Feeling a fail
And falling in love.
Being good with performing less than … an ode to my latest Thursday and something that is very universal ….
Once we care, it begins to get tricky.
I am, have, and do currently support a good deal of founders. That word stands for plenty. Often, we think of that term as assigned to folx on the West coast. Ones with pale, sun-starved skin, as silly as that is given their geography. Kids who came of age as hackers and grew to be conventional converts to a normality absent of anything connected to the visceral experiences of other humans who breathe and populate the asphalt that lines the Nation and the fields, forces and byways of the rest of the planet.
That is bunk. Founders are our friends and those we scroll pass on our many apps. They are multi-hued and variously homed. They are stressed, big picture, disciplined and not, focused and unreachable, funny, and too serious, here and not showing up because so much of all the other ‘stuff’ is yelling and making a mess as aims and deliverables come together or don’t. There are days where there should be two good feet and rarely when one is able to be put forward. These are the humans most heroic and the ones who think the least of their accomplishments. Those showing the track marks that come with giving a shit.
They, me, you: we offer services and supports we fear, for in that we will and can never know either way, may be so far from the best that knowledge of the distance between our aims and reality would kills us. Talk about a reason to not ever bother EVER trying again!
We fail and ‘we’ being me on this most last and latest Thursday when it was Summer in the City and the Sun was still high and I feel, I felt, I... so fucked up. Maybe this is a habit I alone share, perhaps you can relate, so here goes: when I have humiliated myself to my meanest ally, myself, I can’t but help but talk about it. Super strange but if that was not at least a bit universal, I would not have a job – no coach nor therapist would – right? As I write this, I come to wonder: why?
Why not do what cats do with poo and bury the weakness in the sand and dash out of the box, kicking up so much dirt, careless of the mess, as the point is to separate? Funny thing, that is not what felines are doing at all. A common and logical understanding but wrong, very much so. No, cats are not bothered by poop and ammonia tainted piss, they are proud. The scratching is to spread AROUND the stench. Kinda like saying ‘I was here’ and ‘this is what I got going on the inside’. Think what you will of the front and the back, those are ‘pet-owner problems’, cats are down with both and focusing on where the meat is - in the middle.
Yeah, I am not so great at that. I get it and I admire it and write it here as such as I shall do in many a client session to come (look out!) but God if it is does land in real time!
OK, back to the thing and the impulse and, since we are several days after now, choice to share. I offered to help in a way I knew well I would not be helpful. Wait! It was not in a big way – I didn’t say I was a plumber or unicyclist when I can do nor understand the mechanics of neither. I am not one of those persons who has found themselves in a sitch where they get drunk (though I do) and apply for a gig I am in no way appropriate for. I barely have the patience to apply for things I am perfectly able to perform. Nope, I did something we all (I know because you tell me!) do in work and life alike, in a vein (coaching) I was asked for a thing a person in my role and with experience and ability could so very easily. However, it, this specific thing, was something I am by design lousy at. Adding on and even before attempting, the way and nature of the question deserved, begged, a question of its own.
From ‘doula school’ and practice I know and have seen that so often a question is asked, yes, to be answered, but of more value is to be explored. Like there is the binary ‘can you’ and from this particular client and in that instance, I would have been more aligned and of value by NOT saying either ‘yay’ or ‘nay’ but inquiring further into the demand. This is a me thing. They came clean and honest and I got in the way of helping to an optimum level. Human, but God help me, if I could not keep away from kicking myself.
If you read me enough you know that feeling like shit is something I return to in the process of learning and the pantheon of growth. Perhaps that is because I am at my root negative, a given, but also because disdain is a lot louder than acceptance.
Think of it this way – how many folx and how much energy is put to platforms and prophesying over ‘self love’, ‘boy acceptance’, and ‘healthy relationships, and how many motherfuckers find themselves running around checking their asses, texting exes, and surviving on little sleep while ripping off a cuticle or two during the morning commute? Everyone, that is who! Pain is loud and the electrons that bring on happy are sweet and fast to forget. This playground of the brain is not evil - it is protective. Hurt will kill us and that matters more for the gene pool than enjoyment is all.
Dialing those digits – how, in this instance specifically and as a (so I hope!) community valid example might I:
1) redeem myself to myself and
2) (Even better!) grow and
3) Serve (a/k/a the true motivating factor though a better person could say otherwise as doing good by me is to be ‘enough’ – fuck that!) my clients known and not yet so more aptly?
Answer: and I do say this a lot too! – pause and think of my body, a much wiser thing than my big stupid mind. In the moment when the ask hit, I felt a jump in my gut, a place that despite ongoing attempts not yet numbed by infinite crunches. I wanted to please. We all do. We are social and pleasing is awesome – I sure like to be pleased, in EVERY way.
As a coach, in a coaching space, with a client I know well and love deeply, it is their job to request in the way they know and is most accessible, and mine is to deliver on what I hear. That can be what is spoken, but more useful is to do so for what is not. That is what my gut was saying, and I was dense to.
Speaking and ‘hearing’ that, how much or little does the above ‘ring’ true? Personally, historically? It does -I know that because my tummy tells as much it does. Take away being – take a beat and before you reply, ask 1) your own interior 2) the face of the other with ‘maybe’ exactly what was questioned and maybe not so much.
We are ending ‘big’ as so we started ‘wee’, super, but nonetheless I very much want to return to that space and bring forth something very true that sticks stronger than the wisdom gained – I am sorry. You who came to me clean and I got smearier than is proper. Relationships and dynamics are vacillating things for sure. And though I was not ill-intentioned, neither was I optimal. I love me who is the person who can learn from that and speak to how weirdly on that knowledge came. Just as ardent as that affection is my appreciation for you allowing the ‘me’ into the ‘you’ and, very much vice versa. So are we in some and many ways all coaches and clients alike.
