Ordinary Life, Extraordinary Living

On Being a Writer

I have been writing for the last eight years, ever since I left my last corporate job and went off on my own.

I found out quickly that to be a good writer, I needed to do three things:

• Read good writing.  This was not hard to do.  I love to read.
• Write a lot, on a regular basis.  Initially this was not hard to do.  Over the last few years, it has gotten much more difficult as I crammed more into my life, including a new startup.
• Feel and reflect. This comes only when I have grounded myself, slowed down the pace of life to one where I can hear my inner voice. At times, this has seemed nearly impossible to do.

When I write, I am connecting back to that inner voice, giving it full expression, rather than a slight inkling that it can only muster in the noise of daily life.  If I am writing well, I am connecting to the reader.  This is a side benefit. It is never a direct outcome that I'm going after.  All writers write for themselves first. 

I have been reading a lot of my favorite authors--those known for the discipline of writing.  Julia Cameron, Natalie Goldberg. Anne Lamott. What I notice is that even they have some books that I don't care for.  Some of it is pedantic.  Some of it is too introspective and mimicking parts of their life without admitting it.  Some of it is self-absorbed.  Even fine writers have not so fine moments.

But mostly, I admire their simple and honest words.  Phrases that make me want to read them more than once.  Sentences that are worth tweeting. 

Lately, I have gotten back into space of hearing my Muse--the one that literally dictates in the middle of the night or when I'm waking in the  morning, or at the end of the day. I can hear my Muse put together entire paragraphs on topics that have recently coalesced in my mind.  She laughs at the funny parts and oohs and ahhs at the insightful parts.  She smiles at the turn of a phrase.

In those moments, I know that my job is to be the butterfly catcher.  To catch the words swirling above the crown of my head and put them into my computer, to be archived and reviewed at another time. Oh, to be a butterfly catcher, in the middle of winter, because inside, it is summer all over again.

On Being Fifty: Lost in the Wilderness

I am trying to make peace with being fifty years old. 

When I turned fifty last May, I moved into a new Nielsen demographic, as if I was suddenly a less avid viewer, more resistant to buying certain products, and not as quick to tune into the hot new show.  Actually, I've been that way for years. It didn't start with being fifty. Photo by Wonderlane

When I turned thirty years old, it was a celebration of maturity for someone who has always looked ten years younger than her age.  I was no longer the new kid on the block. I could claim a certain amount of experience that came with being a working professional. It felt great.

When hit forty, I knew that I was coming into my own, not just as a professional, but as a person.  I turned the corner from being a competent engineer to that of a whole person, with talents and skills that moved beyond the technical, to something more meaningful.  Forties were the decade for blossoming.  Photo by jmurawski.

Now that I'm fifty, I'm not sure what to feel other than lost in the wilderness, stripped of my favorite blanket and pocket knife. Society doesn't encourage the fifty somethings like they do the twenty somethings or thirty somethings. The forties are the time of claiming the trophy, harvesting the crop, stepping into the coveted position.  But fifties?  In your fifties, you are expected to already "be there", not still striving for being there. Who ever heard of an "up and coming" fifty-year old?  If you haven't already "arrived", it's unlikely to happen.

At fifty, I'm struggling for role models who aren't trying to look younger, or wiser, or something other than who they are. 

At sixty and seventy, you find people who joke about being older.  Nora Ephron wrote the book, I Feel Bad About My Neck, when she was in her sixties.  At fifty, I don't hear jokes. I see scurrying and hiding.  Find me a fifty something who proclaims loudly in a bar, "I'm in my fifties and loving it!" and I'll find you a woman who delights in finding the next crevice-producing wrinkle in her face.  Photo by 85mm.ch.

Many of us in our fifties have kids in college. It's a reminder of how we are not young anymore, that we aren't hip new parents with small children.  On Parent's Weekend, we are the old people visiting the young people.  Our kids are just hitting the parties at 11pm on a Saturday night, while we are getting ready for bed. 

I'm trying to make peace with being fifty years old.

Last year, I started a fitness routine, Fit by Fifty, that led me to the gym several times a week, had me eating salads for lunch and enjoying it, and losing part of the tummy that had expanded into new territory (a la West Bank settlement) over the last decade. It's been my way of turning back the clock.  But let's not kid ourselves. I feel it in my half decade old body, the one that doesn't move as gracefully, heal as quickly, or bend into a yoga position like it used to.  At fifty, my body complains more loudly.

In my fifties, I must make a fateful decision--whether to go down the road of dyeing my hair for years to come or let the gray hairs overtake my head, like a patch of prarie land being returned to natural grasses. The first time I applied dye on my "virgin" hair, it looked great.  I wondered why I hadn't done so sooner.  When I looked in the mirror, I saw myself as I looked ten years prior.  The next application was not so pretty, literally.  And now, I'm wondering if over time, the results will only get worse.  Photo by L. C. Nottaasen

I'm trying to make peace with being fifty years old.

My husband is fifty-five. Age does not seem to bother him.  In fact, it might be something akin to what my sixty-ish girl friend describes as the "why bother" syndrome.  By the time you are fifty-five, you are too far away from your forties to complain or yearn for something different. Growing older is a fait accomplit.

In my fifties, it's up to me to create the roadmap, to define what the decade is about, to set the standard for myself internally and externally.  That's the beauty and the curse.  Ambiguity provides an opening for playing it my way, instead of society's way.  So here's what I want my fifties to be about:

• Deepening my work. Career guru Pamela Slim likes to talk about one's "body of work".  This next decade is time to shape my body of work, whether it's in the form of writing about the human experience, coaching professionals through career transitions, or doing an Internet talk show.  The theme of my story comes into sharp relief through my body of work.  While I tried lots of different things in my forties, including starting three LLCs and completing countless projects, I want my fifties to reflect an overarching vision, where years later, someone can say, "That's what her life was about."

• Opening up options for how work is done.  This is a time to discover a gentler rhythm in life, where a moment of patience turns into a moment of savoring.  The drive to finish a project will be balanced with the enjoyment of the experience.  I want my work schedule to be best friends with the rest of my life. 

• Taking more risks.  I want my fifties to be a time when I have nothing to prove, other than the fact that my work in the world is what keeps me alive and fresh.  Stepping out is a way of doing that.  Looking back on this time should engender pride in doing things differently, not to be contrary, but because the situation was ripe for experimentation and innovation. 

• Finding grace in a changing body.  Not to get squeamish, but menopause will be here before the decade is out.  I don't expect to become pear-shaped or grow a third head, but I do expect that my body will feel a lot different.  I want to navigate these bodily changes with grace (and a few hormone supplements or whatever medical science deems appropriate at that point.) 

I feel better already.  I'm starting to make peace with being fifty. (This picture was taken the day I turned fifty.)

Lessons Learned From Being Fried, Part 2

This is the second installment of a two-part series on burn out.  In the first installment, I talked about making the decision to step away from my start-up, My Alumni Link, for three months.  I went through a period where I resembled a human version of a sloth--minimal movement, lots of naps, and limited sensory input. Thank god, nothing lasts forever. 

Here are my tips for traveling the road back to joy:

• Rekindling your life force has no roadmap.  A colleague asked me about my time off.  "What will you do?" I immediately responded,  "I don't know."  In a world where we want answers and certainty, not knowing and ambiguity can feel like falling through the sky, with too much space and a gazillion places to land.  But that's exactly what is needed.  It feels odd that my work is to serendipitously re-discover what brings me alive.  Armed with the blank canvas of a new day and the question, "What should I do today?", I follow my internal impulses.  That is enough. Photo by mollypop.

• There is a time for reaching and achieving.  This is not it.  It's been hard for me to stay out of this mode. I've had to monitor myself.  When I'm depleted, going into "achieving mode" smothers any joy that might be bubbling up.  It looks like attending teleseminars that will teach me the seven secrets of XYZ and pushing myself to get to the top of a hiking trail, just so I can finish a loop. I have to remind myself that I'm loved for who I am, rather than what I accomplish.  

• Who is that stranger?   Finding joy is about being joy.  That means re-connecting to all parts of myself--not just the engineer or coach or entrepreneur who I have gotten to know all too well over the last two years.  During my time off, I've rediscovered the life long learner who devours several books a week, the food lover who savors a corn and tomato salad made from the bounty of a Saturday morning farmer's market, the aspiring flower arranger who places buds from a Rose of Sharon bush in bowl of water, and the bargain hunter who delights in finding a one-of-a-kind electric green skirt appliqued with beaded flowers, for less than the price of lunch out.  In the comimg months, I hope to unearth the musician, the improvisor, the goofy girl who can laugh at her own jokes (over and over and over) and yes, the writer.

How do I know who is inside, waiting to get some much needed attention and air time?  I'm noticing the quiet "voice" or feeling that tugs at me throughout the day. "Ooh, wouldn't that be fun!" or "I like this. I could do more of this."  Photo by Eva Cristescu

• Visit other worlds to refresh the soul.  Books and movies throw me into new scenery.  Afternoons are for sitting on the back patio, reading about the U S Memory Championships or about a writer's time in an ashram in India.  Evenings are for hunkering down with a movie set in another era, whether it's Frost/Nixon in the 70's, The Young Victoria in the 1800's, or Julie and Julia right after 9/11 and World War II.  Yesterday, I spent the morning at the Denver Botanic Gardens, walking through their tropical greenhouse.  For you, visiting other worlds might mean getting out in nature, picking up an old hobby, or leaving town.  (I was inspired by the book, Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India, Indonesia.) However you do it, immerse yourself in new surroundings.  

• Fill your psyche with light.  You would think stories of redemption would be just what I needed to hear.  But I found out that these kinds of stories first have to show the hard side of life before the hero can find happiness.  I felt terrible after watching on DVD the movie, The Pursuit of Happyness.  I stopped in the middle of the book, Unbroken, even thought it is written by one of my favorite authors, Laura Hillebrand. When I got to the part where the main character is shot down in the Pacific during WWII, surrounded by sharks, I couldn't bear to keep reading. In both cases, the protagonist comes through his ordeal stronger and is a model of resilience.  Trudging through the darkness to get to the light, even if it was in somebody else's story and not my own, was enough to throw me into disequilibrium. Photo by Jeff Hunter.

• If I had a year to do anything....it would be to write. In a conversation with a high tech serial entrepreneneur, he said, "I would love to spend a year, just coding. I get immersed and lose track of time. And when I'm done, I've created something of value." I feel the same way about writing. It's one of the things that I know will "rehabilitate" me, from half dead to fully alive.  Most people know what makes them truly happy.  Think about what you would do if you had all the time in the world. Then make time for that, even if it's only thirty minutes a week that moves you in that direction. Photo by Sean MacEntee.

• Create your toolkit. To stir my creative juices, I've returned to the practice of Morning Pages and Artist's Dates, read books by writing guru Natalie Goldberg, and set aside time to blog each day.  I'm working through exercises in the book, The Sound of Paper, by creativity expert, Julia Cameron.  I have returned to yoga classes, after a month off.   You might have something completely different in your toolkit.  The point is, by developing a  structure for your creativity to blossom, it's more likely to happen.  Make the ground fertile for the seed to sprout. Another book that speaks to this point is The Creativity Habit: Learn It and Use It For Life, by the famous choreagrapher, Twyla Tharp.

• Leave space for stillness.  Empty slots on my calendar can easily get filled with activities that sound fun.  But I found that joy overscheduled is no joy at all.  I've learned that making time for stillness is vital for a joyful life. It's the cleansing cracker during the wine tasting, the rests between the musical notes, the pause in a rousing speech.  Stillness, on a regular basis, allows me to enjoy the rest of my life that much more. Photo by MinimalistPhotography101.

The road back to joy is more than replenishing my reserves or re-connecting back to myself (although those benefits are great.)  This path gives me a glimpse of the life I saw nearly 9 years ago, when I left the corporate world to strike out on my own.  The creative freedom was exhilarating and the "shoulds" and "have to's" of life were suddenly gone.  My life force was bursting forth. From that place, so much more is possible.

I have to stop myself from asking, "What's next?"  Sitting in a coffee shop, on a cool, overcast day, cloaked in autumn, it's enough to enjoy the change of seasons, to tap internally to the beat of music on the radio, and to be present to the moment. Photo by Muffet.

Making Meaning of It All

The 10th anniversary of 9/11 has given a collective pause to our fast forward society.  The reflections range from the scope of the tragedy and how it changed the world to whether we are any safer today to individual recollections of a day that no one can forget. 

It's triggered in me a reminder of how precious life is and how life goes on, in spite of deep sadness.  Photo by PeterJBellis

Over the weekend, I saw two friends. One seems to be on the other side of pain, after going through a divorce and now, selling the family home.  She's looking forward to new, smaller digs.  Two years ago, I bumped into her after a school function.  She seemed to be at a low point, in the middle of divorce proceedings and recently having lost a parent.  My friend is a reminder of how life's journey undulates, never staying in one emotional place for too long.  We are taken down the river, to a different, and hopefully, better place. 

The other friend is in the midst of pain, having met with doctors last week about her husband, a man who has been in ICUs and acute care facilities continuously since April.  His body is a shell of his former self, with failed kidneys and damaged lungs, and no signs of rejuvenation.  My friend has decided to end life support for her husband.  I wonder, "What must it be like to make such a decision, for someone you love?"  I can only guess. She's looking forward to the time when she can think of him as he was in the past, when his spirit fully inhabited his body, when she can push aside the image of the man lying in the hospital bed.  Life will go on, past the frozen images at the end of life.

Juxtaposed next to pain and suffering is meaning.  This morning, I heard on National Public Radio a piece about "dignity therapy", used with terminally ill patients to help them make meaning of their life.  This process results in "a formal written narrative of the patient's life — a document that could be passed on to whomever they chose. The patients would be asked a series of questions about their life history and the parts they remember most or think are most important. Their answers would be transcribed and presented to them for editing until, after going back and forth with the therapist, a polished document resulted that could be passed on to the people that they loved." Photo by MAMJODH

Making meaning about our life, at the end of our life, is a way to tie up loose ends, and to leave with a sense of peace. 

Another friend told me about a sci-fi book, Speaker for the Dead, which introduces the idea of a dead person's life being told by a third party--more objective than a eulogy and more multi-faceted than an obituary.  According to Wikipedia:

"Speakers research the dead person's life and give a speech that attempts to speak for them, describing the person's life as he or she tried to live it. This speech is not given in order to persuade the audience to condemn or forgive the deceased, but rather a way to understand the person as a whole, including any flaws or misdeeds."

Pain and suffering do not disappear with meaning.  But the journey becomes tolerable, even purposeful.  

Which brings me back to the preciousness of life.  Each day, we have the opportunity to make meaning, to live out 24 hours in a way that weaves a coherent story.  We don't need to wait until the end to tell the story.

One of my favorite quotes is by Mary Oliver: 

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

I plan on making meaning.  How about you?

Photo by donjd2

Lessons Learned From Being Fried, Part 1

This past summer, I "hit the wall" and decided to take time off.  I gave myself one month to rejuvenate.  I fully intended to return to work to a full slate of business appointments and projects that had been waiting to be moved forward.  But things rarely go as planned. 

Instead of being back in the saddle, I slipped into a downward spiral on my second day back in the office.  At the end of the week, my sister called, asked a mundane question (one so ordinary that I can't even remember what it was) and then said, "Are you okay?  You don't sound okay."  I burst into tears. I felt worse than I had before my time off.  Photo by D'Arcy Norman

Like a battery that had been recharged one too many times, the little juice I had stored up was used quickly.  I needed more than a quick plug in the socket. I needed a new battery.

Depleted spiritually, intellectually, emotionally and now, physically,  I knew that if I didn't completely stop, my burnout would lead to illness. I was already headed in that direction.  I decided to take an extended leave of absence--three months--from my startup, My Alumni Link. 

One month after hitting bottom, here are some things I'm learning. 

• Burnout occurs when perspective and hope are lost. The late psychologist, Herbert Freudenberger, defines burn out as "the extinction of motivation or incentive, especially where one's devotion to a cause or relationship fails to produce the desired results."

It's only in hindsight that I can see the true causes of my depletion.  Two conversations stand out in my mind. 

In one, I am talking to a seasoned banker, who asks questions to assess the situation with my start-up, including whether I've invested a lot of money in the company. (I have not.)  After hearing the data, he says firmly, "Things will be alright."  Later, I send him marketing collateral, contracts and proposals, as a way to understand my sales process.  He says, "I don't know why you are concerned. This is very thorough."  The more I talked to people, the more I realized that the situation was not as dire as my monkey mind would lead me to believe. I had lost perspective on what I had accomplished and focused on what I hadn't. Photo by renaissancechambara.

In the second conversation, I am talking to a fellow entrepreneur, who has gone through her own journey of burn out. She now provides programs that address the issues of depletion and struggle for small biz owners. She asks me about My Alumni Link and I tell her about products, sales conversion rates, distribution channels and business models. She tells me, "You've done more than most clients I work with.  You've got the pieces there, it's just configuring them in a new way--a tweak here and there."  I find comfort and more importantly, hope, in her words.  It doesn't matter if she can help me.  What matters is that I believe there is another way, that doesn't require the struggle that I've experienced over the last two years.  Hope is part of the recipe for my recovery. Photo by polsifter.

• Life is not about achievement. It's about experiences. These are wise words from a longtime friend. She went on to say that if we view life as a way to gather experiences, then we can be unattached to outcomes.  How the story turns out isn't as important as the fact that we lived the story.  Through this lens of experience, nothing is good or bad.  It just is.

Author Joan Borysenko points to the downside of focusing on results: "The more attached I get to a particular outcome, the less that Life can flow through me." I think Borysenko is referring to our internal life force, the thing that makes us human and not automatons. 

A friend told me that she asks two questions when she finds herself in a tough spot, "What am I learning?" and "Who am I becoming?" Both of these questions point to the opportunity for our experiences to transform us. And they helped me to reframe my idea of failure.

• Ditch control for choice.  I went through a period of not knowing whether an innocent remark would lead to a crying jag or whether I would have enough energy for a scheduled appointment.  I could not control how I would feel from moment to moment.  But I could make the choice to stop playing the game.  Even after I decided to take a time out, I persisted in finding a way to keep the sales pipeline going for my start up--asking not just one, but several trusted family members and colleagues to stand in for me on sales calls.  It was only after I was willing to shut the business down for three months and walk away from potential revenue that I found peace.  Sure, our finances would suffer, but it was a tradeoff that my family and I could live with.

• More people than you think will support your decision. I was humbled by the response from clients, colleagues, friends, and family when I told them I was taking time off to take care of myself.  One university contact said it best in an email reply, "I hope you are back to your old self soon." Another called when she heard the news from a colleague and said compassionately, "We want and need you to get better."  And yet another revealed that he, too, had gone through his own burn out after a divorce and reassured me that I could rebound, just like he had.  My guess is that most adults have experienced aspects of depletion, some more intensely than others.  Stepping off the treadmill is neither a reason for shame nor a badge of honor. It is an aspect of our shared humanity, made visible. Photo by vvonstruen.

• Find someone who understands what you are going through.  While many people were supportive and sympathetic to my situation, this is different from having someone say, "I've been there and this is what you should know."  When I was at my most vulnerable, I needed to know that I was not alone.

Just before hitting bottom, I emailed a friend to ask for help.  Her email reply simply said, "CALL ME!"  When we talked, her first words were startling. "You are in trouble, girlfriend."  Unbeknownst to me, my friend had gone through a similar experience of burn out last year. She knew what it was like to ratchet back expectations, and the price your mind and body pay when you've overdone it.  She also knew that recovery was something that couldn't be rushed.  And she was insistent that I couldn't keep going the way I had been, without significant consequences. She took a stand for me when my Gremlins were saying, "What's wrong with you?" and calling me names like "slacker" and "wimp".

Later, my friend sent me the book, "Fried: Why You Burn Out and How to Revive".  In a perverse way, I found comfort in hearing how the author had trouble returning emails that required anything beyond a pat response.  She had nothing left to give.  I particularly resonated with her declaration, "I just want to be left alone."  Later in the book, the author details the 12 stages of burnout, from Stage 1, Driven by an Ideal, to Stage 12, Mental and Physical Collapse.  It was as if she was talking to me and again, I didn't feel so alone.

• There's no resiliency without building up the reserves.  I had taken for granted the ability to bounce back, with just minimal time off.  It had worked in the past.  A friend pointed out that burn out is the cumulative result of neglecting oneself over time.  There's no short cut to replacing what has been lost. Photo by @MSG

Building up reserves requires an extended duration where on a daily basis, I'm putting significantly more in my tank than I'm taking out. Thinking activities needed to be tempered with time when I could give my brain a rest. On some days, this looked like an afternoon nap, not answering email, and going on a low information diet. On other days, it meant reading on the patio, puttering in the garden and a walk after dinner.  After weeks of this routine, I felt real progress.

• Pay yourself first. This is a saying that encourages stashing away savings after getting a paycheck.  It also applies to how you allocate your energy.  In the past, I've had more than enough energy to freely give it away to others--for a networking meeting to get to know someone better, to provide advice on a business idea, to talk about a thorny career issue.  Normally, this type of giving of attention and expertise is fun and rewarding.  But when I was struggling to make it through the day, giving to others--even fifteen minutes on the phone--was energy that I needed for myself. Photo by bigburpsx3

I'm learning to say no more, when yes would have been the default. It's still not easy, but I've come to see how precious one's life force is, how it can be snuffed out while no one's looking, and what it takes to rekindle it. Complete rest, like an exhale after holding your breath for far too long, is the first step.  That initial rest gave me the energy to work on re-shaping my life.

In my next post, I'll talk about the road back to joy.