Be bad at ANYTHING

I’m a big advocate of journaling.  The habit of indulging myself on the page has become a life-changing, enriching, emboldening, expansive endeavor.  I write about stupid things.  I joke that if my posterity ever read my journal they’ll be like, “Who is [fill in the blank] for whoever is causing drama in my psyche?”

“It’s not important!” I’ll reply. 

“Yeah, but that name is mentioned like 7000 times in here!” And because it's in a word document they can ctrl+F and actually get an accurate count. *Sigh.*

Then I’ll reply with some sage wisdom about how what is going on in life is always more about you and less about the other people that step in to fill certain roles.

Because it’s been such a helpful tool for me, I have trouble not advising everyone to journal all the time.   But this isn’t fair—because some of us aren’t writers!  What if someone told me, Michelle, I really need you to sculpt this life experience—like pour it all into a sculpture.  Make me know what you are feeling and doing and being in this moment with clay…or worse—marble.

I would respond with a lot of fear and drama in my head because I know nothing about sculpture.  I could do it.  I’m confident of that.  If I applied myself, I could produce some piece of sculpture that would represent a piece of me.  It might take me 30 years but I could do it.  But WRITING is so much EASIER--for me!

So there is something to are said for picking a medium of expression that feels somewhat natural.  Maybe you have some skill with drawing or photography or singing or welding metal fragments.  There are so many ways to express oneself--the point is to pick one!

What holds us back from picking one is the inner critic.  It’s the voice that develops at some point between the time we are first introduced to crayons and the seventh grade.  It’s the voice that says, You aren’t any good at this.  This is stupid.  No one wants to read this.  That drawing doesn't even look like a person.  That critic becomes somewhat helpful as we navigate school, friends, college and career selection.  That voice can push us into areas where we have natural ability.  But eventually it becomes a crippling companion.  It’s the Tanya Harding brute force that takes us out at the knees.  It’s ugly.

So the first step is in identifying the voice of that critic.  When it pipes up, just take note, hear what it says.  Then realize that you are not bound to it.  You are free to be BAD at anything you put your mind to!  

There it is.

You can do anything as long as you’re willing to be bad at it.

You are hereby liberated!

So the choice in medium becomes less important—do what fills you in this moment!  I’ll admit, writing was a natural choice for me.  I chose it because I felt I was already a little good at it.  That’s okay!  And some days I draw and I’m really VERY mediocre at drawing but, when I’m most successful is when I’m willing to be bad at it!  I like drawing and maybe some day I’ll take some classes and figure out how to be better at it, but why should that stop me from expressing myself that way now!?!

There’s an unspoken rule, once you reach real adulthood (I’m not talking age 18—I mean the time in life when you can really do you) that you should only do things you are good at.  That rule is silly.  And it sucks.  Literally it sucks all the fun out of life.

Recently, I’ve been reacquainting myself with the piano.  I took lessons from age 8-15.  I *should* be quite proficient with that amount of lessons under my belt, but I’m just okay.  That just-okayness held me back from playing for years and years!  And I LOVE playing the piano.  Finally I decided that was silly.  When I got a piano in my home, I considered taking lessons to get myself up to a proficient state, but then I chucked that idea right out.  NO!  I’m going to allow myself to be bad at it. Taking lessons so I feel worthy to grace an instrument I love with my music was so silly.  I’m worthy right now.

I’m taking opportunities to challenge myself in this way.  I selected some challenging songs that I love.  One of them is from A Star Is Born and performed by Lady Gaga.  I do my best to play and sing like Lady Gaga, which is hilarious!  But I tell you what!  I get a lot closer to sounding like Gaga by shamelessly TRYING than I ever did by playing small.  You won’t see me on America’s Got Talent EVER, but if you want a private, amateur performance in my living room—then I’m your gal!  And all that’s changed is my willingness to be bad at it.

The same thing applies to surfing.  Every time I paddle out, I face some of the same old insecurity demons.  Then I just decide I’m totally fine being the worst surfer in the water and sometimes I am, and sometimes that mentality allows me to immerse myself so fully into surfing I completely forget about the ranking system and just surf!

I love how Mark Nepo describes this.  He says that when we are gifted with something, it’s tradition to be told that we should become that thing.  If I’m decent at writing, people will say, “You should be a writer.”

“But the power is in the DOING, not the in the BEING,” Mark says.  The power is in the verb, not the noun.  So forget about being a writer, and write!  Forget about being a singer, and sing!  Forget about being a surfer, and surf!  Focus on the verb!  Do the thing!  Pick the medium!  Be the YOU doing the things that bring you to life!

This is my commitment to myself—to continue to allow me to be bad at things—because that’s where all the power and all the life is!  Here’s your permission slip to do the same!  Namaste.

Kids are the best examples of immersion. R just spent 90 minutes outside tonight relocating muddy water in cupfuls to different locations in the yard...mud might be his preferred medium...

How to start feeling

I grew up in a house with four women which meant there was a lot of estrogen going around.  We were pretty adept at late-night sessions, hashing out the latest crises in our lives, letting our advice spill over into the wee hours when judgment for such things is waning and emotions are running high.  I was always the more detached, cerebral unit in this group.  I used humor as an escape and a facade to avoid these tell-all episodes when possible.  For years, these sessions were the glue that held the women in my family together.   They defined our get-togethers.  Sometimes they left us feeling closer and sometimes they just left us feeling more crazy and isolated.  The outcome was always a gamble.  

Thankfully, these sessions have changed.  My sisters came to San Diego for a getaway weekend this past week.  We’ve become better at this over the years.  It’s easier.  For one thing, the facade is starting to come down.  We’re not faking the always-clean house anymore.  We’ve dropped the idea that we should have it all together.

Another change that is coming about is emotional autonomy.  We aren’t perfect at it yet, but we’ve started to trust each other to take care of our own crap.  We are adopting the philosophy of I’m going to assume you’re okay with whatever is happening unless you tell me it’s not okay.  Maybe in some family dynamics this would be moving in the wrong direction, but in ours it’s magic.  We have a history of being endlessly caretaking to the point that no one will say where they want to have dinner for fear that someone will be disappointed but go along with it anyway.  It’s enough to make anyone bonkers.  

The third things is that we’ve started to cool it on the advice.  Advice, usually, just sucks.  It’s not helpful and it often makes the advised person feel like an idiot.  We probably suck at this one the most.  We still relentlessly advise each other because how do you not try to help your sister when she is telling you about something in her life that is causing her pain!?! That’s why I said we’ve STARTED to cool it.  No miraculous change here—just incremental.

So I was actually really honored when my sister opened up to me about avoiding her feelings.  She realized she was doing this a lot and had been for years.  Numbing out the negative emotion with food or TV or whatever.  She said, with the bravest honesty, that she wondered what it would take to give that up--and if she even wanted to.

Her simple utterance rang all my truth alarms.  I told her that that was a VERY valid question.  It’s a lot to feel.  It’s so much.  And at first you won’t know how to get it out—how to unbury that stuff that’s been locked away under layers of food and TV and shopping and piles of subconscious.  You’ll notice yourself binge eating or binge watching and, now because you’re slightly more conscious than before, you see it.  You think, I’m just numbing—what am I numbing?  And you won’t be able to figure it out at first.  

And you’ll judge yourself because that’s what you’ve always done.   Your brain will say things to you like, You’re weak. You always do this.   And then you’ll feel some shame about the numbing behavior which will really only feed it and you’ll wonder if you will ever get off this cycle.  But what you don’t realize is that your foot is already on the path to consciousness.  Because you noticed the numbing!  You identified it.  So a few weeks or months or years will go by and sometimes you’ll notice the numbing and identify it as it’s happening and sometimes you’ll see it after the fact and sometimes you won’t see it at all.

Then one day, as you reach for your first handful of Cadbury Mini Eggs—or maybe it will happen because you’re surprisingly out of chocolate—you’ll stop yourself and decide to really drill down.  What is the feeling I’m numbing?  You’ll search for a word, the chocolate smell heavy in the air.  Anger…fear…jealousy…tired…disappointment—DISAPPOINTMENT!  That’s it!  I’m disappointed.  

You’ll retrace your feeling steps back through the events of the last ten minutes or ten hours or ten days or ten years to realize that what you’re feeling in this moment is disappointment.  And then you will wonder what it feels like--without the chocolate.

You’ll picture a time when you felt disappointed.  You might even have to reach back to childhood if you’ve been numbing for a while.  You’ll lean into that memory as you lean into the current moment.  The lean means that you are getting into your body.  You will pull that feeling through your gut, to your fingertips and as you let go of the stoicism you will begin to cry.  You might be driving down the freeway sobbing over your steering wheel.  You might prostrate yourself on the kitchen floor as the disappointment takes over.  You let it.  

Part of you thinks this is completely ridiculous.  Another part of you worries that now that you’ve started crying you might never stop.  But you’ve already come this far so you continue to sob.  Tears are now coming from the darkest corners of your psyche.  DISAPPOINTMENT.  It’s such a simple emotion, so familiar, so easy to bury under layers of chocolate or busy-ness or novels or TV.  But now it’s racking you in full force.  Your face is covered in snot and tears.  You feel strange as the sobs start to slow—no wait, now they’re back again full-force—okay, now they are slowing.  

That’s the thing about emotions—they can’t last forever.  This is as equally true for the good ones as it is for the painful ones.  You look in the mirror and see your swollen eyes and snotty face, but it’s not pathetic.  There’s a little fire that’s started in your chest.  It’s the fire of self-respect because you did the hard thing—the brave thing.  You faced the disappointment dragon.  You shouted and beat your chest at the mouth of his cave and he devoured you.  Yet here you are on the other side of it, soggy but intact.  And that simple fact is proof that you can do it again.  Over and over and over again.  You can be devoured by the dragon because you were born to do this.  You were born to feel—not to numb, but TO FEEL.  

The weeks and months and years will pass.  Your emotional vocabulary will grow.  You will begin to see the dragons on the horizon and the fear of being devoured will become less.  Still, there will be times when you put on the sumo suit of chocolate or TV or exercise or podcast.  You will check out and the dragon will pass by, but it will secretly be waiting.

Sometimes you will notice these moments and you will judge yourself for it.  I should know better! I am enlightened! You really suck at this!  But another voice will tell you, you are human and the balance is what it’s all about. Be kind to yourself. Be patient with yourself.  Love yourself.  That is the way to freedom.  At first the shoulds will be loud in your ears.  You will wonder if you will EVER be good at this.  

The weeks and months and years will pass and you will realize that good is silly.  Good is a box and no one is shaped like a box.  We only come in human shapes.  By then you will suck less at this enlightenment business.  But that saying that goes something like, the more I learn the less I know will have come to pass.  

You will be very brave about being devoured by the dragon then.  For this reason, some people will think that you have too many feelings.  You won’t worry too much about those people because you will understand that we all have dragons lurking on the horizon.  

Sometimes you will succeed at standing firm while the dragon devours you and other times you will find yourself running to food or shopping or TV or drugs or incessant napping or alcohol or social media or sex or gambling.  But because you are conscious more often than not, you notice when you do these things.  And the reward of it becomes less because you see it for what it is—not an escape but a delay.  

And you start to be kind to yourself, to understand that sometimes you NEED a delay.  You aren’t yet ready to be devoured by the next dragon.  But because you know you are someone who faces down dragons, you trust that you will eventually summon the courage to be devoured and you will love yourself as you wait for that day.

Here’s to the journey, sister. I'm on it too.