I used to write my blog every Sunday.
It was part of my Sunday routine. It helped me to gather my thoughts, to connect the dots, so to speak, and to get me ready to talk with other people. See, I spend a lot of time in my head, and sometimes what I am thinking about isn’t ready for human consumption.
When I don’t write regularly, the “thinking, overthinking, considering options, asking questions, searching for answers, searching for more answers, asking even more questions” cycle can really do a number on me, and subsequently, on those around me.
I used to think that everyone was the same – constantly analyzing everything – but I’ve learned that is not the case. Most people accept things, they move on, they complain and then they let it go.
For the past year, I have been working with a leadership coach using the DISC Assessment to better understand my own style and how I can relate better with the people around me. I have challenged myself to learn and grow in ways I would not have thought possible a year ago. I have developed new skills. I have put myself in situations that have challenged my comfort level and have been just plain scary for me.
The thing is, the more I learn about myself and the patterns of behavior that made me comfortable before, the more I recognize I need to and want to be better. I am outgrowing my own sense of identity.
Which is, quite frankly, terrifying.
I don’t know what the future holds for me. I am meeting so many new people with new ideas and making connections that I would have avoided before. I am trying to bring gratitude and openness to the party inside my head every day.
And I am trying to write as much as possible because it is still the best way for me to connect the dots and pull my thoughts together.
If you know me at all, you know that Anne Lamott and Brene Brown are my go-tos for advice, inspiration, and feeling that there is hope for my overthinking brain in a world of complacency. I will leave you with this thought from Anne Lamott because there is really no better way to say it:
“Life is both a precious, unfathomably beautiful gift, and it’s impossible here, on the incarnational side of things. It’s been a very bad match for those of us who were born extremely sensitive. It’s so hard and weird that we sometimes wonder if we’re being punked. It’s filled simultaneously with heartbreaking sweetness and beauty, desperate poverty, floods and babies and acne and Mozart, all swirled together. I don’t think it’s an ideal system.”
I think Anne Lamott gets me.
It would be great if my words make things just a bit better for you, as Anne Lamott’s words do for me. We are here to be for others. It’s not the model that we see and it’s not the leadership that we have right now, but it is our why.
It’s my why – why I am learning and growing and following my path into the unknown when I thought I had a one-way ticket to an ending that was already written. It’s why I write. It’s why I share my struggles. And it’s why I am passionate about things like education and community.
Today, I challenge you to write something – maybe it’s a letter or a journal or maybe you start a blog. Writing is a window into your soul and that window shows us how we can start to grow.