Sheryl Sandberg’s book, Lean In, has created quite a stir among professional women attempting to figure out how to achieve professional success without sacrificing personal fulfillment. In her book, Sandberg urges and counsels women to take a seat at the table rather than staying on the sidelines, believe in themselves, and reach for challenges and opportunities. Effectively, she advises them to “lean in” to their careers. 

I believe the concept of “leaning in” is worth examining more broadly. How do you approach your work, your passions, your strengths, your relationships, yourself, your life? Do you lean in or do you respond in some other way?

With my background in cultural anthropology, I’m fascinated by how people show up: with themselves, with other people, in their work, in their lives. And I’ve noticed a marked difference in the way people respond to and in tough times. If you’ve experienced a personal tragedy of some kind, you’ve likely noticed this yourself: some people step up and show up while others slink back or turn away. Some people are virtually unwavering in their friendship, almost unfailing in providing support or sharing love when you need it most. Sometimes they need to be asked, other times, they proactively offer support even when you don’t. In that same moment, other people fade into the background, shut down, even walk away. And it can feel completely devastating to be on the receiving end of that, to have someone who you thought loved you and cared about you deeply shut down and shut you out.

 What causes them to do that?
Why would anyone be so uncaring and unkind to someone they supposedly love?

When we aren’t comfortable with our own emotions, we don’t show up well in situations that activate them. We can’t reliably be there for people who are experiencing emotions we haven’t learned to be with within ourselves. And when we can’t handle imagining ourselves in a situation someone else is facing, we can’t unwaveringly be present with them. To get close to someone else’s pain, we have to be willing to experience our own. To not be triggered by someone else’s anger, we have to come to terms with our own. To be present with someone else’s grief, we have to be able to be with our own.

I know as well as anyone that we are all human and each of us has moments when we don’t show up for people we care about in the way we wish we could. I’ll give you a personal example: an incredibly dear friend of mine had a daughter just over 8 years ago. When her daughter was born, she was immediately placed on life support: feeding tubes, a ventilator, eventually a tracheostomy. Her daughter was in such dire shape that she was in the NICU (the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) for the first three and a half months of her life. They didn’t know what was wrong with her initially. They said that she would have some brain damage. They ran all kinds of diagnostic tests. Ultimately, they determined that she had congenital myotonic dystrophy, a genetic form of muscular dystrophy. I went to visit my friend, Lisa, a few times while her daughter, Kayla, was in the NICU. But I didn’t have a lot of compassion to offer Lisa during this incredibly traumatic and difficult time in her life. I wanted to be supportive. I wanted to help her through this. I wanted to let her know that I would do anything to help. But I didn’t have it in me. It hit too close to home for me. You see, I have an older brother who is disabled. The doctors never had a clear diagnosis for him: developmental delays, learning disabilities, behavioral disorders that ranged from bipolar to OCD to manic depressive. He has been under psychiatric care his entire life. During my childhood, a lot of my parents’ energy (positive and negative) was focused on my brother. And I felt like I needed to be perfect and not make waves. I also felt overwhelmed by my brother’s behavior, and spent a lot of time away from home so that I could be away from him. And when Kayla was born, I was in the throes of feeling burdened by what felt like an obligation to take care of my brother for the rest of his life. I wanted to be there for Lisa. I regret that I wasn’t, and I have told her so. But at the time, showing up to visit her a few times was all I could manage. I hadn’t really dealt with all my own emotions about my brother, and so I didn’t show up with an open heart for my friend, Lisa.

We are all confronted with difficult situations: situations in our lives and in the lives of people we love. The solution — the way through, the path to healing and wholeness — isn’t, though, to avoid situations that feel really difficult or turn away from them when they show up. The solution is to show up, even when it’s hard, and to trust that the situation will help us grow into the kind of person who is able to lean in when others need us most.

How have you been choosing to show up in your life? Are you able to sit there, holding someone as they grieve? Can you be with someone else’s anger without needing to fight back or run from it? Can you stand in the center of the fire with other people — experiencing the helplessness and heartache and sadness and confusion — and not shrink back? Are you choosing to lean in?

Next time you see someone in pain and feel the desire to turn and run, try this instead:

• First… take a deep breath
• Ask yourself what kind of a person you really want to be: what will support you to feel proud of who you are, how you have treated people, how you have shown up in your life
• Check in with yourself and get in touch with the emotion you are feeling (or trying desperately to avoid feeling)
• Find compassion for that part of you that is scared of feeling that emotion, scared that it will completely overwhelm you, afraid that you will be irrevocably swept away by it.
• Connect with God or Spirit or that older, wiser part of yourself that already knows that you actually can handle feeling whatever that emotion is
• Be present with yourself and allow yourself to feel the emotion: remember that emotions come to visit, but not to stay. They are like waves that build and crest and eventually ebb, if we allow them to. Allow yourself to feel whatever it is while you are compassionately present with yourself.
• Take another deep breath
• Now ask yourself what loving action to take

I send my love to Lisa and to all of you who have leaned in when I have needed support. 

May we all grow our capacity to be with every part of this experience of being human, so that we can be compassionately present with ourselves and really open-heartedly there for one another.

If you are in pain, my friend, then I am also hurting. We are in this together. And I, for one, am committed to standing in the fire without shrinking back. 

Have you ever found yourself in a life transition that you didn’t expect — or perhaps didn’t  want — to be in?

You’ve been told by your boss that you aren’t going to be promoted, or that your job is being eliminated. A dear loved one is suddenly facing a life-threatening illness, or even worse, has just died. Your spouse has just asked for a divorce, or the person you thought you would spend the rest of your life with has just told you that she doesn’t want to be with you anymore.

Those moments, and the period of time that follows, can feel jarring and disorienting and incredibly confusing. These life-altering experiences can bring with them a tremendous amount of dis-ease, marked by a swirling mix of emotions: grief, sadness, anger, anxiety, and the compulsion to do something — anything — to escape all of these feelings. You fill your calendar, avoid being alone, stay in motion, finding ways to distract yourself from everything that is swirling around inside you. It’s just too unsettling to allow yourself to really feel your feelings, so you focus on something else. You push your emotions down and pretend to others, and perhaps even to yourself, that they don’t exist.

“I’m okay.” “I’ll be fine.” “I know it’s for the best.” “We’ll solve this problem.” “Don’t worry about me.” And yet, deep inside, you are worried or afraid. Worried about your ability to hold it all together, to navigate through this, to make wise decisions, to not lose your self-confidence or your sense of optimism. Afraid that you’ll drop all the balls you are juggling and let down people who count on you or need you.

Maybe you’re blaming someone else for the situation, and completely externalizing it. Maybe you’re stuck in a cycle of trying to figure out what you could have done differently, what you did wrong, how you could have prevented or avoided this situation. Perhaps you’re even wondering what is wrong with you. What do you tell yourself, how do you treat yourself internally, during times like these?

When life brings things to the surface, they come to the surface for us to see and acknowledge and recognize and bring light to and heal them. When we turn away from them instead, these things (our feelings, beliefs, dreams, desires, pain, fears) retreat back into our subconscious to be dealt with another time, when hopefully we will be more open to looking and embracing them.

When you find yourself in the throes of something that has taken all the wind out of your sails, can you find the strength to face your inner world? Can you find the courage to allow yourself to feel what you feel? Can you call forth your own sense of curiosity, and be open to learning how to love yourself through even this?

Ask yourself:

• What is that busyness protecting me from feeling? What am I pushing away or not allowing?
• How am I feeling right now?
• What thoughts or beliefs brought forth this feeling?
• What does that feeling feel like in my body? Is my breathing sharp and shallow? Are my shoulders tense? Is my chest collapsed?
• What does this feeling remind me of? When have I experienced it before?

Give yourself the gift of being compassionately present with yourself and all that you are experiencing. Without wishing anything were different than it is right now in this moment. It’s through embracing and allowing what is that we build emotional resilience — resilience that expands our capacity to be with chaos, ambiguity, pain, anger, grief. And when we expand our capacity to be with our own full range of emotions, we won’t feel so triggered or thrown off balance by other people’s emotions. Because when we learn how to be compassionately present with ourselves, and the fullness of our humanness, we simultaneously expand our ability to accept and embrace and love other people as they are.

Have patience with yourself. Create the space to understand your inner world. Don’t make decisions from a place of chaos or ambiguity or fear. Wait. Just wait. Be with the muddy emotions first, until they settle. Give them a chance to transform in the midst of your own compassionate presence. Then, when they do, you can choose what to move toward rather than what to run away from. Then, you can decide from love rather than fear. Then you can make choices that are in alignment with who you really are.

“Do you have the patience to wait until your mud settles and the water is clear? 
Can you remain unmoving till the right action arises by itself?” ~ Lao Tzu

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I’m now almost 8 weeks in to my 3 month adventure. When I left California, my car was loaded with things I thought I’d need during my time away. Clothes, books, camping gear, decks of card and my favorite board games, my laptop, journal, camera and even my electric water kettle. And as I have unpacked and repacked my things at different points along the way, one of the things I’ve realized is how time-consuming — and distracting — stuff can be for me. I brought a pile of books that I thought I might want or need to reference as I delve into my own writing and books that I thought might inspire me. I brought clothes for hot weather, warm weather and really cold weather (I get cold really easily, and love being warm, so coats and scarves and hats and fingerless gloves somehow all seemed essential as I packed my things). And somehow, I managed to bring a dozen pairs of shoes and 3 or 4 bikinis in the trunk of my car and on the road with me! I haven’t used much of the stuff I thought was so critical as I envisioned and prepared for this journey. But I’ve certainly spent a lot of time loading and unloading it, organizing it and rearranging it. 

When I step back and watch my own behavior, it can be pretty amusing at times. And it is always informative. Self-awareness is, after all, the first step toward intentional living. So, I’ve been noticing all the ways in which I spend those precious resources of my time and energy. And I’ve been watching all the ways in which I distract myself, and the reasons that I engage in those behaviors and activities.

Here are a few of the many things I have learned:

• When I slow down, I’m more effective. When I rush around trying to get things done, I may be moving more quickly than other times, but I’m often getting less of what really matters most done. That happens most obviously when I haven’t stopped to really assess and choose what I want to do before getting started. It’s easy for me to be unfocused or focused on things that aren’t really helping me to create the results that I want in my life.
• When I minimize distractions, I’m more present. Stuff can distract me from just being present in this moment. Even reaching for my camera as I wandered through Capitol Reef or Yellowstone or Glacier National Park took me a bit out of direct experience with the elk and antelope and big horn sheep and waterfalls. I’m glad that I took a bunch of photos to share with friends and remind me of the adventures, but I also loved the moments when I kept the camera off and just watched the rainbow colors of the Grand Prismatic Spring at Yellowstone or got to know the family with 5 kids from Arizona, and gave their son a piggy back ride.
• I distract myself in all kinds of ways when I’m feeling uncomfortable in my own skin. I like to think that I’m often comfortable in my own skin (comfortable with myself as I am, able to be with my emotions and my thoughts), but when I look at the many ways in which I distract myself, I see really clearly that in each of those moments, for one reason or another, I’m turning away from myself rather than embracing and honoring myself.

Once we are aware, we can be at choice. When I see what I am doing, I can assess whether it’s working for me or not. I can choose to do things differently if what I’ve been doing isn’t working for me or supportive of my inner peace and well-being.

I’m glad I’ve made a habit of watching my behavior. Are there things you can learn from watching your behavior too?

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The other day I hiked a series of three trails in Capitol Reef National Park. I waited until the heat of the day had passed to start my hike, and other than the couple I saw as I parked in the trailhead parking area, I didn’t see a single person on the entire 7.5 miles. I had a trail map with me, but it didn’t have any details on it. And the trail wasn’t well worn. It wound around (and sometimes over) large boulders and through bushes and across large sandstone slabs. I had never been there before, so I couldn’t rely on my own memory to get me through Cohab Canyon, Frying Pan, Cassidy Arch and Gorge Wash.

Soon after I started off on the trail, I saw the first of what must have been a hundred piles of rocks. They were the breadcrumbs left by people who had been there before. They comforted me and pointed the way. Without the cairns along the route, I would have gotten utterly lost.

I felt such gratitude for those who had taken the time during their own hike to pile the rocks on top of one another. I felt so supported — by people who will never see my face or know my name or fully understand what a difference they made for me that early evening. I felt inspired to build a few cairns of my own in areas where I didn’t see the path right away. And as I walked along, I gained a felt understanding of how connected we all are, even when we don’t realize it. There I was, by myself, in the middle of the wilderness. And yet, I was so far from being alone. I was being supported and guided and helped by who knows how many other people. The beauty of that feeling matched the stunning scenery. It allowed me to feel safe and relaxed. It allowed me to set my worries about where I was going aside, and just enjoy scampering around.

There are many times in my life when I’ve gone through things without seeking support. What I got on the trails of Capitol Reef is how wise it is to seek and accept the support of those who have already been down the path that I am entering. As long as I’m aiming to go where they went, it behooves me to leverage their learnings.

Are there places in your life where you would benefit from the counsel, support, or guidance of someone who has been there, or been through what you are going through, before? Are you seeking the advice and help of mentors, advisors, and experts? Are there things you could navigate even more effectively or easily if you did?