I’m Packing Light for 2020…Want to Join Me?

It’s the end of the year, and that can only mean one thing…new year’s resolutions. It’s our natural desire to think about what we want to do more of, do better, add to our to do lists – you get the idea, right? Our resolutions are often about more, bigger, better, faster, superlative, superlative, superlative.

For me, I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking less about what I need to do more of and focusing on what I need to do less of. Growth often comes from not only learning new things, but from unlearning the old frameworks that cause us to be stuck. So, I have one resolution. I’m going back to the school of life to unpack what doesn’t serve me and kick it to the curb. I want to travel 2020 more lightly. Less burden, fewer bags, no more unnecessary weight on my back. Want to unlearn with me?

Here are the flawed lessons I plan to unlearn in 2020:

1. I have to be perfect to be loved. This is a hard one for me. I grew up in an environment that was hyper focused on my accomplishments. Achievement was next to holiness. I put a lot of value on my contributions. And today, if I mess up, I am really really hard on myself. Worse yet, if I believe the people I care about think I’ve messed up, it devastates me. But, guess what? I am messed up. We all are. No one loves me because I am perfect. People love me because I am me. Real love means never having to be other than your authentic self. Does this mean I don’t try or strive or do my best? Of course not. But it means that mistakes will no longer rule whether I feel good about myself or cause me to fear that those who love me are going to leave. I’m going to learn that authenticity trumps perfection, for all of us, every day.
2. Sad/mad/angry emotions are bad. As women especially, we’ve been taught that we should be perpetually happy. We need to be grateful, at all times, for what we have and the lives we lead. As children, we were chided at best or punished for being mad or sad – not given constructive ways to express these feelings and be okay with them. When we are taught that certain feelings are not okay, what do we do? We suppress them. And suppression (I hate to say it) comes in forms that are typically self-destructive. Drinking to escape, hiding behind our work or our phones, running away from our marriages or relationships by having affairs; the list goes on. From now on, I’m going to embrace what I feel and learn to sit in it. I mean, really sit. Negative emotions are okay. They are warnings that something is amiss, either in ourselves, others or a situation we’re in. Anything and everything we are feeling is a beacon, calling us to follow our instincts toward our best self. Sadness and anger make us just as whole as joy and happiness.
3. I must follow society’s rules. Now, I’m not talking about turning to a life of wanton crime, but I am suggesting that much of what we are taught about how we should behave is about maintaining a societal construct that keeps people – especially women – in their place. And that place is typically small and to the back. I will no longer let society dictate to me how I should feel about myself, especially based on appearance or expectations of how women should be in the world. Things like how I dress (or how my daughters dress); if I wear make up; if I am a good or bad mother because I work too much, don’t work enough, need to work outside the home; or if I restrict calories or sweets or anything else to look a certain way will no longer take up valuable space in my brain. I am going to focus on following my own rules that punctuate what truly matters to me. And what matters to me is that I and my family are not assholes. That’s pretty much it. Be kind. Golden Rule. Use your manners.
4.  I am responsible for how people feel and react. How much of my time do I spend worrying about how a grown adult felt or acted? Here’s the thing…we are only responsible for our own actions and our own reactions to situations. No one else’s. In life, how a person perceives or absorbs a situation is largely influenced by their experiences, good and bad. I have spent the majority of my adult life still trying to hold together all the things I worked so hard to hold together as a child – keeping my parents happy, feeling responsible if they didn’t have fun, blaming myself if they couldn’t get out of their own mental funk. That’s a lot to carry. The truth of the situation is that I am not now, nor have I ever been, that powerful. If I was, everyone I love would be happy, every day, all the time. My energy needs to be in shaping my reactions to what is happening around me. By doing this, I will make the world a better place. I will teach my kids to have emotional autonomy, meaning they won’t rely on someone else for their happiness and they won’t blame themselves for anyone’s sadness.

I’m sure I will sprinkle a few good old fashioned resolutions into this list, like cutting sugar, getting more sleep and taking better care of myself. And that’s okay. Because all of us, every day, should focus on taking better care of ourselves. By the end of 2020, I hope I can tell you I unlearned it all. That I am a messy, authentic, non-people pleasing rule breaker who may or may not get a tattoo, skip the lipstick, and knows she is 100 percent responsible for herself.