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Part One of the Homework

Everything has a cost to it. It's important to know what it is and embrace it so it doesn't derail your efforts.

​Here's what I saw this week: We’ve heard that crises can lead to transformation. But what we don’t often hear about is that transformation can cause a crisis. The reason being that when we enter a time of deep change, stuff we managed by ignoring or tolerating it gets really in your face. In my case that looked like this: I noticed how often I use retail therapy to make myself feel better,  particularly when I feel challenged. Small rewards for a few dollars at a time sounds like a good solution but the truth is that I’m “medicating” instead of solving whatever challenge I’m facing. As long as I wasn’t aiming to be badass as defined by the 2019 Badass challenge which calls for you to step so fully into your power that you can create the exact life you want to live, this was a fine arrangement. But now I feel a badass doesn’t soothe or gloss over problems, they solve them!

Some questions you might find helpful:  What things are you glossing over? What crutches do you cling to instead of tackling whatever messes with your life?

Part Two of the Homework

The two big steps for me were to 1) stop fudging or making excuses for not keeping an explicit or implicit promise and 2) to step back from being overly ambitions in order to be good enough and worthy. Did I really have to make it "Pick three items?" One item seems a fine beginning and leaves more time and mental and emotional bandwidth for the third part of the homework which was self-care.

Questions you might find helpful: Where do you make excuses, for yourself or others? Where are you over or under ambitious?

Part Three of the Homework
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How are you doing with self-care? Are you prioritize your own wellbeing?

I hope you are because that’s part of being a badass. And if you aren’t, there’s always this coming week. It’s more a matter of practicing than of getting it right. The former is a “process,” the latter is a “goal.” Remember we talked about that in a previous podcast--becoming a badass is a process not the reaching of a goal. I say that because there’s not some point in the future from when on you’re a badass forevermore. Life always has more challenges and opportunities in store. You never stop growing and evolving and whatever being a badass means to you also keeps evolving.

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I gave a tarot reading to a client yesterday which reminded me of a huge obstacle to being a badass: The need to be liked. I don’t think that requires a lot of explanation. Obviously if you need to be liked you’ll have to compromise in all kinds of ways. You might hold back, play small, and go along to get along. Not very badass.

Here is what you can do about it: Go on a Nice Fast

How the Nice Fast Works

The times you catch yourself being nice, acquiescing, agreeing, giving in, or staying quiet, ask yourself if you are doing it for brownie points or to avoid conflict and if deep inside you wish you had the courage to say or do something. Awesome! This is your golden opportunity for the Nice Fast: Just don’t be nice. What??!! You might think: How can I not be nice? People expect me to be nice! I gotta be nice! Not if it means not being true to yourself. I did a Nice Fast in the mid 2000’s and it was an absolute eye-opener! There was no fall-out. On the contrary. Suddenly, people were offering to do all kinds of emotional labor for me to make me feel better so I'd be nice again. Wow! It was weird. And uncomfortable. I expected to be hated. But, instead, I was more liked because people experienced me as more authentic.  

If you decide to do the Nice Fast, obviously, you'll want to use your judgment: Don’t tell your boss to shove off unless you’ve got a better job lined up. Badasses are not consumed with the need to be liked but they can still be diplomatic.

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Everything went exceedingly well this week until I really engaged in seeking out some more badass heroes. Total crisis ensued. These people achieved phenomenal accomplishments by twenty, thirty, forty years of age. I’m sixty-one, soon to be sixty-two and what have I got to show for?!

Instead of being inspired, reading about these magnificent individuals made me feel like an abject loser! I mean, some of these people had the time to do amazing things and die young! I was processing so heavily, at one point, I walked out of a grocery store with my phone and keys left on the counter. I forgot a location for a meeting fifteen minutes after getting off the phone. Reading up on these amazing people, I compared my life to theirs (though I know better) and became utterly discombobulated trying to come to terms with the gap between my life ambitions and my actual accomplishments. And it’s getting late in the day, so to speak. I asked myself, What is realistic now? Do I have to adjust just how far I can go in becoming a badass? Will I ever be one? Steven reminded me, “If you didn’t have to face the shadow side of things, there wouldn’t be much of a “challenge” in the 2019 Badass Challenge.” Urch! So true. I think of all of us. We each faces different things. For me, it’s how much, or little I’ve accomplished compared to what I’d envisioned for my life.

What are your challenges?

Have you forgotten (or dismissed) what you once dreamed of? Do you feel you need to be “practical?”

In my tarot readings this past Sunday, four out of my ten clients had that exact issue.

It looked like this: “I don’t know what my purpose is.” Some cried as they said this. Some stared stoically down onto the tarot cards laid out before them.

Thankfully, I’m trained as a life coach and my specialty is self-empowerment. In less than 30 minutes, each of them discovered that what happened is that they had already eliminated from the list of choices what they wanted to do with their lives. Meaning that among what was left, no matter how long the list was, nothing held meaning. That’s only right because the one thing that was meaningful was no longer on the list.
Each of them had to face they took their dream off the list because it either didn’t promise financial security unless they made something extraordinary happen with it (like writing a best-seller), or because it could possibly make them look like a fool (involving metaphysics), or it would go against family wishes, or require changing their major to train for in what they really wanted to do in life (to illustrate, something like switching from finance to psychology). For each, the issue wasn’t that they couldn’t find their purpose. The issue was that they had denied their calling. What they needed was to become more badass, so they could tackle their obstacles and believe they could make their dream come true.
 
As I did this week’s homework, each person I picked as a hero did that. Whereas, I didn’t. I identified my dream to teach (specifically personal growth) in 2006. I zeroed in on a larger dream—to facilitate people’s self-empowerment— two years ago. And last year, I recognized the overarching dream within which these two smaller ones are embedded as the passion to help heal the separation in the world. When I assess where I am today, it’s self-evident that I have not stepped up.

That’s why I need the Badass Challenge. I say 2019 is my “do or die” year, my “make it or break” it year. The pressure I am putting myself under is huge. I could not do it without this podcast. I would simply black out. In other words, I’d go unconscious, get distracted and forget about what I’m trying to do.

​Maybe things are not as extreme for you. If not, then by taking up the challenge, you’re getting a head-start. I’m so proud of you!!

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It's been an amazing week. Practicing unashamed tenderness toward myself has elevated my mood and made me more resilient and safe in my body. Have you noticed it, too? If not that, what difference has  practicing badass love for your wonderful  body made in your life?

Now, after an additional week of developing that loving feeling for the bodies—I hope you’ve been kissing your own hands and feet—it’s time to move to the next steps.
 
But before we do, let me share something that showed me how well the 2019 badass challenge is working on me.
 
A few nights ago, laying in bed—yes, that’s where I do most of my reading—an essay on the New York Times website grabbed my attention. It started with the following sentence, “Maybe because we’re living in a dystopia…”
 
My eyes followed right along as the sentence went on. But I noticed I wasn’t absorbing what else was in it. Instead, my brain hollered, Wait a minute! Wait! It was like a car that keeps going after it went bumpety bump over something lying in the road, then suddenly hits the brakes so hard, the rear end comes up. Then it lays down rubber a it speeds in reverse to have a look.
 
My brain wanted to know, What did I just run over? “Because we’re living in dystopia…” After reading this a second time, my brain went, Oh, so it’s come to that; I didn’t realize things have gotten this bad. But then it said, Hell f****** no. Maybe this is the view from American. Maybe, right now the US feels dystopian. But, in reality, things are looking up! For example, 194 of the 195 nations of this little blue world have signed on to the Paris Climate Accord to avert the climatocalypse. The one holdout, Number 195, is the United States. Maybe that’s part of why the view from here can look dystopian right now. And maybe also because healthcare isn’t a basic feature in this country. But it is in many, many other nations. The statistician, Hans Rosling – I wrote about his book, Factfulness here – gave us hundreds of charts, wrote books, gave TED talks in which he showed us all the ways in which the world relentlessly keeps getting better. You can read about it here, here, here, and here, and here, and here. And that’s just for starters!
 
This is why I not only refuse but refute the dystopian world view.
 
To you, dear reader, I say, if this perspective, which is becoming more widespread, has wiggling its way into your head, shake it out! Don’t let anyone pull that softly sad blanket over your head. No matter how romantically melancholy it is, it’s not designed to comfort you. It’s meant to hold you in place the better to pummel you with horror stories of the world gone grievously mad. So, shake yourself awake and free! Throw that blanket off!
 
Here is a great way you can escape the nasty blanket party: Read news from other countries and use the translate function by putting your mouse anywhere on the page, right-click and scroll down to "translate this page" (on a PC). Here are some great resources from around the world: Germany, France, Great Britain, Israel, Middle East, India, Russia, China
 
I wanted to share the above story with you because, as I notice my reaction, I realized, hold up, I’m being a badass right now! I’m not letting this statement slide. I'm not letting it bring me down while I’m not looking. In the past, I’ve sometimes deferred to institutions and individuals I admire. OK, not just sometimes. But since the start of the badass challenge, I’m better at resisting catastrophizing, my own and others’. I'm more discerning and selective as to what I'll internalize.

What have you noticed that has change for you since the Challenge began in January?
 
Starting next week, I’m upping the ante. I think I'm ready. Are you with me? Let’s do some really scary s***! The stuff we don't want to do but have to if we want to step into our power so fully that we create the lives we want to live, the goal of the 2019 Badass Challenge. (By the way, I plan to apologize for all the cursing if I see in the future that that was faux-badasserie posturing. Right now, it feels real and authentic.)

In conclusion, we can't help but internalize some (or a lot) of what the world around us presents to us. But we can balance it and maybe neutralize it by actively seeking out what we want to have an influence on us. For that purpose, this week, I am seeking out idols to inspire me with their badasserie. It's going to be an easy job. Getting all involved in badasserie, I learn about new badasses every day, it seems like. 

This coming week’s work in bullets:

• Let’s get some badass idols to inspire us. Getting all involved in badasserie, I learn about new badasses every day, it seems like.

Here are three new ones to inspire me like crazy this week with their virtuosity. All of them drummers: Cora Dunham, Terri Lyne Carrington & Nikki Glaspie – That video begins with an insight-giving chat between the two monumental drummers. Then they play together on a beautiful song, starting at 9:33. And here is Nikki, nothing but highlights. And Carrington again. OMG! Best drummer I’ve ever watched.
 
Now go and find a badass or several for yourself this week.​