Year of the Grown Woman (reprint)

This content initially appeared in the online magazine, The Vyne. It leverages my thinking on authenticity to create a goal-setting (and meeting) process for the New year.

We all have that great aunt or family friend who says exactly what she thinks, whether you ask her or not, and is completely comfortable in her own skin as a self-possessed, powerful woman. That is a grown woman. Grown women are confident, they are clear on who they are and what they think. They make choices in alignment with their goals and are unapologetic about it. More than anything, they are themselves, come what may.

Earlier this year, The Vyne featured an article which highlighted a few grown woman-isms. Among them, tips on the importance of keeping your house clean, your bills paid and your personal presentation tight. But as we move into the new year, a year that promises to bring us new opportunities to shine, perhaps the most important grown woman-ism is to “Be yourself.” In Carla Harris’ book, Expect to Win, she highlights authenticity as being key to achieving personal and professional success. But what is authenticity? Ms. Harris describes it has having a clear sense of who you are and honoring sense of self through your choices. Being authentic maximizes your personal power and attracts opportunity and success to you. Consider these three tips to being authentic and nurturing your inner grown woman:

1) Get clear: If you can’t state with clarity the kind of job, relationship, friends, and life you want do not pass go, do not collect $200. You will be lost until you do. Take an hour, (get a glass of something if you must), make your lists, and prioritize what is important in each of those arenas – you’ll need that for the next step.

2) Make a commitment: When you know what matters to you, and how those things stack up against each other, you can commit to a course of action. If you’ve decided that right now is the time to make the leap for home ownership, then naturally taking a higher paying job trumps being able to work from home 2 days a week. But keep your eyes open – you might be able to have it all.

3) Be consistent: Once you’re clear on your values, your purpose and your needs and you’ve committed, make choices that are in alignment with your values, purpose and needs. Surround yourself with a community of friends and family who are also clear on what your intentions are and who can support you as you move with laser focus. Taking one step at a time in the direction of your goals with consistency will ensure that you meet them.

As we get older (and better!) we naturally become more self-assured but why not give that growth a turbo-boost with some healthy self-reflection. 2011 will be a year of tremendous growth and transformation, but only for those of us who are clear. We need to know now, more than ever, what matters most to us and why. Being a grown woman is about more than just taking care of business. It’s about being clear on who we are and what we want and pursuing those things with confidence. Here’s to the grown woman in you!

So tell us, how do you plan to be a “grown woman” in the new year?

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.

Meaning or Ambition?

Last night, I had the pleasure of having dinner with an amazing group of friends. We were talking about the life changes it feels like we're on the cusp of as individuals, and collectively. We spoke at length about what drives us, what makes us happy, what we do if nothing else mattered and money were not an issue. I was thrilled to hear that it sounds like nothing else does matter with these folks. All compelled by some life's dream or calling, moving at varied speeds for sure, we are all building the momentum we're interested in seeing power our respective projects.

In a recent article on Huffington Post, Russell Bishop poses the question about whether we work for ambition or for meaning? I challenge each of us to think about that as we move about our day to day work.

Poem: Return to Sender

I am going to sit
in the middle of myself.
Points belabored
noisy neighbors
people point and stare - so what?

I am going to sit on the stoop of my life,
perch and watch the people pass
smirk and hear the people laugh.
Tip toe up the stairs
to stare into my own windows
while I fold my laundry there.

The problem with composure
is that it is oftentimes misleading
and denies the self the bleeding
and while placating
leaves pleading - the soul.
Hungry, starving, compulsive
feeling clasped in hands - composed.

I'd rather riff the rage and
scat the storm.
I'd rather beat the drum and strum
the heartstrings
plucking plucking
fucking nerve it takes
to improvise.

Improvisation is
composition is
improvement is
composure.

I am going to square my shoulders and
circle myself.
Take me in and
size me up.
Why not>
Join the pity party
feeling partly like myself
feeling sorry for myself hardly
hardly, am myself.

Pretend. Perform. Perfect composure.

Expect, explain, accept.
Compost-like
bullshit, like
full of it
like pull your own shit.

I am going to roll my eyes and
suck my teeth and
give you all kinds of sass and stank.

And I might stand arms akimbo
feet pigeon-toed
rolling neck, "I told you so"s
and wagging perfect, pink-tipped finger.

I will allow myself the anger
and the confusion
the madness of angry woman
once-loving, once loved
to seep out my pores
oozing you, oozing at you.
Making you squeamish
so you can see this.
Me standing
staring
staking out my own self
trying to assess what ever is valuable inside.

All because you
made me stand outside myself
and question my plans
for my own design.
You led me through rooms of myself -
rearranged to your liking
and being a mutable sign
and an adventurer, wanderer
seeker, sister, lover -
I let you.

I let you
you hurt me
you left me
you learned me
you stopped.

BUT I LET YOU

I loosened my grip
on what I didn't want and you
began to step away.
half-heartedly I
followed you,
chasing in the end because really -
who likes to lose?

Know this:

You may have left and you may be gone
but before you walked out,
they were playing my song.
I packed up your things
and I bid you adieu
and just so we're clear
dear, it's not me
it's you.

But more importantly
I am walking proudly up the steps
to my front door
jangling my keys -
one set for me.

I am walking through
foyers, looking at furniture
needing to be put back in place
boxes unpacked
clutter undone.
Dusty windows
and burnt out bulbs
long forgotten
in the dim light of love.
Low, low light.

I am steeping tea
and playing Nina
ironically grinning at no one in particular.
Humming to myself, barefoot
in these rooms
to these walks
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas.

I serenade myself
a song for me.
Song of myself
a welcome home ditty.

Ne me quitte pas.

And I promise me
that I won't sit outside myself
while someone rearranges me
ever again.

I will open the shutters
and pull up the shades.
I will use the china and
read the good Book.
I will feast to my own presence
smelling of jasmine
and glowing the color of honey.
I will embrace myself this day,
welcoming me home.

Pajamas = Productivity

Bridges

Last night, I had the great fortune of hosting two of my closest girlfriends at my apartment. Under ordinary circumstances, this would have been a night of good dinner, good wine, and even better conversation -- and it was, it just happened amongst boxes, piles of paper and long-forgotten dry-cleaning. Most important was the fact that it was actually an intervention. I had called these women over to help me climb out of 'my bag' as my grandmother might say.

This 'bag' was and is a psychic space that I find myself in after the death of my mother and the dissolution of (what I thought was) a very serious relationship. After months of walking around boxes and stacking and re-stacking mail on the 'other' side of the bed, I had had enough. I had moved in almost 6 months ago and the living room (where I used to host all manner of delicious and engaging events) looked like I had just arrived yesterday. My bookshelves, although fully unpacked, were teeming with tchotchkes and unread volumes begging to be let go. My desk's vertical filing system had been woefully neglected and I was breeding dust-bunnies around the baseboards. Needless to say, a cluttered space reflects a cluttered mind. I needed help, and quickly.

The funny thing about grief is that it's just numbing enough to make you think you're functioning. You're getting up, you're going to work, the bills get paid, the laundry gets done, but you are numb really. The little things that seem normal or even enjoyable in some regard begin to slip, like coking for yourself, "I'll just order pizza again," or things that are never reasonable become reasonable in your mind "I'll sort through the last 8 issues of The Chronicle of Higher Education this weekend, in my free time." There is no basis in reality that you cannot or should not have pizza for dinner 3 times a week (at least not topped with sausage and pepperoni - no wonder your blood pressure is high!) You can't believe that it will take you longer than 30 minutes to get through approximately 800 pages of musings and articles on the world of academe. You are young, you are smart, you have been to school -- for a loooooong time -- you have run races, and done fasts. You are indestructible and 'on it' -- until you realize you are not. Well you might be, but you are also human, and you are broken and you are standing at the shore of very choppy waters trying to cross over into the place that is more familiar to you, the land of 'Get-it-togetherville."

Enter the bridge, or in this case, the bridges. They arrived relatively promptly (by our sister standards at least), bearing the requisite libations and offering hugs full of, "Don't worry, we're here and we'll get this done." I ushered them up the stairs into the mess. There had been no parties, no dinners, no casual get-togethers in 6 months. No socializing, no nothing. But here they were, my girls. Years of friendship, gallons of tears and reels of funny moments danced between us as they laid themselves down over my cluttered space and mind and mapped out the next 6 months of how I was going to 'deal'. First, we talked about their recent and impending nuptials over full glasses of Montepulciano and plates of Pad Thai. But then we finished our meal and got back to the task at hand. One opened another bottle of wine, the other went to my whiteboard and immediately started to identify what would be short and long term tasks. We covered wellness first ("How are you?" and "How is your family?" "Are you getting enough sleep? Of course you aren't.") When they were sufficiently convinced that I was just sad, not suicidal and that a little organization and a few words of encouragement were what I needed most, we could get back to things like, "Do you need two Mardi Gras masks? Really?"

I won't bore you with more details of the night, but two things are worth highlighting. 1) My mess was not nearly as big or insurmountable as I thought it was and 2) It took my girlfriends, responding to my clarion call to lovingly, and objectively to tell me "No, this is not ANYTHING like that hoarder show. Girl have you SEEN that show??" and remind me that grief is a process and a journey that no matter how smart or determined I am, I cannot accelerate. It simply cannot be done. This is what the sturdy, beautifully made, majestic bridges told me as they laid themselves down over my life. So with that, as we organized the Chronicles for recycling, hung up all the cardigans, and finished the wine, I started to cross over the choppy water, thankful that I didn't have to swim.

Work Hard, Play Hard

“The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he's always doing both.”

---James Michener, Novelist