That expression is used in Harvard Review literature to talk about companies who invest heavily in human and social capital.

I’m investing in myself, in terms of courses and coaching and conferences. I’m also investing in companies by re-starting my business helping organizations increase their performance through responsible communication, collaborative and problem solving skills; as well as leadership skills that focus on trust as a means of motivation.

This means I’ve come full circle in my career. It’s a fascinating turn of events for me – I had been vocal, almost fist-poundingly so – that I was not going to EVER work with organizations again, something I’d done for decades.

Life Changes

My training and consulting business had been successful for two decades. I worked with businesses such as Martin Guitar, Mack Trucks/Volvo, Amazon, Hoechst-Roussel Pharmaceuticals Inc.; health care systems such as Lehigh Valley Health Network, St. Luke’s Health Network; school systems across the United States and Canada.

Initially my work was in the areas of communication, teams, supervisory and leadership skills. Over time it morphed into working with teams in the quality field and solving problems using a statistical problem solving methodology.  Then my work became almost exclusively 6 Sigma.

I was no longer happy in my business. I was working, continuously it seemed, with disgruntled employees who didn’t believe upper management was going to truly implement 6 Sigma. They didn’t want to be in class, nor work on projects. No fun for any of us.

Then my 86 year old father, who had still been working full-time, quit because he felt tired and couldn’t perform the way he wanted to. He had leukemia. I wanted to help him. For all intents and purposes I quit working. After he died, I did very little to rebuilt my business. At the time I didn’t want to work for corporations or any organizations again, except on a volunteer basis.

Coming of Age

Then I had a second coming of age moment, really many moments, at 62. I remembered: It’s OK to change my mind.

It wasn’t organizations I didn’t want to work with; it was 6 Sigma. It is OK, actually well beyond OK all the way to smart and exhilarating to do the work I enjoy: teaching and coaching in the so-called soft skills. It’s in that work, similar to the work I do with women, where I get in the flow, not noticing time, not groping for responses because the responses are just there,  sliding without effort out of my mouth.

I may be a MBTI introvert but I relish speaking in front of groups. It drains me (there’s the Introvert part) so afterwards I require alone time to recharge my battery. But other than that I’m ready to roll. Rock and roll with corporations, organizations, non-profits, associations, conferences and more. It’s an invigorating place to be.

Moving to Arlington, VA

Part of the reason I moved to Arlington was to shake up my life. Well it worked. It jarred me into clarity about what I want to do and who I want to be when I grow up.

I foresee two arms of my Borderless Thinking® business. One working with organizations, as I just mentioned; the other continuing to work with women related to their mindset and how they see themselves. Mentoring them to increase their confidence in order to have the courage to do what they want and be who they want. Hard to imagine a work life getting better than this.

Three things I (re) learned and want to share

1. Changing your mind is not a sign of weakness or some other negative label.

2. Viewpoints and external factors are constantly changing making re-evaluation important.

3. Old is not a negative term. Your age, at any age, is what you make of it. I’m making the most of this age. I feel so good and hope you do too, whatever age or stage of life you’re in.

What’s something you changed your mind about recently? How do you feel about it?

To chat more, join me on Twitter here or Facebook here.

PHOTO: Some rights reserved by pupski  on Flickr

Curl-myself-into-a-fetal-position miserable.

I have no dreams and plans for the future except continual misery.

What Happened

Nothing happened, as in no one died. I didn’t lose a job. I didn’t get divorced. I had no fights.

What I do have is a cough. An irritating, perpetual, pain in the chest cough that’s been going on for over two weeks.

It’s worn me down. I can’t take a deep breath without rattles and gags and hacking. I’m oxygen deprived.

The last two nights were spend sitting up in a chair so I could get some rest. I’m sleep deprived.

Oxygen deprivation + sleep deprivation = Depression

Being depressed leads too (really life is just one big flow chart) wanting to be in my own home.

My own home in Bethlehem, PA is rented.

I’m living in a rental in Arlington, VA.

Today I’m definitely not happy about that.

I’ve thought of driving to Bethlehem and knocking on the new tenant’s door (my door!), explaining the situation and asking if they’d let me curl up there for a couple of days.

Somehow I don’t think it will work.

Hmmm… maybe I could stay in the garage. My sofa and love seat are stored there. I could take some blankets and curl up on a familiar piece of furniture, with smells of home. It already has my body imprint. Damn that sounds good.

Random Thoughts

I thought about my son Seth, when he broke his collar bone in a bicycle accident. Poor kid, it happened after his girlfriend of six years and he had broken up and he had moved out and was renting a room in someone’s house. Bet he wanted to go home too.

Penelope Trunk’s latest post is 7 Big Relocation Mistakes, she needs to add an 8th. Think about what you’ll do when you’re sick. Who will bring you chicken soup? If you’re going to go to a doctor, it’s going to be a new person and you have to get it approved by health insurance. I don’t want to do that when I’m healthy, much less when I’m sick.

When I’m feeling lousy with little energy, I don’t put things away. But clutter, especially in a small space, is demoralizing.

I don’t have a bathtub to drown myself in, or better yet, to soak in and while or wile away the hours.

I hate daytime TV. I wish there was a good come- from-behind sports movie to watch.

Next Steps

Writing helps even though I still feel like the flood gates behind my eyes are being pushed to their limits today.

So I showered. I’m dressed, even wearing a beautiful scarf  which makes me look good so I won’t get sickness pity, which is both good and bad.

I’m getting out of the apartment. I think it’s the only hope.

I’ll let you know how it was.

1. Articles and studies that make old news seem like a new discovery.

The information that set me off today was: “happy employees produce more than unhappy employees over the long term”. (Creating Sustainable Performance by Gretchen Spreitzer and Christine Porath in January-February 2012 Harvard Business Review.)

People didn’t know this before? You’re kidding me right? First, it seems inherently obvious to me. Second, I’ve been teaching this information to employers for over two decades. (As have many, many other people).

But the wind goes out of my sails as I suddenly remembered the number of leaders/managers in varying corporations who didn’t believe this information about employees then, so maybe there is a need for scientific study to prove the obvious.

Why do you think they didn’t believe this? Was it not true for them personally? Did these leaders/managers believe that they themselves were more productive with they were unhappy on the job or in life?

2. The belief that fear is the best motivator of people.

Well, it’s true that if you beat a horse, he will run faster – for awhile. “For a while” being the operative term.

In another HBR article (the theme of this month’s special double issue is The Value of Happiness) an interview with Daniel Gilbert, author of the 2006 best seller Stumbling On Happiness, the interviewer states that “many managers would say that contented people aren’t the most productive employees, so you want to keep people a little uncomfortable, maybe a little anxious, about their jobs. Gilbert responds: “There’s no data showing that anxious, fearful employees are more creative or productive.”

Yeah Gilbert!

When did the misguided notion that fear makes people more productive arise?  I know it’s not new.

Is it that people are short-term focused so they only pay attention to the fact that scared people, in the moment, jump higher than non-scared people and then mistakenly extrapolate to the long term from there?

You can see it in parenting too

I remember the mother of a friend of my older son. She believed that her son would behave worse and worse (by the way, this kid was basically good) unless she set down a lot of rules and harsh punishment. By harsh, in this case, I mean grounded for long periods of time and having virtually no privileges. Her proof? The kid was becoming sneaky and sneakier.

Of course, he was. When you have no privileges or rights, one way you get to do something you want is if you be sneaky about it.

Acceptance

Maybe my coming-of-age learning is that human patterns of belief are slow in changing; that each new generation needs to hear the same information, although packaged in a new way.

What are some of the things that you learned when you were younger but are being sold as new now?

Coughing, ripping my guts out hacking, off and on chills, eyes burning, fatigue and questioning myself as to whether I’m exaggerating what I’m feeling.

I guess I’ve still not come of age when it comes to getting sick.

“Come on Cherry, you can push through how you’re feeling and keep that meeting.”

“Just drink water at the restaurant every time you start to cough.”

“It’s probably allergies so you’re not contagious. (But what about the chills? The burning up feeling?)”

And my personal coup d’etat of reason and acceptance: “You’re not really sick. You’re making it up so you don’t have to fill in the blank.

The Genesis

I’m not sure of the genesis of not believing myself when it comes to being ill, but it’s been with me for as long as I can remember.

The other piece of the problem is how I interpret the mind-body connection.

After reading Dr. Bernie Siegel’s book Love Medicine and Miracles in the late 1980′s and Louise Hay’s work around the same time, I came to believe (at least when I’m not feeling well) that I have caused this illness. If I had my life totally together, I wouldn’t be sick.

That’s not what Siegel and Hay meant to imply by their work; it wasn’t about blaming the person who was sick for their illness. Rather it was to provide knowledge about the mind-body connection in illness, which then can inform your life and what self-enhancement work to do. (Thanks to Christa Gallopoulos for the phrase self-enhancement vs. self-improvement).

So now it’s time for me to do the work that I’d tell my clients to do on their  paradigms. <sigh>

Peeling away another layer of thinking that doesn’t serve me on my way to fully coming of age.

Graphic: Some rights reserved by belard

He was a borderless thinker. A paradigm shifter.

picture from http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm

He was willing to think big. Dream big. Go against prevailing thinking. Fight for social justice. Be a voice for those who couldn’t speak for themselves.

And, I would bet, he articulated ideas and thoughts that many people couldn’t even conceive of.

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

But it can be hard to dream big.

You might be afraid of  being embarrassed for some people laugh. “Yea right Cherry, you’re gonna be the next Martin Luther King, Jr.”

You might not believe in yourself.

So you stop saying your dream. Eventually you stop thinking it.

Then you start to agree with those who would keep you playing small.

You “accept” you were being:

• silly
• ridiculous
• audacious
• cocky

to think that you could be [fill in your dream]. In my case, Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dreaming. Visualizing Your Future

I gave up my dream. Actually, I gave up dreaming.

Today I know that was a mistake; but at the time, it made sense to me. It was a form of self-preservation, a way of taking care of myself.

But after awhile, the technique(s) I used to protect myself weren’t needed anymore. The “danger” was long gone but I was stuck in an unconscious repetition of behavior.

Fortunately, I became aware that my inability to dream big was a learned behavior. That awareness allowed me to change. So cool. So very, very cool.

Now, of course, I’m also coming of age so there’s no stopping me. No one can quash my dreams. Nadie mas.

I’ll be working with legions, upon legions, upon legions of women to become borderless thinkers, setting the stage for a shift of mindset that helps them also see a world of possibilities for themselves. With the belief in possibility, comes a willingness for action. With action, even the smallest of steps, comes confidence and the courage to take the next step.

I’m telling you, this getting older stuff has fabulous benefits.

If we’re not connected on FB, come on over and “friend” me here. I’m on Twitter here. I’d like to hear from you and make sure you hear about the launch dates of my upcoming courses.

Tory Johhson

Tory Johnson, career expert and Good Morning America’s workplace contributor, walks her talk.

I spoke with her at a special “Meet Up” that was held at the 2011 PA Conference For Women.  I stood in a long line waiting for my 5 minutes “to get up close and personal with Tory and ask any question about your career”.

My question wasn’t about my career, rather I wanted to ask her if she’d do an interview for the Confidence Chronicles – True Stories of Becoming Strong series. There were two things in my favor. One, Tory’s an avid supporter of women and two, she believes that if you want something you need to act on it, which I was doing.

I made it to the front of the line. I made my request. Then Tory made my day and my readers’ day with a quick smile and just as quick affirmative answer to my question.  I’m glad I stood in line, there’s a lot to be learned from her interview answers.

Enjoy the interview.

Bio‘: After deciding to make the shift from employee to entrepreneur, in 1999 Tory founded Women For Hire from a corner of her New York City apartment. Now in its 11th year, the company hosts high caliber diversity career expos across the country, attracting talented women and leading employers. As workplace contributor on ABC’s Good Morning America, she is a favorite among viewers who appreciate her no-nonsense career advice. Glamour dubbed Johnson the “raise fairy godmother” for her ability to help women ask for—and get—more money. In 2010, she began hosting conferences for current and aspiring small business owners nationwide. Her fifth book, Fired To Hired, follows Will Work From Home: Earn Cash Without the Commute, which was both a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller.

__________

Cherry: You’re a successful entrepreneur. You provide no-nonsense career advice on Good Morning America, you host conferences for small business owners, yet you say your get nervous all the time.

Tory: It’s not really about being nervous, in terms of a sense of nerves like “OMG, I don’t know how I’m going to do this”. Rather, it’s a nervous energy because I’m aware that so many things can go wrong. I have a responsibility to many people. There’s a lot expected of me, and I want to deliver on expectations. It’s not just about personal failure, I can deal with that, but failure at a conference or on Good Morning America is a failure that impacts a lot of people and I don’t want to do that. So I end up having nervous energy that keeps me on my toes, that makes me prepare better. There’s value in some nervous energy or nervousness.

Tony Bennett said that if he asked someone before they were about to perform on stage if they were nervous and the person answered no, that they weren’t nervous, he knew the person was in trouble. When the stakes are higher, it’s normal, in fact good to be nervous. It makes you prepare.

When I hear someone say “Oh, don’t be nervous” I chuckle. That’s easy to say but not reality when people are counting on you to deliver.

Cherry: You and I met at the PA Conference for Women.  Gloria Steinem, author and activist, was also one of the speakers. Like you, she said she still has some fear & trepidation before she speaks in front of a group. I think it will surprise up and coming speakers – while also giving them some assurance that their feelings are normal – that two seasoned veterans of speaking in front of groups still get nervous before they speak. What practical tips do you have for aspiring speakers?

Tory: Practice, practice, practice.

There is no substitute for practice. There is no substitute for really knowing your material. You need to be exceptionally knowledgeable about what you offer.

There is plenty of practice that you can do on your own. You can speak in front of a mirror. You can record yourself speaking but you still need to get in front of a live group. A friend of mine and speaking coach, Ruth Sherman says that Preparation + Experience = Spontaneity.

More times than not, the speaker who seems to be a natural, is someone who has done a considerable amount of practice and is very knowledgeable about their topic. So their words flow. They can easily answer questions.

My speaking skills started with being a high school debater. (At Miami Beach High School, Tory joined her all-male debate team—and became the first girl to win a state debate championship.) Of course you can’t go back and re-do high school but you can join toastmasters and similar groups. You don’t  want to try to learn to be a speaker in isolation. You need to speak in front of groups.

Cherry: You have children. What advice do you give them about gaining confidence?

Tory: The only place where the question of confidence arises is with high stakes tests. They’re good students and they want to do well, so sometimes they express worry and concern about how well they’re going to do on a test.

I ask: what will help you do well on the test.

If I know the material.

I say: So what does that mean you have to do?

Study enough to know the material.

What I say to my children, or other people that are worried about a particular situation is: Let’s say your worst fear is realized. If you had to predict what the cause was for that happening, what would you say?

Their answer might be “I didn’t study enough” or “I wasn’t clear about what would be on the test”.

So I’d say: How could you get clear on what will be on the test. I might suggest/ask why not go in to see your teacher with a list of things you think will be on the test and ask if there’s anything missing.

“When you can anticipate what will make something go better and you address that issue, it raises your confidence about what you’re going to do.” Tory

__________

Great advice from Tory Johnson. If you want some help with the questions to ask yourself or with following through on Practice, Practice, Practice give me a shout. Take advantage of my free get-unstuck Skype call. Sign up today.

Even if it only involves some paradigm shifting about age.

I bought my first-ever leopard print underpants recently.

I’m wearing them today while I work.

I’m liking it.

#thatisall

PS – a picture of them & me, perhaps, in the future. I haven’t come of age enough for that yet. Perhaps I never will. Time will tell,  I’ll be sure to let you know.

If you’re feeling like you want some help getting out of your ruts about what you “should” or “shouldn’t do”, give me a shout. Take advantage of my free get-unstuck Skype call. Sign up today.

Like The Hoosiers.

Like Glory Road.

Now I can add The Express, a drama based on the life of college football hero Ernie Davis, the first African-American to win the Heisman Trophy.

The Express isn’t about a small town team beating the big guys, because it’s about Syracuse University, who won the Cotton Bowl against Texas on January 1. 1960. It’s about Ernie Davis, his tremendous athletic skills and his fight against the big guy – racism in sports and in society. I cried, I’m still crying.  I hated the racism, the ugliness, the viciousness of some people but what was more impressive and astounding is the courage of  people like Ernie Davis.

It’s the coming from behind story that pleasantly does me in with these movies. It ‘s beating the odds. It’s the believing in a person and pushing, urging, supporting him or her to do better. I crave what the player(s) get in these movies.

Believing In Me

I always wanted someone to believe in me. Someone to believe I could do it, no matter what “it” was. Instead I was told I couldn’t do it. I was too fragile. In hindsight, my parents were probably too afraid of life themselves to teach me to take risks.

I was a scared little kid. In many ways a scared adolescent and in some ways a scared adult.  The reasons are many but they don’t really matter, at least not anymore. Granted they’re part of my story but they represent the earlier chapters; chapters I have no desire to revisit and retell anymore. They’re not the story I want people to know me for.

What I do desire is for me to believe in me. Completely this time.

Photo by ~Amal Zone~

Another person’s belief and words don’t do it for me at this stage of my life. Oh, it feels good and I very much appreciate it, but, bottom line is it doesn’t do “it” for me.

God, all this from a sports movie.

I still want to cry, but now it’s for me, or the child that was loved but whose capabilities weren’t believed in.

Coming of Age at 62

But this is the year I come of age, in fact this is Day 11 of my personal coming of age calendar. So here goes:

I believe in me.

I believe in my gifts and they are bountiful.

I believe in my ability to help people.

I believe in my work, my family, my friends and my life.

Did I say that I believe in me?

I am delightfully unique.

I am quirky and traditional and liberal and conservative.

I have a beautiful body.

I am me all wrapped up in a bright red bow of body and brain and soul and intuition for all to see.

I believe in me and that allows me to believe in you. Because I do believe in you too.

———————–

If you’re feeling like you want some help believing in yourself, give me a shout. Take advantage of my free get-unstuck Skype call. Sign up today.

You can also find me on Twitter  or Facebook.

Tara Gentile

The Confidence Chronicles – True Stories Of Becoming Strong interview series continues with the second half of my interview with the inspiring and rapidly rising entrepreneur,  Tara Gentile. You can find Part 1 by clicking here.

Tara’s in the business of helping entrepreneurs turn their passion into profit. She collaborates with clients to actualize their dreams, their vision, their ideas and turn them into dollars and cents.

And she’s good at it. Her increasing business success over the past two years is a testimony to the caliber of work she does.

The second half of this interview is about shared vision, collaboration and the power of failure.

Cherry:  When you were in college you said you hated group projects because they meant you had to work with other people.

Would you talk about that – what your fears and concerns were related to working with people.

Tara: I think my chief fear with working with people has always been a lack of shared purpose. Group work is difficult when the people involved aren’t like-minded in their opinions, ideas or beliefs, but virtually impossible when they don’t share common goals and a common destination.

I like people. I used to think that I didn’t, that I was a loner, but now I realize what I didn’t like was not having a shared purpose. Now I know I like working with people when we have a shared purpose even if we have all sorts of other crazy differences.

We can have different skills, different strengths, different weaknesses, different beliefs, and different opinions, but if we share a common purpose for the right reasons, I can work with just about anybody. It’s a problem when you are faced with a group of people who don’t want to be there or who don’t care as much as you do.

So I try and structure my business that I’m always working with people who care about what we’re doing, as much as I do. Otherwise, it’s no fun.

Cherry: I know what you mean. Actually you answered my next question, which was how did you become comfortable with partnering with people on projects in order to grow your business and achieve your vision.

Tara: The clearer I have gotten on my vision, the easier it is to find people with a similar vision. The clearer I’ve gotten on my purpose, the easier it is to find other people with a shared purpose. And so that’s something I strive to make more clear on a daily basis. If everything that I communicate, if every decision I make is backed up by my purpose, then I know I’m going to be attracting the right kind of people to me, whether they’re collaborative partners or business partners or clients or customers.

Cherry: I so know what you mean. When I’m laser clear on my vision for working with women to increase their confidence so they have the courage to be who they really are and do what they want to do, the kind of people I want and need just seem to appear. Pretty amazing sometimes.

What is your vision, Tara?

Tara: My vision, basically, is to change the economy, to have people like us at the center of it. I’m in business to change business. I want to redefine commerce so that it’s more about relationships and meeting and connection and less about gimme, gimme, gimme, money, money, money. Don’t misunderstand me, I like making money. I like consuming things, I don’t have a problem with that. I just don’t think it needs to be the primary, or only, focus.

I think people need to be the focus of economy. It’s a system that is meant to serve us, and we’ve lost sight of that. So my business is entirely about creating businesses that are you-centered.

It’s also about creating channels of communication that allow us both as business owners and as consumers to realize our power and realize our place and our connection to the greater economy as a whole.

 Cherry: Impressive. I like that. I can also see where for a vision of that scale you need to be engaged in collaborative relationships. That’s not something one can achieve totally by themselves.

 Tara: Agreed, and it’s a progression. For me right now it’s primarily working with individuals, micro-business owners, but I see as early as probably the first quarter of 2012 starting to branch out and work with much bigger businesses.  I think that’s going to be really important.

Cherry: It is a progression, which is inevitably needed to  grow a business, to accomplish a dream.

One of the things I talk about in my work is stepping into your power, which can also be a progression. I equate power and confidence. Many of the women I work with feel stuck. They have so many things that they want to do, but they don’t have the confidence, the energy almost, to get unstuck.

I want to let my readers know you went through a period of being stuck – about a five year period – after college.  You had a full scholarship to graduate school to get your PhD, with the ultimately goal of teaching at the college level. You became scared you might spend all that time in school and then not be able to find a job in the academic world so you decided not to continue school and get a job in retail instead. You started as a barista and then became a manager.

Tara: Yes. Ultimately, I learned that retail work wasn’t for me but I gained a lot of knowledge about systems and people. For instance, now when I advise people, I tell them to get comfortable with achieving failure. You know, you don’t want to think of failure as an end point or as a need to change course. Failure teaches you so much. It’s the best thing that you can do for yourself really, because success doesn’t teach you much.

Success just feels good. It takes a lot of, I think personal reflection, to really get anything out of success. Failure teaches you things, whether you want to know them or not.

When I was a retail manager and training people, if they didn’t make mistakes during training, I knew I was going to have a lot of problems with them later because they weren’t learning to think on their feet, which is what they would need to do when they were on the job and on their own with customers. And so a lot of the employees that I trained very quickly and very easily were some of the worst employees we had. The one’s that, during training, tried something and it didn’t work out so they tried something else, those were the people that I loved working with three months from then, six months from then, a year later. I think those are the ones who went on to do bigger and better things with their lives as well. So, it’s not just about training a barista or training a sales person, it has everything to do with your business, your experience and all the bigger things you want to do.

If you are going to grow, achieve failure and achieve it often. Then you’re learning and moving forward.

Another great line with which to end an interview:

Achieve failure and achieve it often because that’s how you learn and grow.

Achieve Failure. What a freeing thought.

If you’re feeling stuck or worried about failure, take advantage of my free get-unstuck Skype call. Sign up today. You can also find me on Twitter  or Facebook.

You can follow Tara by clicking here or find her on Facebook here.

In the context of this blog, the only important part about the argument is what I realized from it. I’m no   longer willing to apologize for having emotions. I am a good person who is emotional and I am tired of feeling like a bad person because I am not calm all the time, nor perfect.

Agreed I shouldn’t curse; I shouldn’t scream; I shouldn’t throw things; I shouldn’t name call; and I shouldn’t get physical.

No Apologies

I’ve been criticized most of my life for being a highly sensitive person and for being emotional. And I bought into that criticism hook, line and sinker, thinking I was wrong for letting things upset me and for – god forbid – showing my emotions.

No more. I’m done with feeling or thinking badly about myself for who I am.

If my tone of voice changes, so be it. If I get louder because emotions are coursing through my body, so be it. I know I shouldn’t scream at someone but a change in tone and timbre does not equate to screaming.

No more apologies for getting tears in my eyes or having tears run down my face. If anyone thinks (or, perhaps, feels) that they don’t want to bring something up because I might get upset, it’s their difficulty with dealing with conflict and emotions, not my problem for displaying emotions. I never asked, nor expected, anyone to not be candid with me or give me feedback because it might bother me. I’ll deal with it.  Admittedly, I have a harder time with feedback from my family; there’s more baggage, triggers and intricacies there.

Keeping A Beach Ball Under Water

I’ve learned that my trying to quell my emotions and who I really am, is like trying to hold a beach ball under water. After awhile the pressure for release is so great that the ball comes shooting out of the water at tremendous speed. Letting out my feelings on a regular basis and not mindlessly following a bunch of “shoulds”, reduces the pressure and, therefore, their velocity.

I’ve experienced double standards in my lifetime. The very people who tell me I get upset also get upset but manifest it differently and therein lies the rub. The way they manifest their emotions – because they too have emotions, sure as shooting – is not necessarily superior to the way I manifest mine.

Bottom Line For Me

No more guilt about who I am. No more believing that showing emotions is negative. No more apologies for feeling the way I do.

My sensitive nature makes me a powerful player in this world.

My emotions rock.

I’m 62 and I’ve come of age.