Episode 148: The Adventure of Fully Showing Up As A Human Being
In today’s episode, I want to expand a bit on the unstuck theme and how our tendency as people with High Functioning Anxiety is to do two things: 1) give up on getting unstuck and keep swallowing the dream of being superhuman, and 2) continually look for that easy fix.
Go big or go home.
Dream big!
Do big things.
That’s what all the self-help gurus and Pinterest tell us to do. But is it really the answer?
We can all think of a time where we thought that going big—moving somewhere new, going after that new career, or buying an awesome house or car—would be the solution to all of our problems.
Yet more often than not, we find that those big moves aren’t the answer to our inner happiness nor our problems. I’ve found in my own experience as well as working with clients that doing the inner work and facing our humanness is what we need to do first.
That’s where the true big adventure lies.
All this month, I’ve been talking about Being Human. I spoke with Tara McMullin in Episode 145 about being human in your business and with Sarah Kathleen Peck in Episode 147 about getting unstuck and out of your own way.
In today’s episode, I want to expand a bit on the unstuck theme and how our tendency as people with High Functioning Anxiety is to do two things: 1) give up on getting unstuck and keep swallowing the dream of being superhuman, and 2) continually look for that easy fix.
Listen to the full episode to find out:
How our Monger and our BFF keeps us in such rigid thinking that we miss the possibilities that being human brings
3 ways being human is more helpful than the quest to be superhuman
Why self-loyalty is the ultimate act of being human
Resources mentioned:
+ Read the Transcript
Nancy: Years ago I was a career coach. I helped people figure out the work that would make their heart sing. That was my tagline. Find the work that makes your heart sing. Sounds wonderful. Doesn't it? I had a series of assessments and operative, certain number of sessions where I walked clients through. How to find that work and frequently we would land on something that clients wanted to explore.
Then I set them forth into the world to explore this new career and all the possible ways to achieve it. Inevitably three to six months later, I would hear from some of my clients saying, Hey, you know, can we go back and do that assessment part again? Because I loved learning about myself and taking the assessments, but I don't know if we landed on the right career.
It didn't take me long to realize there was something wrong with that's my approach. I realized by promising that I was going to help people find the work that makes their heart sing. I was setting them up to fail. You're listening to the happier approach, the show that pulls back the curtain on the need to succeed, hustle, and achieve at the price of our inner peace in relationships.
I'm your host, Nancy Jane Smith. By promising to help clients find the work that makes their heart sing. I was sending you the message that it was an instantaneous process, five short sessions, and your life can be magically changed. All your self doubt, fear, insecurities, poof. They will all be gone. And all you need to do is find that perfect match.
Sounds amazing, but that's not how it works. That's not how being human works. Nothing worthwhile is magical instantaneous or. All this month, we've been talking about being human. We've talked with Tara McMullin about being human in your business. The quest to be superhuman and getting unstuck with Sara, Kathleen Peck.
Today, I want to expand a bit on the unstuck theme and how our tendency, as people with high functioning anxiety is to do one of two things. One just give up on getting unstuck and keep swallowing the dream of being superhuman. Like I talked about in episode 1 46, or to continually look for that easy fix, we convince ourselves that there is a magical holy grail.
If only we were better people or had more time or would finally get our crap together, we could find that next big thing, discover our zone of genius and that would make everything right. To illustrate this idea. I want to share a story of a former client who came into my office sharing about the big changes she wanted to make.
She said to me, I want my life to be one of those Pinterest quotes, you know, live your big dreams, go big or go home. I feel like life is passing me by and I want to do something big with my life. I want to chase my big dreams, move to Paris and be a fashion designer. I need to shift it. For my client going big was how she was going to find the work that made her heart sing.
In reality, going big was something she was never going to do because it was just too scary. And as long as she held herself to the standard go big or go home, she was always going to be home feeling miserable and stuff. As we talked, she shared that a major regret was not finishing her degree. She was in a dead end relationship and she felt left behind by her friends who were getting married and having kids.
She was feeling lost. And when she looked online for answers, the answer was go big. The world of self-help. Full of messages about going big and dreaming big. It always makes me ask when did big get to be the line in which we measured our happiness, the world of motivational quotes talks about making big, bold decisions and taking big risks.
But is that always the way. During our work together, my client and I talked about how she defined big and how it would show up. Eventually her big dreams got clearer and it turned out they really weren't so big anymore. She didn't really want to move. She loved being close to her face. She really wanted to do graphic design, not fashion design.
And she didn't know if she really wanted to have kids or not. So over the next year, we worked on helping her speak up in a relationship which she eventually left and she started showing up in small ways in her life. She asked for what she needed. She said, no, she set better boundaries. She finished her degree in graphic design and worked for a small startup marketing company doing design.
At least that is what going big means for her dreams, Gusto and adventure, all change over time. One of the key parts of that story is that we did that work for over a year. It wasn't instant. It wasn't magical. It was intentional focused work at the end of our work together. She said to me, I feel way more adventurous now than if I had moved because showing up fully in my life is hard.
If I had moved, I would have missed out on this exciting part of my knife. Now, if I want to move, I'm not moving in search of something. I'm moving simply to see something different. Sometimes when life gets challenging and we don't know what to do next, the temptation is to blow it all up. But I wonder if at the point of thinking, maybe blowing it all up.
Isn't the answer that is when the adventure really begins. I remember in my early thirties, I too wanted to live the Pinterest. Although there was no Pinterest at that time, but I wanted to do something big with my life. I traveled to Peru with a group of strangers. I drove solo across the country twice, once to the east coast at wants to the west coast.
And finally, I decided I wanted to move to Portland, Oregon. I wanted to take my own big, bold adventure. I took a trip to visit Portland with a dear friend of mine, whom I consider to be my second mom. And as we were driving around Portland, I pointed at the back of a car and said, I can't wait until I have an Oregon license plate on my car, because then I'll be happy.
Then I will know that I have lived my big adventure. My second mom simply smiled and nodded and we kept on travel. Over time. Like my client, I realized that living my big adventure had nothing to do with moving to Portland. Although it is still one of my favorite cities, I was looking for a quick fixed.
I believe that when I moved to Portland, I would become a different person, magically. I would know how to set boundaries with family and friends, be comfortable sharing my thoughts and needs and be free of the nasty monger in my head. That was crippling. Similar to my clients who thought the answer to all their problems was by finding the perfect career that made their heart sing.
I believe that the answer to all my self doubt, fear and insecurities was to be found in Portland, Oregon, through my own therapy and lots of discussions with my close friends, I realized the adventure of Portland wasn't going to fix me. The adventure of Portland was just that an adventure. What I decided to do took more patients in time.
I decided to make another equally adventurous decision and put my move on hold to Portland and to stay in Columbus, Ohio, and show up for my life. At the time, it was a temporary decision. I stayed in Ohio and I went on a personal quest to quiet my monger, set, healthier boundaries and stop turning my back on myself and build my own self-love.
Which is why self loyalty is so important to me, it was through this process of wanting to move. I realized how loyal I was to everyone else and how I regularly discounted myself. I believed that when I moved to Portland, I would be able to wipe the slate clean and start over. And then over time I realized in Portland, I would still be me just in a different city with the same baggage.
And if I didn't start the work on myself first, I would just recreate the life I had in Columbus. As I started to build stuff, loyalty life in Columbus became easier. I wasn't as afraid to speak up for myself. I started making decisions based on my own internal values and wisdom rather than constantly checking with my external committee for validation.
Life became more rich and meaningful because I was more engaged in my life rather than jumping through hoops to make everyone else happy. Moving to Portland became less attractive. And I stayed in Columbus, met my now husband and build our life together. So a few years later, my second mom surprised me with the present.
It was an Oregon license plate. As I opened it, I smiled. And she looked at me and said, I just wanted to remind you that this license plate isn't what makes you happy? You make you happy that license plate sits in my office to remind me every day. That for me going big means fully showing up in my life.
The good, the bad and the ugly. Life continues to be full of freaking ups and downs. It isn't perfect here in Columbus and it wasn't going to be perfect in Portland, but it wasn't about where I lived. It was about who I am, where I live. Don't get me wrong. I love a good event. I love big risk-taking adrenaline pumping adventures, but somewhere along the way, we were sold a bill of goods that adventures and risks are directly correlated to being better.
People that a great life is only achieved by living great adventures, which means taking big risks and doing great things. But I'm here to argue sometimes going big means fully showing up as a human being. Being fully present and empathetic when your child comes home from a bad day, even though you have a thousand other things you need to do or telling your spouse that you're struggling and needing some time to do it, compress, holding the hand of your aging parent, looking them in the eyes and telling them how much you love them, admitting to yourself.
You can't do it all anymore and figuring out what are the small changes you need to make in order to bring more self loyalty into your. Giving yourself kindness after receiving some criticism at work, rather than your usual emo, which is to jump all over yourself, these things, they take big courage.
They take big adventure. So often our tendency is to want to fix everything right now. And we can fix things by making big sweeping changes, but that isn't how human beings make change. Everything takes time and has a ripple effect. Learning how to build self loyalty takes time. As many of you know, I have chronic arthritis and a few days ago, the pain was simply miserable.
I had pushed myself all day to stay productive and get things done. And I was standing in the kitchen struggling to make dinner and engaged in my default self-talk of come on, you could do this just a little bit more followed by. There are many people out there who have it so much worse than you be grateful.
You just have to keep pushing. And then somewhere, my biggest fan showed up and said, okay, sweet pea. Let's practice. What you preach. Talk to yourself with kindness. I took a breath and quietly said to myself, this is so freaking hard. Being in pain sucks. I am so tired of pushing and hustling through the pain.
I'm just tired. And immediately tears came to my eyes, my whole body softened. And I felt seen for the first time, rather than viewing myself as something that needed to be fixed or improved, I just gave myself kindness for where I was. This is the power of showing up for ourselves of building self loyalty of embracing our humanness.
That is such an amazing illustration of showing up and being human. We don't have to make big sweeping changes to put our lives on hold, waiting for that magical time. When we had everything figured out, it starts today with small, intentional changes, just like working with my client, small, intentional changes of checking in with yourself, knowing and living from your values and constantly recalibrating all from a place of kindness and self love.
Let's do this. Let's take back the belief that we need to make big, bold changes. Let's do something radical. Let's embrace our humanness and start making small, intentional daily changes.