Category: Knowing Yourself

Memories, Milestones, and Emotions, Oh My

Posted on by Carl Weber

Memories, especially tied to significant events or Milestones in our lives are strong.

Our Emotions, and even our bodies are aware of this invisible timeline.

The corresponding Emotions can arise as these Memories or Milestones approach.

Joy, Sadness, Pride, Outrage, Excitement, Embarrassment, Humility, Despair, Love, Loss.

These Emotions are reminders that something significant happened. Happened to us, for us, with us, because of us, or around us.

Little monuments of events that build us.

These Memories, Milestones, and Emotions can be wonderful.

Love, friend, child, pet, job, relationship, adventure, home, career…

These same Memories, Milestones, and Emotions can be challenging.

Love, friend, child, pet, job, relationship, adventure, home, career…

Some of the Emotions feel like gains.

Some of the Emotions feel like losses.

Either way, these Emotions are requesting something.

To be acknowledged, to be heard, to be remembered?

In the past, Resistance and Distraction was my strategy for the losses.

With the gains, it was mostly Reduction and Discounting.

(I am realizing how sad it is that we tend to amplify the negative, while reducing the positive.)

I am beginning to see these Memories, Milestones, and Emotions as less of a nuisance and more of a Guide.

I am still periodically surprised when they arrive, and I don’t always see them coming.

Once these Guides arrive, I am learning to welcome them and ask how they are here to help.

Walking through these Memories, Milestones, and Emotions appears to be a path forward.

A path towards continued growth.

Oh, My!

Acting As If

Posted on by Carl Weber

It was painful to the touch.

I never realized how heavy my own head could be, especially when I could barely turn or lift it.

The pain radiated from the back of my skull through my neck, clavicle, and down my back.

An accident? Nope.

An injury while doing something risky? Again, no.

An event that happened that required physical feats of strength? I wish.

Apparently just “sleeping wrong” created this overload of spasms and agony. Mid-life occupational hazard.

Four days. Ibuprofen overload.

Four pain-filled days. Learning to move, not move, and do simple tasks.

Relief. Physical Therapy and stretching.

The next few days were interesting.

Despite being pain free, I found myself acting as if the pain was still there.

Cautiously moving, acting as if the soreness and stiffness remained.

Acting as if…

Acting as if is a concept in positive psychology that has us aspire to what we want to become or goals we want to achieve, and then start acting as if we have already arrived or achieved those goals in the face of challenges or obstacles.

Acting as if, builds our self confidence, our self-perceptions, and helps against self-sabotage and builds a more positive mindset.

By the second pain-free day, I began to notice the power of acting as if.

When I was acting as if the pain was still there, I was stiff, cautious, moved slower, and was afraid.

In that moment, I had to remind myself that the pain was gone and start acting as if things were normal. My movements became more fluid and natural.

My mind wandered to all the times I have been acting as if pain, limitations, and obstacles are still here. Limiting me.

I began to think about all the time WE have all been acting as if a lot of things are still present. Limiting us.

Where could we all try acting as if?

Acting as if that pain is no longer present.

Acting as if we achieved our goals.

Acting as if we are enough.

I look forward to hearing about your acting as if journey, and until then I will be here acting as if we have already arrived together.

Relational atrophy

Posted on by Carl Weber

It’s been a while.

When the world shut down, so did my relationships.

I fell out of practice.

Survival, stress, and a focus on tasks and solving problems took the main stage.

I got rusty.

New habits formed: isolating habits that didn’t include the same connection as before.

It was a long, but subtle shift.

From less, to more, to loss.

Less phone calls, less fun, less light-hearted conversations.

Less time WITH others.

Less time FOR others.

Less.

When there is less, something will fill that void.

More negativity, more urgency, more stress, more vigilance, more protection mode, more burn-out.

The results were loss.

Loss of connection.

Loss of friends.

Loss of time.

Loss.

The best way to describe where I am today is a state of Relational Atrophy.

Weaker, out of practice, easily tired, and doing simple things are much harder.

Understanding and acknowledging this Relational Atrophy helps.

Finding a way forward is next.

Similar to exercise, this process won’t happen overnight.

It might take some time for these muscles to remember.

Small steps.

Apologies.

Invites to get coffee.

Invites to connect.

Invites to get gelato.

Phone calls.

Texts.

Scheduling time for others.

Scheduling time WITH others.

Time.

Those relational muscles will return.

New habits will form.

Take a moment to think about how these past few years impacted you and your relationships.

How has Relationship Atrophy impacted you?

Where have you fallen out of practice with others?

How can you take one step today to flex those relationship muscles?

The good news is we might not be alone, and we can try moving forward together.

One more idea – schedule time under the tree. Let me know, I will make the coffee.

Giving What you Didn’t Get

Posted on by Carl Weber

They were a little late to the Zoom call. Technical issues.

They were nervous. You could hear it in their voice.

They won the contest at a recent supervisory training.

The prize was a one on one with me.

“I want you to know that I listened to everything during the training. I started applying it right away.”

They have been in this industry a while. It’s not glamorous work. It is hard work.

They were used to doing things the way someone else taught them. How to do the work, how to speak to others, how to give orders, how to set the standard, how to provide correction.

“I didn’t realize that my employees needed something different. I’ve been just doing what I have been doing for years.”

They never thought about their own style.

They never thought about their employees’ style.

They just gave what they were given.

Then it all changed.

“I realized how often I am just correcting others. How often I point out what is wrong, tell them how I would do it, and make them do it my way. No questions, no feedback, just telling. I never considered “how it feels on the other side of me” as you challenged us.

I suddenly understood that I was the problem. My style, my approach, my choice of words, how I was taught to do this job – all of it. It was not what they need from me.”

Within days they met with every employee. More questions than directives.

What did they need?

What was getting in the way of doing the job well?

“I also took seriously your challenge to “go find what is right” and tell my employees about it.”

They found what was right. They told them.

Barking orders stopped.

Engagement.

Latitude on decisions and process started.

Two-way conversations.

Insight and new ideas on how to do the work.

They started to give differently.

“My biggest takeaway is realizing that I was giving exactly what I got, instead of giving what I didn’t get.”

Giving what you didn’t get.

Giving more than what you got.

Giving especially what you didn’t get.

Where can you give what you didn’t get?

In this season of giving, maybe this is what we all need.

Let’s all try to give something that we didn’t get.

Let’s start today.

A moment of Empathy and a Lifetime of anger

Posted on by Carl Weber

It was in April of 2019 when my brother called with the news.

My father passed away.

I knew he was sick.

I chose not to reach out.

It had been years since we spoke.

I would turn 50 later that year.

That equated to about 45 years of anger.

During the two-plus hour drive with my brother, I counted.

9 times.

Since I was a child, I only saw or interacted with him 9 times.

That’s it. 9 times.

During that drive, my mind wandered to me as a child, angry, sad, and feeling less than.

How could I feel to much for someone that was essentially a stranger?

The closer we got, the more these emotions rose to the surface.

We found the apartment.

Small. Crowded. Cluttered. Messy.

Filled with medical supplies.

Two pages of medicine.

PTSD. Anxiety. Depression.

A hard life, especially at the end.

A story told through mountains of paperwork.

A high school car accident that killed his mom (he was driving).

An alcoholic father that never let him forget what he did.

A sniper in an unpopular war.

A divorce (one of many).

A lifetime of struggles.

A lifetime of untreated illness from childhood and military emotional scars.

A few photos.

A smile I had never seen.

A young child before it all happened.

A face before all the pain.

I went though a program after that time in the apartment where you look at a picture of yourself as a child and visualize that being, and it’s true essence. During that program, I got to sit down with my earlier self, and just sort of hang out, connect, and reconcile with that earlier version of myself.

This part of that program was about empathy, but instead of starting with others we start with ourselves. Reconciliation from within first.

I got to meet and connect with the version of me before all of my own emotional scars.

A few years later I found a song.

I hope you know
You don’t have to say you’re sorry
You don’t have to live with the heartache you keep
‘Cause I don’t need no apologies
No apologies

Papa Roach

Then I found the meaning behind the song.

I found the pictures again.

I saw that small boy, before everything else happened.

Empathy washed over me.

Life is hard, and his was especially hard.

Empathy started melting away all those years of anger.

As I write this, I began to visualize something new.

The two of us as kids.

Hanging out.

Smiling.

My younger self looking at him and saying those words.

I forgive you.

‘Cause I don’t need no apologies.

Old Tracks

Posted on by Carl Weber
Photo courtesy of Robin Lake

We make progress.

We learn to respond, not react.

We practice better habits.

We are not the same as before.

We forge new mental pathways.

We forget the old emotional reactions.

We forget the old pain.

We forget the old tracks.

We haven’t used the old tracks in years.

But the old tracks remain – overgrown, almost hidden from view.

We walk through new pain or trauma.

We experience fear and anger.

We overreact.

We lose ground.

We are hurt.

We find ourselves speeding down the old tracks.

Recently, I was speeding down the old tracks.

I thought I had moved beyond these old tracks, these old ways of thinking and reacting.

All those years of progress and hard work seems to disappear instantly.

The progress didn’t disappear. My brain and my emotions simply found those old tracks and they were so familiar and so self-preserving. The old tracks in my mind – a protective response to recent pain.

I didn’t even realize I was on the old tracks until I was talking it through with two of my best friends on my couch. Those old tracks became the default mental pathway again and everything was being filtered through that lens. Even though the pain was gone, the echos or memories of that pain still took the old tracks to view, react, feel, and interpret events.

How are your old tracks?

How have recent events, pain, or trauma caused a return to these old tracks, patterns, or reactions?

Recognizing these old tracks is a good first step.