I’m still working over Zoom with most of my clients.   During each call the same struggle is present: Awkwardness. We have kids running amuck, our jobs feel funky, forget about our 401Ks, we feel less professional, we’re awkwardly parenting and wifeing, husbanding, friending and there is sooo much wine.  After each call the same thing keeps popping into my head:  THIS IS SO HUMAN.  Normally buttoned up professional people in person are having to interrupt conversations to make a pb&j, calling across the house to spouses, show their messy kitchens to their colleagues, little people are popping up between knees, dogs are barking and more and more, we are not bristling at this reality.  We are being real people.  Our professional fronts and our nurturing, impatient, sloppy selves are uniting. 
My hope is we become more graceful with ourselves.  Let us get sick of our phones and social media (because let’s be real, who’s really posting a gorgeous pic of themselves!).   Most of all, let us get comfy with the thoughts and feelings that bubble up (the ones that we usually squash with a run to the store or shopping on the internet).  These are unprecedented times for most of us- let us strip away our egos and be our flawed, real, HUMAN selves.  Let us be more comfortable in the stillness so that we can reinvent, reimagine and re-ground ourselves and reemerge more whole – our families and our community and our Planet are all going to need this growth.  There are no rules, no images to preserve- this is an unprecedented time.  The more we can own the struggle of being us, the more we will connect and be free to fully love one another on the back end!
Go HUMAN!

A dear friend and magnificent therapist, Jane Thatcher, has opened up shop in Broomfield, CO!  She's a therapist, professional musician and owns a music school--she's a force!  Her focus clinically is motherhood, anxiety, depression and religious trauma.  She utilizes traditional talk therapy as well as writing therapy (did I mention she works w homeless individuals at the Denver Public Library doing creative writing?!?!)  She's amazing!

www.janethatchercounseling.com 

In the last few years I have experienced a brand new humanity. In honor of being painfully authentic, and not perpetuating perfection myths, I'll share something personal. Being pregnant over 2 years ago now was a nightmare.  I was sick (and I mean peeing while throwing up kind of sick!) from week 6-40.  All the women who I knew who said being pregnant was really one of the most special times in their lives were now coming out of the woodwork to say how difficult it was for one reason or another.  You name it:  pre-partum identity crisis, not-being-a-fun-wife, feeling vulnerable about the upcoming inability to focus on a career they had long suffered for, wondering if they'd actually love this fetus when it eventually came out, depression, etc.  It was shocking...why didn't everyone talk about this when I was non-barfy?  Did they think they needed to make it look pretty, that somehow their experience pregnant (and I'll write more about post-partum later) reflected the love of their baby?
The more I barfed, peed, cried (often all 3), the more I said "this is really hard", the more women wanted to talk.
I say this in the hopes that we all (husbands/ partners as well) decide to share the struggle rather than perpetuate the myth of perfection.  Go out there--- cry in public b/c it's your 3rd breakfast of the day and dammit, this one better stay down b/c you have a 9am meeting!

Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Linked-in.... the list goes on and on and on.  These platforms can be so incredible to share our lives but also so hollow when it comes to real connection not to mention the pressure to stay current on people's lives.  I recently have been met w a rash of "ohh, I saw your trip, it looked amazing and the baby is adorable, that dish you cooked for your Dad's bday looked awesome!" (said by someone who has not called my phone or emailed me or even texted me in eons) and in response to "how have you been?', I've been met w friends and acquaintances saying, 'well you saw that guy I went to dinner with last weekend.."   EEEEK...I did not see that guy, should I be scheduling time before a coffee w a friend to research their social media for things I should know?  When was ‘catching up” not realllly catching up.  I really would love to chat about that trip or have you meet my baby or share that recipe of the pic you 'liked'...shoot, I'd even love to cook it for you but didn't even know you were that interested in my life.  

The question is: am I flattered?  Yes.  Were they probably bored at work or unwinding after work? Yes.  Big question:  When you receive 'likes', do you really feel liked?  If we as humans are really pack animals, as we’re designed to be, we need to spend less time “liking” and more time doing that which really shows care and love: picking up the phone, scheduling a coffee.
Think about the last time you really felt connected to through social media…and is there more you’d like.