I attended my first Mic Drop workshop via Zoom and phone, in the comfort of my beloved Panama City Coffee. I really loved it, truly, and I am so glad I was there, but I also felt less than smart. I felt way far away from the answers I thought I should have had when I got there. It seemed like everyone in the room knew the secret but me.
Have you ever been in a room where it seems like everybody else knows the answer and you are sitting there thinking, “Am I the only person who does not understand the assignment?” That was me.
We were supposed to narrow down our transformation promise. In other words, after somebody hears me speak, what is different about them? What do they know? What do they feel? What can they do that they couldn’t do before? And all these brilliant women seemed to know theirs. Of course, that is sometimes only our perception, because there is no way we can look into the heart of another person. We have to look deeply into our own for the answers.
And I thought, “Well, shoot. I don’t know mine.”
I know I love talking about joy. I know I believe our words matter. I believe life is always working out for us. I believe in offering more grace than seems necessary. I believe we can choose what we focus on, what we say to ourselves, and how we show up in this world. But what is the thread that ties all of that together?
Then I was talking to my daughter, and she said something that stopped me. She said, “Mama, you are really good at reframing things. You can take something negative and find the good in it.” Of course I am paraphrasing and I am sure what she said sounded more poetic but that is how I remember it.
And I thought, maybe there is something there.
It reminded me of an old story about two little girls. One walks into a room filled with manure and sees nothing but a disgusting mess. The other one starts digging. Somebody asks her what in the world she is doing, and she says, “With all this manure, there must be a pony in here somewhere.”
Now THAT may be my people.
Because life has manure. Sometimes a whole room full of it. Things don’t work out the way we planned. People disappoint us. Doors close. Relationships change. We lose people we love. We fail. We make mistakes. We get scared. Sometimes life just plain hurts.
And I don’t believe we have to pretend those things don’t hurt. Reframing isn’t pretending that bad things don’t happen. It means we find our way through them, we learn and grow and become, and in turn, we share what we have learned with others.
It is saying, “I know what I see right now, but what else could be true?” What could this be teaching me? Where could this be redirecting me? What am I learning about myself? What needs to change? What might this be making possible?
Where is the pony?
I can look back over my own life and see so many things I never would have chosen that opened doors I could not see at the time. Things I thought were endings became beginnings. Things I thought were setbacks redirected me. Things I would have gladly avoided became part of the very story I now use to encourage someone else.
And maybe that is part of my transformation promise. Maybe after you hear me, I want you to leave believing that whatever has happened, whatever is happening, and whatever may happen next, you have some power over the story you tell yourself about it. You can look again, reframe, choose another thought, look for what is still good, and believe that something meaningful can come from something difficult.
Maybe the transformation isn’t that I convince you that everything is wonderful. Maybe it is that I help you believe the chapter you are standing in does not get to tell you how the whole story ends. So I still don’t have my transformation promise perfectly wrapped up in a bow, and maybe that is okay. I am still digging, but I think I am getting closer.
And sweet ones, whatever room you find yourself standing in today, especially if it looks like a big old pile of manure, look again. There just might be a pony in there somewhere.
Grateful,
Karen
