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Although I identify myself as very spiritual, I am not a religious person. Nor am I even remotely biblically literate. However, over the course of my life I have attended a variety of churches and there are about 5 at best, sermons I can recall. I’d like to share a message that came from one of those. It’s not a religious message, but since I can’t give credit to the minister (since I don’t remember who it was), I at least wanted to be clear that this is not my original work. However, its something I’ve thought of many times and find useful. I hope you will too.
The story he told went something like this:
When I was studying to be a minister, I went to my mentor I asked him for advice about how to be a great minister. My mentor told me, “Remember this. When you fall on your face”….
At which point, the story teller interrupted his own story and said he was disheartened because his mentor had not said “if you fall on your face, but rather WHEN you fall on your face.”
And then he continued:
When you fall on your face, remember to fall forward. That way when you get up, you will be further ahead than when you went down.
I remember this story because I think its brilliant. The reality is that we all will fall on our face sooner or later. Some of us will fall down repeatedly. I am particularly prone to clumsiness. So learning to fall forward comes in pretty handy. It saves time.
Falling down, isn’t so bad. Sure, you can get a little bruised up. But it also gives you a different view point of yourself and the world. It can teach us humility, patience and even gratitude both from our ability to get back up, and for those who lend us a hand to assist. Falling down isn’t nearly as bad as being afraid to fall. – I’m going to say more about that soon.
What does falling forward look like? It means not considering yourself a complete failure when you fall. It means not telling yourself you are a jerk because you made a mistake. Falling forward means realizing that a little stumble doesn’t mean you start back over at square one. Even if you literally start back at square one, you do so with the knowledge that you were further ahead before and you can get back there again from memory. You don’t have to create the path all over again.
How do you feel about falling? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
No you are not confused… this is an off schedule post because I have a little news:
If all goes well, all future blogs will contain the option to “listen” to me read the blog, as well as, the current format in which you can read it yourself. So for those of you who feel crunched for time, you will be able to click on the screen and have it read to you.
In addition to the regular posts (and I have some fun ones waiting to be published), I am working on a series of e- mini books. If you heard of the Australian public service commercial called Dumb Ways to Die, it inspired me to write “Dumb Ways to Live”.
The final versions may or may not end up like the one’s I’ve begun and that are in my head, but right now there are 4 books in progress.
1) Dumb Ways to live
2) Dumb ways to screw up your marriage
3) Dumb ways to raise kids
4) Dumb ways to wreck your career
so…. stay tuned!
One of these will become free to subscribers as your “bonus”.
I also want to say thank you again for everyone who reads, and also for your great comments and feedback. The heavens have lined up and this week I have received some incredibly kind and wonderful feedback. I want this project to grow… so I hope you will pass it on and encourage others to subscribe.
The Golden Circle
– This blog is a little more for folks on the coaching side, although frankly I think its useful for anyone.
I’d like to introduce you to Simon Sinek. Simon is a human motivation author. His TED talk regarding the Golden Circle is one of the most watched TED talks to date. But before I go further, let me not assume everyone knows what a TED talk is.
TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design. It is a series of talks 15-30 minutes long that are available on the internet for anyone to watch. They come from diverse industries and disciplines . You can also access the free TED app on a smart phone and be notified when a new talk is posted.
So back to Simon and the Golden Circle. Simon takes you on a journey to understand the different motivations of individuals when they try to attain a goal. According to his theory, most people start with what they want to do and how they are going to do it, but can’t always articulate why. Sinek says that truly successful individuals/companies start with Why. He says people buy why you do something. (Buying doesn’t simply mean a purchase, but also includes, getting on board with what you feel is important).
For me personally, I loved this concept because understanding WHY I am a therapist is pretty easy for me to think about. I’m curious about people and the processes we use. I love the stories and the meanings of the stories people use to navigate their lives. I believe my primary role as a therapist is to interpret those stories, sometimes to add in new context or change the timing. And ultimately to help my clients to feel like they are their own authors, have a sense of agency, rather than simply playing a role that someone else has written for them.
I’ll let Sinek convince you- the link for that video is here: (Click on the words The golden circle).
for an audio version of this post, click on the link below- if you are listening on a smartphone, you may have to scroll to the end of the post and look for the sound icon
We went to the airshow last weekend. It was a great day weather wise and the show was exciting. The highlight for me, however was an exchange I had with my youngest son.
Because he anticipated the loud noise, my husband thought ahead to bring earplugs for each of us, which he distributed before we got out of the car. Once the Blue Angels were in full force Andrew and I both put ours on. These are the little foam chunk type of ear plugs. You basically squish them to stick them in your ear and they expand to block out loud noise. However, you can still hear a fair amount going on around you. Well, most people can, but my hearing is not that great to begin with.
A few minutes into the show however, Andrew began talking to me about what was going on around us. I told him I couldn’t hear him and he should wait. At that point, he pulled out one of his ear plugs and began to repeat what he said. It never occurred to him that taking out his ear plug, made neither his voice or my ears sharper. A little bit later he leaned in and said “if you want to talk to me, you don’t have to take your ear plugs out, I can still hear you.”
Have I mentioned before that Andrew is in fact gifted? He has a high IQ and is especially strong in math and science skills. Seriously he is. But he is also what I often refer to in a very loving tone as “a dumb little kid”. And as he continues to grow by leaps and bounds each day, it is that this child- like silliness that I will miss the most as he matures.
John Cabot Zinn is responsible for one of my favorite quotes which is, “Think of children as Zen masters in little bodies. They will teach you every lesson you need to learn in life”. It would be hard for me to pick out the millions of lessons my children teach me every day, which of them is the most important. (because I can certainly be a dumb adult). But the one I’m writing about today is of how it important it is to be able to laugh at myself. I’ve spent a life time trying to be smart enough, when in fact, one of the things I find so endearing about my child is the places where he is not yet “smart like the world”. It is an innocence so pure that it melts my heart. And it doesn’t feel too badly when I apply it to my own inadequacies as well.
for an audio version of this post, click on the link below- if you are listening on a smartphone, you may have to scroll to the end of the post and look for the sound icon
Is its always about me?
I picked up my son from school today. He got in the car, moaned a bit and turned his body completely away from me. I asked him if he was okay and he ignored me. I asked him again and he continued to ignore me. I asked him if he was upset with me or if something happened at school. Still no answer. We sat in silence on the ride home.
He entered the house, put up his backpack and sulked into the living room. His dad greeted him, and he offered little if any response. About 10 minutes passed. I was preparing dinner in the kitchen. Andrew came into the kitchen and without saying a word, barreled into me with an 11 year version of a bear hug. I hugged back still not saying a word. He was fine the rest of the evening.
When my husband and I first married he had to travel frequently for work. I soon learned that when Ben is on a job site he is extremely focused and compartmentalized. He has to have reminders to check in, although after 15 years with me, this has become a bit more natural for him. But back then, it was like pulling teeth to get him to remember that he was now part of a team and the other half wanted to know where he was from time to time. He would give his all to the job and by the time he got back to his hotel, often late in the evening he was pretty much shot. By the end of the week I would be missing him and happily awaiting his return on Friday evening. He on the other hand, would walk in, barely grunt a greeting, and pass me by, almost as if I was a ghost. He would go bed and crash for the night. He did not seem happy to see me.
The first couple of times this happened I wondered what on earth was wrong. Was our marriage already over? What happened on the road? Was he mad at me?
But then on Saturday morning he woke up and was his usual self. There didn’t seem to be any issue.
And then it happened again. And again. But after a couple of times I began to figure out that he was neither having marriage remorse nor a split personality. It’s Ben. As I said earlier, when he works… he works hard. And so by the time Friday night came around and he returned home, he had nothing left to give to anyone… including himself. So he did the best job he could of taking care of himself, which was, to go right to bed. After a good night’s sleep replenished his emotional stock, he was himself, still in love with his wife and our relationship proceeded as normal.
Fortunately I figured out fairly early into this process that I had a couple of choices. I could be mad, hurt, retaliatory or a host of other delectable feelings that don’t resemble my adult self. I could be dramatic- and at an earlier time of my life I probably would have been. But when I thought about what was happening, it was easy to separate his need to work the way he did and our relationship. Whether or not he could/should have worked differently is a different subject. The reality is that if his work habits were encroaching on our relationship, then we might have needed to look for a different alternative. But instead, I was able to take the route of adjusting my own expectations. Instead of planning for an ultimately disappointing reunion on Friday, I told myself that my husband wasn’t coming home until Saturday morning. Because in truth, that is the soonest the guy I loved would be showing up, even though the grumpy imposter was sharing our space. The Friday night arrival was basically a zombie not capable of giving me a high five or a gee I missed you so.
I’m not suggesting my son’s behavior is a “chip off the old block” here. But the similarity is that I can now more easily see that people can have there own brand of muck going on that causes their mood to flatten and it doesn’t have to be about me, just because I am the one in the room at the time.
I used to get very frustrated at the phrase “don’t take this personally”. I couldn’t understand how when you are the only person in the room to receive the message, how do you take it any other way? But I realize now that in fact, someone can be telling you something about themselves and where they are and it doesn’t have to be about you.. or in the example above, … me.
My son obviously was having a hard day or a hard hour or minute or whatever. He needed space. More importantly, the LAST THING… and I must repeat here (for my own benefit), the LAST thing he needed was to take emotional energy away from whatever was bothering him to focus on my insecurity or guilt or whatever I could conjure up to feel responsible for his mood. That’s not to say that when we’ve truly caused a problem for another we shouldn’t try work to figure out if we need to repair something
This is a situation in which to apply Covey’s seek first to understand. We can ask the other “are you okay, is there something you need from me” rather than assuming it’s about us and we need to go into fixing mode, even if we don’t know what we are to fix. If the other person isn’t ready to talk, then we have to learn to be patient and wait to see if the problem gets resolved without our input. Sometimes, that is the hardest part of all.