Performance Guy sometimes gets a bit frustrated that I don’t meet regular coaching expectations. It would make things simpler if I had a goal he could help me set priorities for, rather than just being committed to working the process.
“Do you think that I don’t get anything out of our sessions?” I asked him
“No!” he replied. “I see you work through the ideas, process them immediately after.”
That’s my experience of life. I know that I am not going to get everything I need in one place, handed to me on a platter, so I have learned to be an expert scavenger, picking over every scrap of human connection I have to get the most I can out of it.
In everything, from my wardrobe to my therapy, I haven’t had the luxury of a big pocketbook that offers one stop shopping. I let my heart lead me, checking the racks for hidden gems that move me, be they clothes or insights, and then I combine and collage them into my own personal style. I make the connections myself.
This requires mess, of course, because it means you have to not throw lots out, create false over-simplification, because a bit of junk today may be what ties everything together tomorrow. That is mess you have to own, of course, because an idea you can’t bring to mind again isn’t going to help anyone.
Love — both the capacity to love and the belief you are deeply lovable — and Belonging are irreducible needs of humans. If you don’t have those, you break, says Brené Brown.
My scavenger style applies to these areas too. Love and belonging are not in rich supply in my life, so every tiny bit I can scrape up needs to be processed for the warmth and connection that I, like every human, so desperately need. My life is lonely and off the grid, so I can’t afford to waste an iota of what emotional support I get.
I may have clear vision about moments of disconnection between myself and others, but that never stops me from searching for the moments of connection and treating those instants as embers that need to be cherished and expanded to deepen relationships.
A subsistence diet, though, is just that, one that allows survival but doesn’t create thriving. It’s brilliant that I have learned to eke out growth by wringing out every bit of nourishment I get, mental and emotional, but it has never been a strategy for soaring.
Living on crumbs and sweepings of love, understanding and belonging is something I had to learn to do early. It has been a key survival strategy, one that I executed well.
But scavenger style, well, not really a base to conquer the world, is it?
Callan 