…of?

This first weekend in March 2016, a year ago, I was working my way out of a serious funk. I did it. This post is a celebration of sorts – and a recognition of what passed. A completion. And it is creating a clearing; space for what comes next; I think I need all the room I can get…

One weekend a month since January 2013 I had been travelling from Victoria to Seattle to attend – first a Coach Training Program (CTP) – and since 2014 leadership training and mentor coaching with Accomplishment Coaching. I got a hell of a lot from my training. I worked as a mentor coach to both give back and give my coaching an edge. It was a significant commitment. However roll-on late 2015 and I was in a funk; I was struggling to balance my engineering career with coaching and kept pitting them against each other – pulling the wind out of my sails again and again. I had some breakthroughs on the way however the overall pattern remained; I was fighting something. I did not know what but it was taking a lot of my energy and was pissing me off. I could not see at the time that I was the one creating it.

And so here is the point in writing this where there is a choice to make – go vanilla and gloss over some relevant details, or actually share things that people that were involved may recognize themselves in. If they choose to read this. Worst case scenario is they freak out and ask me to take it down or re-write. There is a best-case too. I think I can live with that.

I was in a good relationship at the time; reliable, supportive. And there was a core issue I was not being responsible for. I was ‘in’ the relationship, but not ‘all in’. I was making the right noises -and- I was wearing a badly fitting mask that was beginning to chafe. I know my partner sensed it and we talked and worked around, making things ‘work better’ over the top of this fundamental breakdown. I kept looking inside for what I was missing and which switch I should flick to change this. Pretending responsible.

And then life slammed the lights on. Through a networking group I met someone. We arranged to have a coffee and get to know each other. I did not expect my heart to go Nova on me in that conversation; that was not the intention I went in with. I am a coach – part of what I do is practice holding profound space for people, opening my heart so they can be fully who they are in the conversation. This was – that – but more. One hell of a lot more. By a factor of about a billion.

So I did what any well adjusted person would do. I ran – tried to stuff this experience back into a box. I had touched something I recognized; that I longed for. And was not the ground of the relationship I was in. However I was not ready to let go yet. It was not time. I apparently had some more work to do. I put this away. It leaked out and nearly broke the relationship I was in – but not quite. I thought I had it under control. Some fine bullshit I was selling myself on… And so I continued.

Come February another piece of news arose; the suite I was renting was going to be sold. Well, I have worked hard for a lot of years; my credit is good – maybe its time to buy somewhere – so I thought. So I got to work with a mortgage broker and hit dismay realizing that what I could get on a mortgage would not provide the kind of place that me and my kids would be able to call home in Victoria or Saanich. As I was paying support, that counted against my resources. My borrowing therefore was not enough to get me back into the housing market.

I became seriously pissed.

Meanwhile rents continued going up… This was the ‘content’ that had me angry.

The underlying pattern, where the anger was sitting was in a place that this was ‘done to me’; both taking a ‘victim’ role and then being angry with that role and fighting it. I could see it in other people I was working with as coach. I was shocked when I saw myself doing exactly the same thing – which led into a downward spiral… This was a trip-wire I had hit before. I realized – unless I dealt with this it was going to stay. My trip-wire, my responsibility.

The way out? Actually, once and for all fully take ownership for what had got me here – for my marriage and how that had played out – for its end – all the consequences. All of it. Every plank, nail and splinter.

And so – this weekend last year I turned up for the CTP in Seattle with my breakthrough for the weekend in mind – getting fully responsible; fully owning my marriage. There was a bunch of writing for me to do to work myself out, conversations, reflection. The thing that made the difference was just my choosing it – my being willing to let this old shit story go; to realize there was nothing left in it for me to play the ‘done to’ game. By Sunday morning I was there. I had my breakthrough.

And then I began to break everything else. And people got hurt.

Everywhere I was not ‘owning’ my experience started showing up in 50′ high neon flashing letters pronouncing ‘NOT RESPONSIBLE’ (aka. victim). That got very uncomfortable very quickly.

The following evening I had the conversation that ended my relationship.

Then over the course of the next few weeks I got clear that I had been in the Coach Training Program from an old pattern of ‘listening for the right thing to do’ and ‘doing it’. My reason for being there had become ‘being a better Coach’ – not for a breakthrough for the program or for me. It was suddenly clear why I had been fighting it so hard; part of me knew this and was working its ass off to get my attention.

So I quit.

And I spent the time and energy in building my new company, which had been on hold whilst I figured out how to balance all of these things I was trying, pitting against each other, fighting (and failing) to do.

These were the two most notable shifts; many more large and small followed and continue.

The last year has been a whirlwind. Now I am coaching at a level I have never attained before, my fitness, meditation, yoga practices are solid. I am working hard on building out my new engineering venture and my coaching. I am in conversations of depth, breadth and heart like I have never had and writing like a man possessed.

I do not know where this goes from here – and that realization is key. I can see some of the parts – just not all of it. I feel that I am playing in a game where I do not know all of the moves or all of the rules. This is kinda new. That is not how I have played my life. Somehow, somewhere it feels like there is a benevolence that knows what is going on and when I am quiet I can just hear it. I am feeling so deeply and learning to tune in to my own and know when others’ are crowding in. In other words – I am living; truly deeply living.

It is messy (he says, looking at his desk, his kitchen and the laundry that needs folding). And that is all okay – I have stopped making that about me too.

What a year…

And now… for my next trick…