I was reading Momastery this morning when I came upon this little snippet:

I feel like I should have some of it figured out for you. I should be well rounded and confident and secure. I should be more like Cheryl Sandberg, really. I just finished Lean In – her new book – and I liked it. Good woman, good book. Lean In is about how we as women need to lean in to our careers and accept more responsibility and not worry so much about balance, I guess. She seems to have a lot figured out – she doesn’t seem tortured by any of it. Me – I’m a little tortured. I know my work is important, and I’d love to keep Leaning In, but mostly I just want to Lie Down to tell you the damn truth. Perhaps that will be the title of my next book.

I have to say that I resonate with this. I worry. I’m a little tortured. I know that worrying isn’t useful and I am working on it. blah blah. But I also know that there will be some of me that worries. And I am learning to embrace who I am. I don’t mean to imply that worrying is a good thing. Or that worrying means I care more. It’s just who I am. It’s a part of me and while I’d like it not to interfere with my life or joy, I am also ok to accept it as a part of me.

I was then listening to a podcast and someone said something like when we meet people who know stuff we don’t know, we assume they know more than we do. I think this is so true. It’s like when we meet people who do different things than we do, we assume they do more not different.

We take what we see in them and overlay it onto our own lives. We don’t realize that they might know these things but not some of what we know. People often reach out to me and ask me how I manage to do all I do. They assume I do all they do plus all I do. I reply and tell them that I don’t cook or clean and that gives me a lot of time they might not have.

This is a crucial thing to keep in mind. I think we are inadvertantly comparing ourselves when we read things or hear things. Not everyone is the same. People talk about what they care about and don’t talk about things that do not matter as much to them. Sheryl cares about women having a place in the workplace and she probably doesn’t care as much about some of the things that might matter to you. I care about making art and not as much about cooking. There are some things I know better than you and other things I don’t know at all. Sheryl doesn’t worry about balance (or maybe she does in some other ways, who knows? In fairness, I haven’t read her book, I am just using Glennon’s quote above as my reference). I do. I decided long ago that it matters to me to be home with my kids, even if I am working and they watch TV more than they should because of it. I am not doing it for them. I am doing it for me.

I’d like to be well-rounded, confident, and secure, too. But I also know that we’re making that assumption about Sheryl because of her book. This might be an area where she is all those things. But there are probably other areas where she is not (and I am.) And maybe she doesn’t care about those.

The thing is we are each very different from each other. We have differing values, schedules, histories, and preferences. And, to add to it, many of us are married to another person who also differs in all these things creating yet a third dynamic of a marriage where there are values, schedules, histories and preferences that might slightly (or wildly) differ from each of the individuals in that marriage. There are a lot of elements at play here and to make a simple assumption that the one, tiny side you see of someone represents them in any major way is just too simplistic.

I have come to learn that no one has it figured out. No one is 100% confident or balanced or perfect. Or even 100% happy. We are all tortured in our own little (or big) ways. When we see others who do not share our particular tortures, we don’t realize they may have a set of their own. We assume the worst of ourselves and the best of others. (by the way, this is one of the reasons I like blogs that tend to be more honest in sharing some of the harder sides of life, they force you to remove your rose-colored glasses when you read the blog.)

Come to think of it, I don’t even think life is about having it all figured out. What would be the point of that? It’s about trying to be here, in this wonderful moment. As Thich Nhat Hanh says during my morning meditation:

Breathing In, I go back to the Present Moment. Breathing Out, I know this is a Wonderful Moment. The moment when I realize that I am still alive. I can touch life. Because to be alive is a miracle. To be alive and to know that you’re alive is the greatest of all miracles. And if you don’t go back to the present moment, you cannot perform that miracle…..This is a Wonderful Moment. In fact, it is the only moment available to me to live

It’s not about being perfect or having it all figured out. It’s about fully being here, right now, and enjoying this very moment.

If you read here with any regularity, you know that I worry a lot. I tend be on the anxious side and this is one of the things I want to work on because I find that anxiety can be contagious and it’s also, for the most part, a wasted emotion. It doesn’t put me in the most resonant space.

One of the aspects of anxiety I’ve been focusing on lately is getting clear with what really matters to me. What’s important to me. And, just as significantly, what’s not important to me. One of the reasons this matters is that I feel more anxiety when I worry about being judged by others. This is aggravated when I’m already judging myself, too. I find that this happens more in areas where I am not clear about what matters to me and what doesn’t. (Or when I am not behaving in a way that’s aligned with what does matter to me.)

If I am really clear, other people’s opinions will not affect me. For example, I am clear that giving my kids the choice of what to wear (assuming a basic level of cleanliness) is more important to me than worrying about whether my kids’ clothes match. At the age they are, it’s one of the areas they get to express individuality and exercise choice. So when other parents judge me about what my kids are wearing and how it might not match, I couldn’t care less.

I am also clear that I need to spend time alone each day. Doing something that fills my soul. Art, reading, writing, whatever. If others judge that I am not spending this time with my kids, I don’t feel any guilt about this. I am clear that I need time with my husband alone. I am clear that I like to be with my kids at home and willing to take the impact of that on my career. None of these are judgements of what others should be doing with their life or kids. It’s just areas where I am clear about what matters to me so I don’t tend to feel anxiety around them.

But then there are other areas where I am less clear. Like how much and what kind of extracurriculars my kids should do. The importance and relevance of play dates (vs the cost of time and effort it will take us to make them all work.) The cost of a new task I might undertake (like coaching) on my family vs the personal rewards. The value of particular types of vacation over others. The list does go on for personal stuff, family stuff, career stuff, etc. etc. When I am not sure what I value, other people’s opinions get in the way of my thinking clearly. I overvalue their judgements. I start worrying, feeling small and inadequate.

This doesn’t mean they are right. It means that this is an area where I have to think more and get clear on where I stand. Because here’s the thing: no one knows what’s right. No one. No. one.

We all just have our own opinions, beliefs and perspectives. They are affected by our past, our values, our community and more. We might think they are “right” or “wrong” but that doesn’t make them facts. So, the trick here is to figure out what matters to me. What’s important to me about this particular topic? What do I want to honor here?

Once I figure that out, I believe the rest is easy.

Since I am trying to lower anxiety and worry, I think one of the next steps here for me is to write down each time I find myself worrying about things. Each time I am questioning myself or wavering. Then I stop and really get clear on what matters to me.

As an added bonus, this will also allow me to honor my personal intention this month of being me.

Today I’m thinking about triggers. When I read a post, what does it trigger in me that causes me to connect with it or have a negative reaction towards it. When I find myself panicking, what does it really mean, what deeper worry/anxiety is triggering the panic? When I yell at my kids or my husband or myself, what’s really being triggered? When I get mad at someone’s words or react disproportionally to something I hear/read, what’s that really about?

It’s rare that a quick reaction is about what just happened. One of the main aspects of coaching is figuring out what we call the big-A agenda. (as in agenda vs Agenda) The client might come to you with a topic that they think is what’s on their mind but when you dig and ask questions, you often realize there’s something much bigger and more fundamental underneath. And it’s only when you uncover that, look at it head on, that a true shift becomes possible. When you don’t know what it’s really about, you’re only changing it at the surface and that’s rarely sustainable.

That’s why knowing my triggers is important to me. It allows me to step back and see what’s underneath this reaction. When I make a mistake at work, my panic is about feeling like I don’t belong or that I can’t do my job well. If I can step back and realize that the one mess-up doesn’t actually generalize in that way, I can take this one instance as what it is: one instance of a mistake. I am human, no matter what, I am likely to make mistakes. When my sense of belonging and worthiness is solid, I can shake off the mistake as a one-off. But when I am on shaky ground internally, each mistake is really feeding a much deeper feeling underneath. It’s yet another example of how I don’t belong. This means that until I fix the foundation of belonging, each mistake will trigger. And the issue to tackle is the worthiness, not the particular mistake and how to fix that.

The same goes for my kids. For example, last year, my son would regularly forget his jacket at school. Each time, we would get in the car, drive back to the school and pick it up. The whole drive there I would be screaming and frustrated and just not even seeing clearly. It was such an insane routine that I am sure most of the teachers thought I was crazy. Many of the other boys in the class forgot/lost their jackets all the time. Most likely, my son was truly just being absentminded. He, unfortunately, loses and misplaces and forgets stuff a lot. (And, to be honest, so did I at his age.) But once I was able to step back and reassess the trigger, I noticed that, to me, this jacket had become a symbol of his lack of respect. If he knew that things cost money, he’d treat them with more care and would surely not lose them. Did he think jackets were just free? Why was he not paying attention to the value of the things he owned? There are many ways I spend a lot of money on things and don’t mind but there’s something about waste that’s a genuine trigger for me. I don’t like to throw away food. I don’t like to buy something and then not use it. So, to me, the way he kept forgetting his jacket felt like he didn’t care. He didn’t bother. He was being disrespectful and wasteful. As soon as I realized what it was about, I could think of many other ways to instill this value in him. I could sit down and explain it to him. And it stopped being about the jacket.

We recently visited this with doing homework, too. Handling things with care and self-respect. Writing in his best handwriting. Not bending the edges of his papers. Just respecting his things and giving them the attention they deserve. I know he’s just a kid and this will take time, but now that I know what matters to me and what value it was stepping on, I can work on it with him and create a shift in both me and him.

While I would ideally love to get to a place where I never ‘trigger’ on anything, and while I’d love to be responding and not reacting, I know that I have a long way to go on all that. And as I work on that, I am also trying to take the time to learn from my triggers. Which is a much more productive way to approach my “mistakes” than punishing myself for not being perfect (or even as good as I’d like to be.)

This way, I might be able to learn from my mistakes and make different ones next time.