by tashmcgill | Nov 6, 2015 | Culture & Ideas
Dear Self.
It’s no wonder you’ve waited every year for birthday magic to appear. When the sky lights up the night before, fireworks soaring over the horizon, it’s no surprise your heart beats with expectation, you dare to hope for a little wonder in the morning.
Year after year, the clock ticks in its own strange rhythm. Perfectly on time, but imperfectly cadenced. A syncopation that never quite lands on the beat. You turn another page, another year older.
In November every year, you give thanks and then count down til Christmas and the New Year – always wondering, hoping, praying that this year will be better than the last. In the coming year, you might be more yourself, find the peace that eludes you, the love you long for.
As if life is a jigsaw puzzle you’re stuck on, that you cannot complete without the final pieces – you’re hoping each year to find the cornerstones that will help it all make sense. Every year around November, when the change and the countdown to another chance at your 12 months begins – you consider yourself once more.
Self, you are more of you than you were 12 months ago.
When this year broke into dawn, you were still thinking of yourself as Incomplete but now you know you’re just Unfinished. There is more to come. There are many more ‘and thens’ to follow and you are unafraid. No longer trapped in fear of ‘The End’, you know there will always be an ‘And Then’.
You are embracing and becoming your True Self – learning to speak what you want and believe out loud. You could probably do with a lesson or two in not letting all those desires and emotions walk across your face. They walk like a herd of elephants, unstoppable. But your heart on your sleeve has felt like finally being able to breathe instead of forcing a poker face when you want to cry.
You read an article on the train that said it showed greater strength of character to cry than it did to merely comply with misery and the words felt like rain on parched earth. For the first time you felt no shame at having a feeling. When every tear you’ve cried in every year past has felt like the mark of failure, this year’s tears have been the current pulling you towards hope.
Earlier, you felt adrift – cast off from shore by trusted confidantes. This year, you’ve known betrayal and abandonment that echoed the fear you knew as a child but you stand, stronger because you realise the power of knowing.
Woman, unfinished but not incomplete – in knowing what is true and what is not you are able to embrace yourself and unshackle yourself from the burdens that anchored you to shore in unsafe harbours.
Adrift on the ocean is only a place for fear if you do not trust the wind and the wave.
Breathe deep. Go to the top of your mountain and watch the sun and the sea. Breathe.
Go and bathe in the river, until you emerge baptised again in Self and Spirit.
Be one with the land of your birth, the sea and the sky and you will learn you have nothing to fear from the wind or the wave.
This time last year, you counted some as friends that you no longer rely on. The unimaginable grief you have weathered with so few words. To imagine again what is lost to you, yet you carry on to smile for those who show no sign of understanding how they have wounded you. You have learned to not hold tightly by letting go.
You have learned again, the wonder and power of your own voice. That voice that never faltered in confidence when you were young. It only shook as you grew older and realised the great weight of air you had to project your own words through. You have learned that even when voiceless you found the courage to speak and therefore now, grown and strong – I’m begging you to just open your lips; the stamina and strength of your early defeat will carry you to triumph.
Not a triumph of acclaim, but a quiet inner conquering – to know that the False Self – so frail, insecure, afraid, stoic but also undone is now buried in the dust and dirt of the Valley. Only the True Self remains.
You learned there were some secrets for keeping and you buried them in a field; where only treasure-seekers will find them.
In the morning, remember that you are free from the shackles of pre-defined identity even though you remember the weight of the chains on your hands and feet.
You grieved your unborn children and your unknown lovers. Walked through failing at the tests you ought to have sailed past and continued walking. Head held high and making eye contact, stripping shame of its power in each step. You reconciled the more you grow in wisdom; the quicker you find your loneliness. But that is a comforting thought, because the truth you have always longed for is more evident now than ever. Your compass points true North.
You chased hope, lost it and kept walking anyway. You have wandered down the dark alleys and enjoyed the danger there.
You are more remarkable than anyone knows – precisely because of how much you let them see, when there is still an ocean beneath the surface of the sea.
In the dark and the secret, you have let others rest in your comfort, you have laughed and let others feel powerful in your weakness. You have shared vulnerability – you are gloriously wretched and righteous in perfect paradox.
The fireworks are slowing down. The night is about to reach into tomorrow. Remarkable woman, you are not a year older tomorrow, you are a year closer.
A year closer to a good death, preceded by an above-average life. The sum of day; not the minutes or the billable hours but the vast expanse of your ideas; a word spoken here and there. A year closer to finished, whatever that looks like. Another year of self-discovery and generosity to come. You are not undone or incomplete: despite the creases, wrinkles and the age of you.
You are Unfinished because you know what you do not know. Some of us are Done and still Incomplete; they have ceased to grow but you know, that roots must push out until they find water. A woman must turn herself to the sun if she longs for the light. She must find water when thirsty. She must go to the mountain-top and bury what is finished in the dust of the valley.
Tomorrow, you will not wake in the arms of a lover or be wrapped in magic as the movies tell it. Bouquets of flowers will not appear but small and beautiful encounters will be treasured as they unfold. As any day begins unfinished, you will begin again. The magic will be in you, even if you are the only one who knows. You will wake baptised again.
Not another year older, but another year closer. To the woman unfinished, there is more to come.
by tashmcgill | Oct 7, 2015 | Culture & Ideas
I can hardly breathe when she’s in the room. I’m overwhelmed with a sense of envy and admiration for this woman.
She is intoxicating, infuriating, complex and yet astonishingly simple. A walking paradox. She is loved – loved so hard, and by so many. I’m envious of how I imagine she is loved.
Perhaps because I’m the only one who really knows her, where to trace lines of invisible ache, where to find hidden tattoos – I love her and loathe her. I’m compelled by her presence but it’s a bad romance – one I need to leave but can’t walk away from.
She is I, yet not I.
She is only the projection of the woman I’d like to be; the False Self magnified in perfection. She is just who I imagined I would become instead of who I am. When I see glimpses of her in others; I’m filled with love and contempt at once. She’s good, so good. She’s less selfish than I am, better and smarter than I am.
People invite her to dinner and are proud to have her in their company. They listen to the words that fall from her lips, longing for one of her smiles or her embrace. They find her wise and life-giving and the work of her hands bring richness and joy to their lives. She is content with herself, utterly at home in her skin and her own sense of self-assurance invites people into comfort with themselves.
I’m the jealous type – envious of the woman I always wanted to be. Envious of the woman some people think I am. I’m envious because I know the truth. I’m jealous of her because when she is present I am all too aware of my own failings. I am not the best at what I do. I am not selfless in the way she is, I am not as innately good as she is, I am a shadow in comparison to her.
She is phenomenal. Most importantly, she has earned the goodwill of those whom I admire. I am average. I have not earned it. I know the truth of my failings. I know the difference between my aspirations and my reality.
My true self is not as I thought I was. I thought I was funnier, smarter, stronger, more desirable and ultimately – I thought I was better than I am.
The True Self.
It’s easy to change the projection of ourselves we share with the world. A change of hair colour or clothing style, even the application of a little lipstick here and there – it’s a little smoke and mirrors magic we use to sway opinion, to create a little power here and there.
But living well is only found in authenticity. We can only grow what’s true, what’s grafted to the vine – that which has true life. So despite our best intentions, you can’t ‘fake it til you make it’ when it comes to yourself. You can only embrace the truth and grow from there, no matter how uncomfortable or unpleasant or disappointing it may be.
It is not the end. I am not finished becoming. But my true self is not as I thought I was. I thought I was funnier, smarter, stronger, more desirable and ultimately – I thought I was better than I am. My starting point is not what I thought it was.
I live with jealousy and envy of the woman I thought I would become and wanted to be. In embracing my True Self, I have to let her go but I find she lives on in my imagination day after day. She follows me into conversations and meetings, on adventures and into real life.
That’s when I realise – She is the shadow and I am the True Self. I breathe, she does not. She is static – only ever in two dimensions because she is not true, therefore she cannot grow. She is not real nor authentic. I am the living one. I turn my envy to anticipation of who this True Self, average woman will become. I have not imagined her yet and therefore I desire to meet her.
by tashmcgill | Jun 29, 2015 | Spirituality, Youth Work
When I was let go from the youth ministry job I had loved so dearly, one of the Board said to me, ‘Well, it’s probably for the best, your business seems to be going well so you should probably just focus on that.’
It’s taken me seven long years to realise that he was accidentally right. With stumbling words that pricked and stung, he cut to the heart of it and said something so brutally true my idealist heart didn’t want to believe it. And in the end, the only reason it stung was because my pride was on the line. Now I’ve learned, it’s exactly what I need to focus on.
I was 15 years old when I drank the Kool-Aid and believed that my life would only be truly meaningful if I was a minister, a youth worker, a preacher or teacher. Then (and only then) I would feel satisfied and worthy. My vocation was only meaningful in so far as it was meaningful to the Church. You can hardly blame me – I sat through my share of sermons focused on how to become world-changing or the world’s greatest missionary. I did all the courses and quizzes on personality and spiritual gifts. I took every leadership course because you’re only as significant as your leadership role and I was inspired and intimidated by every testimony I heard, wondering how I was to ever live up to the expectations. Maybe not when I was 15 or 16, but by 17 years old, those inspirational programs were a weight of expectation I had set myself. And ambition. It was ambition too. That’s nearly 20 years of ambition right there.
So I did it. I’ve been youth worker, pastor, creative minister and worship leader. I’ve been in Christian ministry writing youth programs, training seminars, hosting radio shows and music festivals. I’ve done it all, relentlessly believing that I was pursuing meaning in making a difference. There are not many things I set my mind to that I don’t achieve.
What kind of significance was that? I’ve always been ambitious. I want to change the way people think – but changing the thinking of the middle-class, largely white, Western evangelical church through Sunday services and events? That’s not enough for me. It’s never been enough.
Here’s the truth: I’ve wanted it all and tried to have it both ways.
I wanted to be significant in the Church and to her people but I want it in the world too. In fact, I think I want it out there more.
My old friend’s hard truth stings me here. It’s not because the Church doesn’t please me. It’s my ego that wanted the Church to love me back.
Like an unrequited love, I wanted her to need me just a little bit more while I pursued the attention of the world. So much so that every commercial success I’ve had, I’ve tried to turn back into something for the Church. Because if the Church doesn’t find me worthy, how could God and what does any of it mean?
I’m finally accepting that we’re a bad romance because of me. It’s not that the Church doesn’t want me. The Church doesn’t always know what to do with me but the truth is I want more because the Church is not enough for me. I want the world. I want to influence world leaders and titans of industry whether it’s through the ad business, strategy, politics, TV or hospitality.
I want to be the place and person people come to ready for truth, ready to eat, drink, laugh and make decisions that really change things. I’ve got a long way to go. There’s just a spark of wisdom in me now but I intend to stoke a raging fire. The world is just beginning to catch alight.
Confession: I’ve spent many years being or trying to be bi-vocational because I’ve wrestled with my lack of meaning and significance outside of the Church. Slowly, I’ve done less and less inside the Church and the Church wants (needs) less and less of me. I’ve struggled to find a meaning. I’ve screamed, cried, raged and fought to be held on to, I’ve wanted so badly to find meaning there because I haven’t wanted to be one of my generation who have given up. All the while being almost ungrateful for all else I’ve been able to do. While I’ve wanted more from the Church, I’ve almost failed to see everything I’ve been given.
Still, here’s a little snippet of what I’ve been working on the past few years:
- Digital strategy and lead for New Zealand’s largest global exporter Fonterra
- I work for the greatest digital agency in New Zealand (Digital Arts Network), part of a global advertising agency (TBWA\Worldwide) that kick ass, two years ahead of my planned schedule
- I lead the Tourism New Zealand digital work including business planning, digital and content strategy on a daily basis www.newzealand.com
- I was able to work on and then lead the brand refresh for 100% Pure New Zealand, the longest running and most successful tourism marketing campaign in the world, in a ground-breaking piece of typography and fully integrated digital design system
- Oh yeah, I did get to work on this amazing Bible project thanks to Marko.
To Be Good At It
I want to be good at the business of Church. I can’t stand not being good at anything I set my hand to but truthfully, it’s time I wholeheartedly accept the advice I was given all that time ago. Focus on finding – no, making meaning in what’s in my hand.
A few clarifying statements
- I’m not leaving the Church
- I still love the Church
- I still want to influence the Church
- I’ll influence from outside, not inside
We revisit the things that matter our whole lives, over and over. So truthfully, pieces of this understanding have been emerging throughout my life for a long time. I’ve written about medicine men and chiefs before, knowing full well I’m a medicine man. I’ve been hoping by some miracle, I was still going to get the ego fix I wanted and the Church would chase after me with open arms, claim me as her own. So I’m revisiting again, embracing her again – no, not the Church, but She who is I. Wondrous, mysterious, powerful, wise and intense creature that she is. Medicine woman, earth mother and messenger.
I have wanted the Church to be my ahi kaa, the home fire. Here’s the truth though – I take my ahi kaa with me and any one who gathers around my table, my fireplace, my whisky circle or round my boardtable sits there with me. There are a few other fires I want to go sit beside too.
“Kia mura tonu nga ahi kaa mo te matemateaone”
Keep the home fires burning, so loved ones will always return.
The beauty is, I think the Church will still want to hear my stories when I come through her gates.
She’ll still like my provocative, challenging ways and wrestle with what to do and say.
I’ve got a long way to go. There’s just a spark of wisdom in me now but I intend to stoke a raging fire. The world is just beginning to catch alight.
Kure kwandinoenda, asi ndichakusvika chete – Where we are going is far, but we will eventually get there.
by tashmcgill | Dec 30, 2014 | Bodies, Community, Culture & Ideas, Friendship, Mind, Relationships
Your friend is your needs answered.
He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.
And he is your board and your fireside.
For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace.
There is family; whom you cannot choose and there is fraternity – the brothers and sisters you do choose.
Do I value friendship over all other things? Yes. Friendship – true, complete companionship outlasts all. Friendship is the root of love. You depend on your friend, but you are not dependent on him. It is in friendship that we learn to see someone fully as they are, we learn how to live with the differences between us and remain loyal regardless. We learn to see the truth of people rather than our ideal of them. Friendship will outlast romance, marriages, the birth and death of children, the death and decay of lovers, career changes. Friendship is a paradox – to hold another so close in your heart yet not be dependent entirely on them in the same way we need a spouse. Friendship spans continents and endures the years.
We live in a complex culture, hindered by lack of inhibition yet a proliferation of obstacles to true friendship between men and women. But if we are to navigate this complex culture, we must do with the art of friendship high in our priority. Not just friendship between like of our like, but friendship between the genders (and transgender). More than ever, men and women need to understand one another and engage with each other in meaningful ways outside the limitations of potential partnership and sexual liaison. (more…)
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.