Developing a Better You

Tag: personal growth (Page 54 of 62)

What Living Near the California Wildfires Taught Me About Personal Development

Here’s what my home city of Sacramento, California normally looks like:

Here’s what it’s looked like for the past week:

Photo credit: John Myers, Los Angeles Times

The deadliest wildfire in California history, the Camp Fire, is taking place about 70 miles north of where my wife Lisa and I live. The resulting smoke has settled over a huge patch of northern California including Sacramento. Yesterday, we had the distinction of having the worst air quality of any major city in the world. The fire department is handing out free air filter masks, and health officials are saying to stay indoors if at all possible.

As a result, we’ve been holed up in our apartment for the last week. My outdoor excursions have been limited to going down to the lobby to get our mail every other day with my sweatshirt over my face. I’m very much a person who enjoys and thrives on routine, so this disruption to my normal schedule has been a challenge. Since we all face a variety of minor and major disruptions in our lives, I want to share three things that are helping me deal with my current situation:

Photo Credit: Noah Berger, Associated Press

1. BE GRATEFUL 

Choosing “an attitude of gratitude” is one of the most effective ways to deal with life’s interruptions. Lisa and I feel incredibly fortunate to be safe, to have our apartment not in danger, and as writers, to be able to work from home. To date, the Camp Fire has taken the lives of 71 people. Over 1,000 are still missing, tens of thousands have been displaced, and almost 10,000 homes destroyed. When we remember how others have been impacted so deeply, our minor inconveniences shrink to their proper perspective.

2. BE GENEROUS 

Generosity is gratitude in action. It’s taking practical steps to help others who are hurting. Our charity of choice during natural disasters is the Red Cross. The smoke hovering outside our windows serves as a reminder for us to give to a wonderful agency that is providing practical help to those devastated by these wildfires. If you’re motivated to donate, click here.

Me setting up our library

3. BE CREATIVE

Sometimes disruptions can provide opportunities to do things in a new way. I took the chance that being cooped up in our apartment gave me to do some long delayed projects, like setting up our library and laying out picture shelves in our bedroom. We sold both our vehicles in our recent move to Sacramento since we can walk almost everywhere including the grocery store. With walking being discouraged, this week we used an online grocery delivery service instead. I normally run outside five times a week, so I’ve been missing my exercise. Since we live on the sixth floor, this morning I tried running up and down the back stairwell of our building. It was shielded from the smoke and gave me a great workout.

So how about you? What disruptions are you dealing with? Take a moment to acknowledge the inconvenience. Then, remember the good things in your life, and BE GRATEFUL. Think of those suffering more than you are, and BE GENEROUS. Look for options you hadn’t considered before, and BE CREATIVE. If you do, things will definitely improve, and you’ll take another step toward Becoming Yourself.

Make Curveballs Your Friends: 3 Steps to Embracing Change

Let’s play a game. Just relax and be honest about what you feel when you read each of the following words:

Ice cream.

Work.

Family.

Sunday.

Change.

What did you feel when you read the word “change”? Maybe you got excited because change is something you generally enjoy. Maybe your stomach sank because change is something you try to avoid. Whichever best describes you, most of us have a strong reaction to the idea of change.

I’ve been thinking a lot about change lately. I’m in the process of changing careers, changing the state I live in, changing my relationship circles, changing from a rural house to a city apartment, changing from having many possessions to having few.

Over the years, I’ve learned some things that have helped me to process change well. To make it a friend vs. an enemy. Since disruption is an inevitable, even necessary, part of life for all of us, here’s a three-step process for getting the most out of change:

1. GRIEVE WELL 

Virtually all change involves an element of loss. This is obvious with hard, unwelcome change, like the passing of a loved one. In my 25 years as a music pastor, I participated in countless funerals. I’ve seen some people desperately avoid, deny, or bury their grief, to their great detriment. I’ve watched others walk through it courageously, acknowledging and embracing their pain, and take the first steps toward healing. But even positive change, like getting your dream job, has an element of grief. It may mean saying goodbye to co-workers you care about or leaving part of your former work that was meaningful or enjoyable. Whatever your circumstance, the first step to processing change is to grieve well.

2. MARK THE MOMENT

When going through significant change, it helps to mark the moment. Find a way to acknowledge the impact of the transition. This is part of the role of a funeral – it’s a ceremony that allows you to recognize an important shift has taken place. But honoring a disruption doesn’t need to be a solemn affair. It can be a celebration, like a wedding, that puts a stamp on a transition with joy. Whatever the change, step two is finding a way to mark the moment.

3. PURSUE THE POSSIBILITIES

Change almost always opens new doors. After grieving well and marking the moment, take some time to reflect. What options are available to you now that weren’t possible before? What new options do you have with your time, energy, or money? What passions can you now chase after? Maybe it’s taking a trip or a starting a new hobby or getting to those long delayed home projects or volunteering or working toward a new career or investing more time in meaningful relationships. This is the flip side of acknowledging the loss brought about by change. It’s allowing yourself to dream and then choosing to pursue the possibilities.

Here are a few examples of how I’ve used this process in my own life:

Santorini, Greece

1. THE EMPTY NEST

When Lisa and I dropped our youngest child off at college, that was a huge change for us. We had become empty nesters. I remember unabashedly weeping over my breakfast in the middle of a restaurant the next day, then feeling sad and lonely for a week. That was me grieving well. We decided to mark the moment by taking a trip to Greece. We celebrated our new season of life by driving four-wheelers around the island of Santorini and snorkeling in the Aegean Sea. When we got home, I pursued the possibilities through diving into some de-cluttering projects around the house and starting to write again.

2. THE BIG MOVE

The view from our new apartment

Recently, we moved from a large, rural house in Arizona where we lived for nine years to a smaller, city apartment in California. In the process we decided to let go of both vehicles and most of our possessions in a massive de-cluttering. On one of my last days in Arizona, I wandered slowly through each room of the house, thinking of what had happened there with our family over the years. I looked at all the items we were leaving behind and let the memories come as they would. It was my time of grieving well. A few days later in California, Lisa and I watched the live estate sale auction at our Arizona house via webcast. We saw our belongings get auctioned off to strangers wandering around our old home. It was our way of marking the moment. Now I’m enjoying the simpler and less stressful life of being in a clutter-free, no maintenance, easy to clean apartment that we love in our new walkable home city. I’m pursuing the possibilities by using my extra time to work on my second novel. 

So how about you? What changes are you facing? Rather than dreading or avoiding them, why not try this 3 step process for yourself? Grieve well. Mark the moment. Pursue the possibilities. If you do, you’ll take another huge step toward Becoming Yourself.

Repurpose Your Pain: What I Learned From Watching My Daughter on “Law & Order”

I recently had the strange and wonderful experience of watching my daughter Kennedy McMann on a TV show. She’s an actor living in New York City, and she guest starred on NBC’s long-running hit “Law and Order: SVU” (season 20, episode 4, air date Oct 11, 2018). If you’re not familiar with the show, it’s a police procedural focusing on a big city special victims unit. Horrible things happen to the characters portrayed by the weekly guest actors. As I watched Kennedy play these heart wrenching scenes, I found myself feeling incredibly proud, amazed by her talent, and caught up in the emotion of the story.

As I reflected back on that experience, I wondered at how Kennedy was able to portray all that raw emotion with such authenticity. Her acting experience and excellent training at Carnegie Mellon University can only carry her so far. Then I realized an important factor in understanding this ability – she was repurposing her pain.

My daughter has a lot going for her. Kennedy is talented, smart, hardworking, funny, and kind. She’s also had lifelong struggles with anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, and chronic migraines. Like most of us, she has had her share of pain in life. But to her great credit, Kennedy has chosen to repurpose it. After appropriately processing and then releasing her pain in a healthy way, she is able to use it as a tool in her acting. When she’s playing a roll requiring deep expressions of sorrow, she taps a well of painful memories and experiences and then harnesses them to produce something beautiful, authentic, and powerful.

Kennedy also repurposes her pain by using it to help others. She’s shared openly on her social media platforms about her struggles with mental health. Here’s a recent example from a Snapchat she posted on Mental Health Awareness Day: 

 

Her vulnerability in talking about the ups and downs of her battle with anxiety and OCD has been an encouragement and inspiration to many. At the same time, sharing the difficulties she’s faced has helped Kennedy with her own healing process. The courageous yet simple act of putting her story out into the world has made her problems a little less daunting, and she’s received a lot of love and support. You can read her story in her own words here on her blog.

It’s so tempting to deny, bemoan, bury, or wallow in your pain. But none of those responses are helpful. Not to yourself or anyone else. Instead, how about looking for a way to repurpose your pain? Let it serve as motivation or fuel for a healthy personal goal, like training for a race, taking a class, or applying for a new job. Can you share your story in a way that equips, encourages, and empowers others to face their own struggles? It may be as simple as a social media post or sharing a little more deeply than normal with a friend over coffee. Maybe it’s something more substantial like starting a blog or teaching a class or volunteering at your favorite charity or writing a book. Whatever it is for you, choose to start today.

We all have pain. The question really comes down to this – what are you going to do with it? I encourage you to embrace your pain. Feel it. Process it. Learn from it. Then let it go. Refuse to bury it, deny it, or marinate in it. Use your pain as fuel for a personal growth goal. Share your story to shine a light for others and find your own healing. If you do, you’ll take another giant step to Becoming Yourself.

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