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Telling Your Truth (and being a volcano)

Apr 1, 2022 | Women's Voice & Power

Why telling your truth often feels like a destructive volcano.

  • “be seen and not heard,”
  • keep our opinions to ourselves,
  • not upset the apple cart ever,
  • distrust our own voice,
  • make sure that everyone else’s comfort supersedes our own; and if all this weren’t enough,
  • believe we’re probably making a big deal out of nothing.

When you tell and live your truth you are disrupting the status quo. That IS the world splitting open, the maps changing, the new mountains being made, the volcanoes erupting. Yes, please!!!

  • List out all the messages you’ve internalized; the ones that reinforce the belief you’re better off keeping your thoughts (and your truth) to yourself — from childhood, adulthood, education, religion, social media, TV, movies, magazines, novels, bosses, boyfriends, girlfriends, spouses, significant others, etc. Sayings. Cliches. Repeated phrases. Lessons-learned. Even the voices in your head.
  • Take a red pen, fat black Sharpie, or Shift+Command+X (on a Mac) and cross out every one that is NOT actually true, relevant, helpful, supportive, or remotely applicable now that you are older, wiser, and the amazing-and-empowered woman that you are!
  • Journal: What shows up for you when you walk through this exercise — elation, resistance, frustration, doubt? What do you feel when you realize just how much of not telling the truth has come from the assertions and demands of others and your culture? What if your experiences of keeping your truth to yourself aren’t your fault? How then might you respond?
  • What is the truth that’s sitting closest to the surface for you right now? You know the one. You know it needs to be acted on, spoken, lived. Yep, that one.
  • Write it out. Type it out. Give yourself space, time, and permission to say EXACTLY what you already know. You don’t have to act on it (yet). Just write and write and write. Let yourself feel what it’s like to express this truth in unedited and uncensored ways. No keeping it in, holding it back, or playing it safe.
  • Telling the truth (*only* to yourself) is not insignificant or inconsequential. It’s everything.
  • Often what keeps us from acting on our truth is the very long and legitimate list of risks, costs, and consequences we’re certain will ensue. You might be right. And if you are, as I stated above, that’s reliable data and discernment. But for now, all I’m advocating is one small, almost invisible act that aligns your internal and external truths; that closes the gap.
  • Give an opinion. State a definitive “yes” or “no.” Answer a question without side-stepping the voice in your head. Just one truth. Spoken out loud. Acted on. Every day. That’s it. (And then watch what happens over time. It’s like compounding interest, I promise!)

5 Ways to Have the Life you Desire

Feb 18, 2022 | My sort-of Sermons, Women's Voice & Power, Women's Wisdom

Here’s the quick version of this post:

  1. Hold fast to what you most desire.

And here’s the longer one:

1. Hold fast to what you most desire.

Without a clear sense of your truest, deepest desires you feel uncertain, unclear, and often unmotivated to plant a stake in the ground — fearful that you won’t get what you want anyway, even if you know what that is.

Desire is not about its fulfillment. At least not completely. It is about risk and faith and trust and belief. And without these? Well, you wander, or worse, you feel like your feet — and life — are encased in cement. But when you DO know what you desire, everything is possible! Desire is what creates and enables possibility in and of itself. (And it is the stuff of the very best stories ever!)

A Practical To-Do: Let yourself dream! What do you most want? What would you envision for yourself if you could? No editing. No censoring. No doubts. No fears. Everything and anything allowed. Do NOT get waylaid by the endlessly long list of reasons why you can’t have any of this. Let yourself be hungry for all of it. Let yourself want! Desire. Desire. Desire!

2. Name what you want.

There is no end to the thoughts and emotions that swirl within me. But unchecked, unarticulated, and unnamed they can, at times, become so overwhelming that I can’t see my way through to anything practical, to next steps, to any form of clarity. I feel overwhelmed and stuck.

Thankfully, these moments, even seasons, are increasingly rare. I have learned to move the words out of me. I intentionally make them tangible, seen, and heard. I write everything down and read it back to myself. I talk to others (in discerning, appropriate, and safe contexts). I literally see and hear my desire, my longed-for story, instead of *just* being aware of it within. And it’s the same that I’m encouraging for you.

Choose to let your words, thoughts, and emotions be named, heard, and seen by both self and others.

A Practical To-Do: Using #1, above, as prompt, ask yourself: what do I really-and-truly desire? Then close your eyes (yes, really) and type. No spellcheck. No worries. Just go! Some aspect of the inner critic gets silenced; when you open your eyes back up and read what you’ve written, you will see and hear with more acuity than before. Truth is spoken. Themes are revealed. And clarity emerges. Not all at once. Not forever and ever, amen. But in ways that are new, revelatory, and important. You’ll discover insights that can’t help but compel your needed next steps and the story you long to live!

Another Practical To-Do: Talk! To a therapist, coach, spiritual director, and/or trusted friend. It’s invaluable to hear yourself out loud. (An interim option is to record yourself on a voice memo. I’ve done this many times over the years and am always astounded by the words and unnamed truths I hear myself speak.)

3. Acknowledge what’s bound to get in the way.

When I start thinking about what I desire, I VERY quickly move to inventorying all the reasons why this isn’t going to work, why it’s going to be too hard, how I’m going to hurt others, how I’ll be misunderstood, and/or all the tension I’ll create . . . It is ONLY when I take the time and effort to articulate and name (yes, again) every bit of this that I can ever hope to move forward.

The story and life you desire and deserve automatically comes with risks, costs, and consequences. That’s the evidence that it’s real, that it’s powerful, that it’s worth pursuing!

A Practical To-Do: List out all the risks, costs, and consequences of your hoped-for future. What are you most afraid will happen? If those things do take place, then what might happen? And what are the risks, costs, and consequences if you DON’T pursue what matters most to you? This is not about doom and gloom; it is an honest acknowledgement of just how hard it is to move forward, how exhausting it is to lean into the wind, how challenging (and critical) it is to live what you desire and deserve. Now, of what you’ve named, what are you fully capable of handling when you already know it’s coming? What difference does it make when you’re not surprised by others’ reactions? How might paying even more attention to the costs of not living into what you most want, be the motivation you need to rise up and persevere?

4. Take actual steps over and through the obstacles.

I went through a long season in which there was a HUGE gap between what I felt on the inside and expressed on the outside. I made a deal with myself: “Just once today, you must tell the truth.” Sometimes, shockingly, nothing I’d feared actually happened. Other times I could see the hairline cracks extend under the facade I’d painstakingly sustained. Over time I got stronger, bolder, clearer. And eventually, bit by bit, the gap closed. I then made new decisions, took more steps, and watched myself begin to live in ways that felt aligned and sovereign. It was hardly dramatic and at times, almost imperceptible. But it was no less real.

Too much of the time we look at the chasm between where we are and where we want to be, then instantly feel certain that we do not have the capacity to make those kinds of leaps and dramatic changes. Understandably! Which is why you’re far better served by making tiny changes, experimenting, slightly tweaking your way of handling particular situations. That’s enough. It’s significant! And over time, those single, simple, small steps WILL add up to forward movement and even more momentum. I promise!

A Practical To-Do: Determine the very smallest step you could possibly take and take it! A “no” instead of a resentful “yes.” A beginning boundary enforced. Speaking (just once/day) instead of staying silent. Then take the next step and the next one after that. You’ve totally got this! I can hardly wait to see where those one-foot-in-front-of-the-other actions carry you in the the year ahead!

5. Don’t do any of this alone.

These steps, this effort, this life’s work? It’s a lot.

Perhaps easier said than done, but my strongest encouragement (and hope) on your behalf is that you choose to NOT be alone in any of it! I know how hard it is to navigate day-in, day-out life, let alone your stories — past, present, and future — without the consistency, kindness, safety, and wisdom, and presence of another. You don’t have to do it alone. Truly.

When we are not separated from self or each other, when we gather, when we vulnerably-and-bravely tell our truths, when we demand-and-live the story we desire and deserve, the earth shifts on its axis and everything changes.

If I were to create yet another list of next steps, it would look like this:

  • Find, ask for, and accept the support you need.

There’s absolutely nothing I want more for you, for me, for all of us — together.

May it be so.

*****

If this post resonates, subscribe to my Weekly Letter. It does NOT skim the surface. It goes deep. It’s filled with truth-telling. And it’s from my heart to yours. Every Monday. 6:00 am sharp. And completely free. Learn more. 

Why I Left My Corporate Job

Nov 26, 2021 | Sovereignty, Women's Voice & Power, Women's Wisdom

My thoughts on fear, courage, and being an entrepreneur.

In January of 2018 I left my 10-year-old online business for a job as a trainer/facilitator with a Leadership Development company. Though it was a complicated decision — walking away from my website, blogging, subscribers, my online presence — I knew it was the right one.

I was right. I loved the work. I loved the content I got to teach. And I loved the people I worked with. Just a year later, I was promoted. Then, just over a year later, Covid descended. Then, months after that, there was an unexpected senior leadership change. Then, everything changed.

In the midst of such, and regrettably, I watched myself move into my highly-honed default behaviors of compromise and compliance. I kept my head down. I didn’t speak up. I pulled back. I did what was required — but with less heart, less presence, less “me.” Until…

I pulled back far enough to notice. I had to honestly acknowledge that I was behaving in ways that were completely antithetical to who I knew myself to be. And though I couldn’t have known where it would lead, I said to myself, “No more.”

And then, things got even harder (as is almost always the case when we choose our own integrity, authenticity, and alignment over compromise and compliance). And harder still. Eventually, through a “mutual separation agreement,” I left. September 17, 2020.

It is hard to make choices on our own behalf when they are costly, when there is so much at stake, when fear of the unknown looms.

I believe this is almost always the nature of it — at least as I look back on the most significant decisions and transitions in my life. I also believe that bearing those costs and facing those fears exponentially increased the reward, my sense of strength and capacity, my awareness of my own value and worth.

If you are sitting at a crossroads, where the laundry list of costs feels nearly overwhelming, where what’s at stake is pretty much everything, where the fear of the unknown feels dark and scary, here’s what I want you to know:

  • Consider that the complexity and cost is the very evidence you need to confirm just how important this choice is, just how capable and worthy you are to make it, just how much you and your desires matter.
  • If it were simple or benign, you would have already made the move, had the conversation, left the job, risked it all, started your own business, enforced the boundary.It’s NOT simple or benign. Which is WHY it is asking so much of you.
  • Know that your costs and fears are real. You get to acknowledge them instead of push them under the surface. Not once, but over and over again. Though this feels daunting, it is like Olympic training: building strength you didn’t know you had in order to face and surmount challenges you didn’t know you could.
  • Trust me when I tell you that you are no less worthy if you wait, if you hold off, if you can’t bear those costs right now. I understand. You are still more than enough.

*****

Now just over a year out from my seemingly-stable corporate position that offered me a steady paycheck and benefits and frequent flyer miles and an expense account — I feel the to-be-expected angst of being on my own.

Day-in, day-out I see the costs, what’s at stake, and all my fears lined up like toy soldiers in front of my computer monitor waiting to be addressed or ignored, tackled or given into.

Day in, day-out I remind myself of what I’m doing and why it matters.

And day in, day-out I recognize that in spite of it all, I am choosing me — over and over again. Most days, that is more than enough benefit to stay the course, trust myself, and persist. Easy? Not at all. Worthwhile? That IS the risk, the gamble, and the focus of my endless hope.

May it be so.

3 ways to be fear-defying in writing and life

Nov 12, 2021 | Hope & Encouragement, Sovereignty, Women's Voice & Power, Women's Wisdom, Writing

When I look back over 17 years of blogging, here’s what stands out to me:

My voice has fluctuated, depending on the level of fear I’ve felt at any given time.

I’ll admit: “fear” sounds too strong, somehow, but when I boil it down, that IS what’s left.

What I wrote about when I was still married and still part of the church, is far different than what I said once outside both those structures (and strictures). I can see and remember how afraid I was to express my doubts, my questions, my grief, and the many places in which I was feeling more anger than hope. I was afraid I’d be misunderstood, that I’d go too far, that I’d be too much.

What I wrote about in my 40’s and 50’s was different than what I write today — now in my 60’s. And though I could go into all of the details and themes inherent here, suffice it to say, I was afraid I’d be misunderstood, that I’d go too far, that I’d be too much.

This looking back has “forced” me to track the circumstances and seasons in which I held back, hid even, because of fear — all of which was expressed (or not) in my writing. And as I’m inventorying every bit of this, I’m not only getting clearer about fear’s presence, but angrier. Not at myself, but at fear itself.

As women on this planet, we have been conditioned to be afraid, to be far more concerned with how others perceive and experience us, than to hold fast to (even fight on behalf of) who we know-that-we-know-that-we-know ourselves to be.

That needs to change.

In If Women Rose Rooted, Sharon Blackie says:

To become [one] who can express her wrath rather than her rage, and warn of the dire consequences of ignoring it, is to have stepped fully into your own power as a woman.

And in Untamed, Glennon Doyle says that women need to be “full of themselves.”

What we need right now is more women who have detoxed themselves so completely from the world’s expectations that they are full of nothing but themselves. What we need are women who are full of themselves.

A few chapters later she says this:

What the world needs is masses of women who are entirely out of control.

We must, you and me both, consider who we’d be and how we’d be, if fear weren’t present. Yes, in writing. In relationships. In our choices. In our work.

We must, you and me both, be crystal clear on (and done with) everything that has perpetuated its presence.

We must, you and me both, begin and continue to name our wrath over our rage.

We must, you and me both, step fully into our power as women. No more holding back. No more hiding. No more fear. Done.

*****

Here are three provocative questions to consider that serve as a helpful start and then some in this fear-defying, world-changing work:

  1. Who would you be right now (and what would you write) if you expressed your rage (at fear and all that perpetuates) it instead of ignoring it?
  2. Who would you be right now (and what would you write) if you didn’t pay any attention at all to anyone’s expectations of you?
  3. Who would you be right now (and what would you write) if you were entirely out of control (at least as far as the world is concerned)?

I won’t speak for you (though I’m guessing you feel the same): The answers to these three questions define how and what I want to write; more, how I want to live and who I want to be: unbound by fear, unmoved by others’ expectations, and completely unrestrained (even out of control).

May it be so.

How Courage is like Ballroom Dancing

Oct 29, 2021 | Sovereignty, Women's Voice & Power, Women's Wisdom

My favorite movie of all time is Strictly Ballroom. It’s an Australian film from 1992. Quirky. Hilarious. Endearing. (For film buffs: it’s the first in the Red Curtain Trilogy from Baz Luhrmann that includes the Leonardo DiCaprio version of Romeo and Juliet and Moulin Rouge with Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor.)

The first time I watched it was in 2001 while I was in grad school. Someone had recommended it as metaphor for something. I’ve long-forgotten what it was. What I’ve not ever forogotten though, is the experience of watching the credits roll at the end, hitting “back” on the remote, and watching it all over again. I could not tear myself away.

Since then, I’ve probably watched it another 15–20 times. (Just ask my daughters…) It touches something deep within me — something that feels familiar and hungry and true.

Though it could be some latent desire to learn ballroom dancing, I’m pretty sure it’s courage.

I won’t spoil the story for you (in case you are now in complete suspense as to how I could possibly like a film enough to watch it this many times), but I will given you my primary takeaway:

There are times in which I must be willing to break all the rules and believe that winning is not what matters — only dancing my own steps; I have no other choice, really, than to trust my heart…and leap.

Or in this case, paso doble.

Whether on the ballroom floor or, more likely, in the warp and woof of our everyday life, we encounter profound risk. The choice is ours as to whether it will overwhelm us or whisk us straight onto the dance floor.

Risk is actually the evidence that courage is not only called for, but (already and always) ours.

Need a bit more on this?

  • What if, instead of feeling overwhelmed by the risks you’re so quickly calculating in your brain, you saw them as data and proof for the significance and import of your voice, your honesty, your action?
  • What if the presence of risk (and your understandable fear) is what clarifies exactly what you need to do?
  • What if you don’t need to deliberate more, list out the pros and cons yet again, or cross your fingers one more time in the hopes that everything will just resolve itself?
  • What if the things that feel scary and daunting and cause your heart to race are evidence that courage is within reach and within you; that you are ready?

I know. I know. I know.

It’s not quite that simple. In fact, it’s downright complicated most of the time. Which is yet another reason why I love Strictly Ballroom: in just under two hours I can feel into all the fear, all the risks AND all the triumph of courage trusted and displayed.

It’s  because it’s hard, because it’s risky, that courage is needed at all.

And so we lean into and rely on some inner source of gumption; we step, speak, stand, leave, declare, name, intervene, stop, go, and yes, dance.

Believe me, I’m not trying to diminish or negate just how significant the risks and costs can be when you choose yourself, when you demonstrate courage, when you are fully sovereign. I get it. I have more stories to tell than times I’ve watched this movie where I’ve NOT trusted the courage that is mine, I’ve chosen others over myself, and I’ve chosen “safety” over self-trust.

This is what makes me think that perhaps courage is a lot like ballroom dancing.

Yes, courage requires (and is emboldened by) the small, incremental steps that I wrote about last week. But it’s also what’s required in the big moments, the huge decisions, the life-changing next steps, the things you’ve know are yours to do but that you’ve been holding back…

Listen to your heart.
Listen to and trust your wisdom.
Remember that agency is yours.
And then step onto that dance floor — even when the music stops and all hell breaks loose and it seems like it’s over (even though it’s not).

You and your courage are beautiful and glorious. We are riveted by you. Because this IS you — in all your glory.

Dance…please?