Archive for April, 2010
A Coming Out Party!
Wednesday, April 7th, 2010
A coming out party is in order! The recent buzz of Ricky Martin didn’t feel like the usual announcement — “Yep, I’m gay.” Rather his announcement was more like, “Yep, we know you are gay.” From Adam Lambert to Sean Hayes to Ricky Martin, more and more people are coming out of the closet. By the time they publically announce their sexual orientation, there have already been rumors flying around. After coming out, people want to know what took them so long.
Every “coming out” is personal and courageous. As my friend Joe Monkman shared in his blog, Fishing for Soul, “Denying who we are and living an inauthentic life can sometimes (maybe all the time) create suffering.” Living authentically means embracing who we are and allowing our full light to shine.
I think back to high school when I realized I was gay and was hoping and praying no one in my Catholic High School knew. I thought I did a pretty good job hiding it and paid the price by withdrawing, suffering from depression, and emotionally shutting down. I carried a story about high school up until this year when finding friends on Facebook gave me the opportunity to reconnect with so many alumni. I actually thought my high school friends would not even remember me and even blew off my 20 year reunion a few years ago as a way to keep the story alive about feeling so disconnected in high school.
As I began to reestablish connections with high school friends, I saw how all of our lives held many versions of “coming out in the world” – whether it was getting married, finding a life partner, having children, moving away from family, getting a divorce, having to deal with children who have special needs, or being courageous in our careers. Every day we have the chance to come out. Over the last 20 years, I have come out as a gay woman to my family, my friends and my co-workers (that’s a story all unto itself). I have come out in many other areas of my life as well. I have had to accept myself as an entrepreneur and small business owner. I have declared myself to be a writer. I am out in the world as a Life Coach. Each one of these parts of my life is a chance to shine my light – to play bigger – and to stop hiding who I am.
How do you come out in the world? How do you want to come out fully and shine your light for the entire world to see? Let’s all have a coming out party!
Thanks!
Mary Anne
This is dedicated to all my family and friends—especially to my friends from Paramus Catholic High School for accepting me after 20+ years (despite my blowing off the reunion).
Time to Eat the Frog
Tuesday, April 6th, 2010
When I first heard the phrase, Eat the Frog during a workshop with Janice Hoffmann, I was both hesitant and interested. Curious to hear more, I leaned forward to find out what Janice was talking about. Essentially, Eat the Frog means starting your day by tackling the most challenging thing on your list. Develop the habit of doing the hardest thing first – the thing you put off to the end of the day – the one that never gets done. It’s about creating space in our day to do what we love. If we put off eating the frog, it’s always there, waiting for us.
We spend so much time on smaller tasks, we run out of time to do what might need the most inspiration or energy. We multi-task in the hopes more can get done and then wonder why we feel so exhausted. There was a time being able to do ten things at once made us feel successful. But all we need to do is one task a time with full attention. Eating the frog is about performing a task that is crucial for our growth, our business, or our life, even if it is not fun. In the end, eating the frog gets us farther.
How do you prepare for your day? What do you really want to pay attention to and complete? Successful people know how to eat the frog. Entrepreneurs eat the frog every day – they take risks. Listen for the most important task, write it down, and do it. Think about the last time you wanted five more minutes of sleep or will go for that walk tomorrow – how did you end up feeling?
We tell ourselves we don’t have enough time. We may not have time for everything we want to do, but we always have enough time to do everything we choose to do.
Go ahead – Eat the Frog!
Mary Anne
Loving Our Worth—Priceless
Monday, April 5th, 2010
Every now and again we question our worth—our value. We spend time thinking about our own value and our value in relationships. I recently had an experience where I allowed thoughts about my value with a friend get in the way of my friendship. I convinced myself that my friend was moving on to bigger and better things in her life, building her business, and on the path to finding her soul mate. I translated this to mean she no longer “needed” me and I doubted my value in her life. I questioned our friendship and in doing so devalued both of us.
I allowed my fear to get in the way of our friendship. It’s like the story of the fifty-dollar bill. A workshop speaker stands at the front of a seminar and holds up a fifty-dollar bill. He asks the audience who would like the fifty-dollar bill. Almost all the hands go up. He lets them know he will give it to one of them, but first takes the bill and begins to crumple it into a ball. He asks the audience again, “Who wants this bill?” Many people still raise their hands. Next, he takes the bill and places it on the floor and grinds his shoe into it.
“Now who wants the bill?” the speaker asks. People still raise their hand. He smiles and tells the audience that just because he crumpled up the money and stepped all over it, it did not decrease the value—it’s still worth fifty dollars.
Many times, we feel like that crumpled bill. We make mistakes, we say things that can be hurtful, make poor decisions, and allow ourselves to feel unworthy. The reality is that no matter how crumpled, stepped on, or out of sorts we may feel, we always keep our full value—that which is love.
Love is about reciprocity. Love doesn’t worry about being liked and having approval. Love exists within our inabilities, imperfections, and faults—and our value never decreases. Relationships built on wanting to be liked will waiver; relationships built on loving our worth and the worth of each person we meet—priceless.
Peace, Mary Anne
Dedicated to Rev. Joyce Meyer for reminding me of my value & letting go.
April Fool!
Thursday, April 1st, 2010
Recently, the song Everybody Plays the Fool played on the radio and I found myself singing the lyrics:
“Everybody plays the fool, sometime
There’s no exception to the rule.”
The song made me think about all the times I was told to stop being silly – to stop playing the fool. I remember being told to stop laughing and to be serious. Somehow it was conveyed that you couldn’t be silly, giddy, or foolish. Yet, it is our joyful, playful self that we often forget. It is that part of ourselves that we hold back on and are afraid of showing in case we “make a fool of ourselves.”
There can be such freedom in bringing forth your most outrageous, wild, playful self that laughs and attempts some crazy ideas. My invitation to you this month is to be an April Fool! Do one outrageous, fun, and silly activity and notice how you feel. Play the Fool. And most of all, have fun!
Play “the Fool” ~ Mary Anne