Cleaning Out

I’ve been to Sedona and back and had the cobwebs cleared from my brain.  Back in the area, I decided to do a deep dive into myself….with a fast….a cleansing fast.  The fast has been around as long as I’ve been alive – some call it the lemonade diet. 

Today is day five.

It’s a real cleaning out.  Surprisingly not very hungry, still I’m craving tomatoes.  Go figure.  Why not cheeseburgers or tacos?  No…I’m craving tomatoes.

So what does this have to do with transitions and letting go?  While in Sedona, I was advised to radically transform how I view my body and feed my body.  I have been in the same pattern of habits and behaviors for quite some time now.  Sometimes, as in the case of losing a job, transitions are harsh.  The snap of that whip of transition is what is needed to jar the thought processes.  While cleaning out my body, I have surfaced a lot of negative beliefs that no longer serve me.  I understand that the cleansing is helping to bring these forward so I can decide…do I want to hang on to negativity, dark thinking, being small, victimization?  Or would I prefer to cleanse them.  That way if they do surface again, the resurfacing is a shorter duration.  Perhaps it hurts as much but doesn’t last nearly so long.  Like the difference between day three of the fast (the day that would never end) and day five.

What other patterns and beliefs am I hiding behind that prevent me from being the highest and best that I can be in the world?  Still cleaning….

Sneaky

I’ve read the books. I’ve heard the news reports. I’ve talked to friends who were out of work. And I thought it would elude me… I thought the grief and despair would not be a part of my experience. Why would I think that? What was I thinking?

The grief has caught up with me. I found out another person was let go at my previous employment. This was a person I had recruited and mentored. I see the culture that I worked tirelessly to cultivate, dismantling. I know that I am still attached. That makes me sad. I want to sail away, walk away, dance away without bumps and bruises. I take it personally.

A friend says that the culture is a reflection of the leader. I talk about draining my life-force to create it….this is more victim mentality. That place I am vigilant about seeing and not succumbing to. So, if the culture is a reflection of the leader, I want to work with the leaders. If the pace of the leader is the pace of the pact, I want to work with those who are setting the pace. This becomes clearer to me. It’s a leverage point. Instead of growing one healthy, collaborative culture, I can aid many others to create many others.

This dark place that I am currently sitting in has me asking, “is this true?”. I thought I was above the grief…so, what do I really know.

When all is said and done, I do understand that “this, too, shall pass”. I just need to sit here a little longer until I can see some light.

Grasping

I found LinkedIn – or rather it found me. It has proven to be equally an efficient connector as well as a great distraction. I have “found” people in my professional life whom have been “lost” and that has led to a good deal of connecting. Lots of lunches and coffees and phone calls. It has also become a source of distraction.

By that, I mean I have noticed this grasping energy that is rising up in me. How many people can I be linked to? When can I fit someone in for a connection? What am I going to talk about? What do I want to do? What service can I provide? Do I position myself in my own business? Yada yada yada yada. I feel that I’ve stepped into a swirling vortex – one that I forgot was there. It’s dangerous. I’m not focused and I’ve moved out of the flow. I feel like I’m grasping and grabbing and moving back into controlling behaviors that are not helpful.

I have committed to the flow of this process – no matter how uncomfortable I am with allowing the information to flow through contemplation, reading, writing and great discussions. I don’t have to MAKE something happen right now. This is a part of that big ugly closet waiting to be cleaned. I’m seeing only the edges of this deep belief pattern that if I don’t make it so, it ain’t gonna happen. This belief pattern has its merit. Success may have eluded me without a willingness to take action. But when over-used, it becomes seductive and destructive and I become an island with no life-force.

This place that I go – this need to make it happen with a frenetic pace –represents a lack of discipline. My own self discipline is lacking. Today is a computer limited day – I’ve got a guest room closet waiting to inform me.

Inside versus Out

So much on the inside is cleaned and organized and the outer suffers. I awoke this morning to a “real mess” in my home – dishes left in the sink, boxes waiting to be broken down and trashed out, paper accumulating on the dining room table, the outcasts of my children’s room cleaning sitting proudly in the hallway.

So many of my drawers and closets are cleaned and the outer part looks a wreck.

So goes the cleaning out of MP. So many of my internal beliefs, paradigms and patterns are being reorganized and de-cluttered. The outer me – who and what I “am” in the world – is a little messy and cluttered right now. I am aware of this emerging pattern of “lack”. Don’t get me wrong, I am extremely grateful for this time and the financial ease that I am enjoying right now. The Lack (yes, with a capital L) has to do with seeing the blurry future and focusing, instead, on the dark chasm of the unknown and doubt and that which is still unclear. The Lack is a seemingly unending chasm where all the fear monsters live.

The image I want to hold…is that I am moving towards that distant side. It’s blurry because I don’t have my glasses on yet. And each time I step out into the darkness, a sturdy stone step appears. One by one, the steps pop up out of the darkness to support me. Eventually the other side will become clear.

Oh and by the way, there is still one big, hairy and ugly closet in my home that has not yet been tackled. It’s the ugliest closet of all. I wonder if this is symbolic of this war in me between fear and faith. The closet and the chasm – trash or treasure?

Fear

I continue to have a blossom of fear since leaving my job. It is symbolic of a belief of lack that continues to elude elimination. I look at the chasm between the grace that has been bestowed upon me and where I “need” to go. What remains is a black hole…fully replete with darkness, indecision, hiding and “not-knowing”.

I wonder what will replace what has been. I know that in my present state of mind that I will not see.

So, I wait.

Fear Warnings

I had my first inklings of fear this past week. A little voice in the back of my head saying, “what if….” What if there are no jobs when I’m ready to work? What if the trail goes cold and nobody remembers me? What if nobody is interested in leadership coaching, in management training, in executive positions????

I found center again thanks to my longest, enduring friend in the world. One simple comment…”you cannot even begin to understand down time yet, can you?” All fell back into line. I do not understand down time…but I am willing to.

I reached a compromise. There are people in my work life that I want to see and want to keep up with. I’ve made lunch appointments with them. I’ve had one call from a business owner who would like to consider executive coaching…I’ll meet with her. The rest of the time is de-cluttering, cooking, organizing, being. Faith is my companion right now. Faith and downtime…hand in hand.

Phew. Fear is a funny and insidious fellow. I’ll keep an eye on him.

Resentment and Regret

One of the things I am looking at, now that I have the time and some perspective, is the role that resentment and regret play when leaving someone or something – in this case a job or career.  It’s an area of victimhood that is mucky to dig around in and clean up.

My resentment and regret reared up while on the job.  Probably, my recognition of these cousin emotions is what hastened my departure.  I unpacked both of these while working and saw that I was projecting outmoded and unneeded emotions.  I needed neither of these in order to leave.  I saw my own behavior of doing others’ work for them – leading to resentment.  I saw my own behavior of taking on more and more corporate responsibility because it satisfied my belief that I was needed – maybe indispensable.  I saw that the life-force I was giving to my job diminished what was available to my family at the end of the day.  I could see regret coming right around the corner.

But, I left my job with little to no of these emotions.  Because I chose to recognize them and own them before and as I was leaving.  I saw that this leaving was my own creation.  All departures are – whether we want to own it or not.  I had accomplished my mission there – as far as this leader was going to be allowed to accomplish.  Satisfied, complete and ready to take a break before my next adventure.

How easily it could have gone the other way.  How simply could I have slipped resentment and regret into my backpack and left the workplace perceiving myself as a victim.  How easy it would have been to move right into another position – no breathing room to be – and take my victim backpack with me into a new environment.  How often do we all do that – take the crap from the old house to the new; from the old relationship to the new; from the old job to the new.

And, although the analogy may be getting tiresome, that is why I have chosen this time to clean the closets.  I may not have taken the victim backpack with me….but what secretly escaped with me that I have not yet recognized?

 

 

 

 

Satisfied?

The question that arose this morning is “Will I be satisfied with the surface clean?”  I mean everything is shiny and in order – on the surface.  The countertops are shiny, the floors mopped, the toilet bowls clean.  Do I stop here?  This is the life question that has followed me these many years.  Am I satisfied when the surface is smooth? 

My answer today is “no”.  The deep dive into my life and my beliefs and my patterns and my habits will continue.  I am not satisfied with a surface gloss.  Soon the drawers, stuffed with stuff, overflow.  Much like my unchecked patterns spill over into areas of my life that I think may be safe.  Hmmmm

Today the deep dive continues with the junk drawers as I continue to examine the junk beliefs I still am holding onto.  The biggest of these right now is the belief being challenged that a successful life involves constant striving, activity, doing, proving, and competing.  As I clear the junk, I aim to find peace in being.

Grateful for this time, I consider the alternative.  If I had rushed back into another job without the grace of this space, I would have carried all that junk with me.

Peace.

Busy and Busier

As I worked from room to room to surface clean all and mid-clean some, a pattern of thought began to emerge.  Who am I without doing?

My belief about work is that I am only working if I am constantly doing, creating, achieving, getting somewhere.  Now the currency that is expended is my life force.  Nevertheless, I plod along taking action, taking more action, achieving goals, doing doing doing doing.

What a huge paradigm shift for me.  My work right now is not about doing – there will be time for that to re-integrate soon – but rather about being.  How do I be?

In the recognition of the pattern, my house is prepared for the maids.  Some good comes from contemplation.

Surface Shine versus Deep Grime

So Today…..

…is the first day of the deep cleaning.  This is a process within a process within a process.  I managed to distract myself for a week by taking a class.  Mind you, it’s a class that I really wanted to take and yet it did allow me to put off the purge for another week.

The maids are coming tomorrow.  So the first layer of the deep dive is to get the surface organized.  Much like an initial awareness of a belief or a life pattern.  If I can gloss over and put the papers in order and maybe get one little cupboard organized, the experts can swoop in and scrub and mop – dusting off the surface of the grime.  Sounds like some therapy I’ve been in.

But, the maids will leave and their surface expertise out the door with them.  And I am still left with the cupboards, closets, drawers, the area where the corners meet in the kitchen, the space behind the stove (oh my!).  Ok, you get the picture.  The excavation has begun…and the excavation is a process of discovery.  I’m going to find some things that are useful which I have forgotten to miss and I’m going to find other things that have long outlived their usefulness and then I’m going to find the old, ucky, gunky crapola stuck in the corner behind the fridge – putrid gunk.  That’s the deep stuff that’s been hanging around that I didn’t even notice was there.  Cleaning the deep held gunk in my patterns and beliefs. 

Fun?  You betcha.