Piss (some) People Off: A How-To (Part 3) Grow
It was my last visit with my father; I knew it and I think he did too. For several days I arrived at the hospital mid-morning, took a break for lunch, returned to his bedside for the afternoon. A medical team worked to find a way to reduce fluid build up around his lungs while keeping his kidneys going. But serving the needs of one, compromised the function of the other.We talked. He would tire, rest, open his eyes to continue the conversation. Even with the occasional jump in topic, it was evident his mind was clear. Our talk moved to memories, then the present with questions about my children, my husband, my life. He spoke of my mother, then of who had come to visit him, what he had said to each person. Occasionally, we laughed. Sometimes we cried. And then he said, I appreciate your calm. You’re very composed. In the past you were much more emotional. Tell me, which one is the act? That knocked the wind out of me.
Growing Pains
When you were a child, did you have a favorite pair of shoes? A pair that you wore and wore because they were the best? Remember when it became tricky and then plain painful to pull those shoes on because your magical childhood feet could not only stink, but grow?
It seems that just as our feet stop growing and we settle into our adult bodies, our minds stop growing and settle too. As a teen or young adult did you think that you had life figured out? Did you believe that you should have it figured out and so pretended to?I did. Now I encounter these ideas when I talk to college freshmen or one of my charming young relations. Words like never, always, have to speckle the conversation and I hear my teen-aged self. Certainty feels so good, we ignore new information or question the credibility of things or people who change. Uncertainty is messy and uncomfortable, the stuff we want to minimize as we leave childhood behind.
The (false) Comfort: Certainty
Before you think ill of Millennials or whoever follows them, pause and consider: It is not the smooth skin, quick reflexes, or idealism of youth that we nurture into later life. The aspect of youth that stays with us into middle-age and beyond is the notion of certainty. The importance of knowing is so great that we dismiss what we do not understand, rather than grapple with uncertainty and flux. We choose either/or, rather than both at the same time. In the young and not so young I encounter something sad and similar: We've got this figured out. We are not gonna can't change.For example, here's something that makes me cringe. A person of 50- (or 60, or 70) something says, “Well, at our age…” with a claim about diminished memory, health, the capacity to change & learn. I want to shout No! Stop! Don’t include me in your limits! Yes, I’m aging. But while my body is on a constant date with gravity and time, I keep moving, dreaming, learning, growing. Don’t nail me down! Don’t cage me with your claims.
Fixed
According to psychologist Carol Dweck, people with a fixed mindset “believe their basic abilities, their intelligence, their talents, are just fixed traits.” For many years I bought this. Adulthood was a specific destination. Once there, options for change included hairstyle, housing, diet, and possibly partner. A successful adult would have career, faith, politics, and mental well-being established and secured. I tried to prove my adulthood: to believe what was expected, to behave in the right ways, to find satisfaction in the prescribed roles of my gender and generation. The urgency for certainty overwhelmed me.
Believing that your qualities are carved in stone—the fixed mindset—creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over.” ~ Carol S. Dweck
Unfixed
I’m not sure when I became un-fixed. Quite by accident I learned that I could question my beliefs. I hadn’t known that was on the table! The radical thought of treating myself with kindness came along about the time I began excavating my family of origin stories with a qualified counselor. I entertained and then embraced new ideas about faith, trust, love, worthiness. Instead of looking to others for affirmation and validation, I began nurturing my own sense of Self. (This is an on-going practice.)Another way to say it is that I violated expectations. I learned to sit inside my own pain and put myself back together. As a result, I didn't fit into my old life anymore.
Like outgrowing favorite shoes, the process of personal evolution was (and is) painful. I didn’t know who I would be without all of the certainty I’d carried. It felt like dying. But eventually I did the same thing with my fixed mindset that I did with outgrown shoes: I let it go. I didn’t show up in the old ways, wearing the tight, painful shoes from the past. My father, comfortable with certainty, with the belief that he had me figured out, did not know what to think of my New life. The Different me. He could only make sense of the change by believing one Rebecca, of the past or the present, was an act. I took a breath and answered the question. Dad, I’m all real all the time, I assured him. You have me as you find me. None of it was or is an act.He did not reply. Serving the needs of one, compromised the function of the other. (I would like to think that he believed me.)
Piss (some) People Off: Grow
When you grow and stretch toward health and well-being, when you put yourself back together after being shattered, you will piss (some) people off. Or to put it more gently, you will distress and confound them and their certainty. Your need to grow will compromise the function of their certainty. But don't give up! Grow anyway. This growth is what will allow you to thrive when life goes erratic, dark, or just plain challenging.
The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it’s not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset. This is the mindset that allows people to thrive during some of the most challenging times in their lives.” ~ Carol S. Dweck
This is the final essay for this series. If you missed the first two, you can find them here: Love your LifeListen for the Sound of the GenuineIf this series resonated with you, subscribe so you can be the first to read the next one. Already a subscriber? Please share :)Thank you,Rebecca