So far, So Fast

This post is dedicated to my Fastgirls, without whom I would not have felt the urgency to be authentic. You inspire, humble and amaze me with all that you bring to the world. Thank you.

Today marks the end of the 90 Day Be the Expert Challenge. As I type this I am overcome with emotion. This post represents the last 'required' post of the last set of tasks for the challenge. I missed the 9PM deadline, rendering me incomplete with the challenge. As usual, I procrastinated and I find myself writing this post to complete the challenge. I feel a mix of emotions but mostly a calm about not having completed the challenge but still having had my life transformed by this work--even in the face of enormous disappointment with myself. I was the only person out of 13 women left in the challenge to be incomplete at this last check in. What can I say about that? I was being authentic. (Insert ironic smiley here.)

The last 90 days have taught me a lot about what I value, how I prioritize my time and what I am willing to do to be true to myself. I fell into authenticity as an area of expertise and as a life practice, as a behavior because this is what the challenge has demanded. It demanded from the beginning that I be clear about my value and values, that I commit to taking action and spending time with my community of Fastgirls, and that I was consistent in each of these things.

Fastgirls helped me refine my passions and create my path forward at a time when things were a bit murky. Fastgirls surfaced the framework for my forthcoming leadership curriculum. In a year of great loss, gave me an expansive sense of self, which is invaluable in a way I never could have imagined. I came to Fastgirls looking for some idea about what would vaguely be next for me and what I leave this challenge with is near perfect clarity about what I am called to do.

When I was 11 years old, I participated in a life-changing leadership development program and the homework component was at times overwhelming. Some nights, at 11PM, when I'd had all I thought I could stand, my mother would offer me a glass of water, rub my back and tell me I could read another page, write another paragraph. From prep school to college, from college to grad school and at every job in between, my mother was there with a word of support and hand to hold.

Though my mother died almost 9 months ago to the day, I have no doubt in my mind that she has been with me these last 90 days, encouraging me to write every blog post, present in every letter of gratitude I've written to poets who've changed my life. She has seen me grow and change in this work, defining for myself a path that she always saw for me when she gave me journals, imploring me to write, or tell me to challenge myself, ensuring that I'd grow. For all that I have gained these last 90 days, I also dedicate this note to my mother, my very first Fastgirl.

Poem: Twice Born

I am lucky.
My mother loved me enough
to birth me twice.

The first time she was
young and strong and fertile.
Her hips spread wide,
her breathing deep,
She bore down and pushing
gave me life.
Sprung forth one early morning
to the winter air I came.

We had a life together,
my mother and I,
some silent agreement
that she would see me through life,
saving me from myself indefinitely.

One early morning,
my mother decided to birth me again
--she loved me that much.

This time, older and sicker,
body withered, drawing in,
shallow breath in stony lungs,
she, grasping, gave me life.
One early spring morning,
coldly lovingly she left
--and I came to my life again.

Our agreement broken
Or altogether different
Than I thought it was.

My mother birthed me twice.
She loved me that much.
I am lucky.

Be Impeccable With Your Word

As part of this 90 day challenge I am doing, I am tasked with living the mantra with which we begin and end each of our coaching calls. The full mantra, taken from Don Miguel Ruiz's seminal work, The Four Agreements, reads as follows --

Be impeccable with your word
Don't make assumptions
Don't take anything personally
Always do your best

In addition to living the mantra, we are tasked with writing several experts whose work/lives inspire us a handwritten letter of gratitude. I chose to write to some therapists, some coaches, but also to some extraordinary writers. In my chosen field, writing is core to the work I intend to do within the space of my expertise. It would follow that I'd select as inspirational guides and people after whom I'd like to model my own writing, writers and teachers like Oriah Mountain Dreamer, Kahlil Gibran, and Nikki Giovanni, people whose healing, enduring words have been translated to several languages, circulated around the globe and gifted to people repeatedly because of their sheer power.

I take so seriously the power of the written word, that I often suffer from paralysis when writing emails or when trying to craft a critical essay. In these letters of gratitude, however, the words came easily and quickly. Gratitude, genuine gratitude is one of the most natural things to express.

I took this approach when writing to Ms. Giovanni. I communicated how I am consistently moved by her poetry, how my mother was also a fan and how grateful I am that she had the audacity to share herself with us. Simple, to the point. Just like her reply - "Michelle, thank you for your kind words and for the memory of your mother. Nikki."