This week’s guest post is from my friend Amanda. Known to you all as McGee. I wanted her to write about the self-leadership moment that she decided not to go through with her big planned wedding and to elope instead. Totally epic on the Moxy scale. But, she wrote this. It’s way better.
Sometimes I hear voices.
Like in my head.
Ok. More like often.
I know that’s not what you expect to hear when you come to the world headquarters of all things Moxy but I hear voices and oddly they sound a lot like me.
I refer to the voices as the committee.
And sometimes they start meetings in my head.
I have fired them before.
And I’ve adjourned many a meeting throwing people out as I go.
But allow me to back track a bit…
I’m a leader. I lead people, that’s what I do. I was born to do it. Then I studied it. Applied it. And rocked at it.
Never once did it occur to me that I needed to lead myself.
Until, that is, I came unglued.
I managed to control every last piece of my life and the people in it (or so I had convinced myself) and then it all seemed to come crashing down at once. The year I sold my car, my house and lost my business made me realize that perhaps I didn’t have it all under control.
I know what you’re thinking-I totally WANT to tell you that I pulled my head right out and picked myself right up and moved along. I want to be that girl. But it took me awhile. I got caught in a committee meeting that just wouldn’t end.
You see-when life gets in the way of my plans or my plans go awry, my committee meeting is called to order. I hear voices when I should be listening for peace, inspiration and calm.
“I knew that would happen.”
“See? It always happens to us.”
“What? We can do this!”
“Nope, we don’t have any reserve left, let’s just cry in bed.”
“If only…”
It’s weird, it’s like I have the eternal optimist, the wounded teenager, the feisty hellion and the angel on my shoulder all going to bat for how I need to handle life. I used to try and work it out with them but it rarely ended well.
Here’s the thing, they work me up into such a frenzy. It’s as if I can’t even figure out which way is up. I’ll start reacting to one situation with the stress of another and before I know it I’ve irritated not only myself, but anyone within a 50 mile radius that needs anything from me. I react out of fear, I’m defensive while secretly confused and my knack for indecision runs rampant. I become the master second guesser–any decision I make might make or break my universe so I can’t figure out which way to go. It’s messy to say the least!
More often than not I ended up crying in bed with my pajamas having a pity party. Sad thing about a pity party is that the food is never any good and the company is worse.
And then someone told me to fire the committee and adjourn the meeting.
So I did.
I literally called a meeting in my own head-let them know that we would not be meeting like this anymore and I raised a gavel and said out loud–YOU’RE FIRED.
I learned to quiet the voices and just be in the crisis.
I learned to let go of the old story of my life and look for the new patterns.
I learned to be still and feel the moment.
I found that when ideas rattled around and around it probably wasn’t time to move in any direction. Once I felt calm I had a better idea of what to do next. I learned to trust myself again.
Like any time I’ve learned to set boundaries, I initially set them with a firm stance. (Read: iron fist) Ignoring my inner beings by shutting them down was easier than leading them, that’s for sure.
But with time I’ve accepted that the committee meeting in my head is an amalgam of my life and the parts of me that have been scared, hopeful, wounded and loved. Perhaps there is some wisdom there to honor.
As I’ve learned to honor myself and commit myself to more conscious self-leadership I’ve allowed the committee meetings to resume.
At times.
However.
I still hold the gavel.
And sometimes I need to recuse a member or two.
But in large part, I check in with my committee to get what I need.
And then?
Meeting adjourned.
-McGee
McGee is a sister, a mother, a lover and a best friend. She has a background in Organizational Psychology, owned a Cold Stone Creamery, co-produced an independent film and currently works in the online advertising world of the auto industry. Further thoughts from McGee can be found at www.justmcgee.com