING: Man I am really loving this Love Letters challenge that I shared last issue. It has brought so much rich detail to my gratitude. You know I am always talking about sharing more and more details but I don’t always do it. But in the past week my gratitude posts have been epics. It has really brought a whole new dimension to my gratitude and I have been prolific with the experience and the sharing as well as writing personal gratitude that I am not sharing.
FORGOTTEN GRATITUDE: Last week I was also grateful for a sweet group, fathers coming together to learn together, ah has and deep thoughts … A nice dinner with mom and dad; big thoughts about the world and the country and a better way … Self Reiki and coffee … An evening with Amy, what a rare treasure since she moved back to Seattle.
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[su_note note_color=”#e7e7e7″ text_color=”#686767″ radius=”0″] My gratitude journey started in May 2011 and continues to this day. Thank you for being a part of it! A daily gratitude practice is simple. Write down three things you are grateful for each day. Download your free GratitudeGuide. My clients focus on gratitude and learn from their successes to make the positive changes they want in their lives. You can too. Call me to set up our first meeting 505.333.9336. [/su_note]