Step By Step…

My knee was injured for the first time while playing high school football during my senior year. I hurt it again playing football in college. The years that followed consisted of more pain, more stiffness, more swelling, less running, and fewer walks. Then one day in my mid-thirties, I couldn’t run at all anymore or take long walks without a knee brace. When I hit forty the knee brace stopped being effective. I have been experiencing knee pain since I was 18 years old. I got so used to it that it became a part of me. Years ago, after a particularly long and grueling hike in Glacier National Park, I stripped off my clothes and plunged myself into a stream. The water felt so good. I held onto a boulder and let the current wash over my body. I think about that moment often because I knew that my body needed me to take better care of it. It took another decade but I finally listened and had a partial knee replacement on March 13th, 2023. 

Currently, the pain is like nothing I have ever experienced. My right knee is swollen beyond what I thought was possible. The tightness, the throbbing, and the sharp pangs are all a constant and according to my doctors, there is only more pain to come. It’s an odd thing knowing that the worst hasn’t arrived yet. I can’t find a comfortable position in bed most nights so I pace around until giant tears roll down my cheeks. I have not cried like this since my dog Bernie died in October of 2021. As much as that loss hurt those tears were from a different source. That pain came from my spirit, these tears are coming from deep, deep down in my cells, from my DNA.

I was not ready for this at all! I thought I was, but I was very wrong. Over the years, my ego and my tolerance for pain have been intertwined more than I would like to admit. I have taken pride in my ability to withstand both physical and mental abuse. It is, quite frankly, stupid. I was not raised to be like this. I was brought up in a loving home and still developed such a hard shell of protection that I stopped being able to feel much of anything, just preparing for the next hardship, injury, and disappointment. I may have been raised with love but I grew up in the 80s and during that time, you rubbed some dirt on it and you kept it pushing. 

I have been in therapy long enough to know that some of the responses and protections I developed over the years are there for a reason; survival being the main one. There are too many examples of people who look like me having their chapters cut short and I want my story to be a tome when my time is at an end. But for now, I have to learn how to walk again, and if I’m learning how to do that I might as well learn/re-learn some other things. There was a time, long ago, when I felt my feelings without shame or judgment. They came and then they went and I lived my life. I don’t need to nor do I want to tolerate pain anymore. If something hurts, I need to address it and not with dirt. If someone does something that is hurtful, I need to address them and not just keep it pushing. Life is too long and too short to live that way if you don’t have to. 

This pain will eventually pass. But I am in the middle of it now, and it hurts. After a lifetime of taking walking for granted, I find myself back in chapter one. I’ve been here before, it’s familiar to me. I start with baby steps, and just keep putting one foot in front of the other and see where I end up.  

Waiting On The Sides…

There was this point as an improviser when I no longer concerned myself with being perfect on stage. Not only was it silly to try and be perfect at improvisation but it prevented me from getting better. I was too concerned with what the audience thought of me. I was too concerned with ruining the entire show with the wrong move. Because of this, I couldn’t be fully present with or for my fellow players on stage.

I still remember the night all of that came to an end. There were maybe 50 people in the audience and I was on the sides waiting for a reason to walk on to the stage and join a scene that was taking place. The moment I walked into the scene I felt different than previous moments. It was like I could see the stage and the other players in a different light. Much like Dorthy walking out of her house after the tornado set it down in Oz. I had more energy and my moves were crisp! It felt great. I had more energy because I wasn’t wasting any of it on fear. I was present and I had transitioned from an okay improviser to a pretty good improviser.

Improv is something I hope to continue doing for a very long time and within that time I hope to transition from a pretty good improviser to a pretty great improviser. I try to remember that moment on the side of that stage when I feel stuck or when I am particularly scared of trying something that I know I can do.

Imposter syndrome is very real and very immobilizing. I encourage anyone experiencing self doubts to remember a time when you felt yourself grow, to remember a time when you expanded past what you thought was possible and that might be all it takes for you to get unstuck.

Resume Resumed

I absolutely hate working on my resume. I’m more of a cover page kind of person. In my lifetime, the resume has become so overly complicated that I just didn’t know where to start. So I talked to a friend who knows all about how to write “good” resumes and she let me know that mine was horrible. It’s been a long time since I had seen that many red marks on something I had written.

However, the more she explained all of the places where I had gone wrong the more I started to understand this Matrix level puzzle. My mistake was that I was just listing all of my roles and responsibilities instead of stating why an organization should want to hire me. I wasn’t telling the story of me, I was just rifling off my accomplishments. Imagine going to a storytelling show and the person on stage just starts saying words that seem to be grouped by category. You would leave that venue as fast as possible.

As someone who at times hires new employees you’d think I would have figured this out on my own but I didn’t. The resumes that I tend to gravitate toward are the ones that read more like a story rather than a roll-call. This also makes sense why I enjoy writing cover letters more than resumes. I still don’t have the art of resume writing down completely but my entire perspective has shifted on the process of writing them. From now on I will approach writing them like I approach preparing a short story. I have a limited amount of time to grab and keep the attention of the audience and I hope they are still with me at the end.

All that said, what do resumes actually do? That’s a real question. Why have we not evolved past them yet?

Quicksand…

Creativity can be frustrating sometimes. There are moments when I have a cluster of ideas, amazing and unique concepts come flooding out of my brain. I follow a particular stream of consciousness, working the idea over and over inside of my head, but if I don’t write it down the thought leaves me and I am left with a whisper of something cool that I can no longer remember. I don’t understand why I can’t just pick up a pen or a pencil the moment I feel the inspiration? It’s the same with intense and wild dreams that I startle awake from. Some of them are so colorful and vibrant but I don’t take the necessary actions required to preserve the details.

I understand that getting stuck is part of the overall journey of life but those moments are made even more frustrating when it feels like you missed the boat sailing by the island that you’ve been trapped on. You know another boat will sail by at some point so in the meantime you just imagine what it would’ve have been like on the boat that you missed and all of the things you’d do the moment you reached a populated land mass. 

I am feeling stuck at the moment and I’m trying to figure out why that is. I can feel the creative sparks crackling under my skin and I wait uncomfortably for the fireworks show to begin. It seems the older that I get the less patience I have for bullshit, especially my own. 

The Story Is Yours

My improv group, Broke Gravy, had a show recently where we invited three storytellers to tell 3-5 minute stories and then we would act out scenes inspired by each story that we listened to. We had a great time and the audience appeared to have just as much fun. For this particular format, because it’s improv, I can’t hear the stories ahead of time to help coach the folks. This can leave some of the more green storytellers feeling a little less prepared. 

The night of the show one of the storytellers was clearly nervous. I’ve known her for about six years now and I could tell she was feeling some kind of way about her approaching time on stage. I asked her if there was anything I could do and she said that she was nervous because she’s not used to speaking in front of people. I gave her some tips and tricks to help ground herself once she was up on stage. I let her know that I would be just off stage left in case she needed anything once she was up there, but I also told her that no one and I mean no one bought a ticket to that show hoping that she would fail. I reminded her that everyone in that audience was there to support her and listen to what she had to tell them. I also told her that the great thing about telling a story about a personal experience is that the audience has no idea if you “make a mistake” or “forget to say something”. They don’t know your story so they don’t know all of the things that you wished you had done better.

In my experience one of the best things about personal storytelling is that you don’t need notes. These are your memories so it’s a lot easier to keep information straight in your head and remember what to say next because you had the actual experiences. She ended up telling an absolutely wonderful story, as I knew she would and I could see the delight on her face as the audience gave applause of approval. 

I love storytelling.

Sacred

A friend recently had to cancel plans with me because her friend’s mother died. After hearing this I replied like the majority of us would, I told her that I was sorry for her loss. She then quickly replied that the woman who passed away was 87 years old and had an absolutely awesome and well lived life. There’s something inside of my friend's response to my condolences that I want to unpack further. 

It’s not that my friend wasn’t saddened by the loss of her friend’s mother, she was just acknowledging that 1) we will all die one day, but also 2) that this person lived a good life and it’s hard to lose yourself in the sadness of another person’s passing when that person lived a long, dynamic existence. I digested this information and translated it further into my own way of thinking. This woman told her story and she told it well. When her time on this earth was done she didn’t leave any chapters behind. Her story was complete. 

I can think of few things that are sadder than a life coming to an end with untold stories to tell or a life being lived without sharing a story with others. One of the cruelest things that can be done to people is to destroy or change their history. When you take away people’s stories, when you take away their truths, you are attacking their souls. I am not a religious person but erasing stories must be a sin against all that makes us human beings. It feels like the definition of an act of evil.

I never shy away from people’s stories. I’m not threatened by the stories of others. There may be times when I don’t have the capacity, energy or desire to listen to their stories, but I would never try to take someone's story away from them. I am wary of people who try to change history or silence the experiences of people, particularly those people who live in the margins of society. 

Luckily stories are hard to kill. You may silence and bury them for a time but they have a way of making their way back to the surface again. Stories are us. We are stories. Every single person who has ever lived on this planet up to the very moment that you are reading this post has a story. Again, I might not be a religious person but that right there, feels sacred to me.

Listen To Your Body

I’ve had a headache since the middle of June…a nagging, mostly dull but ever present headache. It feels like there’s too much pressure around my brain which isn’t a very pleasant sensation. For the first month and a half I ignored it. I thought it would just go away on its own. I even started to blame myself at one point, like I was manifesting the headache by thinking about it so much. Then I went to the dentist who told me that I had a cracked tooth. I’m pretty sure that the headache started after I bit down on a delicious, not so pitted kalamata olive. 

My love for olives could fill a short novel. This post is not about olives but the universe got it right with those salty, meaty orbs of delight. I eat them right out of the jar (glass only) and I believed the advertising was true about them being pitted. I bit down hard and although it hurt I hadn’t realized at the time that damage had been done to the left molar. I still eat olives, I just bite down with care and suspicion now. 

But this is not an olive story! It’s a story about living with pain and doing nothing about it for way too long. I did the same thing when my appendix was inflamed and that could have been fatal. I clearly have not learned my lesson about trusting what my body is trying to tell me. But it turns out that my cracked tooth is not the cause of my headaches after all! I went to my doctor and he did all kinds of cognitive tests which I passed and then staring deep into my eyes he said that I looked like the kind of guy who was going to think of the worst case scenario and I told him that would be a correct assumption. The MRI was ordered and although I’ve had three brain MRI’s up to that point (college football) when it came time to get what would be number four I had a slight panic attack as the human sized dinner tray slowly pushed me into the futuristic tunnel. 

The technician brought me back out and I told her that I just needed a moment. She was very understanding as I’m sure she gets this response more times than she can count at this point in her career. I asked her if I would be shoved all the way into the hole and she said that my legs would still be outside of it. This answer instantly relaxed me and the MRI proceeded without incident.

The brain is good, no issues or problems. The headache remains. Stress? Maybe. The only time that my headache has left me from the middle of June until now (September) was when I got a massage that concentrated on my neck, head and shoulders for 90 minutes. The pressure lifted and I was headache free for three glorious days in early August. 

Most recently I went to get my eyes checked out and the eye doctor (he’s an optometrist and an ophthalmologist…the front desk folks made sure to tell me this) told me that my eye muscles are old and lazy. I stopped wearing my glasses during the pandemic because I was tired of seeing the world through fog colored glasses. I am not someone who can’t see without my glasses so I just stopped wearing them about two years ago. Oops! Looks like my eyes have been working hard for their money ever since and my left eye apparently points outward just enough to be problematic.

The eye doctor confidently told me that he thinks my headache will go away once I start wearing the new prescription. Unfortunately the frames I want are two weeks delayed so I guess it’s a headache until October for me. What’s a few more weeks I guess. Luckily I’ve got a handful of massages planned between now and then. I feel like if you made it to the end of this post you can decide the morals or lessons to pull from it. I’m going with “Listen to your body…and your optometrist if you have one.”

Running On Empty

Have I run out of stories to tell? I’ve been asking myself this question lately. The logical part of me knows that the answer is obviously no. I have an endless supply of stories and new ones are born daily. However, the emotional side of me and that tiny part of me that swims in whispers of fear says “not only are you out of stories Chris, but you never had good ones to begin with!” Doubting yourself is a pretty natural thing to do. Sometimes a little self doubt can be healthy. I’ve said it before and I will continue to say that self-reflection is essential to evolution and innovation. However, sometimes you just need to go easy on yourself. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone tells a bad story sometimes. Take the lessons as they come and then make the most out of the next opportunity that arises. 

Peace Of Mind

It had been a while since I felt the need to stand up for myself but recent events required me to employ this very important skill. Standing up for yourself isn’t always easy but I was surprised at how quickly the muscle memory came back. There are so many issues at play when deciding if you’re going to stand up for yourself or interrupt an aggression towards you. I think the main reason people don’t speak up for themselves is fear and a close second is that they don’t know how to speak up for themselves. Fear is very real and valid but it’s also structurally unsound. Once you start knocking on its walls you can feel them wobble. 

Before I decided to stand up for myself and address the negative behaviors that were directed toward me I found myself weighing the pros and cons of saying something. It’s a lot harder to say something if you need something from the person exhibiting the crap behavior. It’s a lot harder to do something if the person is in a position of power over you. It’s harder to say something if saying something could result in you being further harmed or there’s a possibility of retribution. Luckily for me, I didn’t need anything from this person, they have absolutely no power over me and any kind of retribution they may have attempted would have been quickly snuffed out.

For me, the reason I decided to say something was because I knew I wouldn’t be able to look at myself in the mirror if I didn’t. I didn’t want to live with the feeling that I should have said something or done something so I wrote a long email to the offender and I made sure all of the people I felt needed to read it were included. The moment I hit send I could feel my entire body relax. I doubt anything will come of it but I feel whole and I have peace of mind and that is all that really matters.

I Am Not A Shark

If you don’t listen to your body and your mind then they will take over. I am someone who likes to stay busy. If I’m not “working on work” then I’m creating more work for myself to do. I know that we’ve been in a pandemic for the past two plus years but things didn’t really slow down for me at all. I was lucky enough to keep my job and since I work with students and families the need only got greater. My creative life changed because live performances went away completely, but I just found new ways to scratch my creative itches. And so this is how I have been living in the world. I say “yes” a lot. I could hear my body and my mind telling me to slow down but I kept saying yes. The world literally changed. We all had to change how we do what we do and I kept going full steam ahead…ignoring my own intuition to slow down, to stop. 

A huge red flag was when I stopped writing. I try to write something, anything really, at least every other day. Even if it’s just a paragraph in a notebook or an interesting idea on my phone's notes application. About three months ago I stopped writing completely and then almost four weeks ago I got sick. And not just “cough and sniffles” sickness, but “I had to take eight covid tests” kind of sick. All negative, but I felt horrible for over a week. If I wasn’t going to listen to my body then it was going to force me to stop. I’m still a little bit congested as I write this but I am definitely feeling better. I had just started going back to the gym when four days ago I hurt my back pretty badly, so bad in fact that I couldn’t sleep for 48 hours due to the pain. So just when I was preparing to start back up at 100 miles an hour my body hit the brakes again. 

I don’t know if you have ever hurt your back but you use it for pretty much everything. Breathing hurts! It’s awful and I am just now able to bend over somewhat and sleep through the night. You need your back and I am thankful for that reminder. How many times do we think about the things that just work? I rarely do and I definitely take that for granted. This forced slow down has not been easy. To be honest, it sucks, and yet I find that I am thankful. My back will heal. My cough will go away. I will be okay. I will also be okay if I slow down sometimes. If I say “no” a little bit more. I don’t need to “always be doing something.” I’m not a shark so I won’t die if I stop moving. Stillness is definitely something I will continue to work on and I invite anyone who feels the same to join me. 

Playing It Safe

Try not to be too careful or too patient in life that you miss out on big opportunities. Taking my personal safety into account, I would guess that over 90% of the missed opportunities in my life have resulted from playing it safe or waiting for “the right time.” This has happened in my personal life and in my professional life. 

I think it’s totally natural to have regrets and I personally don’t put much stock into the idea that you can live a regret-less life. If you’re a human being that’s pretty much impossible. However, I do see value in living a life that keeps regrets to a minimum. A lot of times the worst thing that will happen to you is that you aren’t successful in your attempt or you get a “no” instead of a “yes” or maybe your ego takes a bit of a blow and you feel embarrassed. Again, that’s all part of life AND you can use any life event as a learning lesson. I would rather fail gloriously than quietly play it safe all the time. 

Moving On

Moving on can be tricky business sometimes. I find that moving on tends to be viewed as negative or as the result of something not going the way you expected. Obviously, people move on from relationships, from their jobs, or from one city to another. But people can also move on from grief, from letting fear take control of their lives or they can simply move on from making unhealthy choices. 

Years ago I was in a significant relationship that came to an abrupt end. It was scary because I had no idea what to do with myself. I didn't really want to be alone but I also knew that the relationship had run its course. I had two rough weeks and then, for no reason at all, I just felt better. It was like a weight had been removed from my shoulders. There wasn’t an event that initiated this and I didn’t meet someone new. My fear and my sadness had simply run their course.

Back in October I lost my dog Bernie due to complications with a very aggressive form of cancer. That event inspired one of my first blogs for this website. I’ve been silently grieving her loss ever since. It’s difficult to explain what it’s like when you have to put down a pet that you’ve grown to love and cared for over the years. It was harder than I ever could have imagined. I felt like I was probably done owning pets all together, but last week I pulled up to my office which is located near a park. The park has this expansive field that summer sport camps take place on but it’s also used by neighborhood residents who let their dogs run free on it. When I put my car in park I noticed a woman and her dog walking up to the car that was parked about 10 meters in front of mine. The woman opened her car door, then unhooked the leash from the dog's collar. The dog just sat on the grass, looking up at the women while wagging its tail. She gave it a treat and then the dog happily jumped into the backseat of the car. 

Once again, just like that, I felt a weight lift away from my shoulders. I felt the grief that I’ve been carrying for Bernie get significantly lighter. I don’t know why. I’ve witnessed more than my share of scenes like the one I just described since October, but I never felt like I did at that moment. It was a gift. I imagine a part of me will always feel some sadness when I think about Bernie but I will also feel love and be grateful for our time together.

I hope that anyone and everyone who needs to “move on” from something or someone that’s not serving them well is able to do so safely and intentionally. I hope that you feel lighter in your shoulders and have a little more pep in your step, even if those steps are just metaphorical ones. 

Oh Well…

I recently had the pleasure of facilitating a storytelling workshop for some people in the Portland community. It was a workshop for those who were interested in maybe-kinda-sorta-possibly-one-day telling a true personal story in front of an audience. I thought it went really well and the time went by really fast. I’m always a little paranoid when it comes to the length of my workshops. Having spent so much of my professional time sitting inside of meetings and workshops that seem to have no end in sight, I never want anyone to experience that feeling when taking a workshop that I offer. 

Anyways, I overcompensated and just when things were heating up and people were starting to relax more, the hour was over and we all signed off of Zoom. The age of Zoom has scrambled my radar when it comes to time. Zoom fatigue is a very real phenomenon and I wasn’t sure if people could handle being on their screens for 90 minutes having probably spent their work day in a handful of Zoom meetings already.

Of course what I failed to take into consideration was that these people signed up for my workshop. They opted in, whereas we are forced to partake in meetings during the work day. I also didn’t take into account the fact that my workshops are dope, fun, interesting and very interactive! Everything is a learning opportunity and I will take my new found knowledge and apply the lessons learned for my next workshop. 

There were two themes that stuck out to me during this workshop that I wanted to quickly address. The first being the idea of discomfort. We all experience it for a variety of reasons. One of my jobs requires a lot of anti-racist facilitation and unpacking discomfort takes up a fair chunk of the time in the beginning. In this context, however, discomfort came up around public speaking and some of the participants' belief (or lack thereof) in their abilities to tell a story that people would be interested in hearing. 

The second theme that came up is something I’ve talked about before, perfectionism. Nobody wants to make a mistake but that’s life and there is no learning without failing. Discomfort and Perfectionism are wonderful dance partners because they have similar moves. You can’t be perfect at anything but when it comes to a creative outlet like storytelling you shouldn’t want to be perfect. Part of storytelling is discovering your story. Some of my greatest discoveries have come during struggle. It’s uncomfortable but the rewards are great and definitely worth it. 

Imagine a world where you never made a mistake, you never felt nervous and everything came easy to you. Yuck! No thanks. I’ll sit with my discomfort and shine a warm, healing light on my mistakes so I can continuously improve myself and be the best version of myself that I can muster on that day. I want to live an adventurous life. There’s so much time to be perfect after you’re dead. 

Control…What Have You Done For Me Lately?

The hardest part of finding my voice and being comfortable telling stories in front of audiences was confronting my anxiety. The actual storytelling part is great. I enjoy connecting with people and I absolutely love feeling the energy created when my voice fills a room. It was the worrying beforehand, the anxiety that I felt all the way up to the day of my performance that almost made the event not worth it to me. I would work myself up so much with visions of failure and humiliation that I felt sick. I would play on a loop all the different ways that my story would bomb and this made the entire process unhealthy because no matter how great my story actually went, I had already experienced the feeling of utter defeat. 

Just thinking about what it would be like to publicly fall on my face made me experience the feelings as if it had really happened. It took me a long time to realize that I was harming myself with my own thoughts. Trying to ignore what I was feeling didn’t work, it actually made me feel worse. I tried breathing techniques and although they helped some with my physical responses I was still having serious anxiety. I decided to explore more in depth exactly what was happening to me when these negative thoughts started to fill my brain. 

My heart beat faster, my muscles tensed up, my emotions navigated towards sadness, frustration, fear and anger…I was a mess. Why? Was it because I was unprepared? Nope. I knew my story front to back so where was my uncertainty coming from? Why was my confidence in my own abilities so fractured? What I soon figured out about myself is that I like to have control and storytelling is a vulnerable endeavor in which you absolutely can’t control how people will respond. You can only work on your craft and then release it into the universe, after that, it’s out of your hands. 

For someone like me who tries to control so much of their life, the act of telling stories to a room full of people that I can’t control is very disruptive to my psyche. The cruel joke of it all is that control is an illusion. I have very little control in my life because life is, for the most part, uncontrollable. Humans have been trying to control it since we started walking upright but life-keeps-winning. 

Oddly enough, this realization took all of the negative self-talk wind out of my sails. “It’s gonna be what it’s gonna be” became my new mantra. The destructive voice inside of my head went away and I was just left with my story to tell. If there were 500 people in the audience then there would be 500 responses that I couldn’t control and that’s okay. I reflect, I practice, I tweak things here, I change things there, I prepare and then I perform. To add self flagellation to that list doesn’t do anyone any good so I stopped. Now, I can devote all of my energy to preparing the best possible story, the best possible product, the best possible me to put forward and that is all I can really control.

Why Are You Doing?

I recently forgot to bring my AirPods to the gym with me and dread spread throughout my body very quickly. I actually thought about driving home to get them but I was already there so I figured I would just get the workout done so I could officially start my day afterwards. I love to listen to podcasts while working out. It feels like time passes by a lot faster when I’m distracted with a good story. 

Without my pods I was starting out in somewhat of a bad mood. I could hear all of the machines squeaking and the sound of metal on metal. I could hear the other humans around me breathing or grunting as they pushed heavy plates into the air. I could hear music that I would never listen to playing from the speakers in the ceiling. I could hear everything…I could even hear myself. The longer my workout went the more I could hear the thoughts inside of my head. Between sets I would pull my phone out and write down interesting ideas that came to me in the notes application; ideas I might want to explore at a later time. 

I also found that I was more focused on the task at hand. I felt more connected to my body and therefore to the exercise I was doing at the time. I realized how routine my routine at the gym had become. I hadn’t attempted to increase my weight, reps or sets in a long time. I had been going through the motions and although I had still been getting a good workout in, I wasn't growing at all. I wasn’t getting stronger. I wasn’t pushing myself. I wasn’t struggling that much. I was just doing my workout.

I don’t need the absence of music or podcasts in order to have a great workout at the gym. I just need to be more intentional and not forget the purpose for my actions. I need to remember why I am there. I’m not there to just workout. I’m there to improve my health and to see positive results in the future. 

I am also going to apply this philosophy to other aspects of my life. I need to remember why I do the work I do. I need to remember not to just go through the motions when I’m hanging out with my friends or when I am sharing time and space with my partner. In general, I need to remember that I don’t want to go through life just going through the motions of it. I want to live a great life. I want to keep growing and I need to remember that in order to be great at anything in life you have to be willing to be bad at it for a period of time. 

I Love What I Do

I absolutely love coaching people to help them develop a story that they want to tell. It is truly one of my favorite things to do. One reason is because it’s a very fast track into getting to know someone. People are sharing important, meaningful and sometimes vulnerable moments with me and it’s my responsibility to handle those offerings with the care and respect that they deserve. 

One of my favorite types of people to work with are those individuals who have no idea what an awesome storyteller they are. I can sniff these folks out right away. They are usually the most nervous and the most self critical. During our time together it is my job to help calm those nerves and to shine a light on and hopefully reflect back to them their own brilliance.

I was lucky enough to work with someone who did the same for me before I told my first story in front of a live audience. I never forgot the way that she made me feel and the confidence she helped to cultivate inside of me. Her advice was so simple but also so wise and I have “borrowed” several of her coaching techniques. There is one thing in particular that she told me that I now tell every single person I work with, “Don’t tell a story that you’re not excited about.” I’m sure some of you are like “Duh Chris” but I think this statement is absolute gold! 

When I work with someone I ask them to come to me with 2-3 story outlines. I can tell right away the story that they think they want to tell. It’s the first one they talk to me about and then I ask them about the others they have and there’s usually a slight pause and then they say something like “Oh, well there’s this other time when…” I listen to the story that they clearly don’t think is any good and then I start to ask more questions about this or more questions about that and I can feel them start to open up more and discover things in their story that they never thought about before. Then their voice starts to change a little bit and I can feel the excitement inside of them grow because the throw away story that they brought to me has some serious legs and they are energized to develop it into something that they can perform.

Is it always like this? Absolutely not. Sometimes the first story they brought is definitely the best story of the bunch but in my experience it’s usually the story they didn’t realize was a great story that’s the one they get most excited about and therefore the one we end up developing into a piece to be told. They are discovering a treasure that they didn’t even know they owned and that is one of the things I love most about this work.

Don’t Forget To Honor What Is Working

This is the time of year when we start to think about our past, present and future. Many of us will try to adapt healthier habits or think about the millions of other things in our lives that we would like to change. We come up with resolutions for ourselves and the brave among us shout their resolutions up to the heavens for all to hear. There is scientific evidence that shows writing your resolutions down or sharing your resolutions with other people increases the odds that you will stick to them. 

Personally, I’ve always found a New Year resolution to be extremely difficult to hold to. In my late 30’s I gave them up, I stopped making them. I realized that I wasn’t even making them for me, I was making them for other people. To put it more precisely, I was making resolutions that I thought other people wanted to hear from me, therefore they were doomed to fail from the beginning. 

Like most things in life, in order to make real change YOU have to be committed to it. If your heart isn’t into it or if it’s something that doesn’t really resonate with your core beliefs then what’s the point? Resolutions don’t have to be big, they just have to be relevant to your lived experiences. 

Now that I am in my mid 40’s I still don’t do resolutions during this time of the year but I do reflect a lot on what’s been working well in my life and how I can lean into that energy. I have the entire year to think about all of the things that I need to change but during this transition from one year to the next I like to think back on all of the successes that I had, all of the wonderful people (new and old) in my life and the experiences I had that shifted my soul for the better. We all have things about ourselves and our current circumstances that we should change but what are those things about yourself and your environment that you absolutely love and would not change one bit?

Holiday Advice

The holiday season is here once again which means that people will begin to reflect on where they are in life, where they are going in life and where they have been in life. I’m a huge fan of self-reflection so I will obviously be joining the millions of people who are doing it. However, I would also encourage people to take stock of their environment and to pay extra attention to the people in their lives who they share a community with. Self-reflection is great but try not to get so bogged down in yourself that you miss what’s going on with the people you care about. 

It might be the holiday season but that doesn’t mean everyone will be in a festive mood. We have been through some much these past two years, all of us have. We are connected to each other through this pandemic whether we like it or not. Some of us have had an easier time along the way than others so if your gut is telling you to check up on someone then do it; and this advice is coming from someone who can make the best excuses to not do something when it feels a bit vulnerable. Sometimes we have to step outside of our discomfort and show people that we care about them.

You never know when a simple gesture could make all the difference in somebody’s day, week, month or year. Happy Holidays to all of you and I look very forward to sharing space and creating a community with you in 2022.

Discomfort

I’ve been having issues with my left hip so I  started seeing a chiropractor. During my last visit she did some fascia work from my lower hip all the way up to my shoulder on the same side. Fascia is the thin layer of connective tissue that supports the structures of the body. It can help with the functional movement of the body by reducing friction between structures. I have had a lot of body work done throughout my lifetime. I’ve had serious sports injuries and the older I get the more seems to go wrong with my body but the fascia work that she did to me was by far one of the most painful things I have ever experienced. There was not a single moment when I had the sensation that the pain was easing up. It was about five minutes of pure agony until she finally took pity on me and stopped. I was covered in sweat and we had to take several minutes so that my nerves could regulate and go back to normal. As the day went on I could feel a difference in my body and it showed in my walk and in the amount of pain I felt throughout the day. I was experiencing less discomfort and I was able to do more physically without the pain of my actions reminding me that all is not well with my body. 

I had to experience extreme discomfort to get to a place that was healthier and ultimately better for me. I am not done with my treatments and I know the pain will return at some point. My chiropractor can only do so much and there is no silver bullet to maintaining less pain from my daily activities. It’s on me to do the exercises and the stretches that have been prescribed to me so that the next time I have fascia work done it might not hurt as much. There is a part of me that’s absolutely dreading it. But there’s also that part that knows it will ultimately lead to me feeling and doing better. My intellectual side knows that sometimes you have to experience levels of discomfort to heal from injuries and poor habits. As the discomfort dissipates I know that I am on the right track. I just have to keep doing the work.

When I hear people, who hold privileged positions in our society (white people, men, CIS gendered, able-bodied, neurotypical, etc.) talk about the discomfort they felt when something they said or did insulted or harmed another person I will remember the pain of this fascia work. When I misstep and cause harm as a result of my own privileges and lack of knowledge I will remember this fascia work. I will resist the impulse to make excuses or respond with anger and frustration. I will take a deep breath and I will remember that sometimes you have to experience discomfort to get to a better place. 

Timber!

I’ve been thinking a lot about my actions and how what I do affects the environment around me. That environment can range from the actual earth's environment to the environment in an office or among your friend groups. I moved into my house about seven years ago and back then my backyard was lined with these full and vibrant 20 foot tall trees. Over the years they have died off one by one and I recently had to call an arborist to cut down the remaining five because they were weak and leaning against my neighbors fence. They also presented a safety issue because strong winds could have potentially knocked them over. I struggled with cutting them down because I knew that birds and squirrels had made some of these trees their home and I don’t like to disrupt what little wild life can exist in an urban city like Portland.

But owning a home means you also have to think about your neighbors, so down the trees came. I worried that the birds and the squirrels would boycott my yard but that never happened, my yard is still full of them. They simply moved to the other healthier trees in the area. An unexpected result of having no trees along the back fence is that I can see a lot more around me now. I know we tend to like our privacy and trees provide that for our homes but I was amazed at how much more of my neighborhood I can see from my back window now. Light also fills my backyard in a way it never did before making my early morning wake ups a bit more pleasant. 

All of this got me thinking about the barriers that we intentionally put up in our lives. We put them up for our own protection. We put them up so that we don’t have to deal with certain situations or certain people. We even put them up because we simply want to be alone. Obviously I’m not saying that trees are bad and neither are fences, walls or other barriers. However, sometimes barriers don’t just keep things out, they keep us in. They can keep us unaware of what is going on around us. They don’t just protect us from “the bad” they can prevent us from seeing all of the good and all of the colors and all of the life that is going on so close to us.

Barriers aren’t always physical either. Sometimes they come in the form of a title you hold in the workplace and just like a brick wall your title can prevent you from seeing what’s going on around you. It becomes easier to lose perspective should an issue arise. When I took a leadership position years ago at my job I made it a point of requesting that I still be allowed to do at least some of the work that drew me to the organization in the first place. I didn’t want my title to insulate me against the community that I serve or against my coworkers. I wanted to make sure that I wouldn’t block the light from reaching me.