Authentic Success

There are so many ways to internalize this statement.  It may make you feel selfish, it may make you feel small, it may make you feel powerful.  Regardless of your reaction today, I think it is SO important to learn the lessons from this statement.

I first heard this statement during a training weekend when I was telling the story of an incident.  We tend to get in to great detail about how the other person “made” us feel something, or they did something that prompted our reaction.  My imminently wise trainer simply said, “Deb, just remember it is always about you.”  It stopped me dead in my verbal tracks, and it was like little sparks started pinging around in my brain.  I had, of course, heard before that “nobody can make you feel something you don’t allow them to”, and other similar sayings, but I had not yet internalized the truth that my feelings were JUST about me.  Uh oh.  Time to sort some things out.

Nobody to blame, nobody to get angry at, no way to feel sorry for myself if it was all about me.  That truth was a HUGE lesson for me on my journey.  What is interesting though, is that for the first few years after understanding this statement (or at least I thought I did), it made me feel ashamed of myself.  It made me beat myself up for not doing, being and feeling better.  And that is NOT what this statement is about.

I believe this statement has a core in compassion and especially self-compassion.  So the next part of my understanding was that yes, I may have been playing victim way too much in my life, but I didn’t know any better at the time.  Thank you, Maya Angelou, for saying, “When you know better, you do better.”  She is right.  Once I knew that it was my responsibility to manage my emotions and my reactions to people, it was a whole new world of emotional control.

Here is a list of what this statement means to and for me.  I encourage you to think of it often and just let new awareness sink in each time:

• My happiness is completely dependent on me – my thoughts and my behaviours.  Nobody is coming to save me.  Nobody can hurt me but me.  There is so much responsibility to this statement, but please let it empower you as you create a life of happiness and success.
• My reactions to others are all about my life lessons, my beliefs and the lens through which I see the world.
• The behaviour, thoughts and feelings of others are truly none of my personal business.  For all of you “helpers” in the world (this includes me), this is a tough one, but my experience has shown me that the best way to serve others is to live, learn and be the best version of me right now.
• How I interact with the world is my choice every day.
• How I think, feel and react is not only my responsibility, but are triggers for how others react to everything about me (and those reactions are none of my business).
• My job is to be true to me, and trust that I am perfectly in the right place for my lessons, for my life, for my experiences.

So if you find yourself stuck in situations, emotions or turmoil that you are trying to sort out, please put the whole situation in the context of “my feelings are all about me. So what can I do about that?”  The solutions become pretty obvious from there.

From my “all about me” perspective, in the hopes of helping yours,

Deb

It was a distinct shock to my system the day I realized that righteous anger is just an excuse to really get behind a reaction I was having.  I used it to allow myself to burn fiercely with all of the anger I had in me and cross emotional lines I normally wouldn’t.  It felt so good to just dump all of my angst, resentment, anger and feelings of injustice on another person without having to rationalize my reaction.  That is the danger of righteous anger… the permission it gives you to relieve yourself of your personal emotional responsibility.

Here are a couple of examples:

That ego-maniac boss who treats you with no respect and who dared to make an inappropriate comment this morning.  And you fume, you build that righteous indignation to epic proportions because it feels so good to have a target.  After all, he was unequivocally wrong. No other way to look at it.  He was dead wrong and you have the RIGHT to be angry.  Yes you do.  What you don’t ever have the right to do is ignore the fact that your reaction is ALWAYS about you.

How about that Mom who dares to question your parenting methods?  She is blatantly rude, narrow-minded and so out of line.  Whoa baby, watch my kids for a second while I tear her apart.  After all, how dare she?  Who does she think she is?  And you fume, and you build that righteous indignation to epic Mom-kicking proportions because it feels so good to have a target.

Let’s face it – righteous anger is dangerous because it feels so fricking satisfying AND it feels justified. That feeling of justification is where this kind of anger is deceptive. It makes you think your feelings are accurate and based in a universal truth.  I can promise you that is almost never the case.

Here is the truth – it is ALWAYS about you.

Your reaction is a product of your thoughts, feelings and experiences and has nothing to do with the actual behaviour that causes it.  That boss who so offended you?  He triggered YOU, and that is your job to manage.  That rude Mom?  She is hitting at your soft spots and triggering that reaction based on your beliefs about yourself.  They don’t matter.  Their behaviour doesn’t matter.  Your reaction does.  It is a magnifying glass focussed on all of your triggers.  It is a gift to be explored – not participated in until is turns everyone around you to cinders.

The next time you feel that swell of anger, I want you to follow these steps:

1. Recognize that rising, swelling anger before it hits peak destruction mode.
2. Get curious (without judgement) about what it is in this situation that has triggered you.
3. Be a detective and gently dig in to where the trigger came from for you.
4. Thank the anger for showing you where you can focus your love and attention in the future.

Righteous anger is seductive.  It can be powerfully destructive or powerfully informative.  It is your choice to make because it is always about you.😊

Ever wonder why you can be capable, confident and powerful at work and yet, in your personal growth and development you feel like you are constantly floundering?  Or why you can be open, funny, silly and engaging at home, but that kind of behaviour has no place at work? For me, my “work self” was confident, solid, smart and powerful, and my “home self” was quiet, insecure, emotionally drained and in desperate need of a hug. These were two wildly different personalities that I put on every day. When I got exhausted enough by this pattern, I dug in to figure out why. The answer was pretty simple really – I was faking it at work!

Yep – I had simply learned to put an almost impenetrable mask of confidence on at work.  It let me be what I thought was a strong leader, a compassionate (albeit a little arrogant now that I think about it) listener, a great problem-solver.  It kept the vulnerable parts of me safe.  Genius really.  Or was it?

Here’s the danger if you notice your work life persona is a mask.  It is EXHAUSTING. I mean, on an energetic, authentic level…this kind of fakery is emotionally and energetically exhausting.  It robs from other areas of your life to shore up your professional life.  This might work temporarily to advance your career, but from an “authentic success” perspective, it is a flawed plan. One area will always be giving energy to support another, and eventually that imbalanced neglect will start to show.  You might get sick and need a few days off to recuperate, which allows you to store some much needed energy.  Your home life may get rather dramatic because you are short-tempered, exhausted and running on empty by the time you get home.  Your work may start to suffer because it is the only thing that will make you take notice.

For me, it was a series of dramatic and emotionally draining work events that precipitated my wake-up call.  A tricky thing about that confident mask – it blinds you to what your authentic self would see quite easily.  It keeps you operating in a state of fear that you have to be perfect, have the answer, push harder…all the damn time.  Here is the irony, your authentic, successful, flawed, powerful self, is so much more motivating and inspirational to others than your mask. Taking off that mask will allow you to fail without taking it personally, and achieve incredible success that you own on a very personal level (because let’s face it, you are too busy attacking the next challenge to own the success of the accomplishment you just achieved).  The truth is that there is immense power in shining your true face to the world.

Bottom line…the harder you are holding on to that mask, the deeper is your fear of not being good enough or accepted for your true self.  That fear is a dangerous place to live, because it cuts off your true access to happiness and success.  I can promise that taking off your mask is worth all of the learning, vulnerability and practice that it takes to show, shine and rock your authentic face to the world.  I hope you find that bravery for yourself – it is absolutely worth it.

There are two parts of this knowledge that I rejected for quite a while.  The first was that to come first was selfish.  It was the opposite of what I was “trained” to do. Others’ thoughts, feelings and needs come first, and my needs would be met by meeting theirs.  I was supposed to be happy because I had “helped” others. For a while, I really was. At work I supported, re-arranged, put out fires, etc., to keep my team happy.  At home I gave, and gave, and gave. After a while I simply had nothing left to give. I now know that it’s because you have to fill your own “cup” back up in order to keep pouring for others.

The second part that I rejected instinctively was that to put me first meant I had to think about me. I was overwhelmed by my need NOT to do this. Self-reflection is hard. Taking action based on what you learn about yourself is even harder. Now you know that you are letting others walk all over you.  Now you know that you are sad, lonely, angry, resentful, etc., and you can’t shut it off.  Why would I want to do that to myself?

The answer is simple. If I don’t I run out of all of the good stuff about me. The caring. The empathy. The giving. All gone. It gets replaced with all of the negative feelings that used to be safely insulated by the good ones. So here is a list of reasons to put yourself first – in catchy quotes. 😊

1. You can’t pour from an empty cup.
2. We teach people how to treat us.
3. The only person we are guaranteed to spend forever with is ourselves – take care of him/her.
4. The best in people comes out when they are loved, respected and honoured – this means you too!
5. Your energy introduces you before you speak when you enter a room. Shine bright and others will respond with their best selves too.

Whether you take care of your family, lead others at work, or care for others as your profession, you HAVE to come first. Chances are very good that if you suffer from anxiety, or overwhelm, or consistently angry thoughts, it’s because you aren’t taking care of you. The world needs your best self, please be selfish enough to give it to them.