Tracking my meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app.
Last week, I picked up my phone one morning and saw a notification from the Ten Percent Happier app reminding me to meditate.
Aaargh! Somehow, I had forgotten to meditate the day before, thus breaking a long streak I had put together. Over the previous few weeks, I had meditated every afternoon or before bed. Each day that I used a guided meditation on the app, a circle was filled in under my profile. What a satisfying feeling, watching those rows of solid red dots multiply. I was approaching a personal-best streak, longer than any run since I first started meditating regularly several years ago.
And then…there was an empty circle glaring at me. At first, my brain wanted to seize on this small blip as an excuse to throw in the towel. What’s the freakin’ point, anyway, right? After berating myself for a few seconds, I stopped to ask a different question: What does a streak even mean?
As someone moderately obsessed with numbers, I find it fun to count how many days or times I complete an action. And as I try to build new habits, daily tracking helps encourage me to stay the course. The knowledge that I was working on a streak led me to meditate on nights when I was tired or cranky and just wanted to go to sleep (or watch late-night TV). If I’m honest, though, numbers can get tied up in my self-worth. A long streak produces evidence of my value as a person.
But the thing with tracking streaks is that they almost always get broken. And then, you can’t let that disappointment in yourself get you derailed.
The streak itself, the number of days, is meaningless. It’s just a number. Okay, maybe a particularly long streak demonstrates that you are dedicated and disciplined. But does a missed day or two say the opposite? Are you suddenly lazy and weak?
As a member of several online recovery groups, I’ve witnessed how hard it can be when weeks or months or years of sobriety are interrupted. Some folks chose to keep counting, tallying up the number of days they didn’t drink that year or in general, without returning to zero. All those sober days did have an impact, after all, and there is no rule that says you have to erase them.
That morning, looking at my phone, I decided that I would not let my broken meditation streak make me feel as if I had failed. The progress I had made in building a stronger meditation habit had not vanished. Meditating more frequently had already made its mark on my ability to handle stress and to live in the moment, which was my goal. Not a row of red circles.
I will still keep an eye on my streaks for motivation purposes. But I promise that I’ll keep my tracking in perspective and remind myself what’s really at stake: my health and well-being.
Just a few of the books I read in 2021: inward and clarity & connection by yung pueblo, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, and Solutions and Other Problems by Allie Brosh
When I launched this blog in 2016, I did so to “document my attempt to stretch myself and experience all the interesting bends and branches in life that are calling to me.” Five years later, I’ve pretty much kept to that original mission.
At the close of 2021, I am starting a new practice of giving myself a pat on the back for the stretching I’ve done over the past 12 months. This is the second part of my year in review. If you missed the first part, feel free to check it out first.
Reading
From childhood through my 20s, I was a voracious reader. But somewhere along the way my reading trickled down to a handful of books a year. I’m a slow reader because I like to reread lines several times and turn the ideas over in my head. For the last decade, I focused on reading political/social commentary, which can be exhausting, so I was taking long breaks between books. In 2020, I read a mere six and a half books.
So, I set a goal to read more books in 2021—no precise number, just to keep reading. I alternated fiction with non-fiction, which proved to be super helpful. Now, I’m ending the year having read 28 books!
I read books from genres outside of my comfort zone, works set in other countries and cultures, and books that addressed race, sexuality, and the natural world. Several books were challenging, but I persisted. And I did give myself permission to set aside two books to finish another time (maybe).
One of the books I’m counting toward my tally was the journal/workbook What’s Your Story? by Rebecca Walker and Lily Diamond. This book challenged me to write rather than read, though it also included some beautiful writing at the opening of each section. Instead of marking up the book, I typed up my responses in a Word doc, and when I looked back, I discovered that I wrote more than 40,000 words!
I created a fun graphic summarizing my reading for the year, and I’m going to post it on my Instagram profile. My profile is @lisamaybennett if you want to check it out.
I’m tempted to try to read even more books in 2022, but I’m not going to pressure myself—I’m just going to keep reading, book after book.
Connection
Looking back at the people with whom I’ve been in contact over 2021, I am immensely grateful to have so many wonderful folks in my life.
This was the year that I reached out to a wide range of friends and acquaintances to ask if they would test read my manuscript. I was delighted by the number of people who said yes, and we went on to have many interesting exchanges. I became good friends with a woman down the street through this process, and I connected online with an independent author who lives in the same town where I grew up.
My husband and I have gotten to know our next-door neighbors better this year, as well as other families who live on the block. I should probably credit our dog, Toby, with helping us make new friends—he is a great ambassador!
I am still in contact with two of the women I met through a Zoom grief group that I joined more than a year ago. My friend who passed away nearly two years ago had a pretty big family, and I have been in touch with two of her nieces and her sister-in-law, which has been a great comfort to me. And I continue to text and talk regularly with my closest friends.
Once we were all vaccinated, we had quite a few visitors out to the house this summer. I guess I’m what you might call an extroverted introvert (or an introverted extrovert?). I love spending time with people and talking with them, but I also value my quiet, alone time. Sometimes it’s hard to find the right balance, so I may have overdone it in 2021. But I can’t say that I would change a thing.
Media and Tech Use
This is the one category where I tried to do less in 2021 rather than more. Since I was a kid, I’ve loved watching television, reading magazines, and following celebrity culture. I was the perfect target audience for the internet and social media.
Over the past five years, I’ve been working on spending less time watching TV and scrolling on my phone. This year, my TV consumption finally settled in at a level with which I’m comfortable. I no longer watch TV during the morning, day, or early evening, and I only sit down to watch it when I know what show or movie I’m going to watch. My cable news viewing has declined dramatically, and I feel less tense as a result.
I still struggled with social media use in 2021. I no longer argue with folks in the comments, and on the rare occasion when I do, I am quickly reminded why I steer clear of doing so. But social media always seems to find a new way to grab me. I have never watched a single episode of any Kardashian show, and yet I find myself watching videos of Kylie and Kendall Jenner on Instagram as well as the dancing and fashion videos that are served up to me through ads and the search function.
In the first part of this review, I promised myself I would focus on how far I’ve come, not on how far I still have to go. So, I’m not going to go over the steps I want to take in 2022—I’ll write more about this next year. Instead, I will state for the record that I shifted substantial blocks of my time this year from media consumption to creative endeavors and other habits that I wanted to develop.
Rest
For decades I have suffered from various forms of insomnia. Over the past five years, my sleep has vastly improved, but it still feels like the final frontier for me, health-wise. I ended 2021 strong by reducing the time that I typically spend watching TV in bed and replacing it with reading. This seems to be helping me sleep through the night better.
Even when I get a good night’s rest, I am still a big fan of napping. This was the year that I finally decided to accept that I love afternoon naps. I take one as often as I can, and I’ve released the shame that I used to feel about doing so.
There’s lots more I did this year, including helping care for my mom and managing home improvement projects (like an unexpected roof replacement). I even experimented with my usual holiday traditions and wrote a piece about it for Medium.
I highly recommend sitting down and giving yourself props for all that you’ve done in 2021. This includes the things you stopped doing and the boundaries you created and enforced. You are more awesome than you realize. I know because I talked to a lot of people this year, and I was consistently impressed with your strength, resourcefulness, and insight.
Since launching this blog five years ago, I’ve made some big changes in my life and tried lots of new things. But some days I feel like I’m not doing enough.
I’ve been unemployed for more than a year now. Acting as my mother’s health advocate/personal assistant keeps me pretty busy. Plus, I’m trying to fulfill my longtime dream of becoming a writer. At the same time, I’m trying to accept moving at a slower, gentler pace, which seems to suit me. Still, it’s hard not to feel like I’m behind in a race, and I’m never going to catch up.
While scrolling through Instagram this morning, I encountered a post by author Glennon Doyle that suggested: “Instead of thinking about how far there is to go…consider how far you’ve come.”
So, I decided to review what I’ve been up to in 2021 and give myself credit for all the things I’ve done. Surprisingly, I ended up with so much stuff, I’m doing this in two parts!
If you’re not into me bragging on myself, then I’ll see you in the new year. Otherwise, let’s get started…
Writing
In case you don’t already know, I’ve written a memoir. I started 2021 with about 33,500 words already in my manuscript, and my book now stands at 64,500 words. With all the chapters I added and subtracted, there’s no telling how many words I actually wrote this year.
At the end of spring, I recruited a bunch of people to read my manuscript and provide me with feedback. A total of 10 people have read the whole book so far, including an editor who delivered a very thorough critique. I edited my book a total of five times, and right now it’s with a proofreader.
I joined the Maryland Writers Association and several online self-publishing support groups. I’ve reached out to other writers who have published independently and learned a lot from them. I even got started working on a cover with someone I met through one of my groups. Originally, I thought I would publish my book by the end of this year, but that didn’t happen. And that’s ok. Hopefully I’ll get it out in early 2022.
Since the inception of this blog in 2016, my posting has been sporadic at best. So, I set the ambitious goal of posting 40 pieces here in 2021. It looks like I’m going to hit 35, which is pretty darn good, if I do say so myself.
Included in these posts was Snowed In, a six-part suspense story—the first time I’ve written fiction in ages! I’m hoping to do another serialized story next year, and it might even feature some of the same characters from Snowed In.
I’ve been working on developing a daily writing practice that’s just for me. Journaling has never been my thing, and I still have to remind myself to do it, but I’m getting better. I find that journals with prompts are really helpful. This year I completed What’s Your Story by Rebecca Walker and Lily Diamond, and next year I plan to do Get Untamed by the aforementioned Glennon Doyle.
All in all, I feel more like a “real” writer every day, and that is what’s most important (though a royalty check would still be nice).
Sobriety
This year I celebrated four years of living alcohol free. Removing drinking from my life has been a game changer.
First of all, I don’t think anything I just shared about my writing would have been possible without me embracing sobriety. Alcohol was a big hijacker of my time, energy, and brain space. Quitting was an investment I made in myself, and the returns continue to build.
I wrote a lot about this in my memoir; it was extremely helpful to get my experiences out of my head and try to make sense of them. Hopefully my words can help someone else in 2022.
Habit Shifting
For years now, I’ve been tinkering around with a framework to help balance my life. Habit shifting is a big part of this, and in 2021, I developed a process called An Intentional Life. I contemplated turning this framework into an online course. Alas, I did not have the energy to do both that and finish my book. Instead, I wrote up the process and posted it on this blog in four installments.
Every week this year I updated my “Colorful Week” board, which helps me track the habits I’m developing. About two-thirds of the way through the year, I could see which habits had begun to stick and which ones were still sitting on the sidelines.
Two habits that started to become ingrained in my routine were yoga and meditating. I no longer had to push myself to do them—they were becoming almost as automatic as listening to my favorite podcasts.
But I needed to get more cardiovascular exercise, something I’ve long struggled to incorporate into my life. So, in September I joined a local fitness studio where I can take both yoga classes and cycle (spin) classes. Since then, I’ve been averaging four classes a week. I’m enjoying the indoor cycling classes way more than I thought I would, and I’m feeling great!
The last habit on my goal list that wasn’t getting any love was crafting. I’ve never been a particularly crafty person, but I wanted to start doing something that would hone my hand-eye coordination. And I was longing for a creative outlet that would be different from writing.
I tried knitting early in the year, but it was not for me, so I gave up on crafts for a while. Then, I ended the year strong by finally completing a gift for my mom that turned old jewelry into an art piece. Who knows if I will continue in this vein in 2022, but at least I gave myself the chance to see how much I enjoy working with my hands to make something beautiful.
Image of geese flying over Lake Linganore in Maryland (photo effects from Nexmuse.com).
Recently I was reading through the memoir I’ve written, giving it one more light edit before sending it off to the proofreader. About halfway through, something occurred to me: I am a big crybaby.
My manuscript covers the full scope of my life, with a strong focus on my childhood, teens, and early adulthood. Apparently, those years featured a lot of bawling. Out of curiosity, I searched my document for the use of words like “cry,” “tears,” “sob,” “weep,” etc.
I found no fewer than 14 descriptions of me wailing, gasping for breath, whimpering, or blubbering. Despite my embarrassment at all this lamentation, I decided to keep each and every reference to tears in my book. Though I come across as dramatic and self-indulgent…well, that’s who I am to a certain degree.
Over the past five years, I’ve tried to interrupt this inclination to lean into my emotions, particularly the self-pitying and indignant ones. I hear a lot these days about the importance of sitting with your feelings: We are meant to feel our feelings, not run or distract from them. At the same time, it can be unhealthy to get lost in our emotions—to let them sweep us away.
Last week, I was in a yoga class, and we did a number of hip-opener poses, which can help release stored-up stress and emotion. Toward the end of class, in our next-to-last pose, I found my eyes filling up with tears. It freaked me out at first. I held back, and then when I got out to my car, I had a good little cry and got in touch with what was stirring inside me.
As I sat there, I thought about how our emotions are like water. They are important, but their power must be respected. They can overwhelm us if we aren’t careful.
The lake where I live is beautiful; it serves as a water source for our county, as a home for countless creatures, and as a place for recreation and connecting with nature. But it can also be dangerous if you don’t practice appropriate safety measures. People have died in boating, swimming, and diving accidents in this lake.
Emotions don’t often kill us, but they can swallow us up. In addition to all the crying scenes in my manuscript, I also write about my issues with anger. I have been known to let my temper get the best of me, to fight tooth and nail to win an argument. This fury can lead me to say terrible things to others, to push the most sensitive buttons of the people I love, and to act in a way that seems out of sync with my values.
So, I’ve been working on locating that fine line between exploring my feelings and drowning in them. Meditation has assisted in this effort. Spending time outdoors helps put things in perspective. And sometimes simply thinking about the impact of our emotions, as I did in the car last week, and as I’m doing right now, helps bring everything together in a lesson that’s hard to forget.
For the past 14 months I’ve been writing and editing a book about my life. This memoir tells the story of how self-doubt, drinking, and anxiety kept me from chasing my dreams. I am 56 years old, and this is my first full-length manuscript.
The young woman who chose creative writing as her major in college, and who relished the praise she received from her professors, would be dejected to learn that it took her more than three decades to finally write book number one.
Don’t get me wrong—I am proud of many of the things I’ve done over the years. During my most recent read-through of the manuscript, I noticed a number of times when I didn’t let fear get the best of me, when I took on challenges that were outside my comfort zone.
But those scattered moments of pluck were not enough to build a solid foundation of confidence that could sustain a writing career. It took years of self-exploration, sobriety, the death of a dear friend, and a worldwide pandemic to finally get me to draft this book.
After the writing came the endless editing. Just when I thought the revisions were done, they were not (and possibly still aren’t). Once my work was in good enough shape, I recruited people to read my manuscript to make sure I wasn’t deluded in my belief that it is worth publishing.
And, because I’ve written a book that recalls real scenes with real people whom I love and respect, I decided to reach out to some of the more prominent people to give them a chance to read the passages that involve them.
Sending your book out into the world before it’s perfect (is it ever?) is terrifying. At least it has been for me. I still have several more steps in the creative part of this process, and one of them is the most difficult step yet: talking with my mom about the chapters devoted to our complex relationship. I’ve been putting this off, and I cannot procrastinate much longer.
I know from the earlier steps I’ve already taken that I can do things that scare me. When I do scary things, I usually learn something about myself. One of the things I learn (almost every single time) is that I am brave and strong—braver and stronger than I could have imagined.
And when you keep doing things that intimidate you, you get to discover over and over how brave and strong you are. And who wouldn’t want to confirm that fact over and over? I think maybe this is a lesson we are meant to learn.
Over the past several years, I’ve taught myself that it’s ok to be frightened of doing certain things. I don’t have to pretend that I’m not scared in order to do these things—I can acknowledge my fear or discomfort and then do them anyway. An open and willing mind can lead me to take desired actions, and taking those actions produces an increasingly positive mindset.
In other words, the more I do this, the easier it gets. I only have to look back to yesterday or last week for proof that my heart can pound and my stomach can twist itself in knots and I might lose some sleep, but I will not fall apart.
My retired mom, who lives with me, came upstairs one day and told me she had had a very stressful morning. I asked her what happened, and she explained that she couldn’t find her cell phone. She looked and looked and finally realized that she had made the bed with her phone under the covers. So, she had to unmake the bed, retrieve the phone, and remake the bed. She wasn’t running late for anything, but she was huffing and puffing about what a setback this had been to her morning, and clearly it had affected her mood.
This was about 10 years ago, not long after my mom first moved in, and I remember at the time thinking that this sequence of events did not seem particularly stressful. It sounded exactly like that spilled milk we are told not to cry over. I even told this story to a co-worker and watched her eyes widen as she clearly agreed with me.
Over the past decade, I’ve thought a lot about my mom’s tendency to get flustered by life’s typical ups and downs. I reflected on how she often felt tired or unwell when I was a kid. It almost seemed like life itself was making her exhausted. Maybe because it was.
I’ve been trying to develop greater empathy for my mom, and my own current circumstances are helping me see things from a new point of view. After years of working at demanding jobs, I am currently unemployed. Now, when I get anxious, most of my stressors seem minor compared to my former work-related dilemmas.
When you’re an anxious person, like me and my mom, you often look for things to get stressed about. If you “require” a constant flow of tension in your life, your only choice is to find it among your daily experiences. The things that stress you out end up being proportionate to what you have going on in your life.
Some human beings are more sensitive when things going wrong. Even trivial mishaps and slights can mess with our day, and we want to say, “eff it.” Sometimes we do say eff it, and we give in to our worst habits and coping tools. These behaviors—like drinking, binge eating, scrolling on social media, or shopping—can be soothing in the short-term but not so efficient or healthy in the long-term.
I’m not saying we handwringers are a weak subset of people, but we react in extremes way to frustrating stuff. Some might call this a lack of resilience, but I think we’re actually a pretty resilient bunch. Maybe the issue is that we aren’t skilled at putting things in perspective, so everything feels like a good reason to throw up our arms. But I don’t think calling this a perspective problem is helpful, either, because it implies that we could get over ourselves if only we realized how insignificant our lives are in relation to others.
What if we decided, instead, that everyone’s emotional strain is valid? That stress is relative, and that’s ok. I think that’s a good start—by taking each of our anxiety levels seriously. By retiring the directive, “don’t sweat the small stuff.”
Then, if we want to diminish our reactions to stress and stop leaning on those short-term coping behaviors, we can work on that. We can take deep breaths and remind ourselves that this, too, shall pass. But, in the meantime, if we want to vent like my mom did that morning, we should do so without fear of being labeled a drama queen.
Have you ever tried to fix a paper jam in one of those huge copy machines that’s the size of a refrigerator sitting on its side? It can also happen on a small home printer, like it did to me the other day. I’m usually pretty good at clearing those jams, mainly because I’m patient.
You have to try everything. When you find that first crumpled piece of paper and pull it out, you may feel satisfied that you’ve resolved the problem. But there is a 95 percent chance that at least one more piece of paper is stuck even further inside.
You go for it anyway: You close the door or tray and take a look at the little display screen. The machine informs you that it is still jammed. So, you try again. And again. Eventually you will find a small, brightly colored handle that you didn’t know existed, and it will open a compartment you’ve never see before. And there you will find a piece of paper so mangled that you have to pry it out in shreds.
When you finally close up the printer for like the tenth time and it starts to hum and you hit start and copies come out, you feel like Jack in Titanic shouting, “I’m the king of the world!”
This machine might not end up on the bottom of the ocean, but much like Rose, you will outlive it. One day you will arrive at work and encounter a gleaming new printer that, according to the office manager, will change your life. Wrong. It just has even more places where paper can lodge.
This past year I wrote a memoir about how I got stuck for a long time. As I wrote this book, I reminded myself not to be content with the easy discoveries. Even in the editing phase, I tried to peek into every possible hiding space where the answers might be tucked away. I had to take on new vantage points—to peer at my life from every angle I could embrace.
But sometimes one person is not enough. The possibilities are too vast, and an individual’s frame of reference only goes so far. A team of people working on a project is almost always enhanced when each person on the team offers a distinct set of skills and insight. Welcoming in new viewpoints makes the team stronger.
So, once I completed the third draft of my memoir, I recruited test readers. I reached out to a whole bunch of people because I knew it was important to obtain a variety of perspectives. These folks might spot a weakness that I was too close to observe. Some of them did, and their comments made my manuscript better.
A couple weeks ago I attended a writer’s association meeting, and I shared with the group the progress I’ve made on my book. I was informed that my collection of beta readers was still too narrow because they were all friends, acquaintances, or former co-workers. A member of the writer’s group who I had only just met offered to read my book if I would read theirs.
A part of me feels like I’ve been working on this book forever, and I should just skip this step. That’s the part of me that wants to stop fixing the friggin’ paper jam already. Luckily, that part almost always concedes to the part of me that wants to keep looking. After all, who knows what this new reader will find? What if they locate that final crinkled piece of paper that eluded everyone else?
Each person we collaborate with brings with them a whole host of contexts and experiences that exist well beyond our own. We should think of our self as our first collaborator, and our duty is to push past those early automatic thoughts to get to the deeper stuff. And then, when we are stretched to our outer limits, we can invite in others to help us extend the boundaries of what’s possible.
How else do you think those giant printers came to be?!
Three years ago, I wrote about jealousy, a topic that fascinates me. I shared my belief that accepting our feelings of envy and exploring them can be surprisingly freeing and insightful.
Last November, I was scrolling on Instagram and discovered a beautiful post by the amazing artist and writer Sophie Lucido Johnson. She linked jealousy with the concept of scarcity, which got my brain percolating.
Three months ago I decided to write about the 2012 frenzy in professional basketball known as “Linsanity.” Despite being a little late to the party on that one, I felt there was something to be learned from Jeremy Lin’s brief period of transcendence.
I think these topics are connected, that they have similar lessons to convey, and my mind has been slowly putting the pieces together over the years. Then, a random story I heard served as the missing piece that started to fill in the picture.
The story involves a girl who threw away her participation trophy and told her soccer teammates that they should do the same because the trophies were meaningless. Stories like this are meant to elicit cheers of “right on!”—but this one just made me sad.
Our culture has a complicated relationship with participation trophies in kids’ sports. Lots of people think these trophies diminish and deter achievement, while other folks believe they endorse and encourage effort.
When I was a kid, I was tiny and couldn’t throw or catch a ball to save my life, so I hated the team sports we were forced to play in gym class. As an adult, I haven’t had to deal with this issue much due to my lack of experience as a sports parent. When my stepson was young, he briefly played baseball and basketball, so I did attend a few games, where I had the opportunity to ponder the advantages of competitive athletics from a new perspective.
I now believe that, if handled properly (which is clearly a big ask), kids’ sports can have tons of benefits. Research on girls who play sports bears this out.
First, we have to recognize that the vast majority of kids who play team sports are not going to win “real” trophies, medals, or championships. They are not going to go on to play team sports in college or get drafted into the big leagues or compete at the Olympics.
Visions of elusive medals can help bring out the best in some contenders, but do we truly believe that athletics exist only to reward those who triumph?
The reason sports are tightly woven into education and communities is not to help funnel the top performers into future careers or to channel the energy of competitive kids and parents (though these objectives certainly play a part). We offer team sports to children because they are a hands-on tool for teaching collaboration, responsibility, dedication, and resilience.
If a child is putting in the time and supporting their teammates, a participation trophy can be a concrete way to acknowledge their undertaking. While kids are still developing both physically and mentally, taking a hard line on how there can only be one winner seems counter-productive.
And what if we carry this notion of scarcity outside the sports arena? We may find that school and work and even hobbies become far more stressful than need be.
A belief in scarcity can cause us to put off or give up entirely on a project because we fear that we will never be the best. Scarcity can make us jealous of the success of others, even our friends, because it seems as if there is only so much good fortune to go around.
We can and should pat ourselves on the back when we get a promotion, earn a degree, or find new ways to stretch and grow. But I would like to see every one of us embrace the spirit behind the participation trophy and give ourselves frequent accolades for all the myriad things we do to get through each day. Because maybe, just maybe, life itself is found in moments of pure participation.
The tag on my tea bag reads “When fear is forcing you to give up, call upon your heart’s courage to continue.” (photo effects from Nexmuse.com)
Recently I signed up for a two-week trial period at a local fitness club that offers yoga and cycle classes. I already love yoga, but I had never taken an indoor cycling (“spin”) class. The whole idea intimidated me, which was part of the appeal.
You see, for the past five years I’ve been pushing myself to try new things—not just the activities I’ve been dreaming of doing, but the ones that take me beyond my comfort zone as well.
I’m not a huge fan of riding regular bikes. As a matter of fact, last summer I dragged my unused bike out of the basement, dusted it off, and sold it on Facebook Marketplace. And I’m familiar with the stereotype of the screaming, over-caffeinated cycle instructor. So, I was really curious to see how I would take to this new form of exercise.
As I walked through the studio door to take an introductory cycle class, I felt as if the fear was written on my face, as if my every step announced that I was out of my element.
At the intro class, we were all beginners. The instructor went over terminology, how to set up our bikes, and how to position ourselves. The actual cycling was minimal—no need to worry at all!
The big challenge came a week later when I took my first regular class with experienced riders. As I struggled to adjust my seat and handlebars and get my heart rate monitor working, I was sure it was painfully obvious I didn’t know what I was doing. Ugh, I just wanted to be invisible.
How many times had I let this kind of unease with being viewed as an incompetent, clueless newbie stop me from trying something?
Later that day, I started thinking about how being seen and not seen are two sides of the same coin.
For the past year I’ve been writing a full-length memoir, and lots of memories have surfaced. As a kid, I felt like I was often ignored due to my small size and shyness. Sometimes it seemed as if the only thing worse than being disregarded was being sized up by judgmental eyes.
I think even the most introverted human wants to be noticed on occasion, with kindness if at all possible. We all want to know that we matter, that we deserve to be accepted and understood. But we can’t control how others interpret us.
I’ve heard that you shouldn’t assume that others are gawking at you and tallying up your faults—that strangers truly don’t care that much about you. They are likely too busy thinking about themselves and their own stuff.
Still, when you are getting ready to do something scary and different, it’s like a spotlight settles upon you as each movement is magnified and time practically stands still.
I don’t have a magic solution for this predicament. The first thing to remember is that you are not alone. In my first full cycle class, the instructor could not get her music to come out of the studio speakers. Her struggle reminded me that we all have moments when things don’t go smoothly.
Even when you feel like the biggest sore thumb in the room, this too, shall pass. In several weeks or months, you will look back and grin at your frightened, novice self. With your awkward phase so fresh in your mind, you can now serve as the perfect guide for other beginners. You can tell them how pushing through those first awful moments will be so worth it in the end.
I haven’t always liked the new things that I’ve tried, but I have committed to always giving myself the chance to find out.
A while back, a friend of mine told me he was going to try to stop talking to himself. I was horrified—why would anyone want to do such a thing?!
I have been chatting with myself since I was a kid. As an only child, I spent a lot of time alone in my room talking to my dolls and acting out scenes. I also had pretend friends with whom I carried on lengthy conversations inside my head.
Decades later, I still speak to myself out loud when no one is around. I do this pretty much every time I am driving by myself in the car and often in the kitchen.
If you’re anything like me, you talk to yourself in order to rehearse a presentation for work or to practice your answers for an upcoming job interview.
In addition to these scenarios, I tell myself stories from my life. Some of these stories are unpleasant, like the events leading up to my friend’s early death. Reliving such memories is like being voluntarily stuck in a nightmare, but at least I know the outcome.
Not all the stories are negative. After I quit drinking, I used to pretend that I was being interviewed on a podcast, and I would go over the steps that led up to my decision and the challenges I faced. I did this over and over, kind of like playing a favorite song.
Clearly I was in need of new material. Brain space is precious, and I was wasting my creativity by repeating the same old stories.
I decided that I would make an effort to explore new ground whenever I talked to myself. At first, I resisted and pouted. But it got easier and more natural in no time, thanks to these three templates:
Kid therapist: I pick something that has been bothering me, and I try to get to the root of the issue. Basically, I act like a little kid and keep asking “but why?” after each answer. The theory is that you should be able to ask yourself at least four or five whys before you get to the good stuff—the real reason why you can’t stop stewing over something. I did one recently that went on for nine whys!
Burner shift: I pick an idea that has been sitting on the back burner of my mind and talk through what would be required to move forward. What could be shifted from the front burners to make room for this project? I try to envision the potential obstacles along the way and how I might work around them. And I envision the potential rewards that I would experience, not just at completion but during the process as well.
Writing detective: Let’s say I’ve come up with a topic for a blog post, but I haven’t stared writing it yet because I’m not sure where it’s going. I play the role of a dogged detective who is questioning me to solve the mystery of what this piece is about. This process almost always helps me locate the main points of the piece, and I usually come up with some good turns of phrase as well.
Recently I was driving, and I caught myself starting to narrate one of my old stories. I was delighted to realize that it had been a while since I had hit replay on one of my top hits.
I will probably keep talking to myself until the day I die. Here’s hoping I manage to keep it fresh!
Bittersweet Nugget 