Ah, the first smell of fall air, the fall light dappling my grapevines, the move from sunny summer to a treasured reflective fall vibe.
These are the sentiments I would normally be sending in a Fall Newsletter.
But it’s 2020, and we left normal behind a while ago. Normal has been replaced with change. At work, at home, at school – even the change that all of these things happen in one place now.
People don’t like change. That’s one of my conclusions after listening to the lived experiences of many amazing clients over many years. Sure, once in a while, change is exciting, exhilarating even! Yet even then, best case scenario, change involves anxiety and uncertainty. If we humans don’t like change, we really don’t like those two pals of change.
And yet. We are pretty good at change. We adapt, we re-calibrate, we reset. We get creative, we learn new ways forward. We survive. We’ve got these amazing brains that help us do these things.
We also have these emotional systems that help us orient, and re-orient, ourselves. These systems haven’t gotten the air time of the big brain, yet they are often discussed in terms of emotional intelligence or empathy IQ. They guide us with simplicity and accuracy. At the very most basic level, we know “I like this, I don’t like that.” And that is important because it is related to trust.
Yes, I’m making the case the change is opportunity, and change is hard, and adding that change is a place to develop trust. Specifically, trust in yourself.
Trusting yourself, and trusting those ‘childlike’ thoughts of I like it, I don’t like it are more important than ever as we face unprecedented times in our family lives, work lives, social lives, community lives, and in our national identity.
Which brings me to the place to share a significant change with each of you: I have made the very difficult decision to leave my office space at Windermere. It has been a fantastic run since 2009. I looked at one office when I moved my practice from Kirkland to Woodinville. I thought, you can’t just take the first office you see.
But something inside me knew, I could. This was the Woodinville place for me.
The office was available as a sublet. Two days. Then a third. By November of my first year, I knew I needed a full-time office, and decided that I would wait until the New Year to make a decision and look for a new place.
This was odd in that my usually mode of operation would be to think (okay, over-think), get really busy taking action, and also become somewhat anxious about the need to nail down a solution, in this case a new full-time office location.
Yet, for whatever reason, I didn’t do those usually behaviors. I checked in with the building management about an office, and was told that I was a week late for an opening, and that they would be glad to have me in the building if an office space opened. I had clarity and an intention of one full time office in a great place, and, after that info, I gave it an eight week pause.
Within two weeks, the woman I was subletting from informed me she could no longer keep her lease. I tried not to leap with joy as she told me about her more sudden than expected retirement. I was not glad that she had a medical condition. I was glad it could be improved in a warmer climate. I was ecstatic about being able to take over her lease. My perfect full-time office was right where I was!
Some of you may remember the terrible green furniture. It was a start! Hopefully most of you remember a beautiful and welcoming space.
I will forever cherish the space, the memories of meeting with clients there, the wonderful colleagues turned friends, the getting busted for laughing too loudly in the hallways with both clients and colleagues.
I look forward to meeting with you in person as soon as possible.
Until that time, please know my gratitude for each and every meeting! Those in person, and those that continue via video conference or phone.
Until that time, please deepen your internal trust muscles. Listen to the still small voice inside of you, and the nudges from your environment that catch your interest.
We will be in person as soon as possible. Meanwhile: You got this. We got this!