Tag: Emotions

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Emotional Work Startups

Day 402 and The Most Me

I am coming slowly into 2022 in its fullness. Perhaps I am living in seasonal time this year. I am feeling the wholeness of what the moment brings and January is about becoming. So it wasn’t surprisingly that clarity of purpose has been sharpening for me. I am ready to commit to self acceptance as the theme of my year.

I felt somehow today that the only thing that really mattered for my success in the world was radically altering any perception I had of myself as negative. That I was here to love even the parts of myself that cause me shame and fear. The only thing that will take me where I want to go is loving myself. That self love was actually the key to all troubles personal and professional.

“You know, loving awareness—even if you haven’t heard the phrase before, you know what it is. Those moments of spacious, calm, thorough, tranquil connection with whatever portion of existence you’re currently exposed to, where nothing is being challenged or conceptualized, but rather is just allowed to appear, in radiant suchness, without resistance or fear.”

How I Attained Persistent Self Love

I’ve discussed the emotional work I do on the blog at length. The Family Systems Therapy and it’s exploration of the inner child. The shadow work and integrating of the whole of oneself. But I do often reject the crucial step of feeling like I am fundamentally alright. I am ok. I am enough.

I’ve committed to “a bit” where I lavish myself with self improvement and luxuriate in needing to make every measurement better. I’m obsessed with finding metrics to improve. And so I give myself little problems to fix. Maybe I’ll eat poorly so I can feel bad about my body composition. When instead I could just eat what I like and accept that maybe I’ve made other priorities than my figure. I don’t need to agonize over trivial shit.

But equally I don’t need to agonize over big shit. So I’m not a perfectly credentialed super star. I’m more of an eccentric. I don’t live like other people so I see other things. My existence is the selling point. If what I bring to the table is what you want then I am the right partner for you. If am I not then well tautologically I’m not for you. Partnerships are accepting what everyone brings.

So through the end of this year I am going to bring self love and acceptance to my writing here. In letting myself be seen I can more fully bring myself to my partners. Being a startup investor that means I must be present for my founders, their teams, and my own LPs and stakeholders. I’m bringing the full depth of my being because that’s also going to bring the best returns. Because being ok. Accepting the moment and it’s inhabitants? That brings us the creative potential to solve whatever is in front of us without judgement.

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Emotional Work

Day 401 and Clarity

Life is a pretty indecisive process. You go through with, at best, some genetic heuristics for truth and a couple half verified data sets. So when the feeling of clarity hits you it’s hard not to notice. The clarion call of seeing reality (which sounds like me mixing two sense based metaphors) is edifying.

When you know you know. Popular culture loves this phenomenon. You get it. Knowing is head to toes and taint to tip stuff. You just get what’s happening in your gut. Somewhere in the shared brain space of your conscious reality and the microbiology of your intestinal fauna there exists clarity.

Surely there is a reason we describe knowing as a process that isn’t strictly data driven. Sure we can have facts and methods and process. But somewhere along the line we can only know if our biology agrees. Your gut knows what I mean.

I had a bit of that feeling earlier today. I got some feedback from someone I like and trust. It wasn’t positive feedback. Me and mine had fucked up something in our approach. But then I had clarity. I knew what we needed to do to fix it. I saw the path that would lead to our success together. And I just knew it. In every part of me. And the best part is when I share it with my partner they will get it too. In their mind and body. That’s clarity.

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Emotional Work

Day 396 and Drowning

I’m a big fan of the show Bojack Horseman. It’s got all the emotional depth of Ted Lasso but with all the trauma of remembering your never felt loved by your father. Yeah it’s not really a comedy.

For whatever reason it’s a show I typically watch after therapy. I’ll watch an episode or two when integrating all the feelings from paying attention to my inner child for an hour and a half. I know it’s kind of a weird choice but it’s a really straight shot of feelings.

When the star goes on an epic bender, his ex-girlfriend recounts a story about being a life guard.

“The first rule of being a lifeguard is knowing when you cannot save someone. Some people they will splash and thrash. And try to take you down with them.”

I’ve got someone in my life that is drowning. I know it. I knew it before they did. My instincts were like the lifeguard trainee. I wanted to help. But they are splashing and thrashing and all that would happen if I tried to help is that I will drown along with them. I know this to be true. But I am so willing to be cruel to myself and ignore it. I’d let myself drown. And what good would that do anyone?

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Preparedness

Day 385 and Jinx

I’ve been on the hunt for a homestead. My husband and I are keen to own a resilient home. That’s meant a lot of house hunting and general effort being put into finding land. We also would like to maintain a home in Colorado even though we don’t believe long term the climate and water issues will extend our time here beyond a decade.

We thought we’d found a mountain house that furthered our home ownership goals. We’ve been dancing around an offer and had put in all the effort to move money, set up inspections and otherwise prepare to close at the end of the month. I thought for sure we can discuss this at least a little. Maybe share it with family and get excited about it on Twitter to friends.

Well that was a mistake. A structural engineer we brought to check the building found deal killer issues. It’s quite literally sliding off a mountain. There is no cheap way to fix it. It’s a quarter million dollar problem.

So we jinxed it. The house is untenable. No deal. And I suspect I’ve learned a lesson on counting my chickens before they have hatched. Housing in America is expensive and messy even when you’ve got money and free cash. No wonder we’ve got a housing crisis.

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Emotional Work Startups

Day 383 and Good at What I Am

Startups are a privilege. You meet people who are exceptional at what they do. Brilliant qualified people who are so capable you could spend your whole life working and only achieve 10% of their innate capacity by natural talent. But the real differentiator is never the talent. It’s the acceptance of who you are. You can’t just be good at what you do. You have to be good at being yourself.

Be good at what you do. Then be good at what you are. Startups require both.

I struggle with this and watch many others who struggle as well. I am brilliant at connecting and amplification but terrible at details and logistics. I used to hate this about myself. I’d beat myself up when I’d get performance reviews that said I wasn’t detail oriented. I thought it was a moral failing. But guess what? It’s just a regular failing. I doubt I’d be great at my actual natural talents if I also had to be good at my failures. Accepting your light means accepting what cast shadows equally.

It’s hard to do. Our coping mechanisms praise us for our good traits and claim full responsibility for achieving them on our own merits. Equally we disown and assume divine intervention or forces outside our control drive our vices. We cannot be responsible for our failures. We only like to take responsibility for our wins.

And I get it. Accepting your shadows is hard. Our parents and our social circles show us who we are supposed to be. Show us what to strive for in the good life. If we are loud we are told to shush. If we are shy we are urged to socialize. Acceptance oh who we are isn’t encouraged. And for good reason. We must push to grow. To become an adult requires effort and work. But we must always remember the ultimate goal in becoming an adult is to become who you are. If you never accept yourself you will never be truly great. And the road is long so start getting good at being who you are.

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Emotional Work Preparedness

Day 380 and Decisive

I’ve felt decisive recently. I’ve been confronting significant and life changing decisions the last few weeks and sailing through them. I’ve never felt more at ease making commitments in my life.

It’s not that I’m particularly prone to paralysis by analysis. Generally I’ve been able to move quickly and without undue agony over my choices. But I think within the last two months I’ve simply got my limit with taking the safe course. Maybe it’s a Covid thing and now that I’ve both been vaccinated and had an infection I no longer feel like I can continue with the same safety practices that the early pandemic did. With the election over and the existential threats of insurrections and instability now existing as a permanent worry, I just put off major decisions. I can’t wait for better times or more information. I need to live adaptability now.

So I bought a house. I committed to the process of buying land in another state for a long term resilience based homestead. I’ve planned trips travel. And not nearby regions like travel. I’m going international. I’m meeting people I haven’t seen for years. In some cases I’m meeting people I’ve only ever known online because socializing has been entirely remote for going on three years. That’s an inhumane way to live for extended periods. Even the most introverted person still needs connections. I’ve started making decisions to live my life. I need to live like a future exists or I will never ever escape. As soon as I made the decision to believe in a future again decisions flowed easily.

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Emotional Work

Day 375 and Masochism

I recently got yelled at by several people who love me because I was torturing myself over something that wasn’t really important.

My therapist asked me why I insist on being so sadistic towards my own body. I told her I was afraid that if I wasn’t perpetually in a state of self improvement no one would love me. The topic came up because I had allowed myself to get hurt in physical therapy. “Why would you push till the pain was intolerable? That’s insane!”

And I had to answer honestly that everything in my life is headed in the right direction. There was no major crisis or illness or disaster this week, so I felt like I had the bandwidth to add in another “self improvement” project. To which she replied “so you can’t ever just enjoy being yourself can you?”

That kind of floored me because it’s true. As soon as I feel like I’ve got things under control, I’ll add a little bit more to the pile so I can feel like I’m making progress. I am a masochist. Joy is fleeting. Better is always worth pursuing. Maybe you feel compelled to be torturing yourself too.

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Chronic Disease Preparedness

Day 373 and Picking Up Signals

I missed a signal from my body today. I promised myself I’d rest this weekend as I was feeling the exertion from the week. Which is exciting and great that life is having good energy but you’ve got to make sure to restore and preserve.

But this morning I learned that the Costco that burned in the Marshall Fire was reopening. We’d briefly thought we’d lost it during the chaos of the fires. But somehow they had managed to get it cleaned up and opened within a week. I was running low on groceries because of our own Omicron cases and the after math of the fires kept us at home. I immediately felt like we needed to go to the Costco. Emotionally I needed the Costco run. We needed groceries but I needed to see that it was still standing. That it survived.

Physically it was a mistake. Driving past the new burn scars was surreal. Seeing the remains of Old Town Superior as nothing but rubble was upsetting. But it wasn’t nearly as upsetting as turning into a giant box store parking lot and doing chores in the aftermath of a fire. Like nothing had ever happened.

We bought a bunch of shit in completely apocalyptic settings. Traffic lights were still off but a bunch of chain stores has big signs that said “we are open!” The Costco was running heaters on generators. The HVAC system has smoke damage so it couldn’t be run. But it’s freezing and we just had two large snowstorms so they needed to do something to warm up the warehouse. Life goes on.

I was relieved our Costco was still there. Glad for my bulk raspberries and chai as much as the security of seeing something made it. But fuck did I feel terrible afterwards. My entire body hurt. I’m not sure if it was emotional or physical but I was hurting. I still am hurting. I could barely write this down. I wasn’t listening to my own signals. That maybe I needed rest. That maybe I shouldn’t have gone to Costco. We’ve got to be gentle as we navigate the chaos of our current moment. You never know when you will find a trigger point.

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Chronic Disease Uncategorized

Day 372 and Pace Yourself

I was in an incredible groove yesterday. I’ve been letting go of the awful December I experienced and enjoying the new January energy. If you look at yesterday’s post I was absolutely in the zone. So I pushed myself thinking I can handle full capacity day. Mistakes were made in my enthusiasm. And well I’m probably in need of a rest. I over did it.

I often struggle with pacing and moderation. It’s important for me to remember that I’ve got a history as a workaholic. But I don’t want to feel as if I can’t push myself either. It’s the middle path I must walk. But it is hard to stay on it. I feel like every day I am sliding off the middle path right into the ditch. I’m getting better at getting myself back.

I used to be happy mailing elaborate detours. I’d take every exit on this metaphorical path in the past. But tonight I’m going to remind myself I’ve got a destination. And that is being responsible for keeping myself happy and healthy. So I’m going to get in bed and watch some TV and shitpost on Twitter

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Emotional Work

Day 370 and Grindstone

Today felt like the first day everyone was really back at work after the winter holiday. As much as Americans like to bitch about how Europe takes off August or China takes off January or February or whenever the Lunar New Year lands, we take off much of December. Around mid-month folks drop off the radar and nothing gets done till about Epiphany or so. And they say we aren’t a Christian nation.

So while technically we all came back to work on Monday, today is the first day I really felt like I was back. Maybe it’s because December was such a clusterfuck of a month for me. I had Covid, I tore a ligament, Boulder County burned down. I know this is a petty complaint but I didn’t get a Christmas tree because I couldn’t walk and then I was quarantined. So it was going to take a few days to really shake that off and come into the energy of January.

But I felt back today. Like maybe I could fucking do this. Like all the catastrophic nonsense was shit I could mitigate. And all the optimistic stuff was achievable. And I am going all in on optimism. I’m going to Montana soon to check out towns as I’m just ready to own something more rural. I’m wrapping my head around owning something that is a winter seasonal home. I booked a trip to Europe in a really extreme leap of faith that Omicon will run its course by spring. And I am ready to close some deals I’ve been working on for the last month or so. So fuck yeah grindstone. Im ready.