I try very hard to be detached. When I say detached, I don’t mean I don’t care about anything. I mean detached as in I will try hard at this, I will take responsibility for my part in this, but I know that fundamentally, regardless if it succeeds or fails, I am still enough. The success or the failure of this thing I’m working on doesn’t define me.
Keivor showed me this brilliant talk by Tim Minchin last night. It’s full of gems but one point that jumped out was this:
‘Understanding that you can’t truly take credit for your successes, nor truly blame others for their failures will humble you and make you more compassionate.’
We are not our failures, and we are not our successes either.
As humans we have a tendency to layer meaning after meaning after meaning onto situations. It turns into over analysis, and it more often confuses situations. In coaching we talk about peeling the layers off the onion. We’re just taking away the layers of meaning and analysis. We’re taking away the idea that success in work will mean we are worthy, we’re taking away the idea that if we fail in our relationships we should be ashamed. We’re taking it down to the simple truth.
When I notice myself getting bogged down in the analysis I imagine myself in a lovely, tranquil bubble. I imagine I am weightless, bobbing through the atmosphere, taking in the nature and contemplating the universe. It is blissful, and it is simple, and it feels like it’s the truth.
Stepping away from the layers and the analysis like this brings me a new perspective. It reminds me I don’t need to be intertwined with all that man made meaning. And when I don’t connect with all that analysis I feel lighter, and like I can enjoy life more fully.
So take a step back, in whatever way works for you, and remember you are not your worries, you are not your problems, you are not your successes and you are not your failures. You are just you. Wonderful, imperfect, curious, excitable, passionate you. And when you step away from the analysis, it gives us the chance to see more of who you really are, and we really, really, really want to see that.
Image by Sebastian Pichler www.unsplash.com