This week, my past showed up carrying a painting. Not of me specifically but a version of my past.
Family I hadn’t seen in more than twenty years arrived with something from a life I lived more than twenty years ago. I wasn’t expecting the painting. I wasn’t expecting what came with it either. They remembered her. The woman I was in my twenties.
They spoke about her with such pride that for a moment I had to reconcile their memory of me with my own.
Because when we look backward, particularly during seasons of change, it can be tempting to evaluate our former selves through everything we already know now.
What I should have known and what I would have done differently. What took me entirely too long to figure out was apparently wisdom enjoys arriving after the meeting.
But they weren’t looking at her that way. They were proud of her. And they were proud of the woman standing in front of her now. There was something humbling about being seen with that much generosity when I had spent so much time evaluating myself by what still hadn’t happened.
Maybe sometimes progress is having enough room inside yourself to hold who you were, who you are now and who you are becoming at the same time.
I think the same is true of leadership.
We talk a lot about becoming better leaders. Developing new skills. Expanding our capacity. Adapting to change. Learning how to communicate differently as the rooms we enter become bigger and the stakes get higher.
And, growth doesn’t always require becoming someone else. Sometimes it requires becoming more capable of accessing more of who you already are.
The confidence you had before you knew to second guess yourself. The humility you earned after getting something spectacularity wrong.
The instinct experience taught you to trust. The flexibility to change your mind without losing your center.
What happens to all of the versions of ourselves we’ve already been?
I think leadership isn’t choosing between who you were and who you’re becoming. Maybe it’s developing enough capacity to lead from all of it.
In this season I’ve been called to bring them all together.
Did I ignore them?
Did I outgrow them?
Did I ever sit down long enough to listen to them?
Thank them?
Or perhaps the work was never to leave them behind.
Maybe the work was making enough room for all of them.
Not because she got every version of herself right. Oh, gurl, no she definitely did not. There are many chapters of my past I would happily control + alt + delete. Becoming does not require erasure. It requires integration. ALL of it.
To be completely honest, I have ignored many parts of myself in the pursuit of transformation. In the pursuit of growth. It’s easy to do so. Staying more productive. Find the next opportunity. Fill the calendar. Keep becoming.
But busy changes nothing if all that movement keeps me from hearing myself.
Dance is probably the easiest example.
I can build, lead, sell, write, coach, strategize and create all I want. But I remove dance because it doesn’t fit neatly into some version of who I think I’m supposed to become, am I actually becoming more myself?
Nope.
I’m editing myself.
A dear friend sat with me in the midst of all of this and said something I needed to hear: “Be in the state of joy.”
Within two hours my state shifted. I listened and I went with the flow. Not because I suddenly did not have things to do. I definitely did. Not because joy was some foreign concept. I know what joy feels like.
I think what she gave me was permission. Permission to remember that I am so much more than a job title — even if a previous version of me believed I needed one to tell me who I was.
And then there is basic chemistry.
What makes me happy?
Do those things.
Not because every decision should be dictated by pleasure or because a meaningful life is supposed to feel good all the time. But because joy is information, too.
What gives me energy? What makes me laugh? What makes me lose track of time? What leaves me feeling more like myself afterward—not less?
Dance does that.
Certain people do that.
Writing does that. Travel does that. Spanish guitar does that. The local plant shop does that. A good conversation does that. Sometimes it’s music, sunshine, sharing a meal, or doing something completely ridiculous that serves absolutely no productive purpose. Like jumping into a pool with no plan other than: well, that was fun!
What brings me closer to myself?
I’m getting better at listening to the answer.
Maybe we don’t always need another strategy, another plan, or another version of ourselves to become.
Sometimes the chemistry is remarkably basic:
Notice what makes you come alive. Do more of it.
The work is never ending and it always will be.
BE-ing holds a lot more weight than being busy.
Getting away from the noise is the one of best things I’ve done for myself during this transition. Not because the noise disappears. It doesn’t. There will always be another meeting, another opportunity, another decision, another reason to get busy.
The practice is learning to hear myself anyway.
I am open to my past and I am open to my future.
And I am becoming more interested in the woman standing between them. Not perfect. Not finished.
Just getting better at listening.
