Latest / SECOND CLOCK™ / SEASON 8 | FINDING OUR WAY

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SEASON 8 | FINDING OUR WAY · SECOND CLOCK™

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What if you learned that the time was always now to make a
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choice, change direction, choose you.
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But where do you start and how will you know when you got
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there? That's what the second clock is.
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It's a time to try, the chance to experience everything you
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wish you had but haven't yet. A time to re evaluate where you
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are and where you're headed while letting go of ideas of
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what you should be doing, who you think you need to be, and
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realize who you are Now. Join me, click follow, like and
0:31
subscribe and let's see where this leads.
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I had the most fun conversations with this friend of mine.
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She's a new friend and sometimes we compare notes about our
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similarities and our differences, the way we think,
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the way we operate and the way we view relationships.
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And this morning we were discussing our childhood and how
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I had gone to the same school my whole life and I learned to fit
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in. I learned to be friends with
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everybody. And how her childhood was
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different. She moved schools a lot and she
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learned to be discerning. She learned not to try to fit
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in. She learned to observe instead,
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and at some point in her childhood she was able to
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detach. Detach from associating her need
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to be included or seen or understood or accepted, and just
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be good. Good with herself, good with her
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group. She kept her group small.
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She took her time choosing friends and I guess trust became
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paramount. I wish I had grown up with those
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circumstances because as we talked, we discussed how she had
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cat energy and I had puppy energy.
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That plays a lot into me trying to fit in.
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When I was younger, I learned how to breed situations, try to
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find my way in, try to fit in, try to make people feel
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comfortable, heard, understood, valued.
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I became a cheerleader. Not really, but with my friends,
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with everyone. Just this past week, I was
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working on a group project with some moms at my son's school.
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I had volunteered. Normally, I don't volunteer.
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OK, let me say that again. I never volunteer.
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Partly because I don't have the time, or I don't want to
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dedicate the time to something that's not right for me,
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something that's going to make me uncomfortable.
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But this task was right up my alley.
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It was an event design. I was like, I can do that.
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After all, I've dedicated the last 20 years or so to being
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involved in events, so I figured why not?
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When setup day came, I brought a friend along, just some helping
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hands, and he observed the situation from afar.
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I was there with other moms, putting things together, setting
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things up, delegating, getting my hands dirty as I like to.
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And later, I asked my friend to tell me his observations of the
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group dynamic because sometimes I don't read situations as they
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are, I assume, or I miss big details.
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And he said, you seem like you want to bring everyone together.
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You were kind of making it like a sorority, including everyone,
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cheering everybody on. And I was like, yeah, that's
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pretty accurate. But why do I do that?
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Why does anyone do that? And I thought back to when I was
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younger, when I was younger, I would go out of my way to find
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similarities with everybody. Maybe it's because I just wanted
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everybody to feel like they mattered.
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And I think ultimately, we all do have similarities.
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There is common ground between all of us if we're curious
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enough. And I guess I was, but the flip
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side was that I wasn't choosing for me.
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I was choosing for the collective or for the
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connection. And I think for the short term
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that can be seen as an asset. But I think overall it slowed
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down the process of understanding what it is that
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truly mattered. And when I spoke to my friend
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this morning, she was explaining how different she approaches
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relationships and connections, how going to all these different
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schools made her the oddball out at times, or misunderstood or
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not understood at all. People weren't taking the time
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to get to know her, they were just assuming.
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And that's something that so many of us do, no matter what
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age we are. We just figure that we know this
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person, we know exactly what they're like, and we judge and
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we usually misjudge. Now for my friend, in a way, it
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benefited her. At an early age, she realized
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other people's opinions don't matter as much as her own, and
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because these people were so opinionated, she needed to trust
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herself. She wasn't as caught up in
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getting other people to approve of her.
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Instead, she paved her own way. When I asked her if she thought
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that her cat energy was nature versus nurture, she said, I
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think people are just Born This Way.
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But as the conversation continued, I now beg to differ.
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As she spoke, she reminded me of my son.
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When my son was at his first elementary school, he had puppy
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energy. He just wanted to be liked.
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He got along with everybody. He found common ground with all,
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but I didn't like the choices he was making.
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I didn't like the friends that were gravitating towards him.
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I just felt like maybe these weren't his people and he wasn't
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being challenged enough academically.
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So when the opportunity came for him to move schools, we took it.
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He moved to another school, and there, I can't say he built a
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great community, but he did walk away with one friend, a friend
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that at first he wouldn't consider a friend, But then one
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day it shifted. I guess time helped.
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Time helped him get to know this kid, the real kid.
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And then my son moved schools again, this time to school
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really close to our house. He spent several years there
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until he went off to high school, and by now he was
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accustomed to moving, accustomed to finding new people, new
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friends. But something was different.
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He didn't have that same need to fit in.
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He just was OK with what was. He let things evolve slowly.
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He saw friendships for what they were, time spent in school,
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passing time. And when he went on to high
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school, he didn't really keep in touch with his friends from
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middle school. And then in high school, he made
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new friends. He started to form opinions on
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what he believes and find people that were aligned.
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He started to understand his interests better, figure out how
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to spend his time. And I realized that by him
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moving school so many times gave him that opportunity.
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I had the opposite situation growing up.
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I went to the same school from first grade to 9th grade, and by
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10th grade I went to boarding school, but not for long.
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I missed my familiar life too much.
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I was too accustomed to being with those same people that I
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had known since first grade. I felt like they were my family.
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I felt like I wasn't understood unless I was with them.
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I think a lot of people have this, this idea that who you've
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known for so long matters, that it just becomes the fabric of
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who you are. I have a friend, she's got a
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very big family, like very large, and her whole life she
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grew up knowing that these are her people, her tribe.
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So the thought of it not being true, the thought of her not
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fitting in with her tribe wouldn't even cross her mind.
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How could that be? How could she be different from
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the people that she grew up with, the people that are just
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like her, with similar families and experiences and heritage?
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But she's learning little by little that maybe she's changing
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or maybe she never was what she thought she was.
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She was never aligned. She just did what she could to
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fit in because that's what you have to do when the situation is
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set. That's what I did when I was
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little. Then in first grade, I met my
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friends that were going to be my friends for over a decade.
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I didn't have that opportunity to get uncomfortable in a new
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school setting, find people that I actually chose.
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These people in my class were chosen for me, and I froze to
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the occasion, accepted the challenge of making do with what
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I had, and that meant becoming friends with everybody, no
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matter the cost. And if somebody took what I said
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and twisted it and then told somebody else it to gain social
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favor, that was par for the course.
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We were all doing that in some way.
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If loyalty was lost, I just accepted it and figured, well,
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they're like family. They got a hall pass again and
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again, and it eroded what I thought about when it came to
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trust, what it came to my belief in loyalty.
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I think there my ideas were stunted.
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I'd given out so many hall passes and to be fair, all my
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friends had at one time or another.
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All my friends had spoken poorly about another and then got found
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out and became friends again. Reconciliation became part of
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the norm. Share secrets, then get found
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out, and then everything goes back to normal.
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It really did become like a family.
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But all that, it wasn't normal. It was flawed.
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Fundamentally flawed. How do you learn trust when you
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can't share anything without expecting that it's going to be
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repeated? Even when you think some of the
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information you're sharing is sacred?
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How can you build loyalty when loyalty moves like a chess piece
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around the board and sometimes you just find yourself becoming
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a pawn in somebody else's social game?
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It's all very confusing. And for a child navigating it
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like I was, I think I just relented.
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Relented to whatever, whatever was given.
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And for my other friend and my son, things were different.
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They stood back. They were observant.
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They didn't feel the need to try.
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I think trying didn't get them anywhere.
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And I think they learned that early that it was better to just
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kind of lay back, see what made sense for them, actually for
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them, and then proceed. But that means that there's
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uncomfortable days, days without fitting in, days spent eating
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alone at lunch. For some people, that's too much
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to bear. That feeling of isolation,
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feeling of being outcast or misunderstood.
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All the awkwardness that comes with those feelings that you
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make choices, choices that may not serve you in the long run.
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I can now look back on my childhood and understand where I
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made missteps, understand where I didn't see a situation
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clearly. I didn't understand the rules of
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the game. I didn't realize that I was in a
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game. And I think I understand what it
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feels like now to want to get uncomfortable, want to try new
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things, want to be misunderstood and accept it.
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Accept that not everybody is going to get you.
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You're not everybody's cup of tea.
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And instead, find your people, find your way.
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And in the process, you find what matters.
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You understand that you can let go, let go of this need to fit
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in, be understood. Maybe it's OK to not be.
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Maybe it's OK to be a little awkward because coming from
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somebody that went to every great length to be understood,
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fit in, try be accepted, accept others, I can't say I benefited
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greatly. I can't say that those
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friendships were real. Maybe they were manufactured
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instead. And maybe now that's not right.
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I think I want things that are right.
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I think at the core, that's all we want, for things to feel
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real, for us to feel good. And I guess it's as simple as
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making choices that are right. And sometimes they don't happen
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quickly. Sometimes they take time and
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sometimes you need to step back and observe, and maybe from that
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you'll see something you hadn't seen before, you hadn't given
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yourself the opportunity to see before.
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Maybe you'll understand yourself just a little bit better, what
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it is that you're looking for, what it is that you truly need
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or want. Sometimes we're just looking for
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distractions, ways to pass time. And sometimes when you give
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yourself that pause, you realize that the people you're around
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maybe are just around. Maybe they don't need as much
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attention as you were giving them.
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Maybe you need to put attention somewhere else.
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And finding that place, well, it starts with finding space.
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Finding space in your daily life, my friend.
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When we talked about cat energy versus puppy energy, she was
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right. I possessed a lot of puppy
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energy my whole life. It's what I did to get through.
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I don't think that it was nature.
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I think now it was nurture. It was what I had to do to fit
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in. And for her, she sat back, she
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watched, she waited. She figured things out at her
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pace, and that's the cat. So maybe that's all it is.
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Lie and wait. And as you do, you learn.
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You see things, patterns, problems.
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And maybe it's there that we'll find the cat that lives in us
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all. Thanks for listening.
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These episodes are unscripted. They're my free flowing thoughts
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as I reflect back on past conversations, experiences, what
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I've learned, would like to do better, and what's next.
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Join me on Thursdays for new episodes and catch up on past
16:24
episodes. Click follow, like and
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subscribe. And let's see where this leads.