Leaning In - Meb

In Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg shares her own story, provides up to date research on gender differences, and offers lots of practical advice to help women achieve their goals. I could not help myself. Even though I already knew what the literature says, I found myself needing just one more person to light a fire under me and tell me that no one but me would be better to promote, support and encourage myself to show up for myself but me. Sandberg recounts how many of us have chosen to Lean Out. We take ourselves out of the workforce, out of activities we love, out of homes and communities that nurture us, out of our own bodies to get through the day, sidelining ourselves in countless ways just to please or make things work for everyone else-- our families, our husbands, even our employers. We Lean Out when faced with a lack of flexibility, quality child care, support from loved ones, and most of all, confidence in our own abilities. Given lots of cultural and organizational messages to back off, postpone or to give up our plans, dreams and visions to make room for the dreams of others or for the “good” of everyone else, we Lean Out. I sure did.

So late last night, I ordered Sandberg’s book, downloading it to my new IPAD. Struggling with finding a sense of security, trying to find my balance in my new job, letting go of a long-term relationship, still grieving the loss of my Dad, I guess I was looking for an “Atta Girl” to keep me going.

It worked.  Sheryl helped me give it to myself.

Something shifted. For one thing, I cried for about an hour.  I grieved for the younger me that wanted some things so much but decided she couldn’t have them if she wanted a happy family. After I got over crying, I got really down on myself, telling myself ‘you knew better’ and ‘Giving up your professional life wasn’t really good for anyone’ while also telling myself that by berating myself,  I was just adding more fuel to the martyr’s fire. Then I found myself thinking this: “To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under Heaven.” Ah, a possible biblical antidote to the myth of having it all.

Five months ago, I started this new job based in downtown San Francisco. The first time I went  to work, I popped out of the Bart underground station on Montgomery Street, looked up at the shiny buildings reflecting the sun on their marbled sides and felt like throwing my hat (which I was not wearing) into the air like Marlo Thomas did on That Girl. Do any of you remember this iconic scene that opened the show where Marlo hops out of the taxi and looks around at the downtown buildings, beaming, so happy, so proud, the woman of the seventies who can have it all? After a week of getting up at five in order to get Bart parking, I was definitely not feeling The Marlo. Free to Be You and Me was going to be my theme song but it morphed into something more akin to Wake Up by Rage Against the Machine.

Folks who teach about resilience tell us that you must have a personal mission statement for why you show up at work each day—not the organization’s mission statement mind you, but your own one. Thomas Merton talks about finding your calling, your purpose, the reason you are here on this earth as necessary for spiritual growth and connection with the Divine. It occurred to me, that I wasn’t giving myself credit for having followed my own personal mission statement, albeit a rather ill-defined one “to make a difference in the world” when I failed to acknowledge my two best achievements: raising three great kids and starting a program called Trustline that protects children from abusive child care providers.  If I was feeling scared or insecure now, perhaps I needed to Lean In, and reconnect with my personal mission statement, to answer the question about why I wanted to pop out of Bart on Montgomery Street every morning and if I couldn’t answer that question, to find out why not.

At my age, I don’t resemble That Girl. But I do resemble many of the women Sandberg describes. We all do. Sandberg suggests that fear is at the root of so many barriers that women face. She asks, “What is your greatest fear?” My fear is to be my whole - wonderful - big - open - full of feeling and creativity - Self only to have someone say to me, “We don’t like that. Could you tone it down? You are too much.“ Sandberg asks, “What would you do if you if you weren’t afraid?“ As Katie says in The Miracle Chase, I’d “go big or go home.”

I have prayed about what I could do if I weren’t so afraid. I ask for Guidance. The other day, as I was driving to a meeting in Sacramento, I prayed for the wisdom to know where I should be, what I should be doing and who I should be doing it with. A song came on the radio just then. It’s called Kings and Queens by Audio Adrenaline.

Little hands, shoeless feet
Lonely eyes looking back at me
Will we leave behind the innocent too brief
On their own, on the run 
When their lives have only begun
These could be our daughters and our sons
And just like a drum I can hear their hearts beating
I know my God won't let them be defeated
Every child has a dream to belong and be loved.

Martha Beck says that she has an angel that sends her songs on the radio at just the right moment. If Martha Beck can have a Song Angel, I can too! I took hearing this song at this moment as a bit of a Miracle. A sign. A Message that said I was on the right track.

I am going to Lean In. Do the thing I am most afraid to do. Be 100% me. I am going to make sure my mission statement continues to be to make a difference for children and families, but I am adding that, whatever I do, I must show up for myself, honor my gifts and talents and seize opportunities that come my way.