My New Motto: Try a bunch of things and see what sticks

This month has shown me a lot. It has reminded me that I work well under pressure, that I can be hyper organized, and that I miss using those skills in my current job. That last revelation is key. I really like my job, AND I would like to flex the other parts of my brain that aren’t used in my current position. Until these past few weeks, I have felt uncomfortable with the idea that I don’t have just ONE passion-related career path that I want to take. I have a bunch, but I am constantly surrounded by messages of, “Do the JOB that you are passionate about,” and other similar, simple platitudes that are thrown around lately. 

A part of me gets it. We want everyone to find the thing that makes them tick, and then we want them to do that thing ALL of the time. That is the recipe for happiness, right? Sure. We should probably not be miserable at our jobs every day. I would certainly not wish that on people. 

However, another part of me thinks that this whole concept is some stifling bullshit. It takes away a few pieces that are important: experimentation and time. I have watched so many young people and more than a few adults feel guilty about not automatically knowing where their passion lies. They feel guilty about changing career paths or working several odd jobs at the same time. Hell, I have felt icky about switching trajectories in the same field, which is not okay. None of us should feel weird or wrong for taking our time to try to find our niche(s). Sometimes it takes people (me) a few tries to figure out what works for them (me). Society sees that as flighty or directionless; I see it as bravely forging different paths.    

   

I am passionate about a lot of things, and I am tired of feeling like I need to pick only one. So fuck it. I am not going to. If I want to be a mental health professional who also organizes events and makes gourmet chocolate bars while getting her yoga teacher certification, then so be it.

 

How are you finding your passion(s)?

- Lauren, Life Experimenter

I have only thought about half of the things that are important to my elderly and also dead self.

I have been thinking a lot about getting older lately. My new husband and I have been talking about creating a will and ensuring that we have each other as financial beneficiaries should either of us die. As a previous medical social worker, one thing that I always think about with will-related paperwork is advance directives, which is when you create a legal document stating your wishes for how you want to be medically treated in the event that you are incapacitated. Some people know this as do not resuscitate paperwork, but there are all kinds of medical options to be considered, like if you want to be an organ donor or who your health care proxy will be. I, personally, am fine with being resuscitated but not with being placed on any machines or feeding tubes, and I would like to donate my tissue and organs. As a future mental health therapist, I have also thought about how the people I support would be notified and who would be their emergency mental health contact in the event of my death. Two things that I never gave any serious thought to are how I want live my life as an elderly person and how I want my body to be treated after I die.

The thought about how I want to live as an elderly person was sparked yesterday when I heard an interview on NPR with surgeon and Harvard professor Dr. Atul Gawande. He has started a larger conversation about how we treat our elderly population and what we should be doing differently. Dr. Gawande makes the case for giving older individuals more support in the community, in order to keep them in their homes, and more life choices when they are in care facilities. In most facilities, care is focused on keeping the individual alive versus their quality of life. In his book, Being Mortal, he examines case studies where the elderly are given opportunities to make medical decisions based on their life values, to see their friends when they please, to take care of animals, and to eat the foods that make them happy. In these examples, he found that the older individuals are living longer, taking less medication, and are thriving. These are also all things that I assumed that I would have in my life when I got older. Who thinks that they give up the right to see their friends when they enter a care facility, because it might be “risky?” Who wants to turn ninety and then be told that you can’t have a cookie because it might spike your insulin? If I make it to ninety, you better let me have an Oreo with my friends. Damn! This new, more person-centered, choice-based care requires a perspective shift by professionals as well as a push for changes in care from all of us. And the sooner the better, I want my parents to have cookies too should they ever need to enter a nursing home.

The question of how I want my body to be taken care of upon my death came about when I was recently introduced to the work of CaitlinDoughty, a mortician, writer, and founder of the Order of the Good Death, which is a group of “Funeral industry professionals, academics, and artists exploring ways to prepare a death phobic culture for their inevitable mortality.” They want us to get past our fears in order to see death as a part of life, to embrace a natural burial and decay, and for our bodies to be cared for by our loved ones. They want us to think beyond the typical embalming, cremation, or donation of our bodies when we die. We have so many more options; yet, we never even talk about them because death makes us uncomfortable.

I have always joked that I would like to be cremated and for my ashes to be placed into little baggies to be taken home by the funeral attendees as funeral favors. BUT I have never thought about it seriously, done the research, or put my wishes down on paper, which is really unfair to whoever would take care of my body after I die. I need to read up on this, make some plans, and file some legal documents!

Do you ever think about these things? What do you want the closing and then end of your life to look like? 

- Lauren, death tackler and conversation continuer

#ImEnough. Boom!

Everyone, meet the band, the Mrs.! They are an all-female band from Austin, Texas. Their mission is to write songs that fill the gap between teenage heartbreak and wild nights at the club; songs that inspire and speak to adult women who live (extra)ordinary lives. They state, “We weren’t hearing our lives reflected on the radio, so we decided to sing it ourselves.” (YES!)

Recently, the Mrs. launched the #ImEnough campaign, a heartfelt song and video that speaks to self-acceptance. In an interview, Andra Leimandt, the drummer of the band, explains that this campaign is for women everywhere to recognize that they are enough just for being them. They don’t have to be perfect. They don’t have to look or act a certain way. They don’t have to wait to be worthy. They are worthy of self-love right now, because they are enough. 

In the video, you will see women rate themselves as to how they look. Most women rate themselves pretty low. As they do, videos of their loved ones and friends pop up on the screen to tell them how amazing they are. Then everyone cries. It’s really sweet! Check it out!

Sometimes, it is nice to be reminded that we are enough. No political argument required. Just a little bit of self-love. High five to the Mrs. for doing their part in helping us remember that! 

   

- Lauren, feeling like she is enough today

I am back and ready to accomplish my goals! I think.

Wow! It has been awhile! I took a few weeks off from my blog in order to get married, take my honeymoon, and get back to normal life. Well, normal-ish. I accomplished having the wedding of my dreams. It was beautiful, modern, whimsical, and FUN.  Now, I am left feeling satisfied and a little bit lost. The wedding took over way more brain cells and creativity than I had thought, and I am suddenly left with energy, brain space, and no current projects. I have all of this momentum and nowhere to put it, which can be terrifying if you live with me. Every few days I come up with a new thing that I could do, like become an interior designer and/or a badass drummer and/or a clay sculptor. The possibilities are endless. And GOOD GOD THE POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS. That can feel super overwhelming for someone like me. I need structure and direction in order to move forward. Otherwise, I will keep spinning in the world of possibilities.

It is fortuitous that at this time I am also finally reading the book, Switch: How to create change when change is hard by Chip and Dan Heath. This has been on my bookshelf for at least three years, and I am busting through it. They lay out an easily-grasped, well-researched, and helpful framework for creating change. The Heaths advocate for creating goals that evoke emotion and are clear, measurable, and memorable. They state that you need to appeal to both the emotional and rational sides of the brain in order to create motivating goals. The Heaths then go on to state that the path to the goals must be specific, clear (again), and well-mapped. They also talk about shaping your environment for change and expanding helpful change habits. (SO GOOD!)

Frankly, I am stuck on step number one, which is to create goals that are emotional and rational. For right now, I have four goals in mind that I keep returning to in the midst of my possibility wave. 

1. Write an erotic novel by March 2015 
2. Create a successful book-art accessory business
3. Build the structure for my dating therapy practice
4. Pass the clinical social work exam by October 2015

      Are these goals all emotional, rational, clear and measurable? Not yet! But they will be. And then I can start mapping out how I will accomplish them. In the meantime, I have a lot to learn from Switch and other entrepreneurial literature. Then I have to actually do the things that I learn. Damn creating structure from the ground up is hard! And exciting! And overwhelming! And cool! And complicated!

Do any of you have experience with accomplishing BIG goals? How did you work through it?

- L, current learner and future goal accomplisher      

Wedding Planning has changed Me. Who saw that coming?

This week, we are talking about how wedding planning has changed me. Yes, wedding planning. I can’t talk about how marriage has changed anything, because I am not married yet. (A few more weeks!) I don’t know if it will change anything. It probably will. Wedding planning certainly has! 

When I started this process, I really did not think that I would care about how my wedding venue would look, what my dress says about me, or what the layout of the evening would be. I figured that you picked a spot, picked a dress, and people just had fun. Like magic! Um, no. No, that is not how it works when you invite 170 of your closest friends and relatives to a formal event (if that is the direction you choose to go in). There is a lot of Googling, Pinterest pinning, wedding day envisioning, and neural pathway creating. People want to know how to make your wedding day dreams come true, so then you have to know what you want! Holy crap balls! I had no idea how hard/fun/exasperating/hilarious/creative planning a wedding could be. I was naïve people! We talked about this in my bachelorette party post.

So the question is how has this process changed me?

1. I have realized that it is okay to have a special day that commemorates my adult choice/us as a couple/sappy love stuff. Getting married is a big deal if you want it to be, and I learned that I wanted mine to be. Then I had to get right with everything that comes along with that, like having the spotlight on me, writing some large checks, and publicly declaring (typically for me) private squishy love feelings.
2. I have been more honest and open with my struggles. When I feel a lot of pressure on me, I need others’ support. This whole wedding thing has had a ton of that. My friends and family have answered my panicked conversations with kindness, honesty, and a willing ear. It has been really great! I don’t know why I didn’t open up more often before all of this! (Scared. Duh.)
3. I have more respect for the wedding planning process. There is a special kind of stress that comes along with putting together a large event that you care about. I have planned meetings, retreats, and conferences. None of them led to as many tears of frustration (and some tears of joy) as this has.
4. I am in a stronger relationship. Any time you are in a prolonged emotional process, it will test your relationship. I have found that my future husband and I continue to be solid communicators who listen to one another, even when we are arguing about something that we both feel really passionately about. We have both compromised more throughout this process than at any other time, including when we moved in together. Hell, we have been planning our wedding for fourteen months, and we still genuinely like each other. If that isn’t a testament to a strong relationship, I don’t know what is.    
5. I have defined my preferred aesthetics. If you had asked me what my style is fourteen months ago, I would have said casual with a few scarves and blazers thrown in for good measure. That does not fly in the wedding planning world. So here is what it is (for now): A contemporary museum with a twist of Anthropologie and a fuzzy bunny thrown in for good measure. What does that mean? I like things that are clean, bold and modern with a touch of feminine softness and a quirky, mischievous edge. BOOM! 

Every couple is going to choose the wedding (if at all) that is right for them. Every person will be changed by the process in different ways. This is how mine has affected me. How did planning yours affect you?

- Lauren, wedding planner novice and almost bride

Stepping Out Publicly as an Artist

I have been creating art since I could pick up a giant, child-sized pencil. While everyone else was running amok outside, I wanted to color quietly and draw. Through the years, I have used art to make my apartment feel right, show people that I love them, make a party feel more communal, and to have some freaking fun. Art has also saved me in a lot of ways. When I need to process something, I think of the art piece that it is evoking. Sometimes I create that piece, and sometimes I leave it in my mind. But it is always there. 

Now, I am putting my work on display in public for the first time. These pieces are not intensely personal. A lot of them are actually really fun, and I am proud of each sculpture. (I worked on them until I was proud of them, which SHEESH. That takes FOREVER.) Yet, there is still something nerve-wracking about putting my art out there and claiming space as an artist. It’s like I suddenly have to live the stereotype of a starving, tortured artistic soul who can only be happy when creating her work. When in reality, I just want to share the fun, intricate pieces that I have spent hours and HOURS creating. Some are cheeky, some have a slightly serious bent, and all of them look really fucking cool (to me). 

I keep coming back to a story my therapist, who is also an artist, once told me about an exhibit that she had. She had created a large painting of a young woman. At the last minute, she added tear drop shaped rhinestones to the piece, because she had them lying around. A lot of people interpreted this addition as something large and dramatic. She thought they looked neat and added some depth to the painting.

Maybe there is a lesson in here for the artist and the viewer. For the viewer, sometimes rhinestones are just rhinestones. They could mean something deep and epic, or they could just finish a piece nicely. For the artist (me), it’s okay for rhinestones to be rhinestones. They don’t have to be soul-baring. Everyone can have their own interpretation. Maybe we should all talk about it instead of assuming the meaning behind each component.

If we happen to run into each other at the cafe at Book People during the month of August, let’s chat about what you are seeing!

- Lauren, public artist for the very first time