Learning or Lodged - Leaning into the Messy Middle

In October in Canada we celebrated Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving in November to my US friends. Each year as I come into the Thanksgiving weekend I reflect on where I am at and how grateful I am for the learnings that my life has given me. I am blessed to have many people in my life who have either been strong mentors or who have challenged me to move beyond where I am and get unstuck. Getting unstuck is a choice. So is staying stuck.

Lessons come in all shapes and sizes. They can be through love, connections, loss, or deliberate learning. Sometimes these lessons come in the form of support, and sometimes these lessons come from overcoming a challenge. What is common - no matter what the situation - is that I have a choice - I can either choose to stay stuck where I am - often firmly planted in the role of victim, or I can choose to lean in and see what there is to learn to help get out. Being a victim cements my position and prevents me from hearing or seeing an alternate way to look at things. It assumes I own the only right answer and only my solution is valid. When I am in this place I find myself listening long enough to convince someone else that I have the answer and they need to listen.

Thanksgiving is like looking in a rear view mirror - it can give me the chance to see what is behind me and be thankful for what I have learned, or it can be something that continues to grip me and prevents me from moving forward into my future. Focussing on the past holds me back while leaning forward helps me get closer to my goals. When I have leaned in I used the emotions to move forward. When I remained stuck, I stuffed the emotions and tried to hide them from view.

Over time I have realized that when I ignore my emotions it is like ignoring a fire alarm, eventually, the fire will catch up with me and burn me if I don't take action. Emotions are one way our body tells us our values are misaligned with our perception of the situation. The only way to get past the emotions and pain of the past is to go through it. This takes the courage to explore what the emotion is saying and stop trying to pretend everything is fine or nothing has changed. Sometimes the old ways of doing things no longer fit the needs of or situations or even relationships. The more I cling to them, the harder it will be for me to move to the future I want to have. But when I push forward into the unknown I have discovered connections with others and found my way.

Embrace the Messy Middle ( thanks Brent Brown )

Brene Brown talks about embracing the messy middle. It is like a busy hallway that you need to push your way through to get to your destination. It would be like trying to get through the hallway picture above going against the onslaught of kids running towards you. It would not be easy, but it is the only way to get to where you want to be. The messy middle is the time between the way things were and where they are headed. This is often a time of uncertainty, of letting go and leaning into the discomfort. It is about keeping focus on the future rather than clinging to the past. Our past is meant to be a lesson, not an anchor. How do you embrace the messy middle? How do you move past the pain, uncertainty or even the helplessness of a situation?

1. Stop - just being aware of the feeling and stopping to acknowledge that you are feeling it begins to help your body and mind refocus your energy on actions that will help, rather than hinder the situation. This can be saying "stop" to yourself and allows you to begin re-engaging your brain to think through the situation and choose actions to help you.

2. Breathe - When you are feeling challenged by something take a deliberate slow breath. Pretend you are breathing in a pleasing scent and breath out as if you are blowing out a candle. When you start to feel uneasy and you stop yourself by focusing on your breath it helps you settle down your limit system and refocus on things you can do to solve the problem at hand.

3. Ask - Once you have taken a few deep breaths and stopped your screaming limit system, deliberately ask what your feelings are telling you. Labelling your emotions will help you be able to hear what your emotions are telling you and start to chart your course forward. Be patient, it will come. Each emotion provides you information to help you take action. Are you feeling anger - where are your values being compromised? What do you need to do or ask to get back on track? Are you feeling sad - what have you lost? Don't stuff the tears, use the emotion to help you figure out what you need to do next.Our body uses emotions to help us make decisions. When we ignore the messages sent, our body will find other ways to get our attention and get us away from the harm. Feel your emotions. Name your emotions. Just acknowledging them reduces their impact and helps you move through the messy middle.

4. Stuffing is for turkeys - not emotions - Stuffing our feelings is often a way of coping. By avoiding dealing with the feeling we are able to heroically help others through a crisis or we are able to maintain a facade of having it all together. This can be helpful in a crisis to get to safety or make immediate decisions. It is not, however, meant to be a coping mechanism that is used for every emotion you feel all the time. When we learn to stuff our emotions while we may appear unflustered and in control on the outside, but your insides are often churning. This activates the fight/flight reaction. In a crisis this saves your life but long term it creates imbalance in your body by flooding your system with hormones that prevent you from sleeping, making effective decisions and moving forward from the crisis. When this happens, everything is filtered through the pain of the crisis and you are unable to bring your body to a place where it can relax and rest. Over time this impacts sleep, ability to focus and make decisions and ultimately can even create illness or addiction issues.

5. Lean into the discomfort Ask yourself what needs to be done. Stuffing is like running away - we can never run fast enough or far enough from our hurt. It will eventually catch us. The longer we avoid it the more it builds inside of us until it finds another way out - maybe it is illness, muscle aches or emotional outbursts that you can't explain. Emotions continue to magnify until you hear the message your body is trying to tell you. Sometimes emotions unfelt can explode in an unrelated situation where you find yourself highjacked by them and you are not clear why your reaction was so out of character.

6. Be curious - Accept the gift - Our emotions can only be our guide if we choose to lean in and listen. Owning them without judgement and blame allows us to choose the action we will take to move forward. At this stage just ask what the emotion is telling you? What actions can you take? This will help the emotion deliver its message and leave and will give you the power to choose what actions you need to take next.

7. Be deliberate - Choose your actions, don't react. Use your breath to ground yourself and choose actions that will move you from focussing on the rear view and help you see the view of possibility ahead. What is the gap? What actions can you take to pivot and move one step forward? You don't have to have the whole plan set, you just need to take a step forward to get where you want to be.

8. Learn from the past - Don't let uncertainty or the past handcuff you. The past helps you choose what worked and tweak what did not when faced with challenges in the future. If you stay stuck in the past you allow yourself to be handcuffed to the hurt. When this happens it is like being stuck in cement - you are unable to move forward. Professionally this means you are unable to learn, grow and contribute in our ever changing world. Often you find it hard to leave the role of victim or hero from the Drama Triangle. Personally, it can mean that you keep reliving the same lessons over and over until you learn form the lessons of the past. Either way, like the movie Groundhog Day you have a feeling of deja vu and you often feel helpless to move ahead. Until you face it and take a new path you will continue to see the same lesson before you until you find a way to shift. I am thankful that I had strong coaches in my life who helped me see where I was stuck and find ways to pivot and take steps regain my personal power. Getting the help of those we trust can help us see what is not readily clear to us.

Embrace the Messy Middle ( thanks Brene Brown )

Embrace the future - Explore your emotions - Lean in and grow!w!! where we would like to be. When we are in this place it is easy to fall back into our old habits - they are comfortable but they keep us stuck in our old ways. When we lean into the growth curve that the messy middle path has us go through we take deliberate action to move forward towards what we want. in In the messy middle if we stay curious we are able to learn, grow and move past the challenges of today and become who we are meant to be tomorrow. We are not meant to be stuck - life is meant to be experienced, lived and connections are meant to be made. The choices above need to constantly be happening or we will never get through the hallway to the door that leads to our future. Our world is moving too fast to let our past to hold us back. Leaning and learning keeps ups moving forward and growing both personally and professionally, but it takes having the courage to wade through the emotions in the middle. Without our emotions the human experience would be a very empty place.

Embrace the future - Explore your emotions - Lean and grow!

Judy