The Glass is Already Broken :: SONIMA Article

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 10/2/15 ON SONIMA.COM

In this moment, it’s early autumn in New York and the weather presents itself as an invitation to be easy. The sensation of moving freely, without layers, makes me feel intrinsically more connected; there’s no barrier between my environment and my skin. This is a sweet time of year, an easy season to inhabit, with Indian Summer days that seemingly stretch through forever.

Of course the calendar reminds me otherwise. The sun is setting much earlier now, and the warmest days of the year have passed.

One of the hardest natural laws to reconcile is that everything is subject to change whether we want it to or not. Autumn turns to winter and winter turns to spring. The Law of Impermanence is everywhere and the seasons just stand up to testify.

I would guess that by the time we’ve hit adulthood, we’ve all felt the truth of impermanence in a million mundane ways. Job situations break down. Love affairs ignite and fizzle. Even our own bodies change, eventually becoming weathered and time-worn. I have bottles of eye serums and face creams that promise to exonerate me from this rule, but at 33, those first few unruly grey hairs tell it to me straight. I can prolong, postpone and deny the inevitable, but what comes to pass does not stay.

This is often presented as the “bad news,” or fodder for an existential crisis. I’m reminded of a video that was circulated recently of a young girl who realizes her infant brother will grow up, and quickly begins to connect the dots to her own mortality. Her breakdown at the realization is touching because we’ve all been there. The tenuous nature of things can be a difficult pill to swallow.

When impermanence is served as the “good news,” it’s often as a salve in difficult times. This too shall pass. Time heals all things. When one door closes, a new window opens. Even heartbreak changes.

However, I can’t help but wonder if rather than “good news” or “bad news,” impermanence is simply “the news”—the way that we generally accept that organic matter breaks down, without artificial preservatives. As Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron reminds us, “That nothing is static or fixed, that all is fleeting and impermanent, is the first mark of existence. It is the ordinary state of affairs.”

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6 Lessons from the Global Coaching Classroom

This week launched the beginning of a fresh round of coaching circles at The Institute for Integrative Nutrition.

A few times a year, I host group coaching calls for current students of my alma mater that have collected from across the globe. I'm joined by students from Dubai, Ireland, Texas, Japan, and many of the locations in between.

I lovingly think of these groups as my Global Coaching Classroom. I'm assigned eight groups. Twelve hours of coaching a week. 40+ women (and two lucky fellas), a cross section of personalities and backgrounds, with a sweet knitting-circle sort of vibe. 

We talk business and marketing. We get deep into coaching technique. We roll up our sleeves together and chart the course for the lives they want to create, while deconstructing what having their dreams would do for them.

It's all about extrinsic goals that give us an intrinsic feeling, and employing strategies to make that happen.

I've been coaching these groups for close to 6 years now, but it never fails to feel like the first day of school. The nerves. The expectation. The desire to leave them with golden nuggets and help them reveal their own perfect wisdom.

What inevitably happens in this "first week of school", though, is that I'm brought around to my own golden nuggets— tiny truths and solid reminders of why I love doing this work, how we're all better, more clear, and devoted to our dreams after having spent 7 weeks together. 

The students become the teachers. The teacher is a perpetual student. In a container of reciprocal learning, the lines are more blurred than we think. 

Here are 4 lessons that I was reminded of last week: Straight from the coaching classroom.

1 :: We all have a story to share. Give people a chance to tell theirs, and we're given an opportunity find the nooks and crannies where we all connect.

Although these groups of creative change-makers span cultures, ages, and locations on the global map, our differences became less blaring than our commonalities once we all began sharing our stories. What brought them to the table? What are their intentions? What are they looking to create and contribute? Who else might benefit from their vision?

Many have come from a path of challenge and healing. Many have a vision of leaving the world a little better than they found it. And all of us are perusing our personal definition of freedom. We’re different, complex, and all strikingly human. 

Lesson: When we give others a chance to tell their stories, we're given a gateway to our similarities in return.

2 :: One of the best forms of education is direct experience.

There's the information we read in books, and then there's the knowledge we've lived into our bones. 

This is any experience we've had close up, immersed ourselves in, kneaded it with our own two hands in such a way that it's left an impression in our skin and our psyches. Intimacy does that--intimacy with people, experiences, practices--closeness makes an impression.

Much can be said about academics and book smarts, but there’s another form of learning, brought to us by The School of Life, that can’t be underestimated. What have you lived through? What did that experience teach you? 

Are there rituals, skills, or circumstances that you’ve gained personal insight into, simply by spending time doing them?

Whether it’s playing the piano, juicing, soothsaying, or motherhood, the learning that comes from practicing repeatedly is what develops our “expertise”. 

Studying up on a topic is great, but DOING IT is how we alchemize information into understanding, and develop a well crafted perspective we can share. 

Lesson: Step away from the manual. Step into the experience of it. Keep an open heart/mind and you’ll learn along the way. 

3 :: Community connection is a healing modality.

As the doyenne of empathy, Brené Brown would say, shame breeds in isolation. It thrives on secrecy. And once it’s spoken, it dissipates. It’s easy to think that we’re the only ones who feel confused, overwhelmed and “not quite ___ enough” when we hide these feelings under the veneer of having our shit together. We’ve all done this on occasion. I know I'm not alone here. None of us wants to be perceived as a hot mess, a failure, a fraud. 

However, these feelings need oxygen to heal, and that comes in the form of connection. 

Sharing ourselves in totality with supportive, likeminded people reminds us that we’re not alone, and that others feel the same. It’s also a keen reminder that our emotions don’t have to break us, they can come along with us for the ride. And if that ride includes the support of others, it’s bound to be faster, smoother, and a whole lot more enjoyable. 

Lesson: Allowing ourselves to be seen, and encouraging each other to shine is a fast track to collective blossoming. 

4 :: Feeling grounded, authentic, and at home in our skin is a metric of success.

Recognition. Accolades. A seat at the Lady Boss table. Our name in flashing lights. We all have an idea of when we'll know we've "made it", and a personal inkling of what success looks like. But what does our version of success feel like; even if those external metrics never come to fruition?

Most of the time we're chasing an external idea of success because of the way we believe it will make us feel. 

Contentment, freedom, security, confidence, and the limitless permission slip of self expression come from being more at home with ourselves. The next time we take out the measuring stick and ask ourselves what our version of success is, we might also ask what we believe this success will make us feel. It's here that we'll find what we truly want.  Often, it's a feeling we can cultivate by becoming more at home with ourselves-- with or without the added bling. 

Lesson: The ability to be at home in any situation, because you're at home in your skin is a dazzling, intangible, measureless way of knowing you've "made it". 

The Pitfalls of Pursuing Your Purpose :: SONIMA article

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 3/18/15 ON SONIMA.COM 

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The trajectory of my 20s reads like a dilettante’s handbook, or a drunk pirate’s treasure map; winding, dabbling, non-linear. Like most children of the 80s, I was raised in the height of the self-esteem movement, with its encouraging maxim that I could do anything I wanted to do, and be anything I wanted to be. Thankfully I’ve also had the privilege of parents who supported this view. When I proudly announced in 4th grade that I would be the first woman president, no one batted an eye. When I decided to move to Manhattan after high school, I was given a hug, two cans of mace, and a membership to Bally’s Sport’s Club; just in case I wound up homeless and needed a place to shower.

I had faith in my own resourcefulness and in the benevolence of mankind. I didn’t have a plan, per se, but I was on a mission to find my purpose. Oh, sweet purpose. The final frontier.

The importance of purpose is not a new concept, but one that seems to be on our minds quite a bit these days. According to the 2015 Deloitte Millennial Survey, 60% of the millennial generation listed a “sense of purpose” within the organization when asked why they chose their current employers. Purpose-driven books topped the New York Times bestsellers list in 2014, with titles like Your Life Calling by Jane Pauley, and The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change by Adam Braun. And ranking third in the Top 10 most watched TED Talks of all time, Simon Sinek asks us what “our purpose, our cause, our belief” is; urging 21 million viewers worldwide to connect with our “WHY.” I’m responsible for at least 30 of those views, I’ve shared this gem so often.

On one hand, I find this turn toward purpose incredibly heartening. In a culture that traditionally values metrics of success, it suggests that we’re asking ourselves how to live by our own standards, collectively elevating meaning over measurement. When I was a Girl Scout our motto was: “Always leave things better than you found them,” which is an idea reflected in the popularity of purpose. We’re consciously contemplating what we’re built for, and how best to contribute to the world.

On the other hand, I can’t seem to shake the feeling that all of this “find your purpose” business is somehow missing the mark. There’s something lacking from the conversation; and it’s the small but mighty distinction between having a purpose and living a purposeful life.

It may seem like a matter of syntax, but syntax is important. The way that we talk about things reveals our relationship to them, and ultimately, how we approach them. In the case of purpose, it’s the difference between seeking the keys to redemption and revealing what’s already there.

During my decade as a dilettante, I would lay awake, fixed on the water stain above my bed wishing for some sort of map. I had tried my hand at acting and spent a year in film school. I wrote sketch comedy on the side, worked in food advocacy, studied design in undergrad, and worked enough crappy waitressing jobs to redefine my notion of humility. I had a passion for travel and yoga, but could that truly be my purpose? I’d always had a knack for organizing, but was this my soul’s North Star?

When given too much gravitas, finding “our purpose” can be frustrating, and at worst, a trap of paralysis. If we truly have a calling, a single purpose in this world, what if we never find it? Are we destined to go through the motions, a half-lived vessel of unrealized potential?

Related: How Making Time for Reflection Can Help Unlock Your Potential

Defining our purpose as a destination or a single pointed direction bears resemblance to searching for “The One”. Even if we do find our forever person, or the mission statement we can live by that fills our days with meaning, there might always the lingering question of whether we’ve made the right decision, if we’re missing out. Even if we feel a sense of certainty, it’s easy to attach the expectation that it will always remain the same; which pits our hopes against the laws of ever-changing nature.

Purpose was just another way of chasing that magical “someday” that precluded my self-acceptance.

If you had asked me about my purpose when I was 7, I would have given you a cock-eyed stare, most likely because I was busy discovering the world through first-time experiences. Everything had purpose; from crickets to kickball to Paula Abdul.

It all clicked into place during one of those crappy waitressing shifts. This wasn’t, by any stretch, my forever career. I smelled like fried calamari and had ketchup in my hair. However I decided to try an experiment. What if I tried treating all of this like it mattered? What might happen if rather than approaching this like a sidebar to my life’s purpose, I brought purpose into my approach? What if I am purposeful instead of waiting for one to redeem me? The answer is that I stopped looking for my purpose—the one I claimed ownership to—and allowed purpose to flavor my moments.

I can’t help but think that rather than having a purpose, we simply have purpose. It’s something akin to dignity or meaning, an inheritance of being alive. We can direct our purposefulness through clearly chosen intentions, but ultimately, it’s a quality we possess, not a statement, a job title, or a place that we find.

My friend Marisa once told me a story of an MTA employee who worked in a Brooklyn subway booth. Each morning she would emerge from the train, and he would lock eyes with her, and greet her warmly. They became familiar through their daily exchange; a wave, a smile, a connection. She talks about how this always made her mornings, they joy he brought to his booth, his generosity of spirit. After some weeks she noticed that she wasn’t alone. This tollbooth employee had a relationship with every regular commuter, exiting the train and waving. Some mornings there would be dozens of people who would wave, and stop to say hello on their way to the subway stairs.

This man’s purpose wasn’t raised on a banner for the rest of the world to see, but rather he connected to the world through the act of purposeful living.

If you’ve decided that this is the year to find your purpose, the good news is you can relax. It’s already there and best lived through you. The way to find purpose is to apply it generously; to the crappy jobs, and the sleepless nights, and the hours stuck in traffic. If our lives are purposeful, then nothing gets excluded.

Our moments, after all, only have the meaning we give them.

The Nakedness of Blossoming

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.  --Anais Nin

A day after reading these words, I found myself on a street corner of St. Marks Place in the East Village buying mauled paperback copies of Anias Nin's diary.

Volumes One and Two. Seven bucks a pop. 

I've always looked to literary lionesses for guidance. Essayists, journalists, novelests, bloggers. Women who write to know themselves, and report their world in a way that feels universal and brave in a way that I traditionally am not.

Bravery comes in many forms. Put me in a room with tigers, and I'm the grittiest gal you know. I'm strong in times of crisis. If the ceiling is caving in either literally or metaphorically, I'm the first to roll up my sleeves. 

Ask me to be vulnerable, however, and my first impulse is to close up like a morning glory at dusk. Tight inside my bud.

I've always seen vulnerability as something that looks good on other people. 

Maybe that's why I've always been more apt to declare myself an avid reader than any amount of a writer. I do both with similar frequency, but the latter requires me to stand out in the open with my words. 

The thing about opening, blossoming, after all, is that it requires us to unravel. To be exposed. Naked. And I was taught, like a nice and proper girl, to keep my shit together with a smile. Thank-you-very-much.

No exposure, no risk. No risk, no heartbreak. Seemed like a logical equation to me, but one that was paltry and missing a beat. I realized later that the tail of that equation is No heartbreak, no living. And frankly, what else is life for? 

Anais Nin's challenge of 'taking the risk to blossom' smacked with a bravery that I knew I wanted more of. I imagined she would disclose how she did it, conducted her life naked and exposed, while simultaneously strong.

A path to proverbial freedom.

Perhaps I read too much into that quote, or expected too much of her insights to lead me. Perhaps I wanted to defer the responsibility of living into it myself. Regardless, I spent that summer lapping up her words with a highlighting pen.

What I found was a map of salacious affairs, bohemian living, unrepentant sexuality. She lived fiercely on her own terms in many admirable ways.

In many other ways, though, Ms. Nin was not free from her bud at all. An intricate web of secrecy, maintaining marriages to multiple men, the "Box of Lies" she created to keep her own indiscretions straight. 

Paradox is part of being human I suppose. We all have contadictions. I expected a model of liberation-via-truth, and encountered a model of being messy, unapologetically flawed and complex.

Perhaps the punch line is that they're one in the same. 

Recently, I've been taking a course created by my friend and wordsmith crush, Patia Braithwaite. It's called The Soulful Blogger, and it's challenge to us is to get naked in our writing.

Its been messy. And scary. The thing about writing (slash-living) naked, is that vulnerability cannot be performed. It has to be embodied and spoken through, directly. Like the literary lionesses I look to for guidance,  The practice the freedom comes with sharing: our voices, our views, out in the open.

We can receive guidance, but no one else can give us the roadmap to our freedom, to our blossoming. We just have to disrobe, and stand out in the open. Imperfectly perfect. Human and flawed. In solidarity with ourselves. 

An Ode to our Adequate Whole-ness

We are complete, comprehensive and complex. 

We don't come with an instruction manual.
We come with Instinct. Trust it. 

We are plenty, we are full, we are exquisitely elegant by virtue of being alive. 
We don't need fixing. We don't need "more".

We have everything we need.

WE ARE SUFFICIENT.

Our Sufficiency is our birthright. 
Instinct is our inborn wisdom. 
Intuition, the golden thread that connects us all to the greater whole and details we cannot yet see...

There are moments when we've forgotten our nature and scrunched ourselves in tiny boxes to Fit In when all we wanted was to Belong. 

Our messy parts: whitewashed, 
Our vulnerability: armored
Our voices: edited, silenced, subdued.

Perhaps we found our wildest wishes unsightly or just beyond our grasp. 
Perhaps we've just forgotten who we are. 

Perhaps we just need a little practice Trusting Ourselves...