Things I'm Noodling On: School Board & Numbing

Monday night was my last school board meeting. I spent 6 years learning about education, complex systems, governing, our community's culture (related to education, leadership, gender dynamics, fear, LGTBQ issues...the list goes on).

Some basic (and wildly underestimated) math, calculates that I spent 216 hours in meetings over those 2 terms. 216 hours - that's over 5 work weeks of sitting in a board room with neighbors from our wonderful community to try to push through headwinds and take advantage of the tailwinds presented to our district.

People often say that being on the school board is the ultimate thankless gig. I'm gonna call a bit of bullshit on that this morning. Remember bullshit is a complex thing - read more about it here to jog your memory.

Thankless defined as "difficult or unpleasant and not likely to bring one pleasure or the appreciation of others." Let's tackle the appreciation of others side first:

• Fellow Pointers told me they appreciated my work often during my time on the board. 
• I've received cards in the mail, pats on the back, messages on facebook, thoughtful texts, a hand-painted plaque and a couple of rounds at a local tavern all for my service to the school.  
• The district pays a small stipend paid to each board member.

Plenty of appreciation from others.

So then let's dig into the difficult or unpleasant and not likely to bring one pleasure side of the thankless definition:

• Sitting in front of my community either live in person or virtually via the unforgiving lens of a camera
• Needing to know enough & communicate effectively enough to add value
• Dodging the egos in the room (my own as often as anyone else's)
• Trying to avoid the cultural landmines of our small, rural district

Yeah, all of that was unpleasant and difficult, and at the same time I learned each and every single time I put on my school board hat. The knowledge I gained will impact and benefit me and my family forever.

Can I call out the ironic part of this conversation for a second? Shouldn't the school board be the champions for messaging how excruciating learning is. It's super fucking hard. It's always been a difficult process. From the walking, talking and potty-training skills of toddlerhood to the algebra, acne and drivers ed days of high school. Learning is hard when you're reading philosophy in college and also responsible for your own car payment and checking account. Finding your way through dating and marriage and interviews and bosses and babies and taxes and cancer and divorce and .... every day we learn and every day it's a pain. So what moron (I'm pointing at myself here) thought the school board should be any different or any easier?

It's not. It's hard, horrible, and mind-blowingly amazing all tied into one. Exactly how I've come to describe life....recently. This season of my life has shown me that those paradoxes make life rich and wretched in the very same space and time.

Unfortunately, somewhere along the lines we start to want and expect all or nothing. The paradox is not for us. We want all fun or comfort and when we cannot have that we numb what we don't like. And numbing is effective. It kills the pain and it also kills the joy, gratitude and other skills that build our resilience to struggle.

For a few years, I numbed the discomfort of being a school board member - I used backbiting, withdrawing and judgement. And I still used sarcasm from time to time, but more often than I like. When I only focused on the pain, struggle and discomfort - that all I saw and I needed to numb. When I only focused on the inefficiencies, the fear based mentality, the politics of it - that what the school board was about.

However, when I started to focus on the learning, the courage and the neighbors sitting there next to me  - I could embrace the journey of sitting together in shared unpleasantness on behalf of something bigger than us as individuals and watched as my perspective change. I also saw my need to numb fade.

Being present, without the numbing drama, allowed me to make a clear decision at how I can best impact our community & our school district, and that required me to leave the school board to drive a different vehicle for a while. I'm looking forward to a new challenge with different struggles and different learning.

The Stories We Make Up.

So thankful for the wonderful and smart readers of this blog who ask more questions. It holds me accountable. It challenges my thinking and removes the stories we make up in our heads. 

If I write something that makes you wonder, ask me about it.

I'm not expecting perfection in my personal growth journey. I will screw this up over and over and over again. But I'm perfectly in progress and learning every step of the way. 

Things I'm Noodling On: We Are Not Simple Machines.

Keep It Simple Stupid. It doesn't need to be difficult. It's easy to understand if you just keep it simple. 

Man, that's seductive. Who doesn't want a simple reason for why things happen or who they happen to? Just tell me what I need to know so I can simply move through my life unaffected. No difficulty. No problems. Simple. Sounds good, right? 

Except here's the thing: the K.I.S.S. principle works as it should when it remains within the discipline in which it was created - engineering. On those terms I wholeheartedly agree, when trying to repair a spy plane during war times let's keep the tooling and design as simple as possible so our pilots and crew come back in one piece. Perfectly reasonable. 

But guys, this is not a strategy to take with our lives or other human beings. This is not a sustainable approach to building communities where people want and need to belong. And it is certainly not a strategy for parenting. Raising people to weather challenging times is hard! It's the hardest thing I've done in my life and maybe because I was raised with some simple truths:

1. You work everyday or you're lazy. 
2. You are a virgin or you're a slut.
3. You take care of yourself or you're a pain in the ass. 
4. You go to church on Sunday or you're not faithful. 
5. You laugh at others or you're the joke.
6. You get good grades or you're stupid.
7. You shut up or you're not grateful.
8. You're right or you're wrong.
9. You're good or you're bad.
10. You love or you hate.

What a bunch of bullshit! This is not reality. The reality is we need to be resilient. We need to be able to think critically about the world around us to grow through the challenges we face and do our best to anticipate actual risks. Then we get to decide whether they are worth trying to overcome or not so we can quickly move on to the next thing. I'm not intentionally discounting random events (weather, illness, accidents) because I know they happen and reset paths all the time. That said, we can only 'control' that if we are living a fear-driven life vs. a values-driven life. I'm talking to values-driven people here, folks! 

It's bullshit to expect (or be taught) that humans are going to sail through 80 years of existence and feel one of three things - happy...or sad or pissed off about not being happy. That expectation is making us feel isolated and alone. 

We feel like we are the only ones who feel ashamed, helpless, or terrified sometimes. We tend to disregard our feelings related of ambition, curiosity and joy so we stay humble. Whatever we are feeling we have the K.I.S.S. mindset telling us 'You Are Making This Too Complicated". 

Bullshit - we are more complex than that and it's perfectly normal to feel however you are feeling whenever you are feeling it. 

Just like me, Kelly Johnson believed simple systems could keep complex people safe. So my hat goes off to the engineer who coined a phrase, Keep It Simple Stupid, for a way to design useful things without unnecessary complexity. Well done! Complex humans were safer because of your brilliance.

I look forward to continuing to do the hard work of challenging myself and community to think about issues such as parenting, schools and governance in a way that supports and enriches vs. isolates and excludes. 

Nagging Little Things

Recently, I've been waking a lot in the middle of the night. Maybe it's the sound of my snoring husband and our giant farting dog at the bottom of the bed...who knows. Whatever it is, I'm awake and alone with my 57 problems.

57 problems? Get over yourself, Julie! 

Okay, so I don't mean big, scary problems, I'm talking about the nagging little things that are constantly bouncing around in my brain. If you look up 'problem' online this is how it is defined:
a matter or situation regarded as unwelcome or harmful and needing to be dealt with and overcome.

My description of 'problem' clearly gives the location of the nagging things - in my brain and the online definition speaks to a need to deal with or overcome.  That disconnect is clearly a struggle for me. My problems are typically the same nagging things that just churn inside my head. ALL. THE. GOD. DAMN. TIME. which definitely highlights the need for me to deal with them.  So what are the problems and what am I not dealing with? Here goes:

1. Leadership - I think we need to change the way we engage as community leaders. I want to create a training that focuses on leading with courage. What is Brené's people can prioritize my vision for this? How will I do it? What would the end goal be? How would I know it's making a difference? Who the hell am I to bring this type of training into our region?
2. Parenting A Teenager - I wonder if other parents would like to have a space where they could bounce ideas off of other parents trying to give their kids tools to be resourceful and articulate when faced with the challenges. How would we avoid the freak out if unconventional and uncomfortable topics were brought up? Could our small town handle something like this? Would we be up for the ongoing work of starting uncomfortable conversations and be willing to listen to our children's point of view without dismissing it? What the fuck do I even know about parenting a teenager? 
3. Politics - Can I openly support a person and not support their party. Can you be an influential community leader and still commit to compassion as a core value? How much civic engagement is enough? How do I get others involved beyond just election day? How do I practice self-care when there is so much to do to change how we govern our communities. What do I have to contribute to our political system - or am I just completely out of touch with 'reality'?
4. Education - Do I walk away from the school board and the dysfunctional culture related to education in my district and just relax? Do I jump right in to the conversations related to the complexity of the public education system, the absolute need for clarity of roles and accountability at all levels? Will I have the energy for this if no one else shows up motivated to help? Is my community even aware of the severity of the problem? Who do I think I am to challenge a system that is currently a lighthouse in our community? Maybe I'm the problem?
5. Blogging -  How often should I pull my ass out of bed and write about this stuff in the moment? Will I ever sleep longer than 3 hours again if I do that? Does this blog really help or is it just another way I spew my shit all over other people? Are my blog posts just in the way of real stuff people want on their Facebook feed? What kind of self-indulgent narcissist must I be to constantly put my problems out for the world to see? 
6. Limiting Beliefs - I want to talk to other women about the lies we tell ourselves that how they hold us back. How should I do that? Should I start a book club or a supportive group that meets for coffee. Maybe it should be open to both genders? How the hell do I know how to facilitate something like that?]

So there's the list of my seemingly different problems --- with that one glaring consistency. The I Am Not Enough track playing on repeat in the background.

Looks like it's not the dog farts or the husband snores - it's the tiny voice that's trying to keep me comfortably in that safe place of no risk or vulnerability. That voice that wants me to avoid pain, struggle and living big. So I look back over time and relive the experiences when I was at my bravest and feeling the most alive I've ever felt. In those key moments, I told the nagging little thing bouncing around my brain something like this: Although I appreciate your protective tendencies, I will not be afraid to be who I am. I Am Enough. I can do hard things and I know that even when I fail -- and I will fail -- I will have done so Daring Greatly.

And then the bouncing stops. good night.

The Beginning of the Story...Story

One of the biggest realizations for me regarding the importance of sharing my story was a long time ago when I realized that my story mattered. It happened as most things happen in my life, I was at a MultiCultural Awareness training to learn about others and in turned I learned waaaay more about myself in the process. If there is one reason to embrace self-discovery through story & join me in The Figuring It Out tribe, it's the likelihood that you will completely blow your own mind like every 3 months from all of the learning. Seriously! Years ago, when I was an introductory member of the Figuring It Out Tribe, that mind-blowing was terrifying and unsettling. Which it turns out is totally normal - that's how learning feels. I didn't know that - most of us don't know that.

Sidebar: Most kids by the time they leave school do not know what learning feels like. We learned what it feels like to be taught or not be taught and that's very, very different.  Another blog for another time.

Anyway, I came from and married into a distinguished chapter of The Certain People tribe. The Certain People culture has the good fortune of rarely carrying the unsettled or terrifying burden. Instead they carry satisfaction, judgement, and anger with them. A self-inflicted mind screw isn't something Certain People are gonna mess with - they are doing just fine and have been just fine 50 years. And I'll be the first to say, they're not wrong. The Certain People culture is typical in southwest Wisconsin. And they are some of the hardest working people I know because they've proven successful by sheer will and determination most of the time. This tribe is full of people I love. People who have taken care of me when I couldn't take care of myself. The Certain People tribe is constructed of wonderful human beings. Some of them are my most treasured friends and family members.

That's why wandering away from them caused so much confusion and torment at first. It's a strange paradox because I wasn't going anywhere, but I couldn't take part in the day to day any longer. The satisfaction seemed to only come at the expense of others and the judgement and anger were just too heavy a load. The amount of work to resist change and innovation wasn't sustainable. I broke under that extreme pressure and turned toward a different path. I could not take one more moment of just being fine. I wanted to learn more. I wanted to figure something else out.

So here we are 10 years later. Happier, healthier and more energized than ever to find my way through my story and the stories of others -- and in turn blowing my own mind. And this decade of self-discovery has gotten much easier. I've found others from neighboring Figuring It Out chapters and we support each other.  We also embrace Certain People who are venturing away from their familiar territory because the pressure from within is too much. As they cross our borders unsettled and terrified, we let them know it will be okay. We help them navigate until they realize it's okay to love yourself and love people in a tribe you cannot reside in full time.  We are forthcoming about the constant tension between the Figuring It Out and The Certain People and share stories as a Figuring It Out living amongst the natives. Those experiences allow us to learn from one another so we can walk our way through it when we are alone in The Wilderness.

Things I'm Noodling On: Summary or Story

I've been noodling for a while on the lack of connection I feel when and after I've been in a family or large social gathering.  It's pretty normal for me to to spend an entire evening or day with people I know and love & leave feeling mentally exhausted. Mental exhaustion for me usually follows events or times when I've not contributed or connected with the people around me. And it's a situation that has made me consistency ask myself, "What the hell is wrong with me?" I wonder why I feel so unsatisfied and uninterested in the people I share space & time with? It's been a hard nut to crack.

I think I've noticed a pattern in the conversations that leave me drained and exhausted and they typically revolve around summarizing in one of these 4 categories:

1. Other People: the unreasonable, those who have veered too far from established norms and the ones who make choices we wouldn't....and our passive aggressive bid of 'good luck with that' for them?
2. Illness: shaking heads and drawn out sighs...and the silent pleasure of being the person with the most gory or intimate details.
3. Civic Annoyances: frustrated recounts of high taxes, terrible teachers, old water lines...and then the unchallenged resignation that we are helpless victims so "complaining doesn't do any good anyway."
4. Scary Things: the ever-growing number of untrustworthy organizations, technologies, works of art and schools of thought...and the evil people responsible who are all out to get us.

I think I'm figuring out why I leave people disconnected and unsatisfied; instead of sharing stories we are summarizing the daily drivel or discussing our interpretation of stories that aren't ours to share. I kinda started to think we lost the willingness to authentically share our stories, but now I beginning to wonder if we've just forgotten or never really learned how to genuinely share our stories. And I wonder if it's because it's vulnerable. Maybe summarizing is the misguided belief that we can connect with people and protect ourselves at the same time.

I've been learning for years that stories connect us and I want to move in and really connect with people. I want to listen to their stories and hear how events in someone's life lead to evolution of something. I want to contribute and to share our broken, boring and brutiful real lives as the only way to feel fully alive and truly connected.

What do you think?

I'm using these 2 definitions for summarize and story.
Summarize = v: give a brief statement of the main points of (something)
Story = n: an account of past events in someone's life or in the evolution of something

AUTHENTICITY & CIVILITY

After last week's emotional breakdown spiritual awakening, as Brene Brown calls it in her amazing Ted Talk, I laid low for a few days. I was feeling really exposed...self-imposed exposure -it's awesome and exhausting. I enjoyed the solitude of being home and able to process the events while walking with the dog and a relaxing snow day home with the kids. But after a few days I don't thrive in solitude. I'm a "people person." And not just in that job interview customer service sense of the term. I really love being with people. I thrive most in a community. I love the stories that come with people and their experiences. That's what I love about working at the hardware store and the leadership alliance. It's also what I love about Facebook and Twitter. These are places with their own unique communities - full of stories and people - full of life!

But being part of a community is not always easy. On a good day a community is like a meadow filled with a blend of prairie grasses and wildflowers all swaying harmoniously together in the gentle summer breeze, and on a bad day it's like a land field where one misstep blows up in your face and causes a domino effect. Unexpected explosions one after the other continue to happen with no real way of knowing when the destruction will stop. You just pray to make it out with your life credibility in tack. Because credibility is really all you have if you really want to contribute to your community. If you are part of a group where people can't believe or trust in you then you will not be very effective. 

I used to believe that authenticity was the most important thing when it came to being a successful community member, and I still believe that plays an important role, but I'm starting to wonder if I gave it too much emphasis. I'm starting to think that authenticity and civility are equally important. One can't really outweigh the other. 

I used to think that being blunt and direct about where I stood was kind of a noble thing to do. It's real, it's authentic, but I'm beginning to really doubt whether it's always kind, it's always true or it's always necessary. I kind of arrogantly believed that I could have an opinion about something, (or worse...someone) based on my experiences, and because I would say it to their face (if challenged) it was ok. I believed that being authentic it was the most productive way to be part of the community...probably because 'being real' comes fairly easy to me. I don't have the personality where I feel the need to make everyone happy, and I really don't mind being on the 'wrong' side. I'm typically pretty secure with that. But this authenticity, without civility, is basically just being a loud mouth! Like I said, it comes really easy for me! Probably a little too easy.

Lately I've considered (with the help of those who have been open and honest with me about my tone, body language or gossipy behavior) challenging myself to be more than just "the blunt one." I'm challenging myself to be the thoughtful one. Be a community member who uses directness and civility to be most effective. What I love about civility is that it's not niceness for niceness sake. It's not giving up your experiences or values to please anyone. Practicing civility doesn't mean you can't disagree, it means you assess other's opinions with the same value you assess your own. Practicing civility looks like this: 

Pay Attention. Be aware and attend to the world and the people around you.
Listen. Focus on others in order to better understand their points of view.
Be Inclusive. Welcome all groups of citizens working for the greater good of the community.
Don't Gossip. And don't accept when others choose to do so.
Show Respect. Honor other people and their opinions, especially in the midst of disagreement.
Be Agreeable. Look for opportunities to agree; don't contradict just to do so.
Apologize. Be sincere and repair damaged relationships.
Give Constructive Criticism. When disagreeing, stick to the issues and don't make a personal attack.
Take Responsibility. Don't shift responsibility and blame onto others; share disagreements publicly.

These principals allow for the unique tension that develops in a diverse and thriving community. A community where differences are embraced and valued. A place were we don't have to believe the same thing and we are not shunned or blamed or gossiped about when we have take a stance on something. Since that's the kind of community I want to be a part of, I guess I need to start behaving with authenticity & civility.