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You’re Here and It Sucks. Now What? – Transcript

by Angela McConnell

(Edited for length and clarity)

Intro

I'm Angela Lopez. I'm a leadership coach for heart-centered women leaders who are awakening to, or curious about conscious leadership.

A fun fact about me is that I am a mountain biker, who appreciates gear and clothing that basically just disappear because it fits and functions really well. My favourite pair of mountain biking shorts are not only as light as a feather, but they're covered with peacock feathers.

I reside and work on land that occupies the ancestral, traditional, and contemporary lands of Cayuse, Umatilla, Walla Walla, Atfalati and Kalapuya. In offering this land acknowledgement, I am affirming indigenous sovereignty, history and experiences.

You’re all here to hear about this topic that sounds incredibly depressing. I'm going to start by sharing a story of a time when I found myself in this place with you.

Aged 8: I Had My Life’s Purpose Figured Out

When I was eight years old, I had my life all figured out. After months and months of deep and thoughtful contemplation, I'd finally figured out the holy grail, what I wanted to be when I grew up.

So, I marched myself into the house, planted my foot triumphantly down on the ground and staked my claim to my future and to my parents: "I want to be a marine biologist!" I mean, for me, as a kid who basically the world stopped for, when Jacques Cousteau was on TV, it's kind of obvious, right?

My parents though, were far less enthusiastic than me. They were like, "Well, we live in Montana, so that's going to be kind of hard for you."

Then I came up with a new plan. "Okay, I'll be an astronaut." And my parents said, "Well, that's not practical because we live in Montana and astronauts are white males, and you're neither of those things."

This was in the 1980s, so we actually hadn't had our first woman astronaut, Sally Ride. But my parents trying to be helpful, said, "Well, you like science. Maybe you could teach it instead of doing it in space or under the water."

Sounded reasonable. So I went, "Eh, okay." And then I became a science teacher.

I was excited about it. I mean, I loved lab days. I loved helping kids be like real scientists. They'd hook up their probes and collect data in real time. They'd figure out what it meant, and they'd figure out why it mattered. I helped kids do service learning projects where they surveyed debris on beaches, and then studied how it affected the local whale population.

I got to see kids in my classroom who walked in through the door saying, "Ah, I hate science class," transform into kids who went back home to their parents at the end of the year and told them what kind of scientists they were going to be.

I felt really accomplished. I'd done the thing that I was supposed to do, and it was creating an impact. And even though that was happening, it was creating all this amazing impact, I dreaded it.

Sunday nights, well, they were like torture. And at the end of every day, my bucket was just empty, like the bottom had been cut out. I was dangerously close to getting bitter. I was depleted, exhausted, reluctant, procrastinating, and complacent.

There was absolutely no zest in my work. It was flat, bland, and yucky to me. And I started to realize, oh shit, this isn't what I want.

Ever since that conversation in the early 80s when my parents gently redirected me from marine biology to being a science teacher, I'd been pursuing this goal. I was stuck in the "you have to," and I just got so busy in the doing, the earning of credentials, the daily grind of teaching, that my drive just took over. I never even stopped to look at whether I liked where I was driving to. I couldn't believe it. I had done everything right. I had followed the rules, I did the thing that made my Dad happy.

So, what the heck didn't it work for me?

Climbing Someone Else’s Mountain

When I looked back, I realized that I was living my Dad's dream more than mine. Because when I was a really, really little kid, my Dad was super passionate about education and making sure that everybody had access to it.

I used to go with him to talk with migrant families. And his job was to make sure that kids were enrolled in school. And even though that was part of his job, he probably would've done it for free.

Now later on, he went on to work in schools. He was a counsellor and then he became a principal and administrator. He could not have been more pleased -- his word -- and proud of me being a teacher. I just remember the love on his face when he would say to me, "Ange, you're the only one of the four girls who went into education, and you're one of the really good teachers."

Even though I didn't like it, staying just seemed so reasonable because I'd already spent so many years building credentials, experience, and expertise. I stayed for 16 years. But I secretly kind of hated it. I got further and further away from that passionate little girl who was so excited about marine biology despite never actually having seen the ocean other than on TV.

And I'm not alone, right? You all are here at a talk called "You're Here and It Sucks. Now what?" for a reason.

You've all been in that position where we climb the mountain with the best of intentions and then find ourselves at the top with a mediocre view and Clif bars just strewn all around from the other hikers. The mountain climb that we thought would set us up for success in life just doesn't feel worth it at all.

My Intentions Were Great, So What Went Wrong?

So, what went wrong? There was enough of what we wanted to get us to this point. In some cases money, prestige, societal narrative, for me, family expectations, that old story of who you hold yourself to be.

Maybe it was belonging to some club or not belonging to another club. There's also the sunk cost fallacy. For me, well, I already did six years of education school, passed the licenses and exams.

Truly, we never even asked ourselves what we wanted in the first place. Or maybe we thought something better or different was impossible. Maybe we couldn't find a way to do it, or we never even stopped to consider that there could be another way.

Without realizing it, all of us, just like me, divorced ourselves from who we truly are, and who we want to be. We were coming at our lives from the outside in. We were letting other people define what we were doing, what we wanted, what we said yes to, and we surrendered our no's.

This resulted in us being away from the person that our soul came to be, and that's the problem. We need to turn inwards and learn to love ourselves again, so that we can generate our next mountain from the inside out.

How to Find Resonance & Fulfillment In Our Lives

To build a life from the inside out, we need to focus on two things, resonance and fulfillment. These things are what's really going to help you sleep at night. No more, "I have to keep going." And no more overwhelm. Finding yourself in that place of, "I just can't do this anymore."

Let's start by talking about resonance. Think about how it felt when you climbed that mountain that you secretly didn't want. It was terrible, right? You were out of sync. It was noisy, there were bad vibrations. This is a state of dissonance, where nothing quite lines up the way that it should.

Then there's resonance. And that's what you were looking for at the top of that mountain. Resonance is when everything is aligned, harmonious, and starting to feel right. In resonance, there's flow and connection, authenticity, and a sense of ease.

Your day is filled, not with things that you have to do, but things that you're enjoying, and you just feel lit up. It's a feeling of leadership. That our actions are lining up with our true desires and our values, and we can start leading ourselves from this space.

And this is a picture of what resonance feels like for me. It's a picture of me and my sisters getting ready to spend the day in nature. Getting up early in the morning and doing literally whatever we felt like. Wherever nature pulled us, we went. It was about doing what resonated in the moment for us.

On this day, we were just having a great day. I was with my three best friends. We had nothing to do, just all this freedom. And we got to immerse ourselves in the animals and the beauty.

So, this photo is a great representation of resonance. When I look at the photo, I can feel it in my body the love, the freedom, the excitement. It was so good and so easy in those days and those moments. And that's what resonance is.

I've got three questions for you, and I would love for you to answer. When in your life have you felt resonance, the way I felt it on the ranch or in that picture with my sisters?

What do you notice right now in your body as you think about these things that help you feel resonance?

On a scale of one to 10 and no sevens, how resonant is your overall experience these days?

If your rating is below a six, then you know you've got some work to do to move into a place of greater resonance. And if you're at an eight or above, that is wonderful and inspiring because it's rare and precious. Please keep doing exactly what you're doing.

Now let's talk about fulfillment. Part of the challenge is that we've been focusing on this mountain or the achievement that the mountain represents, but achievement isn't what makes us feel fulfilled.

There's this great quote from Doris Baumann and Willibald Ruch, a psychologist at the University of Zurich in Switzerland who do research on fulfillment. And they say,

But what they mean by worthy is pursuing projects that personally matter and are meaningful to you. Making a positive difference, leaving something of value. You want these things to be important to you later in life, not just this week, but something that makes a lasting difference.

When in your life have you felt fulfilled? And if you can't think of a time that you yourself have felt fulfilled, maybe you've been around someone who has. They might be a mentor or a role model. When you think of them, you probably think of them because they represent something, like a way of being that you aspire to. Think about what it's like to be around them.

Think about what work is worthy of your time, attention and gifts. Think about it through that lens of fulfillment.

On a scale of one to 10, again, no sevens, how fulfilled are you these days overall? If your rating is below a six, then you know you've got some work to do. You can move into a place of more fulfillment.

If you're at an eight or above, truly, I'm so happy for you because this is inspiring, it's rare and precious, and it's really important that you keep doing what you're doing. Because you're giving permission to everyone who's below a six to do what they need to do and to follow in your footsteps.

We're working towards a new inside out vision of your life that's built on the concepts of resonance and fulfillment. And this is pretty high in the sky in theoretical nonsense. And remember, I'm a science teacher, so I want the instructions for how to do the lab to be crystal clear. So how do you actually do it?

Step #1 – What Got You Here?

We'll start with looking at how we got here in a little more detail.

What got me here? And remember, you're coming from this place of, oh shit, this isn't what I want because it wasn't what we wanted, but there was enough of what we wanted in there to get us to this point. So, let's pay attention to that.

Now we all know about the carrot, the carrot and the cart. What part of the carrot did you want? Or go one layer deeper, and consider what did it represent or offer for you?

See if you can figure out what that mountain really meant for your life.

Was it approval?
Was it easy or something that you knew you could achieve without extending yourself?
Was it safety?

Some of you might have an instantaneous answer to that question, just like I had when I was eight years old about being a marine biologist. And some of you might not have a clear answer yet.

Step #2 – What Do You Want Now?

What do you want now? And what do you know about what you want? You don't have an answer, or maybe you're still in the oh shit phase.

It's okay if you only have part of the answer. You can work with what you do know. Whatever your usual way of operating is, in other words, the way you got here, do the exact opposite.

So, if you are go, go, go, give yourself grace to just find the answer or truth and counter that energy to go, go, go and get, get, get. Give yourself pause.

If you're always listening to everyone else's advice, don't you dare. Because your internal will gets to be engaged here. Now, it might come out of the gate screaming with ideas for you, or it might be very quiet. It might take some cultivation, because after a lifetime of your usual way of doing things, it might not switch in 20 minutes.

We've been talking about uncovering what led us to the place that we don't want to be, and then figuring out what we actually want instead.

The next step is to figure out how to get where we actually want to go. So how do you get there?

Step #3 – How Do You Get There?

The first thing is take baby steps, because we often feel really overwhelmed by too many possibilities if we don't have a clear path or an approach. You can also take the leap of faith and just know that the step will be provided for you.

It's Kurt Vonnegut who said,

Four Ways to Take The Leap Into Resonant Fulfillment

No idea how to do that? Well, the good news is I've got four ways for you to learn how to trust yourself, and take the leap and to resonant fulfillment. Let's talk about each of these.

The first thing you can do is become friends with your heart again and allow it to weigh in on your decisions.

Can you tune into your heart, or is there a blank void of nothingness where your heart should be? Here are some exercises to help you connect to your heart if you're not someone who can tune in automatically.

Think about the thing you want, the self-defined mountain that you want to climb. Now, some of you might not have that yet, so if not, just think about the mountain you already climbed, the one that you didn't like in the end.

As you think about it, notice where the energy is in your body. What does it feel like? Is there a sense of movement or motion? Is it just a sensation? It may be a feeling, it could also be a taste. Some people actually hear songs start playing. It could be a scent or a smell memory. Or if it's that mountain that you already climbed, it might show up like a spiky ball. Just noticing it is the start.

As you tune into that thing that you sense, try to focus on it more tonight. You can talk to yourself out loud. I notice, oh, when I'm anxious, there's a feeling of heat and it's right here, where my ribs come together. You can journal about it if you're someone that journals. Just be open to it. Because whatever it is that it takes for you to take this invitation and explore it further will help you get reconnected with your heart.

Let's turn our attention now to our second method. Exploring your relationship with uncertainty.

Your ability to withstand and be with uncertainty is proportional to the amount of permission you can give yourself to climb the mountains that are right for you, versus the mountains that are right for someone else or are the correct mountains that everyone else has done. The mountains that everyone else does or the ones that other people are co-signing have way less uncertainty because they're the path traveled by many. But when you define your own mountain, there might not be that pre-worn path that tells you with certainty that it'll all work out.

Like the caterpillar inside the chrysalis. That icky, gooey mess that is the transformation to the butterfly is necessary. So, if you want to be able to climb the mountains that you define, you need to be able to be with uncertainty.

How is your current relationship to uncertainty hurting you? How is it helping you? Consider as well, how willing are you to accept, live with, be with, withstand more uncertainty? We've all been through a lot of uncertainty lately.

What is your relationship with the divine or the state of your spiritual wellbeing?

I invite you to consider exploring it further because we are not meant to live life alone spiritually. Ask yourself and really be open to the answers to: Is there a divine? Can you rely on it in times of uncertainty? And are you okay with your current set of belief?

Now let's talk about considering yourself as a whole. It fundamentally weakens us as beings when we consider ourselves as broken, compartmentalized, splintered, or anything other than whole, because we are undercutting ourselves and our ability to shine our light in the world. It's part of why we find ourselves on the wrong mountain. We've given our power away and we start valuing what others say about what mountain is right for us instead of choosing our own mountain.

What stories do you tell yourself about how you're broken? How might you know? One suggestion is starting tonight by looking at the high and low points on your life's journey, and seeing if you can uncover some of the stories.

If you held yourself as complete and whole as you are now, what mountain would you climb? If you're starting to get a sense from this, stay with that thought. And if you're not sure, take this question home with you tonight too.

The next step is to allow yourself to be worthy. See, sometimes we're held back from the peaks that we love because we don't think we deserve them. We don't think we have the skills or temerity it takes to climb them. We don't believe it's possible or possible for someone like us. And whatever we believe about our worthiness, we assume we're right about it, so we are. We create a world that lines up with our beliefs.

What would it be like if you saw yourself as completely worthy? What do you do that you're not doing now if you saw yourself as completely worthy?

We started figuring out what we actually want and how to get there. These four things, becoming friends with your heart again, exploring your relationship with uncertainty, considering yourself whole, and allowing yourself to be worthy just as you are will help you reconnect your GPS if you're someone who has run your life from the outside in instead of the inside out.

Step #4 - Go! (But Take Baby Steps)

Then once you've got a lead on what mountain you want to climb, there's only one thing to do. Get started on it.

What are some baby steps that you are willing to take now? Know that these will be specific to you because you are redefining your life.

Pick one, just one baby step that you're willing and able to take now. Once you've taken these little baby steps, keep taking them. The most important part here is to keep moving rather than collapsing or going into superhero mode. Keep moving.

A couple of things. Other people will not get this, and it doesn't matter. My Dad didn't get it. He wanted me to keep teaching. It doesn't matter because your amazing life is on the other side of this.

Never Climb The Wrong Mountain Again

We've spent a lot of time talking about climbing up the wrong mountain, and we've given you an outline here of how to make it so you never end up on the wrong mountain again.

Up until now, you've been living a life that was defined externally, climbing mountains other people found exciting, that society said were strategically smart, pursuing the goals that everyone other than you had, and it's been awful. The climb is awful because throughout the struggle, there's never really a yummy enough carrot at the top to propel you up. Then, even worse, when you get to the top, you're disappointed.

My Dad was so proud of me and I just wanted to stop teaching because it wasn't even what I wanted. I don't want that for you. You deserve more. It's not only that you deserve more, it's that you are worthy.

All of you are worthy of a resonant, fulfilling life, career, relationships, everything. I want all of you to have a career where you don't have the Sunday scaries dread.

I want you to get to the top of a mountain, you want and stop having to attend treatment for TMJ because you're stress grinding your teeth at night.

I want your holy shit moment to be "Holy shit, I can't believe I get to do this today and somebody's going to pay me for it!" Not "holy shit, why am I up at the top of this mountain with these vapid influencers taking selfies? Am I one of them now?"

I want you to have a huge grin on your face sitting next to your best friends, feeling so resonant that you remember it years and years later and then build a whole talk around how to get that feeling again.

I want you to have resonance and fulfillment, and I want you to be the one who chooses it from the inside out.

Today I've given you a bunch of tools to do that. And the fun thing is, as much as you can use all these tools and techniques as a way in, y'all are Dorothy with the red slippers. You've had it in you all along. You don't need this damn slide. You know how to do this because all of this, the mountain climbing, the holy shit moments, the resonance, it's all about you understanding yourself more thoroughly and expressing that.

You know what to do. This is actually a journey of consciousness, getting in tune with who you are and your true purpose. And, the universe has a true purpose for you.

I trust you. You can be friends with your heart again. You can be with uncertainty. You are whole and you are worthy. Now, go find your mountain.

Please stay in touch. I would love to help you if you're feeling stuck, if you want a guide or a partner to help you along the way.