Learning to Pace Myself

This is the third in a series of posts describing my experiences at Integral Agile Wizardry Boot Camp attended December 3 - 7, 2014 in San Francisco. 

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Slow Down.

One of my fellow wizards in Integral Agile Wizardry class is this deeply insightful, interesting guy. He had recently become quite a minimalist, something I found extremely liberating and interesting. At first I was turned off by him, but as is usual once you get to know someone’s heart just a little bit, you learn to love their heart. At least that’s what always happens to me. (Note to self, ignore first impressions EVERY TIME). I love this guy’s heart. If you read my first blog entry, The Integral Race Begins, and were trying to guess, you’d guess correctly that he was one of the sailing metaphor guys from day one.

Anyway, he spent a lot of time visibly focusing during the training. He was very deliberate in what he said, although sometimes I could get a sense of his internal energy wanting to burst out of him. Then I’d see him sitting in his chair with his eyes closed, very clearly focusing using breathing and some sort of meditation. He was always very articulate and thoughtful in what he said. He didn't rush through it and took the time to complete his thought. Sometimes he was a bit fiery and passionate, but he had this undertone of calm about him. 

At one point during the life changing week, I was telling a story about myself. I think it was during my journey lines presentation the first night. Regardless, I was talking a million miles a minute. This is something I do. I speak so quickly that people can’t even understand me sometimes. He looked me in the eyes and said in a quiet, calm voice, “slow down”. I was taken aback a bit and looked at him and probably laughed a little. He was right. I needed to slow down. I tried.

The question is, why am I always rushing? What am I running from?

I always say I’m not a good joke teller. So: bad at metaphors despite the fact I've used a metaphor pretty successfully in this blog, AND a bad joke teller. Are those true about me? No actually, they are not. I think these things that I say about me are driven by my feeling of inadequacy and not being worthy. 

When I was rushing through my journey lines story, I was afraid of taking up time that I wasn't worthy of taking from everyone. When I retell a joke, I skip to the punchline because I don’t want to waste anyone’s time. Well no wonder, that makes for a TERRIBLE joke teller. Am I worthy of their time? Is what I’m giving them when I take their time WORTH the exchange? In my heart, I have this core belief that I’m not worthy of taking their time in exchange for what I have to offer. It is a really damaging belief that has kept me from my life’s purpose, which is helping people to be their best selves. I've succeeded in doing that a few times in my life, but I've really done some damage sometimes too! Ugh. A different post. 

There was was a joke told by this jovial guy from Belgium during an amazing night of our class.  It was hilarious. Here is the basic joke.  

http://www.greatcleanjokes.com/3382/snail-joke/. 

By the time I got home, I realized that this belief that I can't tell jokes is a lie. It's a lie I made up about myself so I don't have to "steal" time. When I got home, I nervously told my husband the joke. I told it with all of the pauses that my jovial friend from Belgium used, and packed the same punch with the punchline. He laughed his ass off. Wow, I can tell jokes! I told him another one that one of the facilitators told (a bit off-color, which I love, but I won't include here). That second one was lost on him, but it wasn't my joke telling that was flawed... I told the snail joke again at Christmas and got a good laugh from my family. 

This blog is a similar kind of thing. I've shared this blog with the people of the training and have made it public on Google+. I haven’t deliberately shared it within my company or close coworkers yet although they could find it if they wanted to. What a scary thought! (I've included it on my new signature line at work. Who pays attention to those anyway?!) I'm pretty sure that the coach I'm working with is going to encourage me strongly to publish it on Twitter, and maybe even on Facebook. I might need to be drunk first. 

I fear that I’m not deserving of the positive feedback that I've gotten from my cohort wizards about what I've written so far. It’s so much easier for me to write off what they’re saying than it is to believe that what I've said has had an impact on them. Now how messed up is that?! What I know to be true is that these are honest, authentic people. Every.Single.One. So now I have to come to terms with the fact that what they are saying is true. They are telling me that what I’m writing has value and is something they want to hear, so I have to believe them. I have to fight this internal, core belief that I’m not enough - with my logical brain and feeling heart. I’m more likely to believe that people have read it and dismissed it, or not bothered at all.

This takes me to another topic (I have a lot of writing to do), which is “It’s not all about me.” I will get to that one soon. It’s a big one. It might be THE one.

The stars have really aligned to allow me SLOW DOWN and the reminder to do so was timely. I've taken a new position in my current company in which I have three direct reports and a newly aligned leadership team that hasn't worked together before. My job involves alignment and strategy more than it ever has, which REQUIRES slowing down. I don’t have a million tasks to do, and being effective at my job requires me to stop doing a million tasks and let the people whose job it is to do the tasks. My job involves establishing and getting people aligned to a vision and allowing them to execute their work in alignment with that vision and only helping when they ask. 

This is where the old me signs up for lessons in this and classes in that and I work to fill my time with something other than slowing down. This is where I unknowingly steal their thunder by staying in the details and getting in their way. I am resisting that. 

At the end of the training, this meditative, sailing metaphor guy who told me to slow down at the beginning of the class picked me up off my feet in a huge hug and squeezed hard. He said “Slow Down.” I’ll never forget it.