Seems that no matter what decade it is, Tom Robbins still wrote one of my all time favorite ‘sort of’ love stories, Still Life With Woodpecker (see: 1980). I’m still quoting it. Not just because he’s a wayward (or way with word) genius, but because even the seemingly simple quote from it – “It’s never too late to have a happy childhood” – is so profound, it’s almost silly.
It points to our inherent ability to rewrite our own narratives.
Without question, HG, the method, and Inner.U certainly dive into the deep end, teaching humans how to resolve haunting memories from the past. But what if, in this here blog, we take on the notion that if we could even just rewrite ONE thought – reconfigure one notion – life, as we knew or know it, could change.
It did for me.
Brace yourself as, once again, I’m about to tell you a slightly goofy Lauren-style story. One that, I swear, silly as it may be, rocked my world forever. And given I don’t “coach & tell,” my own stories are, well, fair game and what you get.
Here goes:
When I was 19, I went to Israel by myself. Please note, up until then, I had NEVER truly been anywhere by myself. NOW I had a one way ticket, a backpack, no cell phone (they weren’t born yet!), and no need to return to the States until September. This was not only a miracle for me, BUT a catalyst for many life changing and spiritual moments that summer.
One of these said moments happened in the kitchen of the Kibbutz, a communal settlement, where I volunteered for six weeks. Like many a volunteer, I was put to work in the kitchen. Personally, I was in charge of vegetables. As easy as it may sound, the gig itself was actually no small potatoes (ha), it was hard work. Up at the crack of dawn, chopping, peeling, cooking vegetables for 350 humans.
Only problem was, it seems Karma was traveling abroad that summer, too.
You see, BEETS were in season. And as a kid, tween, and teen, it wasn’t JUST the hard boiled eggs, russet potatoes, string beans, OR even the canned tuna (!) that gave me the heebie jeebies about the salad nicoise that my mom loved and made often; it was the beets. It wasn’t even just the distant canned relative of the beet I loathed – which, I imagine, you vegetable-loving, HG-following readers out there could forgive me for – it was the fresh ones, too.
Sorry…
Come on. They bled all over everything they touched. And that wasn’t the only thing unforgivable about them. I hated their smell. I hated their taste. I hated their color. And, yes, I hated their foreskin. You get the picture (with that last foreskin comment, no doubt, more of a picture than you ever wanted or needed). But, alas, there I was in the kitchen of the kibbutz boiling many, many, many beets. Talking to myself, incessantly. Snarling at my “luck” when suddenly, unexpectedly, I had this really grown up moment with myself. Bored with my own irrefutable complaints, I told myself to shut up. To get over myself. I mean, what was I so certain about anyway? So loathsome of? A decision I had made…when I was, what? 8? If even?
So, you know what I did?
I held a big beet up to the light. The darn thing was gorgeous. No shit. God’s purple. I took a bite out of it and I was changed forever. No. Not just a beet lover. Though, that too. But a what the fuck do I know I know, best kind of righteous human…a wrong one. And in that moment, it became epically clear to me that I did NOT know myself…though I thought I did.
Hard to beet that, right? Ba-dum-chh.
We humans believe something so hard core and to our core about ourselves, the believing of which has got to have ramifications. Every sentence we utter about ourselves gives us away AND a way out. So much so that we can’t BUT get the joke, eventually. If we, for example, hate exercising, hate Mondays, hate getting old, etc., guess what, it WILL suck. BUT, if we want to discover how magical we all are and all knowing…
We would bite the beet.
Think about it. What do you know to be true about yourself, about your partner, about your kids, about your parents, etc. At Handel Group and in Inner.U, we have you not only log your daily thoughts, but we have you start to cull your beliefs, your theories, and, yes, your very own weather forecasts about none other than yourself, others, things, and, sure, what the heck, vegetables.
What’s currently in your know-it cart and forecast?
Are you bad with money? Sucky at time management? Is your dad stubborn, cold, annoying, etc.? How about your mom, is she {fill in the blank}? Or your teen? How about those dating sites? Okra? I could go on and on, and boy oh boy, do we ever. But wouldn’t it be so much more fun and freeing if we got the inside joke that it’s all made up and evidenced by none other than the author of it all…no, not Tom Robbins…us.
What if, instead, we started to question our own truisms. Particularly, the ones that limit us. Shouldn’t we test them, bite the beet (whatever your beet may be), and make better shi(f)t up? If I could believe myself a beet lover, I’d have to eat them. If I could believe myself Oprah (I can barely even type it), or you could believe yourself Jay-Z, what then…? What would we have to do? Turn beet red? Or step up and beet our own drums? Whoops is right. You coming?
Where? To the land of make a belief and, yes, happy childhoods.
Love,
Lauren
P.S. Inner.U LIFE is our online coaching course that gives you the tools to get yourself unstuck, wildly happy, and thriving where it matters most to you: your relationship to your SELF, CAREER, LOVE, BODY, MONEY, TIME, and more. From wherever, whenever. Get $75 OFF with code POSITIVELYPOSITIVE75.
Lauren Handel Zander is the Co-Founder and Chairwoman of Handel Group®, an international corporate consulting and life coaching company. Her coaching methodology, The Handel Method®, is taught in over 35 universities and institutes of learning around the world, including MIT, Stanford Graduate School of Business, NYU, and the New York City Public School System. Lauren is also the author of Maybe It’s You: Cut the Crap, Face Your Fears, Love Your Life (Published by Hachette Book Group, April 2017), a no-nonsense, practical manual that helps readers figure out not just what they want out of life, but how to actually get there. She has spent over 20 years coaching thousands of private and corporate clients, including executives at Vogue, BASF, and AOL. Lauren has been a featured expert in The New York Times, BBC, Forbes, Women’s Health, Dr. Oz, and Marie Claire and she is a regular contributor to Businessweek and the Huffington Post. Click here to schedule a 30-minute consultation with Handel Group.
Image courtesy of Kun Fotograti.
