Pots, Wings, and Real Things: On Family, Focus, and Finding Growth
Standing in the Eye of the Spiral: Navigating Life's Twists with GT
Pots, Wings, and Real Things: On Family, Focus, and Finding Growth
WARM UP. Good greetings or riddance :) to all you joining in reading today! We recently returned from the sanctuary and we were treated to another day of rather large waves. Unlike last week, it was a beautiful sunny day and the spring breakers were out in full effect. As a permanent resident I know why both residing residents are annoyed by the crowds and why it is a spring break destination. This coming week I have family coming down to visit on the other side of the state. I am excited to spend some time with my family and have a birthday celebration or two. It’s been a good productive week as we have begun “funneling” client leads through a new system. It’s early in the month and our aim is to grow by 20% each month. We hit our mark last month rather early and with the new stream of interest in our gym, we could hit that mark early again. We have been having a lot of success this month paying our way into networking events. We have two on the docket which hopefully in the future will lead to more networking opportunities. Building a strong community is at the heart of our organization, reaching out into greater audiences is sure to bring in some quality partnerships and members. It will also bring us some less than ideal folks I’m sure as well, we will weed through them, or they will eventually weed themselves out. It’s inevitable to not please everyone. We live in a society that has had their dopamine circuits hijacked by instant gratification products at every turn. It takes great care to protect yourself and others, especially if you are raising children, to avoid having your dopamine circuits hijacked. I am constantly having to question and challenge myself to rewire my own dopamine circuits on the daily. A member of my men's group set us up with what I feel is a great new way of exploring topics within our own lives. This coming week's topic is on family.
As you can imagine, this one is personal. In fact, all the topics are meant to be personal and last week’s topic was on “health.” This was clarified as mental + physical. I graded myself an 8 and on further thought I would downgrade that to a 6. We offer one another the option of accountability measures or “stretches” each week. We don’t tend to directly hold one accountable or have consequences, however if there is ever a case where you aren’t keeping your word, we might eventually put your “word” into question. We all aim not to be disrespectful and are all rather mature, so I feel like our “word” is our word and people will stand by it. I have made my fair share of excuses and shared those reasons for not hitting some of my stretches before. I have also danced the line of being called out as well since I tend to REALLY stretch myself. I often stretch in about 3-4 different accountability actions. I wrote in my previous blog “Cracks of Gold: Spring Renewal and the Power of Wabi Sabi” about Wabi Sabi itself. Generally I don’t mind not being perfect, as long as I give my best effort. Any one of my friends that read this should know that if I do end up failing, be sure I will own up to it and I gave my best effort. And if it honestly isn’t my best effort, I will be direct in telling you so. Not too long ago my mom was making fun of my early bed time and referred to it as an “old person” thing to do. Being direct and owning up to mistakes is another “old person” practice I have chosen to do before becoming an aged person.
Once about five years ago I used to think I couldn’t be away from my family. You know, same city, same state as them. I would have described myself as “close to my family” when I lived in Michigan. Distance is the only reason that I would not be hanging with any one of my immediate family members at least once weekly. Family is familiar, which is safe for me. I acknowledge that family isn’t safe for everyone. It wasn’t always that way for me growing up, and family wasn’t “safe” for anyone in 2020. It was those eight months that taught me “Oh, I can be on my own.” Technically I am not on my own right now, nor was I when I moved away from my home state. It would be better stated that those eight months taught me “I can be away from my family because I was forced to do so by them.” I made my own personal statement by not participating in virtual gatherings, etc. All I starved for was the real thing. If you are telling me that the world is going to hell in a handbasket, or that I am going to contract a deadly virus, I might as well begin that trip to hell with my family. I felt the same way about my friends as well. You could say groups of my friends are extensions of my family. In fact I have friends as old as some of my siblings! Sitting where I am now with my life, the experience of moving away from the comfort of my own circles of influence has been great.
COOLDOWN. I have a view of many of us being potted plants, specifically men. Women tend to be more like a caterpillar. I came up with this concept when I was looking for content for a best man’s speech I was going to deliver. I cannot remember the specific poem I was going to read, which I didn’t, however I will leave you with the following analogy:
Men are like potted plants. Men have their space, they get rooted, and all it takes are a few minimal things to tend to and they’re generally happy. Their lives become difficult when they have to be uprooted and moved into another pot. If you change their soil, it’s equally disruptive to their comforts. Change anything in their environments, their routines, you’re going to find many men have a difficult time adjusting. They will adjust eventually, either they grow to the new pot, or slowly die.
Women in this analogy are like caterpillars. They have a relationship with the potted flower, however they are on their own journey. A caterpillar slinks about, looking for nutritious plants to feed off of (? that wasn’t planned, yet…). They find their resources, nestle up, and go through their process of changing. The woman goes from a child to a student. The student graduates and becomes a career woman. The career woman becomes a mother. You see how this process of change could continually go on and on. While you may read this and go “well men go through the same damned thing G,” and you wouldn’t be entirely wrong. It just seems that women don’t get potted, each transition leads them to a new metamorphosis and leads to so many more dynamic and beautiful things in this world.
Men will stay in their pot. They might die off, plant a seed and grow again. Women seem to go through an entire metamorphosis, spreading her wings and willing to fly to new orchards in order to start the process of growth all over again. We all get stuck in our ways. We all tend to keep coming back to the same comforts of “home.” A butterfly has a lot more freedom than the potted plant, so be sure to spread your wings!
Take Care,
G$