All my life I have had hair so straight it looked like I took a flatiron to it. I wished and wished for wavy or curly hair, for years. As I’ve gotten older, that’s dropped lower on my list of desires. And yet, over the past year, my hair has curled. I’m not a particularly vain person; I don’t wear makeup, and I’m not big on investing in hair or skin care products. But I can’t get over the fact that my hair has curled. I look at the back of my head in the mirror on a fairly regular basis, observing those waves with incredulity. It makes me shake my head every time. I just don’t get it, it’s a cause for wonder for me. I wonder, has my outlook on life changed the composition of my hair? Is it my age, my hormones, my diet, my lifestyle?
My newly wavy hair is sort of a metaphor for my life over the past few years. In 2007, when I left Oregon and headed up to Washington, I threw a lot of balls up in to the air, and I feel like I tossed those balls HIGH, and some of them are still way up there, on their way down. Who knows what they will look like when they land. The only thing that has been constant in my life over these last few years is CHANGE. Changing my location, changing my employment status, changing how I view relationships, changing how I seek balance in my life, CHANGE.
Attainment is accomplishment + “becoming”. I’m a different person in a lot of ways than I was in January of 2011, and not just the wavy hair. I’ve learned a lot this year, and that learning has been folded in to my being to become part of who I am. I coauthored a book, self produced a video and DVD, launched an Online Classroom, and started a Podcast. But, as is typical, most of my “becoming” had to do with more intangible accomplishments, lessons learned the hard way…
I learned that mental management has its limits. I’m not invincible. I can’t sustain mental control with respect to performance if I fly to three continents in three weeks. Those trips in March of 2011 took a toll on me and had consequences that lasted for months throughout the rest of the year. I humbled myself with those experiences.
I learned that relationships can change even when you don’t want them to, right before your eyes. There are a lot of different ways to define relationships; friends, partners, spouses, lovers, coaches, mentors, peers, teachers… Sometimes, the definition of a relationship NEEDS to change, and sometimes, the nature of a relationship changes without your even knowing it. If you’re operating within the framework of one type of relationship, and the other person is operating within a different framework, things can get tricky fast. Hearts get hurt, but in my case it was worth the effort to see things through. Trying to hold a relationship in a static state is unhealthy for both parties – change is good and necessary. You’d think I’d GET that by now. There are a few people on this earth that I have a lot of love in my heart for, outside of my family; it’s sometimes difficult to not put those people behind a glass case, and try to keep them the same in my heart and mind, but anybody kept in a glass case will eventually suffocate.
I learned that being afraid of something unlikely to happen is a waste of time and energy. I spent a good portion of my year worrying myself in to a state of near inactivity about something that, in the end, was nothing to worry about at all. I humbled myself with all that worry that in the end came to nothing.
I learned that going forward, I will be hard pressed to compromise my pedagogical principles. I moved up to Washington, lured by the pretense that I would have the opportunity to run a business owned by somebody else as my own. It was foolish of me to believe that lure; as a business owner I would never let somebody else run it as their own, and I would never promise them such a thing. I have a lot of respect for the teaching and learning process, and for those honestly involved in it, dogs and humans alike.
The entire experience of serving as training director for a large training facility has given me some pretty clear ideas of what I won’t do in the future, as well as some pretty clear ideas of what I will do in the future, and I’m grateful for having had that learning opportunity, despite the fact that I’m now living in a house in the suburbs, in a state I don’t really want to live in, with no training facility to call my own. Both my husband and I would very much like to head back closer to Oregon at some point; that’s where our hearts and minds are.
Goodbye 2011
I’ve no idea what will come in the year ahead. I have some projects on the drawing board that I’m already working on, but as far as personal growth, I can’t even venture to speculate where I’ll be at this time next year. If I had my druthers, by this time next year I’d be sitting on a piece of property with a training arena, inviting people to come enjoy the place with me, but, that’s a dream at this point, something I’m working toward in the next decade. In some respects, I’m living a magical life, one so far off the beaten path and so custom tailored to my skills and desires and dreams that sometimes I wonder how I possibly even made it to this point. I couldn’t possibly be motivated and driven enough to have gotten myself here, I feel so lazy most of the time, and yet, here I am, living this life. On the other hand, I’m so far off the beaten path that there IS no path, except that which I create for myself. I can look back and see the path I’ve made, but looking forward? It’s mostly wilderness – frightening, lonely, beautiful, amazing wilderness. I comfort myself with the knowledge that those dear to my heart will be with me, helping me forge that path.
I’m very lucky to share my life with somebody willing to forge in to the wilderness with me
- thank you, David.
To the rest of you, Happy Training, Happy New Year. I wish you all a year filled with growth, change, and learning, all the same things I wish for myself.
Thanks for the eBook Clear Mind, It has changed my perspective while giving me a chance to succeed, fail, and love it.
You’re very welcome!