To Bear
I was talking to my neighbor tonight. She mentioned going to a play. She’s a director who is also a full-time parent, and she spoke of how seeing the play sparked her “director” brain. Rachel, my neighbor, said it was fun, engaging, scary, and sad and all the things to hold the space of director even in thought. I expected as much. I feel that way about coaching. I miss exercising my coaching brain as much as I used to. And it makes me wonder if I’m still good at it. There’s grief that comes with all of this wondering, but I realized today that the fifties have been about self-acceptance on a much deeper level than I’ve ever experienced self-acceptance before. There are so many things that, although I don’t like, I’m not attempting to change in any meaningful way. In the past this would frustrate me and I’d end up berating myself. (Not to mention that thousands of dollars I’ve spent trying to figure out what the hell keeps me from changing.) Lately, I no longer berate myself, and don’t even create the story that something is broken or wrong with me. Instead I just accept it with love and grace and curiosity. And again, I’ve done that in the past but it’s such a deeper level of self-acceptance. It’s almost like I’m not practicing it anymore but have actually gotten there. To the land of self-acceptance. We’ll see if tomorrow I write about all the things I still don’t accept about myself. But today, I’m all good.