"I'm not always right, but still I ain't got time for what went wrong. Where I end up, I don't really care. I'm out of my mind, but still I'm holdin' on like a rolling stone - a thousand miles from anywhere."
- Miley.
So, I'm not 'exactly' like Miley.
I mean, strikingly similar, if I'm hanging from a bar - but it's undoubtedly in running shoes, not stilettos.
And I'm probably not that chic in my Nikes. Last week a woman asked me in the elevator how my swim was, and I'd just left the treadmill.
I picked Miley for this post for a reason, because every single stage of her life she has proudly owned. The fact that she can write lyrics that she's out of her mind and look like this hanging from the sky, oozes a sense of security so freaking rock solid, that is something to aspire to.
She has this illusion, "I don't give a sh*t what anyone thinks, I'm going to pose while you judge me any way you wish", while she could truly care less with her shades and bad ass-ishness about her.
(Bad ass-ishness is definitely a word.)
So here she is on her latest album cover, a long way from a wrecking ball, holdin' on like a cabaret dancer in the sky.
Bless her.
***
I posted a Kelly Clarkson video the other night.
I loved the emotional journey of the song. I love music, and lyrics, and all the feels you can get listening to something really great. That was literally my intent. I also know a few people who are at some challenging points in relationships that I thought may resonate with it.
Interestingly though, it could be perceived that I have posted that because I want to create a voodoo doll of someone who ruined me, so I'm sticking it to them by posting something to state a point.
I see these things in hindsight, but this is also why every message from me is a full blog post to read. I feel like I'm permanently trying to ensure I'm understood.
(I swear I do not own any voodoo dolls, nor wish harm to other humans.)
Perhaps if I was a little more like Miley, I wouldn't really care what anyone else thought or interpreted about my posts, but so far, that has not been the case.
Social Media has this remarkable way of putting us into fishbowls and snow globes, doesn't it? I am looking at a snow globe of everyone else's life, while simultaneously feeling like I'm living in a fishbowl that everyone is looking into with my own.
Perhaps the screenshot I posted with the one line from Miley's song may have been interpreted that I was holding on by a thread and about to write about that. Or perhaps you saw my excitement that I was writing at all. The picture didn't give the full context of where I was going and just like many optical illusions, it could be interpreted differently by what you know about me or what you chose to see.
Which makes me wonder how often we make decisions with all of the information. How many people in our lives truly have the whole picture to who we are?
Really, only ourselves.
***
There is still a rather interesting correlation to my current reality though.
Somehow through a perfect storm of pressures of external circumstances, I seem to have created a disconnect between what comes out of my mouth and what I intended the message to mean.
I looked this up last night and there is research that shows I am not the only person in this category.
The stats say that 82% of people do not say what they mean.
(Bet Miley does though. She probably belts it out in lyrics, but without voodoo.)
I know from the leadership training I have facilitated, that only 7% of our message comes from the words we say. Our body language and behaviour speaks far louder than the words we choose. But needless to say, when we don't say what we want to say and messages are misconstrued, our confidence takes a couple knocks because the outcome generally is the opposite of what the original intent was.
Then we believe it is "us", when in fact - it is how we are communicating that is the issue.
So... if I don't post anything, I don't need to worry about what anyone else thinks. If I don't send a message, I don't need to worry about if it will be replied to. If I start to think something might be ill perceived, I just delete the post and minimize the number of views it has.
This is a self-destructive cycle that clearly does not solve the problem.
I am on a mission to do a better job at saying what I mean and see results that match where my intent lies.
***
That's the brutal honesty of what goes on inside my head.
There is also a whole lot of good stuff that has been happening there these days too though, which is important since I had quite a dark patch where it was a wee bit grim.
I quite like who I am today.
(Stilettos or not.)
I trust my intuition, decipher my emotions and feel good to make sound decisions that I align to. I love my job, adore the team of people I work with, raise my hand often for projects and the results from school make me do a double take every semester. I have a brilliant family and loads of friends, and I've put a lot of time in to reset a foundation that matches my values and who I want to be.
It has taken a damn long time for those words to come out of my mouth.
I like how I'm showing up.
I'm just still concerned about what everyone else thinks.
Ouch.
That is the bit.
This is the switch I need to find.... and I'm so, so close.
I know it.
This is where Miley hanging from the dang pole has an impact.
***
My final grade for my Winter Adult Ed course was 99. It wasn't that the teacher was easy, the school isn't hard, I had a halo effect or that the course didn't challenge me. All responses I have given to downplay that result.
It was that I worked really, really hard for it and choked up when I saw the final mark come through. Not for the mark, for the result of doing my best.
I wasn't born fit. I was pretty unhealthy in high school and a chronic smoker. I drank 4 cans of coke a day and ate ringalos for lunch. I wasn't exactly a wellness ad.
I train hard now and take proper rest days. I pour sweat in the gym and I look like I've swam 3 miles when I leave it. I try and keep an eye on what I eat and when I have chocolate cake and red wine. (Which lately is more often than I'd like to admit.)
There is a brilliant line in a video I used to show when I worked for Gateway. It said, "People are rewarded in public for what they practiced for years in private." Whatever we see on the outside does not show the training plan that was required to achieve it.
My secret superpower is my emotion, and it is the most challenging part of my existence that I am still learning how to harness.
I get so swept up in the intensity of it all. The good, the bad and the beautiful. I love basking in the highs and I dread the days when I'm pulled under. For most of my life, my emotions have led me like an aggressive dog on a leash taking an owner for a walk - all the while being simultaneously pulled by desperate acceptance of others.
I am finally at a really cool crossroads where I'm learning how to observe what is happening and use the messages my emotions send me to make better decisions. Not at all to be accepted, but to just be okay for me.
Sometimes I win the battle, sometimes I lose.
It's all a work in progress.
***
I believe that confidence lies in being as true to yourself as possible. That's what a few artists have got right, Miley included.
A few years ago, I started a list of Guiding Principles that I modify and post above the bulletin board in my office.
I think about where I'm at today and where I want to be; and trust that if I abide by the guidelines I have set out, that regardless of where I was or what missteps I made - whatever aligns with me now will stick and whatever doesn't is okay to lose.
At the end of the day, the only approval I need is my own.... and that is the challenging shift I'm in the process of making.
💖
2023 Guiding Principles
- Stop to celebrate the wins.
- Live mindfully rich.
- In every situation, we see two possibilities. There is always a third. What is the option I can't yet see?
- There is no rush.
- Embrace cycles of rest.
- Kill your darlings. (This means get rid of what you are holding onto that doesn't serve you anymore).
- Listen to the compass of your heart.
- Remember that everything can change in one split second.
- The purpose of the first draft is to get it written, not get it perfect.
- Pull the string and it will follow you wherever you go. Push it and it will go nowhere at all.
- Nothing is ever final. Sometimes we are just setting up for the next shot. 😎 **
