update #20: shedding all that I'm not

"Maybe the journey isn't so much about becoming anything. Maybe it's about un-becoming everything that isn't really you, so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place." -- unknown

Stormy seas in Nerja, Spain

This last year plus in Spain has been challenging, eye-opening, healing, insightful, and everything in between. It was an opportunity for me to come to head with who I really am, and confidently step into that. In the most difficult moments, it was like shedding all these extra layers I'd been wearing for years.
Things I'd claimed to value over the years.
The way I wanted friends & family to see me.
The way I wanted to be perceived by anybody I met along the way.
The way I wanted to see myself.
But, when it came down to it, I broke down and couldn't continue to be this person I am not.

I recently read a blog post in which the author shared from a friend's book, "The Top Five Regrets of the Dying."

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I hadn’t worked so much.
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

NUMBER ONE regret! Why do so many of us feel that we can't live out who we truly are? I understand that there are societal norms and pressures. So maybe my question should be: why can't society accept that we are all unique and should be able to freely live true to ourselves?

...

I enjoy being with people, and I do deeply value relationships, but I am not an extrovert. I am an extroverted introvert. I need healthy boundaries with limits to "people time" just as much as I need people contact nearly every day. I can't work in a setting that is entirely relational, as this job has been. I need a balance of people time and task time. I wouldn't be able to handle either extreme.

Through many personality assessments I've taken over the last 5 years, I've learned over and over that I'm balanced between task-oriented and people-oriented. But somehow I got it in my head that I'm supposed to be all about people all the time. Because I'm a caring person, I "should" be working with people all the time. Because of some other aspects of my personality, there are plenty of people-related things that I "should" be doing. That I should want to do.

Waves crashing in Nerja, Spain

But it was exhausting spending 80-90% of my weeks with people. And I thought there was something seriously wrong with me. Why was I so exhausted at the end of my weeks? Why was it painful to even think about socializing with friends on the weekends?

Last summer, I hit a breaking point finally began the process "un-becoming" all that wasn't truly me. (It's an ongoing process that will probably last a lifetime, but I feel like there has been enormous progress and major steps forward in the last 10 months.)

I began shedding this expectation I'd put on myself of being a people person. I freed myself from feeling like I had to pretend to enjoy meetings more than I enjoy analyzing things from a computer screen. I prefer engaging different parts of my brain that I hadn't been putting to use in recent years. I soon became released from these heavy chains I'd put on myself of who I thought people had wanted me to be.

The process was difficult. It still is. There are a lot of tough moments of realizing that I'm so different from all of my co-workers. I'm different from a lot of people in this line of work. And that sucks. It's incredibly lonely, and made me question what I'm even doing here. But I'm surrounded by some great and supportive people here who showed me how my differences add so much to our team that would (obviously) otherwise be lacking.
I fill in the holes that nobody else wants to do. And the best part: I ENJOY doing those things!

I have experienced great freedom in coming to understand who I am and what I can contribute. I've been able to take on some life-giving tasks, which has ultimately given me more desire & energy to spend time with people. I feel much more balanced now that I'm able to live out who I was meant to be.

I am ending this season well, able to look back and see that I've had an impact, that my time here was well-spent, and also move forward confident in who I've "un-become." The layers continue to shed with each new experience. Difficult, but always worth it.

Malaga as seen from El Palo

♥
mk

the new spaniards

"the more that you read, the more things you will know. the more that you learn, the more places you'll go." -- Dr. Seuss

To help us better understand the historical context of Spain and its people, my CRM team in Malaga has decided to collectively read The New Spaniards.* You know, after living there for seven months, I thought I'd learned quite a bit about the culture through friendships I'd made with locals, foods I'd tried, customs in which I'd taken part, places I'd visited throughout Spain.... But there's always so much more than meets the eye.

Old city wall, Sevilla
(built in the 11th century)

Some conversations I had along the way were very enlightening about just how deeply pained these people are from something that happened in their country's history nearly 40 years ago with the death of their dictator, Francisco Franco. By American standards, that's too many i-pods and cell phones ago for it to even come up on our radar. ;) But for most countries in Europe (and the rest of the world), the 1970s is recent history. And in Spain, it shows.

Obviously generations of Spaniards have been born since the death of Franco, but the stories of what happened during his dictatorship and after his death are passed along from generation to generation. And this country is trying - well, has been trying since the late 1970s - to become more relevant, contemporary, modern, able to participate in the global economy, but it's proven to be a struggle because of it's culturally rich, yet painful, history. As the author of The New Spaniards explains, Spain is a land of "extraordinary paradoxes" between traditional mindsets and contemporary concerns.

As I read this book, I'm amazed at how little I really understood while I was there. There's so much that explains the people I've met and befriended this past year. Yes, each person has his and her own story, but when crossing a cultural divide like this, it's so beneficial for me to try and understand the story of the entire people group, to better understand from where each person may be coming. This book is so insightful and I'm thankful to have it as a resource as I prepare to move back to Spain longer term.

I'm looking forward to sharing some tidbits of information I learn from this book as I continue to read! Look for updates on Wednesdays. :)



♥ mk

*The author of The New Spaniards, John Hooper, is a British journalist who was stationed in Madrid during Spain's transition into democracy.