Calmer Waters

I have a job! The Information & Communication Technology Council (ICTC) has offered me a 13-month contract as a research analyst starting on Monday, November 1.

My task will be to conduct a year-long project researching job competencies in the eHealth industry, and to prepare a report outlining the skills, knowledge, and experience people need to flourish in that field. Despite my initial reservations, it seems like a very good fit with my background in IT and organizational development, and my interest in the health care industry.

I've also been invited to joint the consultant roster of a local firm, Delta Partners. Although the work with ICTC will occupy most of my time for the next year, the association with Delta provides the opportunity to publish white papers and professional blog posts, and possibly to be involved peripherally in some projects. They also have consultants in Vancouver. :- )

I've had big bouts of anxiety this past week, especially while waiting days for the job offer to be confirmed. The gremlin taming exercises have been enormously helpful in managing that. In part, that's meant meditating daily again, something I've neglected badly over the past few months (when I needed it most, of course). Despite the anxiety, I've been much more grounded than in recent weeks.

Now that I have 1. Paid Work, I am starting to look for 2. My Own Home. (Well, it will probably be somewhere with roommates, but you know what I mean.)

As for 3. Community and Connection, well, I do have a friend here now, and I will soon have work colleagues. There are only 35 people at ICTC, so it will be easy to get to know everyone there. Plus, I've taken the last two weeks in November as a leave to get out of town and be with friends -- a little pre-winter break. As good as it is to be in contact with people virtually, nothing beats actually being in the some room together. I am soooo looking forward to that.

So, (cross my fingers) the storms of this move seem to be over and the water is getting calmer again. Happiness is back onboard, and I can see the possibility of enjoying my adventures here. Phew!

The photo for this blog is my 93-year old grandmother, the Queen Bee, in her Hallowe'en costume getting ready to party. It seemed appropriate. : )


Copyright © 2010 Lynn Thorsell, All rights reserved.

The Rollercoaster

What emotion haven't I experienced this week? Happiness, fear, anger, sadness, deep remorse, contentment, anxiety, delight, calm, grief, fear, etc. The death throes of an emotional demon? PMS? Perimenopause? Just a typical emotional arc in this major life transition?

What I do know is how wrung out I feel. Also that when I finally sat down and worked through some of the Taming Your Gremlin exercises today, they helped immediately in getting more centred and grounded.

On the positive end of the spectrum, the job interview I had on Wednesday went very well. The recruiter called me the next day to tell me I was a strong candidate and that she would be checking my references. I hope to be discussing a start date, etc. tomorrow -- fingers crossed!

The job is a one-year contract to do competency modeling in the area of eHealth. I am excited about the project, and have felt daunted about making a one-year commitment to being here. But Friday while walking in the woods in Gatineau Park, I had the thought that a year from now I could be walking through these beautiful woods surrounded by the final colours of fall and preparing to return to the west coast for the winter. I realized I felt quite content with that possibility -- not panicked as I have been. I stopped to watch two hawks circling, feeling good to be there.

A friend (I now have one here to whom I'm not related!) and her boyfriend invited me to their house on Saturday evening! That I can even say that I now have a friend here makes me feel so happy. They made me a lovely dinner, plied me with drinks, and then took me to the Elmdale Tavern where the owner was celebrating his birthday with an ad hoc Rolling Stones cover band. $5 cover charge, and I have to say, I enjoyed it more than the real thing. The musicians were some of the most unlikely looking people to play the Stones, and they rocked it! One paunchy granddaddy maintained a completely cool demeanor while picking the hottest, fastest jaw-dropping lead riffs. A nerdy high school science teacher, black glasses and hunched shoulders, played some super-mean bottleneck slide. The stocky vocalist who stuttered during a breaktime chat had the Mick accent and attitude completely down. We lapped it up.

Also on the positive side, my sister and I are training for a 10k run on New Year's Eve. We had two training runs this weekend, a 3k and a 6k. Running is such a lift, even when I have to drag my butt out of bed after a late night and it's only a couple degrees above freezing. So worth it.

One of the principles I learned in coaching was that we often perpetuate the very things that we most dread or abhor in our lives. I've talked about that before in this blog, and I noticed it again this week as, beset by confusion, loneliness and fear, I aggressively pushed away a good friend. I have done my best to repair the damage, but damage was done and I still feel sick about that. Where did all my good LIOS training go? What happened to checking the other person's intention? That incident in itself has been a blight on the week.

As the incident above shows, amidst the good times, I've had unpredictable bouts of grief and fear. Another of those overwhelmed me today about an hour after the morning run, a time when I would typically be feeling clearer and calmer. When I got home, I dove into some of the Taming Your Gremlin exercises that I have been reading about but not yet doing. One of these was a long meditation focused on a loved one. I chose to do this thinking of my sister. After the exercise, I noticed how fear and loneliness put the focus on whether people care about me, a very self-absorbed and powerless place to be, while meditating on love shifts my focus to how I could be show more love and care to others -- much more productive. I suspect I already know many people who practice that.

I am feeling the talons of anxiety in my back again after writing this. I hope that the next couple days will bring more certainty about work, money, and plans for November. Whether or not that happens, though, I will keep up the gremlin taming and practicing love. One step at time.

P.S.
I did some more gremlin taming after writing this, and it works! :- ) I am definitely a fan.


Copyright © 2010 Lynn Thorsell, All rights reserved.

Here Comes the Sun

Good Morning!

And for a change, I really believe that it is. I think I've finally gotten around a turning point.

People sent me some very loving, thoughtful emails and comments yesterday, for which I am very, very grateful. A couple in particular sparked candles in me.

Jeca wondered whether I am still adjusting to and figuring out what life is like without my ex. Since moving here, I have indeed been struggling with how to value myself as a single person. That seems pretty crazy when I consider it in terms of any other human being in the world. It makes me realize how much of my self-worth was tied for many years to being someone else's partner. Not a very healthy situation. Definitely time for a change.

Cliff said that one day I would look back on this time and feel proud of myself. That was in such sharp contrast to where my head has been that it got me asking what I would need to be doing right now to actually feel proud of myself. It's been a very helpful question.

Last night my sister and I went to a bookstore to browse and have tea. The second book I picked up was one a former colleague, Darryl Kropp, casually recommended a year or so ago. Darryl has good taste in books, and the title, Taming Your Gremlin, was catchy, so I remembered it. Browsing through it last night I thought it might be just what I need. The subtitle is: A Surprisingly Simple Method for Getting Out of Your Own Way. I'll let you know how it works.

Maybe there was a shorter route to get to the place, or maybe I had to slog through the marshes and bogs, hear your encouragement ("I've been through that slough. You can do it!") and feel your friendship, love, and support to finally find this piece of solid ground. I have a real smile on my face -- not just the kind one puts on because someone else is looking. I am thinking about having fun and playing. I feel optimistic. I can't tell you how sweet this feels in contrast to where I've been lately.

I wanted to write this blog this morning because I want to remember, however the job interview goes tomorrow, that I felt this way even before I had a job or a home. I may still slip and fall, but I have this touchstone.

Thank you so much for holding me where I'm at, for sharing your responses, telling me where you're at and where you've been and what's been helpful to you on your journey, and for being willing to just hang in there with me.

Love,
Lynn


Copyright © 2010 Lynn Thorsell, All rights reserved.

Surrender

I've kept hoping that I'd gone as low as I was going to go emotionally, and that things would start picking up again, but this past week was even rougher than the previous ones. Frankly, it scared me. I was very, very lucky to have some amazing friends to whom to reach out. Thank you to each and every one of you.

Getting that down finally forced me to be willing to consider taking a job here that is longer term and less sexy than what I originally wanted. I have an interview this Wednesday, and will spend the next few days preparing.

Once I called the recruiter and told her I was interested in the job after all (she had proposed it to me shortly after I moved here), I was flooded with even more sadness. I suspect this is what I have been trying to avoid in my reluctance to commit to being here: Admitting that my life on the west coast as it was during the past year is Over. That was a tsunami of grief, and there are still a few waves of it rolling onto the beach now and then.

On the other side of the grief is the knowledge that the west coast is still there, and I am connected to people in ways that sometimes surprise me. You don't know how much it means to me to know you're all out there (wherever you are), to read your comments and emails, get a phone call, etc. It's like the salt in the water that's keeping me afloat.

Along with the grief, I was experiencing fear, mainly about the unpredictability of the future. In some ways that probably seems silly: The future is always unpredictable. But when our day-to-day lives are anchored in the familiar -- a home, a job, stable relationships with the people around us -- it's easier to lull oneself into thinking that the next day will be basically an extension of this one. There's a greater sense of control and ability to plan the future. I don't experience that much these days. On the good days, that seems like an adventure. On the tough days, not so much.

On Friday afternoon, I wandered into an Italian deli in the Bytown Market. The smells instantly transported me to Commercial Drive: olives, cheeses, sausages and pastramis. I wandered the aisles fondly recognizing the same boxes and jars and Mediterranean delicacies. It was comforting to be somewhere that familiar.

I feel some embarrassment that this transition has been so challenging for me. Other people have much, much tougher stuff happen to them and have the courage and resilience to get through. I'm pretty freaking lucky. At the same time, I recognize that I'm experiencing something very common and human, that almost all of us, at some time will have or have had our lives disrupted in ways that disorient us and cause us pain. I hope that I can learn well enough from this that I can be of good service to others at a similar or more difficult place in their journey. I hope that I can be as good a friend to them as all the friends who are supporting me.

Today I walked my first orienteering course. It seemed terribly appropriate to be wandering around in the bush with a map and a compass trying to find the next checkpoint. I was often slow and lost, but I finished!

I've come to accept that Ottawa is a chrysalis for me, and that I am, right now, a gooey, mucky ball of plasma in the midst of transforming from a caterpillar to (please!) something more beautiful. (I desperately hope that after all this I'm not going to be just a big, grey moth.) Although I may be feeling incredibly claustrophobic and desperate to get out, now is not the time. There's a lot more work ahead.

To close, here's a reminder that I received in my mailbox a couple days ago that has been helpful to me.

The capacity for love is within each of us and has been active all around us, pervading our world from the moment we were born. The claim that love pervades this world may not sound real to you but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Most of us just haven’t learned to pay much attention to the countless moments of love, kindness, and care that surround us each day: a child at the store reaching for a parent’s hand, an elder at the park who smiles upon a young family, a grocery clerk who beams at you as she hands you your change. - John Makransky

Wishing you all much love,
Lynn


Copyright © 2010 Lynn Thorsell, All rights reserved.

Thinking About Happiness

A year ago last July, I left my marriage because I wanted to create a happier life for myself. Ironically, in the last four weeks I have experienced the deepest unhappiness I can remember in the past twenty-six years. This is despite the fact that I am doing many, many things that I thought would make me happy. I'm exercising daily; getting outdoors for runs, hikes, and kayaks, playing guitar; I went swing dancing Friday night and plan to make that a weekly event; I'm physically closer to my sister and her family; living in a small, attractive, culturally rich and diverse city with easy access to the outdoors, getting out for social events. These are all good things, and some of them have been essential in keeping me afloat.

Three things are missing:

1. Paid Work: This would meet my needs for financial security, regular connections with people, and a sense of capability and contribution
2. My Own Home: This won't happen until I get paid work in place.
3. Connection and Community

I dearly hope that the first two gaps will be filled in the next few weeks. Connection and community are a much bigger gap.

Every social event I go to reminds me of how disconnected I am from the people I'm with, and how much time it takes to build a relationship with someone. Writing that, I judge myself. Why can't I be more like the Dalai Lama or some other enlightened being who travels all over meeting new people so open-heartedly? Then I remind myself that the Dalai Lama doesn't travel alone; he travels with helpers and companions who he has known and worked with for many, many years. And I think of the quote by Mother Theresa: "The greatest poverty is loneliness and the feeling of being unloved."

It takes time and courage to cultivate intimacy with someone, to really know them and to be known. Generally, our culture does a lousy job of teaching us how to do that. Most of us, and I include myself in this number, are terrified of being that vulnerable, yet some part of us needs that deep connection. I don't think it would be an exaggeration to say that the majority of the people I know well are either on anti-depressants or are leaning heavily on alcohol or drugs. I wonder how much of that is the result of loneliness and fear. Those of us who are unable, for many reasons, to create and sustain intimate relationships perpetuate the cycle and even pass that loneliness on to the next generation despite our most loving intentions.

The richest aspect of my experience at LIOS were the lessons I learned about cultivating intimacy. In fact as I write that I see that cultivating richer connections with other people, whether in organizations, teams, families, couples, or with oneself, was what the entire program was about. Right now, I don't think there is anything more important than that.

I also see how easy it is to take our intimate relationships and experiences of community for granted. These become part of the backdrop of our busy lives, so easy to neglect when there are so many demands on our time, so many other places to focus attention. Even when I lived in Vancouver, I remember how difficult it often seemed to make a date with someone -- especially a group of people! -- or even to connect on the phone. It can be so easy to blame the people closest to us for little inconveniences and troubles instead of keeping our hearts open and acting with integrity.

I guess I had to be this alone to fully appreciate the communities I have -- those on the west coast, and my family here and in Alberta. I know many of you reading this already have that deep appreciation, and I respect you for that.

I'm learning much about the cost of tearing my life apart. I guess all I can do at this point is commit to doing a better job of putting it back together despite all my fears. I want to remember what I learned at LIOS and what I'm learning now. I want to stay awake enough to avoid the old patterns and ruts. I want to be brave enough to be a good sister, aunt, daughter, colleague, and friend.

I keep thinking that I'm going to write a lighter, happier blog, that these have gotten too heavy. I'll get there soon, I hope. In the meantime, thanks for hanging in with me.

Copyright © 2010 Lynn Thorsell, All rights reserved.