Oh 2020, How Much I have Learned!
What a year this has been.
It has been filled with grief, anxiety, hope, loss, joy, fear, and empowerment. It has been a year that has taught me so much and a time in my life I feel like I am finally grieving, processing, and working through some of my deeply rooted shame stories.
Me and my family hiking near Mt Hood (and the most detailed photo I will probably share of Ev on the internet)
In the midst of all of the shared distress and anxiety, Jordan and I welcomed our daughter, Everly, about a week before the country shut down. Becoming a new parent — something that is already such a complex swirl of emotions with a thin candy coating of sleep deprivation — is such an amazing and overwhelming shift in life.
Anyone who has been in a caregiver role can likely attest to this feeling. To say that taking this on while the world felt like it was crumbling was not easy and it seemed that we would hit major sleep regressions or teething episodes concurrent with some major stressor or shift outside of the home — the fires that ravaged the PNW were just miles from our house, the murder of George Floyd and our city becoming a major voice in the protests, the demands that Jordan and the entire OHSU Emergency Medicine department faced with the earth-shattering effects of COVID (not to mention...long run-on sentence rant coming up...the battle to be taken seriously by the world and the responsibility that falls on him to see and treat COVID cases daily while also having to keep our family safe with precautions that often mean he is gone even longer from the house because he is showering and bagging his clothes, practically dousing himself in hand sanitizer and often not getting to eat and fuel his body on shift because the demand in the department is high and wearing full PPE makes it impossible to even sip water without the risk of contamination).
In a mixture of “have to” and “want to”, I took some time away from my work — or at least the outward-facing pieces of it — in order to spend time exploring this new role of “mom” and figuring out how it integrated into my life.
For me, not only did being a new mom bring the challenges of figuring out how to actually be a parent — and survive the sleep deprivation — but along with Everly came an invitation to address deeply rooted shame narratives surrounding my role and identity, the pressure I have felt to prove my worth and be perfect or “right” in order to measure up to some artificial level and measure of success.
When Ev would go down for a nap, I would feel a surge of anxiety with everything I needed to do or get done in that time. I struggled to be home all of the time — even though I absolutely knew it was one of the best things I could do to keep my family and others in our community safe during the pandemic — and feeling like my life was becoming one amorphous blob. I felt a pressure to be seeing patients because the need was so great but felt myself burning out as I would spend hours a day trying to support people in navigating these times of uncertainty and feeling the same burdens and pressures they were. I worried I was slacking in my business and felt like I had to just stay in motion no matter what.
Feeling pulled in a million directions and in uncharted territory in almost every aspect of my life, I decided to turn and embrace my shame. I had to really sit in these elements of pressure, doubt, and uncertainty to figure out where the problem really rooted inside of me. I had to get clear on the “rules” shame was pressuring me to ascribe to and figure out if I truly believed them for myself. By making this pivot and allowing myself to really walk through my shame, I made the decision to take some time away from all of the things that seemed to be pressuring me — including my business.
Why?
So I could figure out what I really wanted from them — and from myself — without shame getting in the way.
I learned...well re-learned as I already knew this part... that my shame was motivated by a need to feel perfect, powerful, and that I can do “all of the things”. Shame was pushing me to “do” without intention. I was creating content for my business. I was “doing the work” in my personal and professional life but not with true connection and meaning. I was "doing" because I “should” or because of money scarcity or because I was fearing the narrative of not “doing enough”.
And while that worked in some aspects of my life, I definitely think this contributed significantly to my sleep loss and the anxiety I felt throughout the year. I mean, yes, the parenting stuff was hard, but it was so much of the internal tension that was really making me ache inside and out.
The more I looked inward and truly listened to my inner voice, the clearer I got on a few things:
I have a major scarcity mindset around money and in particular, feeling like I am not “pulling my weight”. I fear that I am not contributing enough or doing enough and that will create resentment.
Sometimes, I can be very self-absorbed. Yes, we all can be...and, sometimes I avoided seeing that I am a part of the “all”. Sometimes that would come out as feeling like I was being left to do all the hard stuff at home with Everly and the house and Jordan just “got to leave” - which is laughable now as “get to leave” meant going to an overcrowded Emergency Department rode with COVID and missing time with Everly.
I am very good at being alone. But, the alone time is where my shame thrives.
I didn’t make space to allow the role of parent to integrate into my life but added it into an already full life. Things have to “go” in order to make space to be the parent I want to be.
Toxic positivity is a real thing. Not everything is wonderful. The world telling me I can be more productive, get more done, have time for fun and carefree projects and all. of. the. baking…..so much bread! Plus, there was the constant, “Oh, how lucky you get to have all of this time with your daughter”. Do not get me wrong, I absolutely love my daughter and being a mom (most of the time, let’s be real…babies are hard), and when people constantly ascribe meaning and labels to our lives, it strips us of the right to have our own experience or to normalize that happiness is not a destination. There are days that, yes, people may have been more productive or have greater energy. And there were days that this was furthest from the truth. There are so many benefits to being able to be home and with your kids — I get to see so much of her growing up. And, it is consuming. I was anxious, overwhelmed, and longing for some “me time”. Plus, the sudden change in how I was able to show up in my business and in other relationships needed to be embraced and grieved.
I often get in my own way of doing the work that brings the greatest connection and meaning to my life and has the potential to make the greatest impact by focusing on the low hanging fruit or allowing my shame or scarcity mindset to rule the land.
I do not want to keep going as fast as I was trying to go. And I want less noise.
And, at the end of it all, the biggest truth I have found is that, when the options are on the table, I will always, any day, no matter what, give up anything I have going on in order to be with my family. They are not all of me but they are the greatest part of me and the joy I find in my life. And I, or my ego, rather, has to learn to be okay with this because it means my timeline may look different than I want or thought. And it might mean that how I go about serving the world looks different than what my ego and shame think I should be doing.
I wouldn’t say that I have finished sorting through all of the invitations for reflection and growth that I received this year but the work I have done has really allowed me to make some significant mindset changes and hence, structural changes to the way I view and see my business and the ways I want to truly show up and support all of you.
I look forward to allowing these facets of myself and of my professional endeavors to unveil themselves over time and to get to know you and support you on a much deeper level.
As you spend time reflecting on what this year has meant for you, I would love to hear your own musings, reflections, insights, and pain points. Drop a comment below!
The more we connect in these opportunities for reflection and growth, the stronger we become individually and as a community.