I don’t exactly remember how, but I know why I joined the cross country team in seventh grade. I didn’t know what else to do, and my friends were doing it.
What followed was 5 years of agony, embarrassment, and awkwardness. Seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth and eleventh grades I continued to run, even though I wasn’t very fast and I didn’t really enjoy it. Finally in eleventh grade I realized I could quit, so I did. Instead I spent my after school hours working on the school newspaper and doing technical theater building sets and running lights.
That was back in 1985. Now 27 years later, I’ve come full circle.
A little over a month ago I started going to a gym. I pulled a rookie move, but kept going and it’s been extremely rewarding. Now, as I realize we’re going to be going for a family visit to the east coast, as well as teaching a workshop or two, I’ll be away from my gym for awhile.
I joined a bootcamp gym instead of one of those 24-hour do-it-whenever joins because most of my life I’m in charge. Between running a business and parenting, I’m constantly making decisions, figuring out plans, setting schedules. I needed a place where I was told when to show up and what to do.
However, I won’t have that while I’m away and I still need the benefits.
Then, on a Saturday morning, I had the strangest idea. I could go for a run. I could run. I could run while I’m on vacation, without a gym. It’s not the same kind of workout, but it’s sweat, it’s work, it’s movement.
And in that thought I realized I was free… All of the struggle, awkwardness and pain of being a teenager on the cross country team was gone.
I went for my run. Even after 27 years, I remember the importance of running form to make it easier on my knees and to create forward momentum using the motion of my arms.
But more importantly, I enjoyed it! Holy moly, I can’t believe it! For the first time in my life, I enjoyed running.
After I got back, I came upon this post by my friend Pam Slim’s very personal victory about her own return to martial arts. She had a different experience, just as inspiring. And she got me thinking about this whole topic.
I grew up in business. My parents ran a retail store that my grandfather had since 1933. I was involved in Junior Achievement, and when I ran the company we beat out all other JA companies for a one hundred mile radius by several hundred percent, simply because we didn’t try to make and sell coffee mug holders, but instead just brokered deals between nonprofit organizations and a tee-shirt printing company and pocketed the profit.
After that, and my growing political consciousness, I became disgusted with business. I spent years in street-level activism, and eventually ran a nonprofit magazine.
But, as you can see, I came full circle back to business, but different. And I’m enjoying it!
Over the years of working with many entrepreneurial clients I’ve noticed that it’s not uncommon to return to one’s roots. Often an entrepreneur will realize, after a lot of struggle, healing, and transformation, that what they are really meant to do is something very related to what they were trying to escape from, just a different angle on it.
I don’t believe there are any mistakes. I don’t believe the Divine misses a beat. And even painful experiences from earlier in our life often play a pivotal role in shaping our path forward.
Question: What have you returned full circle to and how has it informed your business? Or, is there anything you’ve been resisting returning full circle to that maybe could help your business become what it’s meant to be. Let’s talk about it in the comments.
p.s. Maryland and Ohio
One of the things I love most about my spiritual path is that it turns common understandings on their heads. So, for instance, the teaching about sovereignty and strength is really about surrender and vulnerability.
It’s my intention to give you the tools to move through the stages of development as well as the resilience to handle the changes in topography as you travel in your business. Surrendering into strength, and having a solid way to evaluate your needs based on your stage of development will do that for you.
Which is why I’m teaching a live workshop “Every Act of Business Can Be An Act of Love.” Come get your nitty-gritty business heart on in a beautiful way.
In fact, I’m doing it twice: once in Maryland and once in Ohio.
Click here for info and to register: Silver Spring, Maryland July 14
Click here for info and to register: Dublin (North Columbus), Ohio, July 23
And ask any questions you may have. If you have friends, community, colleagues in either of those places, please spread the word!
25 Responses
This is awesome Mark! I love this: “Often an entrepreneur will realize, after a lot of struggle, healing, and transformation, that what they are really meant to do is something very related to what they were trying to escape from, just a different angle on it.”
I’m at a pivotal time in my life and am returning to an area of work that I found enjoyment in many years ago. More personally fulfilling by being of greater, direct service to others. And past, painful experience is at the core of it. You’re so right.
I’ve also recently returned to a first love, biking, and just posted this recently: http://www.innovativesavings.net/cycling-life-and-8-more-equations-that-prove-it/
Thanks Mark!
Garry- I loved your writing about biking- really amazing. Biking is a big love of mine, too- and I noticed that I wasn’t breaking a sweat with it because city riding requires too much stop and go- lights and stop signs and etc… Biking is how I get places, and that I love. Thanks for sharing it!
As my interest I keep coming back to emotional awareness or more generally wholeness/authenticity.
As my lesson I keep coming back to acceptance.
I’ve spent a lot of my life healing from one thing or another. The details don’t matter, but I spent most of my childhood and young adulthood coping with a string of injuries, illnesses, and losses of all kinds.
I learned a lot about how grueling, tedious, inspiring, and transformational the process of healing can be. I worked in battered women’s shelters and taught self-defense to kids, and I felt really good about being able to use my own healing experiences to help other people. It made it seem more worth it, somehow, and paid it forward for all the help I had received myself.
And then I got really, really sick of it. Really tired of my whole life being about fixing what’s broken. Ultimately, I wanted the payoff of my healing efforts to be a life where I got to spend my time and attention on something *other* than coping with bad things and healing from them. I wanted to live in the part of the world that’s about wonder and creativity and beauty and moving forward, for once. I tried a whole bunch of different jobs, from teaching at the science museum to repairing and restoring old windows. They were really fun jobs! And none of them were going to turn into a career.
When I made the decision to become an acupuncturist, I surrendered with a fair amount of reluctance. Okay. Fine. I guess I have to admit, finally, my path in this lifetime is all about healing.
And, you know what? The actual experience of being an acupuncturist has been full of wonder and creativity and beauty and moving forward. For myself, and my clients.
Who knew?
Marilyn- who knew indeed? Very amazing- I bet you’re awesome as an acupuncturist.
Thank you Mark! 🙂
And, thank you for once again writing an article that helps me make new connections about my life and work. It’s quite beautiful, what you do.
Great post! Much of this resonated with me, thank you.
:)- thanks Naomi!
The thing I am coming back to is writing, and wondering if this is going to enhance my business(es), at least one of them, which is yoga teaching. I used to write prolifically both creatively and journaling, but when my yoga practice became more regular, and then meditation and yoga nidra also became more regular practices for me, it all just stopped. It was as if I no longer needed that outlet, because the yoga and meditation were processing things for me.
I think that somewhere else deep inside I had always thought of it as the ramblings of a girl child, and now it was time to grow up. I’m slowly reigniting that flame of creativity but find it a difficult process because of the resistance I’ve now built up, but what I love is that now it’s different , with more direction and focus than before- I’m no longer rambling in order to off load, it’s more about communicating with others, my peeps, whoever they may be, so it’s not quite a full circle, but maybe a spiral……
LInsey- yes, the spiral- more and more toward the center. Sweet!
I returned to dance. I grew up dancing- tap, ballet, jazz, modern- almost every weekday and when not in dance class, I was dancing in my head, the grocery store isles, my yard, anywhere! I have been drawn to tango and finally started taking classes. On our 3rd private lesson, I had a HUGE epiphany: I have trust issues. I don’t trust myself and I don’t trust others. I shared that with my instructor. He laughed and said, “This dance is all about connection and trust.” I leaned in. I sought help from my spiritual director. I used the remembrance practice. Tango called me to work on the very thing that has held me back, professionally and certainly personally, all these years. No, it’s not traditional dance that I grew up with, yet my soul recognizes the similarities and importance. Just a side irony… I haven’t spoken to my dance teachers since I graduated college in 1993. One of them sent a friend request on Facebook completely out of the blue this week. No coincidences, just great, Divine humor. Another veil removed. Run on, Mark!
Wendy- yes! So amazing to get these epiphanies, eh? And what a thing to come back to- dance! So beautiful!
Great post. My very favorite job was as the Coordinator of the Center for Popular Economics (http://www.populareconomics.org/). My work there was very much as a facilitator — helping the unpaid members of the collective, all economists believe it or not, teach radical economics to social change activists. I ran set up and ran events, raised money, set up retreats, kept track of the money, pretty much did whatever work needed to be done to create an environment where these amazing teachers and people doing inspired activist work could connect and dig into the economic roots of what the activists were facing. I loved it.
Five years into doing that work, I started feeling frustrated that I was not creating anything myself, doing the work I saw both the activists and the economists doing. I went to grad school in regional planning and spent years working in nonprofits on affordable housing issues. And burned out — badly enough that I was sick for years.
When I finally quit being an executive director of a housing-focused nonprofit, and started digging around to figure out what I wanted to do next (while healing), I discovered that the parts of my work that I’d loved best was all about facilitating processes, creating environments where people could learn and grow, reflecting on their own experience, gaining new perspectives, moving into action with new understandings and tools. Back to what I was doing at CPE. Now I do organizational development work and coaching with individuals, which is all about those things. Full circle.
I wonder why our paths are so circuitous, so much of the time, and how much of that is us following our shoulds instead of our wants.
Tasha
Tasha- I think the path is circuitous only to our perspective. There are so many different things we need to pick up along the path, and that requires a little bit of traveling. I think it’s perfect, even if it seems a little more extended than we’d like. At least that’s my perspective.
oh my! that picture of the doggie at the top of this post is positively delightful! it made me giggle…
funny, i was just talking about this yesterday! it’s happening for me several times with painting, where i stopped for a year at at time, but then returned with even greater conviction that it’s how i express and communicate…
now – there’s this long-standing flirtation with business that i’m finally giving in to and allowing myself to explore and indulge in and am positively thrilled. it feels so right!
thanks for the post and sharing your process!
happy running!
jessica
Jessica- wasn’t that the greatest? I gave myself a good 20 minutes searching for that one, and it felt like time well spent. 🙂 And yay for giving in and exploring!
Dear Mark
It’s been awhile since I read your articles and posts, but they keep coming in to my inbox, and I silently acknowledge them. For some reason, this one caught my eye(no mistakes, right?). For many reasons- first- lately I started running. I have a German Shepherd and as we all know they need a lot of exercise. I started by taking her for longer walks in the morning, but here’s what I found- while I’m walking the endless chatter going on in my head doesn’t stop and I seem to slow down, so I began running and bingo! A better work out for both of us, and I am able to be more in the moment. focused- being.
As I continued to read your thoughts about coming full circle, I realized that in many ways that’s what’s happening to me – from being an Artist- in Fine Metalwork, to learning and teaching Nonviolent Communication, to continuing to develop skills as a Therapist through Biosynthesis- a Body Oriented Psychotherapy, I have come to acknowledge all parts of myself – knowing more that I don’t have to GIVE UP on any part- they are all me, I am a sum of all my 50 (!) years of experience. It’s a calming and empowering realization. And now- to bring in more income through all this wealth… right? Thanks!
Yael- thank you! And yes, there’s something about the pace that clears the mind, eh? I’ve noticed the same thing.
hello ! interestingly enough my professional change is leading me back to what I was hooked for at 13. After having spent dreadful long months at he hospital, enjoying the scarce time with the art therapist, at this age when I was on a better health again I wanted to volunteer to the hospital to help the young ones there in this boring enivironment. But the adults there thought I was to young and unpredictable. In between I studied math and became a math teacher, and now at 32 I’m coming back to art therapy with a whole life of having experienced the process !
Sylvie- so interesting! The circle continues…
Really love this, Mark.
There’s a running researcher named Vigil who has found strong correlations between great runners and their ability to love. If you have a strong ability to love, you have the same ability to love running. I’m reading Born to Run, by Christopher McDougall. It’s a compelling adventure + origin story about running. Highly recommend.
That’s so interesting, Sarah. I wonder if it’s just about running, or what it is about running that correlates with love. Maybe it’s the commitment? Commitment breeds love? Curious…
I can totally relate some pieces of my life to this post. Thanks a lot for sharing.
Although I can’t say the same about running I had experience with drawing. I discovered at a young age that I had a talent for drawing. In fourth grade I was drawing pictures that made most adults jealous. In my teens a tried out for one of those drawing courses you see on the commercials. I was approved and before I knew it I was nose deep in “homework”. I quickly discovered that being forced to draw was not fun at all. It makes me wonder if there isn’t a part in us that just doesn’t like being forced.
Ryan- it’s an interesting point, the homework piece. It’s a great freedom to find the internal desire and motivation that will do it regardless of what someone else says. That was a big breakthrough for me when I realized that even if someone was “forcing” me, I could still do it because I liked it. It looks like you made your way into design, though! What’s your relationship with drawing like these days?