by tashmcgill | Nov 1, 2016 | Culture & Ideas, Health, Mind, Spirituality
“But what if, this time?”, the question echoes in my mind.
The silence in response is the same echoing kind.
I can ask the same question in half a dozen repetitive ways. “Why not, this time, this love, this job, this circumstance?”
I’ve given up on trying to get the question right because I’ve figured out it’s the wrong question to get an answer for. I’m beginning to accept the Universe doesn’t need for me to understand why not, at least not yet. And the day may never come, as so many of us who live with unanswered questions know. If there was an answer to be understood or learned for why my ‘What-Ifs’ have not become ‘What-Is’, I would have found it by now.
I’m not mad about it, just sad about it. It’s Anticipation Sickness, the same illness the ancient prophets and poets wrote of. Hope deferred makes the heart sick but unavoidably, Hope rises and the question, this time just a whisper, echoes again.
“What if, this time?”
An Optimistic Idealist.
We are our own worst enemies at times. A consumption generation collecting toys and experiences, living in a near-constant state of ‘What-Next?’ I, a Futurist and optimistic idealist, am guilty of living always with one eye on the future. It means hope and anticipation of What-Next is constantly simmering away within me, because I wonder if each step is taking me closer to this time, being the exact time my dreams fall within my grasp.
There is a lot of terrible, unhelpful advice available on the subject of dreams.
You have to be bold and grab hold of them.
You have to be patient and let them go.
You have to make them happen for yourself.
Network with people and influencers who will help you.
You need pray harder/meditate more / visualise more.
Do everything you can do and then do more.
If it’s meant to be, it will happen.
When you stop trying, that’s when it will happen.
Just relax and let it be.
Just accept yourself / your circumstance and then you’ll find peace.
I have done all of these things – bought plane tickets and chased my dreams halfway around the world. I’ve done it over and over again. I’ve let it go and let it go again, burning candles and memorabilia. Not just one dream, but several of them. But I’m still left sitting with the question and with that unbearable feeling of Anticipation Sickness welling up within me.
What if, this time? What if I’ve finally learned the lesson that would make me ready, climbed the obstacle that kept me stuck or I’ve become good enough or strong enough or pretty enough. Maybe, finally this mysterious timing and God’s good will has finally caught up with me.
Hope is not a joyful feeling – hope is the gut-wrenching, white-knuckled sigh of the heartbroken, brave and vulnerable to look up, to say ‘Okay, let’s go again.’
A friend said sometimes we are presented with our hope over and over again because in our despair, loss and heartbreak, we learn something we needed to know. She’s right and yes, I have learned deep and good lesson from the heartbreak of hope lost. I know there is truth in that statement but I struggle to accept it as the entire truth – because it doesn’t ring true with my experience. Sometimes all I have learned in the losing is to persevere. But how many times do you need to learn that lesson, before it turns bitter? Surely the Universe has gentler, kinder and more creative ways to teach us that destroying us over and over?
Still, we teach resilience and embrace courage to be vulnerable and to try again, despite our heart-pounding and questions. I am facing my own heart-pounding What-If questions again. Hope comes racing back to the surface and emerges in my late-night sub-conscious, as if the day-dreams weren’t unmanageable enough.
This combination of hope and anxiety can be crippling. And that’s anticipation sickness. Knowing the risk you take to hope at all, knowing what losing hope will feel like, how our way of seeing the world will be again challenged. It’s the fear and anxiety that overshadows joy. Hope is not a joyful feeling – hope is the gut-wrenching, white-knuckled sigh of the heartbroken, brave and vulnerable to look up, to say ‘Okay, let’s go again.’
It’s anxiety in disguise, the kind only known by those who have experienced loss and disappointment. If you have lost hope and yet hoped again, you know what anticipation sickness is. You know the dread feeling of all you might lose again. So it’s hope and heartache all over again and the world clamours at us, with bad advice and little empathy.
It’s lonely, because everyday hopeful circumstances for everyone else , are not that simple or black-and-white for us.
Montaigne sings “Heartbreak / Feels like an old dream / Feels like a demon / I cannot shake him / I’m not afraid to fall / I am still standing here after all / I didn’t die / That’s my consolation prize / I am alive / That’s my consolation prize.”
At times in my life, I have found myself unable to live in my current reality because it felt hollow and empty in comparison to the dream. But the dream is just a possibility. No matter how I reach for it, I cannot touch it or make it a real thing. No matter how I have tried. In my darkest moments, life has felt like a consolation prize, a next-best-option while I wait for the real thing.
Ask A Better Question.
Replace ‘what if?’ with ‘what now?’ and you’ll find a pathway to living in What-Is, the Present.
‘Whatever you have in your hands, that’s your responsibility.’
Nothing more, nothing less. What you have in your hands is now. You cannot hold the past, you only carry the lessons with you today. You cannot hold tomorrow either. What you have is ‘now’. And that is all you need, it’s all you actually have capacity for. Just today. Nothing more, nothing less. That’s what is in your hands.
What-Is stands exacting when What-If is hard to define. My heart, sick yes, with hope deferred and endless wondering of “what if?”, is not so inclined to trust. My disappointed heart is coaxed back to trust again by the experience of the present. I fiercely drag myself back to that brightly-lit day. What now, today?
How To Move Forward
The best strategy is just a plan, with a little understanding behind it. I’ve learned a strategy for being present today while moving towards the future is to break everything down into the tiniest steps. Most dreams will take months, years, even decades to eventuate. So when living day to day, it’s easy to feel dejected and that you’re not moving forward at all. But you can take a tiny step in a day. Today, you can do one thing to move you closer to where you want to be. A piece of research, downloading an application form, reaching out to the one you’ve been waiting to hear from. Making the call you don’t want to make.
The Creative Spirit does not jest with us, not once, and understands the fragile human heart. The Universe does not crush our hopes nor tease us without mercy, nor hide themselves from us. We just go looking in the wrong place for God in the future, when God is present in the Now, in the What Is. Present is the only place to find peace in the wake of Anticipation Sickness caused by what we hope for, what we long for, what may yet be.
What-Is is I Am, I Was, is Ever Will Be
What-Is the moment and the day, present
pressing us closer to the Light revealing masterwork
still barely seen, the ripples in each day
but at a distance of some What-Was,
the vast, expansive movement of Love is bright.
What-Now becomes again joyful, no consolation prize.
by tashmcgill | Dec 28, 2015 | Culture & Ideas, Health
Today, I’m not writing because the words are burning on my chest. In fact, I would rather ignore the subject all together, but I have to write about cancer. More specifically, I have to write about what cancer does. Not what we think it does, but what it really does.
What we think cancer does is kill people. And we’re right, people die from cancer all the time as well as some who survive. Over 100 different types of cancer rampaging through the world touching almost every family and every person by the time you reach your thirties. Cancer causes harm to the human body when abnormal cells begin to divide uncontrollably. Usually defined by the cells first affected, most cancers cause tumours to grow which can eventually interfere with the function of vital organs or in the instance of leukemia, it alters the cells in the bloodstream. Sometimes cancer spreads to other parts of the body through the bloodstream or lymphatic system, in a process called metastasis.
What many people don’t realise is that approximately only 10% of people die from their primary tumours. Once a tumour metastasizes, the secondary conditions are extraordinarily hard to treat and that is what most people eventually die from.
That’s a problem because on the whole, humanity is becoming more afraid of death than ever. We’re fighting to prolong the lives of our elders, let alone the young. I’ve written about this in the past; while my friend Jared was dying of bowel cancer. We end up fighting not to die, because that’s what we think cancer does.
But here’s what cancer really does. Cancer gets in the way of living and it gets in the way of families. You might think I’m playing semantics here, but I’m really not. What Jared taught me and what we pondered together was how to live out of your purpose and not be distracted by trying to stop cells multiplying where they shouldn’t.
On Boxing Day, we lost our friend Ruth. 
She was about my age and had been married for three years after what seemed like a lifelong wait at the time. Turns out, she spent a good deal of her actual lifetime waiting for Harley. No one would argue that it wasn’t worth every moment. Not long after, she fell pregnant and then discovered a brain tumour. Her darling wee girl was delivered prematurely. Ruth got to be a mother, she got to live that beautiful dream for 18 months; full of hope, faith, sadness and joy. Motherhood interrupted. The lasting, indelible marks of her life will always be joy, laughter, delight and beauty. She was beautiful from the inside out. Cancer has interrupted her family and changed forever the path of her husband, daughter and dearest friends.
On Boxing Day night, I learned my darling workmate Rebecca ‘Bangs’ Hyndman, had been diagnosed with an aggressive cancer on Christmas Eve. She’s been given a few months at best but remains in critical condition. Her son, Ben, is just over four weeks old. Her husband, Jeff, now faces the interruption. Cancer, once again – getting in the way of families and people living out their purpose. Motherhood interrupted. Becs is straightforward as she always has been – she’s not going to be distracted in these last weeks from her purpose – to love her boys and do her best for them.
What would a mother do for her husband and son about to face an immense loss?Everything she could to provide comfort, nurture and sustenance. There are no shortage of family and friends who will rally with time and effort – but you don’t have to be a genius to realize paternity leave isn’t going to stretch far enough for this one. So there’s a donation page been set up here – Give A Little. Why would you consider giving? Probably because nobody needs 1000 lasagna or beef casseroles. Because 18 years of child raising on a single income is daunting, let alone in the face of grief. Because most 30 year olds don’t have life insurance. Because it’s symbolic of saying, “I’ll help you care for your family and accomplish this task“.
In all this; I’m mindful of my friend Kelly, also facing a terminal diagnosis. I remember Jared and how he did not let cancer interrupt his purpose and in doing so, left a legacy for his daughter Elise. His purpose wasn’t what he thought it was, but he embraced it as soon as he recognized it.
Back to what cancer really does. Cancer gets in the way of families, gets in the way of living. We can easily get confused and think we must give all our attention to fighting the cancer, to stopping the cells from growing. We ought to fight, sensibly. Cure what we can – but we must not stop living in order not to die. Strangely, cancer cells don’t like to die.The whole problem is that they grow and live and keep on living; unlike every other cell in the body. We can’t control those cells. Normal cells, regular cells all follow a cycle of creation, growth, life and then death. Without death, we have a problem.
We fight cancer because we don’t want it to kill us. Because even though we all must die, we don’t want to die from cancer. We ought to fight to live. Every moment, every day. Leaving an impression behind us – whether in a child or a friendship or a piece of music, art, a business deal or a well-manicured garden.
Today, I’m writing because it’s part of who I am, my purpose on this green and blue orb hanging in space. To observe the world and tell others what I see. I hope that it changes you or moves you or challenges you as I am challenged also by what I see and learn as I study others.
Today, I’m writing to acknowledge death will come to us all but until that day – tomorrow, next Wednesday or in June some years from now, I will live. I will try.
In living, consider where else metaphorical cancer is getting in the way of your family and your life’s purpose. Are toxic relationships or bad habits, insecurities or deep internal misbeliefs that are doing what cancer does? Stopping you from living and getting in the way of your family or relationships? Are old grudges or judgmental thoughts stopping you from being truly yourself or allowing others to be truly themselves? Get yourself a health check or give yourself one before you enter the New Year.
I’m working on my own; the fear of judgement from others, a sense of inferiority, a longing to belong somewhere I can call home. Stay tuned and work on it with me.
by tashmcgill | Feb 8, 2015 | Culture & Ideas, Health, Youth Work
Real Sex & Emotional Intimacy – These Stories Are Not My Secrets.
I’m able to put words to it now, I think – what I’ve been learning is that the healthy and whole sexual expression I crave is both physical and emotional. It should be clear by now. Therefore, my definition of sexuality has become much bigger. My sexuality is the expression of physical, emotional and spiritual intimacy.
If we want to have good, great sex (and great relationships, I suppose) then we need to learn to have true emotional intimacy with each other. Well, crap. Here’s the truth of it. I’m terrible at emotional intimacy. I think many of us are, but I’ll share with you my perspective.
*This article is part of a series; I recommend reading Part One: A Modern Virgin, Part Two: What I Learned About Sex From An Older Man, Part Three: Trying To Lose My Virginity first. I’m welcoming feedback and contributions so please email me here.
My primary love languages are physical touch and quality time. So it’s no wonder that much of my desire for love is about the physical connection. Still, that shouldn’t mean I ignore the need to share my whole emotional self and find a partner who will receive and accept me well, someone who can and will encourage me in emotional intimacy, not just physical.
I share some pretty personal thoughts on the internet most days so you might find it hard to believe that I’m not good at emotional honesty. But those are just my stories. They are things I’ve processed, thought about, discussed and then finessed ready for publishing. They are not my secrets or my truest self.
Filtering.
Somewhere in my youth and young adult years, I learned to filter. I learned to filter because my thoughts and feelings could push people away. If I said or asked for the wrong thing, expressed the wrong feeling – rejection came swiftly. Sometimes a little rejection or humiliation, sometimes total abandonment. I learned that my feelings weren’t to be trusted and should rarely be expressed. I think we all learn this filtering, to some degree or another.
Don’t think for a minute that you see all of me here on the Internet. I’ve got a collection of stories I’m comfortable enough to share and that no longer pose a risk in sharing. My bravery is in continuing to think through what I’m learning offline, in hopes one day I can share it.
Beyond the amusing anecdotes, the generous dinner parties and the many people who cross my threshold, I hide my deepest parts away. My heart is frequently hidden behind a thick concrete wall. It’s not easy to get in there. My fear is exposing my truest self to the ones I care about most. Emotional intimacy, the one thing I’m looking for is something I’m terrible at it because it actually requires more than one person.
Emotional intimacy isn’t just sharing part of yourself, it’s also having that part of you accepted and acknowledged by another person. Immediately, the connection between the emotional and physical acts of intimacy should be obvious. However, if I’ve been living behind a concrete wall, I don’t necessarily have great skills for learning to trust or making good choices around trust.
On one hand, we’re told to guard our hearts and only let the trustworthy ones in. On the other hand, we’re told to be bold and go after what we want. But the earliest lessons we learn in love can be the most dangerous. If I learn that men aren’t interested in my thoughts or feelings, or that I must be all about meeting his needs rather than my own, everything else becomes coloured.
So these days, when I bravely reveal parts of myself, I immediately start waiting for the rejection to come. Or, if a small part of who I am is accepted and not rejected, I can’t help but want to share more and more (or even all of myself), because the feeling is so rare. Neither of those places is particularly healthy. So I live with a lot of people close to me, like a party at the gates of the secret garden. Few have the key to the garden and even fewer still step inside.
It’s easy to know that I like whisky, for example. Or even how I like to drink it. A few might even share whisky with me under the stars or in a favourite alcove. But there is so much more under my skin and inside my mind than what translates to Facebook or Instagram. The fleeting, silly stupid thoughts and the beautiful, sacred ones; most of these thoughts never leave my lips. Most people have never seen the true extent of my generosity, my warmth or my kindness. The things I do are nothing in comparison to what I think of doing – but these secrets, I keep for myself for now, in a secret place.
Emotional intimacy in the future will require that at some point, I’ll have to risk letting someone inside the garden wall. I might even have to risk asking someone to come inside the garden wall.
I’ve heard too many people talk about the loneliness of the marriage bed, where physical intimacy and emotional intimacy are rarely connected. And I can see how this becomes true – after all, touch is such an easy way of expressing pleasure and approval, but without words or supporting actions it’s not always enough.
My friend Karl has some great thoughts here, largely from the perspective of a man trying to raise 4 sons, 1 daughter and with a long-standing commitment to youth work.
“Intimacy (In- to -me -see..) is an internal desire expressed so often externally. The modern expression of relationships misses the point of intimacy and encourages sexual expression as a means to an end. As I teach my sons…intimacy is often better expressed with clothes on. Our young men need to be coached on intimacy within the context of male relationship too, so sex doesn’t interfere in the early development of knowing how to be strong while laid bare. If we breed shallow men afraid of openness and transparency, they’re unable to meet emotional needs as a lover.
Unfortunately most men are lazy relational lovers. Preferring to love by touch with their hands. It’s learned behaviour from following childlike lust fuelled by curiosity and infatuation. It’s easy, like a takeaway diet. To love and be loved (intimacy) is to go to the farmers market having written a menu formed on knowing the dinner guest, not defined by the produce available at the time, but a meal crafted on tangible knowledge of the invited. (Their needs, desires etc – Ed.) Learning to be lovers, friends, companions, partners is a dance worth learning before the uncomplicated-complicated dance of sex.
To know the chef within, to add the knowledge of produce then the skill, talent of cooking is to form Michelin chefs. Society has formed men great at BBQ but poor in the kitchen. I’d love the focus to shift for our youth to becoming great lovers.. first with clothes on.. to develop a knowledge of themselves. Once the clothes come off, the heart beats too fast for the heart to listen and a language of love is dulled and hard to define. The focus of intimacy then becomes now how I feel at a muddled physical level. “
I think there’s a lot of merit in what Karl is talking about, not just for young men but young women as well. The key is learning to express love through more than just physical touch and connection. So how do we overcome the hurdle of learning to share our real selves and welcome another whole self?
I long to hear somebody ask for a key to the garden. Tell me more, show me more of yourself, is what I long to hear. Intimacy is an unending mystery, you can never fully know another person. There is always another discovery, another question, another thought or feeling to explore. I believe intimacy is both learning how to enjoy and unravel the endless mystery and then habitually engaging in the mystery.
My desire to share all of my secret self the moment I connect with someone who feels trustworthy is pretty flawed. The point is to discover those things, not to lay them out all at once. It’s helpful to observe those who are willing to do the work of discovery. Those who want to unpack the hidden woman behind the Facebook feed. Previously, I’ve thought that intimacy was to be known, but now I see that true intimacy is to be in the knowing. An ongoing process – where two people choose to continue to discover each other. Upon entering the gated, secret garden they discover it is in fact, endless. Over time, some flowers, trees and ponds might become familiar, much-loved features but there is always something new to see or discover.
by tashmcgill | Feb 7, 2015 | Culture & Ideas, Health, Youth Work
Part 2: What I Didn’t Learn At Church.
It frustrates me that I didn’t learn about sex being good and beautiful from the church. While the language is changing in some select spaces, largely the message about sex I heard from the church was conflicted and confusing. It wasn’t even informative. Largely, it was based in an idealized, impractical kind of fairy-tale within a punitive capital punishment-led kingdom.
If the church wants to claim any kind of precedence of understanding humanity and how things work best due to their relationship with the Creator, you’d think we’d be doing a better job of advocating for the good stuff, like sex – being an awesome way of building intimacy. Instead it seems as if all the ways in which sex can break us and harm us is the focus of the Church’s teaching on the subject.
While certainly, there have been some harmful sexual experiences in my life (using broad definitions and refusing to dwell on what’s past), I’ve seen people caught in cycles of fear and denial, refusing to treat sex as something we should be engaging in as liberally as possible.
So instead, I learned that sex was good, beautiful and necessary from an old wise friend over coffee, in his backyard. I learned about sex as a philosophy, not as a practice. He was a musician and a philosopher some 40 years my senior. We became friends when I was 17 years old, he was in his 50s and we remained friends until his death, when I was 32. Here’s a warning – you might find it hard to believe that this was as beautiful and pure a friendship as what I describe. But truly, it was.
This post is part of a series that begins with A Modern Virgin. I’d love your feedback and input. If you’d like to participate in the conversation email me here.
Our friendship and conversations gave me freedom to explore previously taboo subjects. Not surprisingly, it helped that he was a nudist at home. I discovered this fact in the most practical way; I visited, he made coffee. We sat down in the back garden of his central city cottage and he took off the sarong he was wearing. I had thought little of his attire on my arrival; it was summer and hot, he was a tennis player and had an older, but well-kept physique. I, having been raised to be unflappable in most situations, simply continued in the thread of conversation. We were talking about writing, as we often did.
So there was I, sitting with a naked man completely at home in his own skin. Nakedness and sexuality, therefore must not be the same. Ideas of modesty and how we clothe our sexuality were torn down, just like that. Yet, there was a certain provocative freedom that would come from this. I being young, curious and in an environment free of evangelical propriety, had free rein to ask questions without the shame and humiliation that so frequently inhibited other conversations.
I should be clear – there was nothing incendiary about our relationship, but eventually it became as natural to talk about our collective human sexuality as it was to talk about good books we had read and interviews we had listened to. He had a long time love and she held no qualms about our friendship.
My complete acceptance of him was a continual matter of wonder, he said. No surprise given his upbringing in the church and knowing I had come from a similar background. So we went, regularly meeting, his body at times like a life drawing class and at other times fully clothed. It wasn’t for a few years that my sexuality came into the conversation.
We were discussing provocation; as an art-form and as a weapon. How people can use tone, voice, words and action to provoke and manipulate certain tensions and outcomes in any environment. I was fascinated by social sex at the time, the way that groups of people arrange themselves around powerful chemistry and charisma.
Even now, the way that we can engage and use our sexuality through social dynamics and in all manner of both corporate and casual settings is a matter of fascination to me. Why am I drawn to touch, embrace and hold some friends and not others? How do I use my body to command attention in the room? These are questions I become more aware of as I use my presence in a room to draw out certain responses, when needed.
My friend said, “Well of course – you’re an expert at it.”
The truth is, I wasn’t then but I’m getting better at it now. Perhaps as I have become more comfortable in my skin. But truthfully, some fifteen years on from this conversation, I’m often still lost as to how to engage my body in the pursuit of outcomes I want outside of the workplace. Which sounds worse than it is, but there is a certain art in how you carry yourself in a presentation or negotiation. In the lounge room or the bar, I don’t want to work that hard.
I replied, “Hardly – I’m not sure I’d know where to start. I’m a theorist by observation, only.” The rest of the words are a bit of jumble in my memory, but my confession of virginity still took him by surprise.
“But surely, after all this time – I mean, it never occurred to me that you might be. You’re so vital and full of life, you need to be having sex. You’ve got to engage, it’s a waste if you don’t.”
I explained to him, much as I have to you, that it wasn’t a matter of choice but rather accident and the occasion had never arisen, so to speak.
There was a pointed break in the conversation while we allowed ourselves to laugh. Then, perhaps the sweetest gift I’ve had to date, he took me by the hand and assured me, it was nearly impossible for things not to rise in the presence of such a vital, living, passionate and inspiring creature as I was. To this day, he remains the only man to tell me so – that I am beautiful for more than my philosophy. I mean, there are plenty of people who appreciate my wit and intelligence, my discourse on theories, music, whisky and theologies. But to tell a woman you find her to be beautiful – it moved me then, it moves me now.
Oh, to be seen. To be affirmed. Not only was he telling me, teaching me that sex was beautiful, good and essential but also that my unique sexuality was good. Most importantly, he recognized that it was within me already strong and with that, freedom came. Not wrong, not rejected, not clumsy or ignorant but good.
From then on, we could and would often speak of sex in much more personal terms than we had before. I wanted to know how sex between two people might heal something and could it also break something? Could it be meaningless physical expression but then the next time be deep and soul-connecting?
I learned that it could be all those things. He gave me rich, clear understanding of the power of being present to one another’s bodies, the sacredness of touch even between friends. And I learned to laugh about sex with him, clothed or not
I learned that I could be a sexual, vital and alive creature; that I could know and understand sex without having engaged in it. Certainly, it raised more questions and curiosity within me but it was good curiosity. A catalogue of experiments and experiences to one day explore. We shared more intimacy in those backyard moments that I’ve probably shared with many. Through it all, sex was a sacred ritual for bringing humans together and building relationships, expressing something of ourselves to another, even in a conversation about it.
Ever since, I’ve been alive in a way that I wasn’t before. Tuned in to how both my body and my soul needs and draws on the philosophy of sex. I saw my friend naked all the time. I watched his body age over 15 years of friendship, before my eyes. I learned that sex is not about bodies, but the body is an instrument of sex, just like the mind.
My friend never saw me naked, although he did invite me to try it, once. By then, it wasn’t intimidating to be asked nor offensive to say no. I had no doubt that he accepted me, flaws and curves and irregularities; and more than that, he called me beautiful.
From Learning to Having.
Long before I realised it for myself, he knew I’d wasn’t suited to a one night stand nor did he want me to be. ‘Promise me,’ he said, ‘it’ll have to be good, ok? Don’t let it be some drunk mother***ker or a kid who doesn’t know what he’s doing, alright? Make sure it’s someone I’d approve of, if I don’t meet him first, ok kid?’
It was his voice I heard in my head the first time and only time I was propositioned in a bar. I didn’t hear a clanging moral bell, nor an angel sitting on my shoulder. There was no devil either, just a friend who knew me and knew a lot about what mattered in the world reminding me what good sex is.
It’s his voice that comforts me when I am alone and feeling unseen, untouched in the world. When what my body craves and what my soul feels empty of is the loudest voice in the room. When I’m trying to make good decisions about dealing with my sexuality, I hear him say again.
‘Hey man, you’re going to be so good at this, it’s outta this world! Someone like you, with all that fire and creativity – unbelievable, man, unbelievable!’
For some people, maybe sex and love is less complicated, but for me, living without both for such a long time, I am full of fear and insecurity. I fear not being any good at it. I fear not being attractive enough or interesting enough. I fear being mismatched in sexual desire with a partner, I fear so many things but mostly I fear that I will never know this deep, body and soul connection with another human being. I don’t pretend that my desire is solely for an intimate and meaningful relationship, or that I simply want hot-blooded sex. I fear that I want more than I deserve or can have.
Then I remember that this intelligent, passionate, wise and slightly eccentric man saw me and acknowledged me, called me beautiful. He didn’t answer all of the question, but he certainly gave me hope that one day I might find expression of all that was within.
What I could admit to him, but few others over my lifetime, is exactly how defined and motivated by my sexuality I am.
by tashmcgill | Dec 21, 2014 | Health, Leadership, Mind, Strategy, Youth Work
In a world driven by being the best, it takes a hell of a lot of resilience to be second. To be second best, but not give up. To be second in command, advising on big decisions but not aim for the top rung. To be the backing vocalist, never sing the lead and still sing, anyway.
The Importance Of Being Second
Business leaders talk often about the power of cohesive and supportive relationship between a Number One and a Number Two. Just the other day, I had this conversation with a Managing Director who talked about the value of his Number Two. Cohesive, supportive and encouraging relationships that are also commercially successful require shared mutual outlook, mutual benefit and a clear understanding of mutual strength and weakness. Both have unique responsibilities required for wise decision-making and management. Very few great leaders exist without one or many Number Twos. We make critical errors if we forget that Number Ones need Number Twos, or that Number Twos are as important as Number Ones.
I’ve had a chance to be a Number Two several times. They have been enriching, rewarding experiences and once, it was harrowing and soul-destroying. It’s not just how you think of yourself, or how a Number One thinks of you – but it’s also how the World perceives the value of the Kingmaker, versus the King. Yet, kingmakers are sought after by the wisest of those in positions of power. These leaders who surround themselves with other talented people empower and enjoy the success of the cohesive whole.
But how do you become a great Second?
I remember being 20 years old and driving home from a band practice with a girlfriend. It had been a particularly rough session where I wasn’t on top of my game. I asked her, being a musician and vocalist I really respected, if she thought I was actually talented at all. She said bravely, ‘Well, I think you’re good at what you do but you’ll never record an album or anything.’
Fifteen years later and I remember it clearly – the crisp smell of a cold Spring night creeping into the car and trying not to let the pain show. If I’d had a dream to record any songs of my own, it was stripped in that moment and took years to return. It’s the same feeling I had when I missed out on creative writing awards at school. Always good, but never the best – therefore unrecognized and out of mind.
The thing is, I didn’t want to be better than anybody else, I just wanted to be myself. But we see people and ourselves through the lens of talent competitions that determine talent and ability in ever decreasing circles, competing against one another instead of ourselves.
It takes a lot of resilience to live as second, without being to feel ‘not good enough’. To live as Second is not Second-Best. Second is a role, second is a position that has it’s own unique requirements. It’s not a judgement. The self-awareness required to understand yourself and your ability to be confident in your own talent is typically not nurtured early in our development, rather left to emerge as a result of character-building experiences. Those experiences might teach you your place in the natural order of things, but they don’t always result in a stronger sense of your own voice.
It takes a lot of courage to accept that success is not a pre-determined set of factors. In the same way we must do the work of establishing our unique voice, we must also define success in ways that are meaningful to us.
The challenge of our schooling structures is a substantial focus on identifying what students are best at by means of defining possible vocational choices. Rather than honing and developing ways for young people to establish expressions of their own talent and voice, we throw them into ranking examinations, grading and fierce competition often before we’ve helped them do the work of identity formation.
The more competitive your work environment, the harder it will be to do the work required to establish strong, healthy identity. People love stars, as long as they are delivering big wins. To be good at anything requires a consistent effort in a series of habits that are grounded in your unique talents. You might call this finding your voice.
Why is it so hard?
Because our culture does not understand what talent really is. It confuses talent with being the best of many versus being the best of one. On who can beat out the competition. Embracing your talent and your unique identity is embracing the strength to be second to some or even many but to be entirely yourself.
To know your voice and speak out loud, clearly. Philosophers have expressed this as ‘Know Thyself’. But we need to find spaces to do this work without a cultural demand for competition and a hierarchy of winners overtaking.
So become resiliant. Become sure of your voice, become sure of yourself and what you are capable of achieving from any position.
Second Is Not For Always.
There are some who thrive as Second, forming unique partnerships that deliver success in an ongoing way. But Second is not for always – as with so many things, position is a strategic choice. A healthy Number One/Number Two relationship might thrive and provide deep satisfaction commercially and in life but there may be times where you choose to take on a different kind of role. The resilience to be Number Two, alongside a constructive awareness of the different requirements gives you ample fuel to adapt and achieve in a variety of different roles.
Practical Advice:
- Get to grips with your unique abilities and strengths. Be sure of what you are really competent in.
- Practice working in teams and learn how you do that best.
- Find a great partner or Number One. Someone you have great chemistry with, trust and who increases your capability and influence. Someone who has different strengths than you.
- Define your strategy and goals – both achieving professional success by working together and supplementing the abilities of the other. Identify a goal you want to achieve.
- Work hard on a variety of projects and challenges, even side projects to flex your ability to support, encourage and enhance the capability of your twosome team.
- Check your ego on a regular basis – critical self-assessment, let your teammate observe and give constructive feedback and vice versa. Analyse and look for ways to improve your team communciation and outputs.
- Read and gather insights on personal development, leadership and strategy. Discuss with your teammate regularly. I’d suggest subscribing here for regular short bursts on the subject.
As someone who works with people in a leadership role, I am convinced that our job should be refinement of talent, not establishing talent. Those who encourage and lead others should give significant portions of their time and effort to helping people find their voice and unique expression. Our investment in people’s voice should be a commitment to fostering identity formation and growth. In giving people the resilience, confidence and self-awareness to be Second.
by tashmcgill | Dec 15, 2014 | Friendship, Health, Love & Marriage, Relationships
I wish I could say that I wisely hold back in loving the people around me. But it’s not true – I’ve never once been a ‘hold back on love’ kind of girl. Which means I’ve loved deeply and truly a bunch of times, but I can honestly say I’ve never been in love, not really.
And now it might be too late, because I’m falling out of love with the idea of falling in love. At least, in the way we think about it. The way the movies tell it, or at least, the way most movies tell it.
Was there ever a more unlikely couple than Steve Carell and Keira Knightley, confessing their love to one another as the world ended in the film ‘Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World’? But by the time the story reached an inevitable conclusion, it was obvious that neither character could have found a partner better matched. It was not a long list of shared interests and mutual sexual attraction that made their love story so compelling or so real – and it was, despite contrived circumstances, honest and truthful about what love can be.
Instead, they found in one another an honest, endearing, truthful and compassionate friendship. Both characters were able to be themselves and grew to a more honest and engaged individual when supported and encouraged by the other. They gently inspired one another to a better self.
But I believe that this what we should all be looking for, a friend for the end of the world who loves us as ourselves, rather than an idea of us. The friend who brings us home to ourselves with humility and the one who helps us feel capable of climbing mountains. It’s idealistic but that’s kind of beautiful – for a girl as smart as I am to recognize the naïve innocence of that desire and desire it anyway.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to pretend that chemistry and attraction aren’t a really big deal in successful relationships. But I also know from experience that the deepest attraction grows from the heart and mind. From the soul, I guess you could say.
True passion requires a lot of fuel, on an ongoing basis. I’ve watched love fade from the eyes of people who once couldn’t keep their hands off each other. If the sparks are your only fuel, you might fast run out of matches. True love takes a long time to grow. We confuse the possibility of love for Love itself and where we ought to nurture true and deep companionship, we burn out in a flash of heat and sparks.
And here’s the truth hidden in the detail of a movie of a story we should pay more attention to: sometimes the best friend we’ve been looking for our whole life is just within reach, within eye contact or a phone call. We just don’t recognize it when we’re busy looking for something that feels like love (sparks) but isn’t friendship.
The older I get, the less I’m looking for lusty sparks, I’m looking for a different kind of chemistry. One that is no less exciting, but a little more substantial. Is there a chance we can share a common outlook? Is there a chance I could care about you more than myself? It is probably a terrible sign for my love life, but the truth is I’m no longer looking for a fairy-tale kind of love story. I’m seeking a friend for the end of the world and that makes dating even more of a challenge. The more experience you have of what true Love looks like, the more you are able to recognize what is good and what is not worth holding on to.
In the same way you might study Van Gogh originals to best recognize a forgery, once you’ve recognized the kind of life-changing love that can be experienced in the embrace of a true deep friend, everything else feels like a cheap knock-off. I have too much good love in my life already, so it feels intimidating and impossible to start from scratch.
I’m looking for someone who can follow the sub-text of a conversation, who shares the meta-narrative, the one I laugh with like no one else and who embraces my sentimental, romantic nature. While I don’t believe that any one love can meet all our needs, I’m looking for my best friend and the one who knows I’m theirs.
Here’s why: if anybody is going to stand a chance in making love work for longer than the sparks do, it will be those who are friends and continue to nurture that friendship and relationship above all things. That’s what I’ve learned watching my parents, my friends and dozens of disasters.
I’m talking about the kind of friendship where trials and triumph matter as much to you as to your friend and layers of sub-text and meta-narrative accompany every experience. Where trivial moments of laughter, bad humour and everyday experiences meld effortlessly into what matters and what does not. Sometimes the deepest friendships appear shallow because the foundation is so deep. A deep foundation that anchors people to a common outlook is the richest and best kind of love, no matter who it is shared between.
While I would gladly embrace the heat and spark of new love, I can’t wait for old love. I’d give anything to fall in love with someone who already knows my best stories, my deepest hopes and maddest dreams. I’d love to fall in love with a friend and skip ahead to holding hands.
