Struggle Stories Help Define Patterns

Code: Opportunity for Personal Growth

After two years in the position, I found myself standing in the bathroom with a tear-stained face... again. What was wrong with me? Why couldn't I make this work? I'm not a particularly emotional person and yet, here I was with swollen eyes and runny nose... again. Why was I letting my boss get to me like this?

This wasn't the first time I found myself struggling with an abusive boss in a bad environment. Just two positions before this one I had another abusive boss. As I stood looking in the mirror, my reflection said it all: You've been in this position before that, too.

I started to look back at all of my jobs, all the way back to being a food server at an IHOP in college. There were some exceptions; I did experience jobs where I was valued, where I thrived and became the professional person I am today. Looking back though, there were far too many similar situations in my past. This was a pattern.

It took some deep self-reflection to come to this conclusion, the most humbling and difficult moment in my career.

I had some complicity here.

What an awful realization. Who wants that kind of answer to a question? No one I know wants to admit they did something wrong or that they played a part in what was wrong with a relationship or job.

I'm not for a second suggesting that bullying and abuse is the fault of the victim.

I'm not for a second suggesting that it is ever okay to treat people badly or that a victim as somehow earned abuse.

there are circumstances and patterns, though, that when we see them in our lives can awaken us to our role in our own success, if we take responsibility as adults and choose to make changes.

I learned a lot of lessons in those 2+ years; I continue to face similar challenges, now I'm more aware of my actions that might be contributing to the problems.

Here are some of the lessons I continue to practice:

1. Your contribution may not be necessary or may not add value to the discussion. Stop. Think. Listen. Then decide how or if to weigh in with your thoughts or suggestions.
2. Trust is good, but take the time to know a person before you share. Trust your instincts! If you observe characteristics about a person, incorporate those observations into your overall level of trust and figure out with what you can trust each person in the environment. If someone is sharing gossip with you, they're likely sharing gossip about you.
3. Related to #2, be careful where you dump (especially if you live in a small town), and DO NOT DUMP at work. The person you want to vent about may be right around the corner and that is simply disrespectful - and you will not like yourself afterward. As bad as it is, it can be worse when you know you've earned some of the scorn. Sometimes you need to share frustrations at work, be careful not to become the person who is constantly griping and complaining.
4. Sometimes you have to play the game. Don’t antagonize, especially if it won’t bring you closer to your goal. Always think of your ultimate goal for the relationship and your job. I once hit "send" on an email I knew I shouldn't have sent. It took me about five minutes to feel the consequences and to know how sophomoric I was for sabotaging my own day. That's where I developed the 24 Hour Rule.
5. Be aware that your position in the project may not be what you want it to be, find out what's expected for your role and focus! Do your job with all of your skills and energy, and learn what you must to do your job well. My mom once told me that every trial you face will keep coming back until you learn your lesson from it. Remember that it's not forever and that you must "find the nugget" before you can leave.
6. Find people you trust and who know you well, but are separate enough from the situation to provide an outside perspective, and ask them for specific ideas about where you should be looking for your next adventure.
7. When faced with a difficult situation, reflect on how you would want to perceive it from 20 years in the future. Did you handle it well, with grace, dignity and compassion?
8. Sometimes people are just mean. It may be time to call them on it and stand up for yourself and others, or get out.
9. My most unpleasant lesson: Figure out how you might be complicit in your own patterns of frustration in jobs and relationships. Until you identify your patterns, you will continue to face similar situations. If every boss, or every romantic partner in your life was the same... the common piece of the puzzle is you.

There are no easy answers.

Be kind to yourself while you work through this. And know that you are a work in progress; what makes you happy and content today will probably change in the future.

Road Trip Stories to Build Relationships

What You and Your Children Remember of Their Childhood Can Be Wildly Different

Max

Ridiculously fun travel partner.

He knows it's never really about the destination.

It was just a short road trip for our younger son, Max, and me; around 1.5 hours for a spring break spontaneous getaway. I took advantage of our time alone together to record this podcast.

We've done quite a lot of traveling with our two boys, via air and car, and have made incredible memories. The one thing that makes a road trip different from any other kind of travel is the long hours in the car together, with little distraction, and lots of opportunity for frustration, connection, and snacks.

You'll hear the sound of the road in the background of our recording, adding just a little ambient sound to our discussion. I love to ask our boys what they remember about our family road trips; their memories are so different from mine, and when I hear their memories I learn even more about them, and how they see the world.

Road trips offer great opportunities to get to know people. I think traveling together, particularly in the car, can be the best test of a relationship. How compatible are you, really? When it comes to spending hours together with little distraction, and lots of opportunity for frustration - getting lost, bad weather, questionable road conditions - you learn quickly whether you can rely on each other to solve problems and keep a positive attitude in trying situations.

Max and I had a great, though too short trip together, and this recording is just a snippet of the kind of conversation we have when we spend time traveling together.

Here's an article I wrote about another road trip with our boys. I'm so grateful not only for the time I get to spend with them, but also for their sense of humor, their insights, and their incredible warmth and sparkle.

Dreams Expose Your Internal Stories

How Do You Interpret Recurring Dreams?

Over the years, I've written about both kinds of dreams, awake and asleep.

I've always believed our sleeping dreams have some deeper meaning and purpose than entertainment; when my husband gave me a book about interpretations of dreams, my belief was solidified.

There's a lot of research about dreams, and many don't believe they have any kind of meaning. The book I read proposed that our dreams are made up of our subconscious observations, and that the purpose of some dreams is to prepare our conscious minds for situations that may occur in our waking life. The dreams aren't necessarily direct messages from subconscious to conscious minds, actually, they rarely are. And that's where interpretation comes in.

One recurring dream I wrote about was from when I was pregnant with our older son. My husband and I were living in Washington DC, and I had a great career in front of me. I was commuting at least an hour each way to work throughout my pregnancy, and when we were well into the second half, I researched and hired a great nanny to stay with the baby after my maternity leave ended.

From my teen years until I was almost 30, I had no intention of having children. It wasn't until I met my husband that I considered the idea. Because I'm somewhat impulsive, considering the idea didn't last long - I was pregnant just a few months later.

Toward the end of my pregnancy, I started to have a recurring, very unpleasant dream that I had twins. One baby was much bigger than the other, and I kept dropping the big one. People would give me dirty looks as I quickly picked up the baby, who was always fine, and did my best to manage the weight and awkwardness of holding both of them.

After a few weeks of this dream, I realized what the dream was telling me: I was concerned about being able to balance a career and a new baby. It never came clear to me which was the big one I was dropping, career or family, but once I interpreted the dream and started to address my anxiety through conversations with my employer, my husband, and our nanny, the dreams stopped.

Others I wrote about were my recurring exposure dreams. A few evenings before or after I step out of my comfort zone, either on stage or any type of performance, I'll have dreams that I am trying to shower or go to the bathroom, I'm naked, and there are no shower or stall doors. In those dreams, I'm exposed as people are walking by as if nothing is wrong or awkward.

My recent interpretation of a recurring dream prompted this article: Spider webs.

I've been uncomfortable at best, terrified at worst, around spiders and spider webs for as long as I can remember. I've never really been afraid of things, but spiders definitely get my heart racing.

Also for as long as I can remember, I've had awful dreams of being down in a basement, surrounded by spider webs/cob webs. In my dreams, I walk down to get something, and when I turn around to get out, there are webs all around me. They rarely have visible spiders on them, but I know they're around. I try to find a space big enough to squeeze myself through without touching the webs, and in some cases I push my way through, feeling the webs on my skin and hair, terrified that a spider is on my head or body somewhere, and I wake up shaking. In other cases, I just wake up, never having gotten through the webs, and with no resolution.

It finally dawned on me (pun intended), that these recurring dreams aren't that difficult to interpret. Maybe it's because my family is facing some real challenges with potential long-term consequences, or maybe it's because I finally have the insight to understand them.

Those webs are the fears and discomforts I'm facing. I know walking through them will be unpleasant, or even dangerous, and my subconscious mind is making me go through those webs over and over again. It's trying to prepare me to face these fears, and know that somehow I'll get through them. It's also acknowledging the nature of the fears - that they're just spider webs, which are generally pretty lightweight and breakable, but that they have the potential for danger because of the poisonous black widow spiders that may be lurking on them.

I'm hopeful that with this interpretation, my spider web dreams will change in some way, and that maybe they'll even stop. But I'm not in denial, I know these dreams serve a purpose, and as long as I'm living, growing, and taking risks, I'll be followed by them.

Do you have recurring dreams? Did you ever consider how, or if, they can be interpreted? Do you believe in dreams as subconscious messages? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Music and Stories: Lessons Easily Applied

Music Performance as Analogy for Successful Team Building

Being agreeable meant going with whatever mix happened to be in Ranjith's in-ear monitor when he started playing in his church band. That meant that sometimes during rehearsal and performance, Ranjith couldn't hear each musician playing with him, and that sometimes he couldn't discern percussion from bass, or vocals from his keyboard.

When he decided to try adjusting the mix, and not just going with whatever was coming through his small earbuds, he was suddenly aware of what he was missing. He was only hearing part of what was being performed on stage. As a result of the improved, more balanced mix, his performance improved. Not only could he better hear all musicians participating, he could feel the music as a whole, instead of separate parts, giving him a much better understanding and appreciation of the energy of the musicians, and what the audience was hearing and responding to.

We've all heard or read analogies about how music can be applied to the workplace, like when a symphony is well conducted so all instruments are in the same place in the sheet music. But when we talk about Ranjith's experience, that analogy takes on a whole different rhythm. It's not just about each person playing her part, or about the conductor making clear movements for the musicians to follow; it's about each musician listening - and being able to hear - all other musicians.

Are you getting the whole mix in your monitor? Or are you listening to small pieces of the story or music, and missing what could be an important aspect of the discussion?

In this podcast, Ranjith and I had a great conversation about how we apply our music performance to other parts of our professional lives.

At the end of the podcast, I referred to a song Ranjith and I had the pleasure to perform at a jam session following No Longer Virtual in Denver. And here it is, for your listening pleasure the version of People Get Ready performed by Eva Cassidy:

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Ranjith Abraham is a professional musician with an engineering background. He's currently works in Regulatory Affairs Labeling, an unlikely place for someone so creative, but he likes it! He draws inspiration from life lessons that are tucked away in the insignificant happenings around him, while his passion for music/photography fuels my creativity in problem solving, and helps him genuinely connect with people.