We made an offer and put our Italianate manse on the market. We got an almost immediate full-price offer—and the next day, the stock market crashed. Our buyers disappeared into thin air. It took longer to sell the house than we had expected—seven very long months, in fact. I wondered if I'd made a mistake in longing for this change. What if we were stuck with two houses for years? Each morning, I did affirmations from my stack of self-help books—“I'm leaning into the benevolence of the Universe” was my favorite—and no matter how down I felt, it always helped. In the end, we found wonderful buyers and decamped with half of our possessions to our more modest home.
The older kids grumbled for several months about the move, complaining about missing things like the pool table and the ability to entertain an almost unlimited number of friends all the time. They'd become attached to the old place and the freedom, maybe even the prestige, it offered. But I told them that, when they were old enough, they could decide for themselves where and how they wanted to live.
As we downsized, I sometimes got the sense from the bewildered stares people gave us that they thought we were in dire financial straits. Some asked how we could leave the big house so soon after completing a sky's-the-limit kitchen remodeling. And in fact, the kitchen was amazing; it had been a great experience co-creating it. It wasn't until after we'd finished it, however, that we found that what we craved was not the marble countertops, fancy appliances, and French chandelier. It was freedom.
We kept all of our most treasured belongings and placed the rest in an estate sale that was run by a friend in the antique business. At the sale, one of my colleague's wives stood by my side, staring at the sea of beautiful things—everything from Spode china to hand-hooked rugs to gilded mirrors—and asked me if I was going to miss it all. When I grinned and answered, “No, not really,” she seemed surprised and almost disappointed. The only things I truly regretted selling were a few spools of ribbon, which I promptly repurchased. When the sale was over, I could already feel a new, simpler way of living trying to take root.
I learned that our house needed to shrink so we could grow. I sensed that, by ridding myself of excess baggage, I could get closer to what really mattered. The physically exhausting process of downsizing galvanized an important lesson for me: Every object you take on board must be dealt with—eventually.
CHAPTER 9
Needle in a Haystack
It doesn't matter who you are or what you look like, so long as somebody loves you.
Roald Dahl, The Witches
Pathology is basically a profession in which you often find yourself searching for a needle in a haystack. Learning to recognize patterns that lead to accurate diagnoses can be a little like playing Where's Waldo, where Waldo is a malignant cell or a specific disease profile. I'd relished my work in pathology for nearly two decades, but when I started to find it less and less fascinating, it began to worry me. I was learning to enjoy my current life much more by shifting my perspective and finding ways to do more things that felt good. Now, what I was really longing for was a whole new kind of work. The field that had once felt like a shelter from the storm was beginning to feel less cozy to me.
I considered practical options for fixing my current predicament. I was only in my early forties; perhaps I could do another fellowship and become Board certified in a new subspecialty. When Mark had yearned for new challenges, he had trained to be a spine interventionalist and collected a second certification in pain medicine, a great move for him. I thought that perhaps developing a new subspecialty might make both financial and professional sense for me as well.
The only pesky problem was that I was loving my vintage images of octopuses and horses, my glitter, and my handwritten letters from turn-of-the-century Paris. I wasn't exactly yearning for a fellowship in, say, gastrointestinal pathology. I had also noticed that my passion was shifting from discovering what caused disease toward discovering what creates health. I was coming to realize that our whole medical system was focused on what was wrong rather than on what could be right.
In multidisciplinary conferences, for instance, I found that I was more interested in the status of a patient's spirit than in quibbling over cellular details or genetic test results. I started asking questions that other physicians, in their role as “disease eradicators,” were less interested in addressing. I was becoming much more curious about the issues that social workers and nurses brought up: What is a patient's support system like? Does the patient feel loved? What other stressors are present outside the patient's medical situation? I began to ask myself questions like: What might have happened if we'd intervened a long time ago and helped this person find love, connection, and a supportive community? Would that patient still be ill now?
In pathology, we operated at the point where disease has already manifested. I longed to work from a place farther upstream, to see how much disease we could avoid (or delay for decades) if we worked at the level of spirit. How could we prevent the disease from assembling itself? I worried about whether these strange desires and questions made me selfish and self-absorbed. And I wondered whether medicine was missing something big. While I acknowledged that allopathic (traditional Western) medicine was still clearly needed, I began to suspect that spirit must also be cared for and nurtured. Without tending to the spirit, we can't hope to create health.
One afternoon, while sitting at my desk, which was piled high with cases awaiting finalization, I noticed how low I was still feeling. Working with my coach, Michele, had helped me realize that my circumstances and colleagues were not the problem—that finding my “feel good” was an inside job. I was a lot less frazzled. But I had also realized that the place I was in didn't feel comfortable anymore. How was I ever going to figure out what I was supposed to be doing?
Later that day, I went onto the Internet in search of some sort of salve for my soul and stumbled onto a Rascal Flatts video. Country music isn't really my jam, so I'll never be sure what made me click “play.” But when I began to listen to “My Wish,” I burst into tears.
The warm voice singing the song struck a resounding chord inside me; my whole being resonated with its message. The lyric expressed a hope that everything would be okay for me in my life—even if it seemed, currently, as though all the doors were closed. It encouraged me to find my way to a “window” again. It told me that I was loved. My eyes filled and tears washed down my cheeks in recognition. This was my wish as well—for me and for everyone. In fact, it was my prayer.
That night, while whipping up some bison spaghetti (because they couldn't be factory farmed, and I didn't want to inflict any more suffering) and sipping a glass of boxed red wine, I forced my kids to listen to the song. I played it loudly, over and over. “Isn't this song awesome?” I broadcast to no one in particular. Katherine generously offered: “It's pretty good, Mom; I like country music.” Josephine shrugged, as if to say: I'm giving you a pass here, but don't push your luck. Charlie ran over, threw his arms around my waist, hugged me for a long time, and said: “I like it, Mom.” George, now fourteen, wandered by and cocked his head, surprised at the sudden appearance of country music in my repertoire. “It's my new jam,” I offered to him. He looked a little curious, then nodded upward with his chin in mild approval.
I knew the kids were just indulging me. They seemed somehow to know that I needed this schmaltzy country song right now. But I knew—at some very deep level—that I had stumbled upon the precious needle in my own haystack.
CHAPTER 10
Radical Sabbatical
Enlightenment always tastes of freedom.
Martha N. Beck, Steering by Starlight
Three months. That's what I asked from my section chair. Three months completely away from my pathology duties. I was already part-time, working just a couple of days a week. I was curious what might grow in my life if I dropped just one of the “part-times” that crowded my resumé. He readily agreed. I think the wise and kind secretaries at the hospital suspected ju
st how life-altering my sabbatical would be, however. When I left at the end of June, they threw me a party.
During my sabbatical, I immersed myself in Martha Beck's life-coach training program a few days a week. Learning virtually alongside fifty other like-minded women (and a few men) was heaven. I felt much less alone. I had learned about Martha's training program after I took a weekend life-coaching telecourse that Michele had suggested. I liked coaching my practice clients, and I wanted to know more. When I dialed in to a call from Martha for prospective students, I was sold.
After telling us that she had lived all her life with ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder)—“my brain is like a squirrel on meth and that's why the CEO of Martha Beck, Inc. is here with me today”—she got right to the point. “If you really want to learn how to coach people,” she said, “you've come to the right place. Even if you don't know why you're here, you've come to the right place.” I was amazed that this Harvard-educated writer had just admitted in public that she had ADD. Was she joking? I couldn't even tell, but I found that I really didn't care, because I sensed that this authentic woman and her team could help me have fun while walking this new unknown path.
Martha's band of coach trainees were smart, sensitive, and down to earth. We'd all been undergoing huge meltdowns in our respective lives—divorces, cancer diagnoses, careers dead-ending, recovery from addiction, crippling grief, mysterious illnesses, kids leaving the nest—yet we all shared a common desire. We wanted to help people who were suffering. Before we could help others, however, we first needed to sort ourselves out.
During my sabbatical, I was thrilled to be home so that I could finally be a mom who was actually present, both literally and figuratively. Ironically, not all of the kids were so sure they liked this new arrangement—especially George. Now I was home. A lot. Still suspicious and slightly shell-shocked from the whole downsizing experience, George eyed me warily. He repeatedly asked me: “When are you going to go back to your real job? Life coaching isn't a real job.” I think he was reading my mind, because I was wondering the exact same thing. The kids had picked up a fair amount of money anxiety from me when we downsized, and now they were aware that I wasn't making much money anymore.
Watching YouTube one night, I cringed at Cheri O'Teri's satirical Saturday Night Live portrayal of “Liza Life Coach,” a perky and overzealous air-head who was clearly in need of more coaching than her clients. But this wasn't real coaching, I protested. Coaching meant helping clients find their own way, not ordering them around. It seemed, however, that life coaching had all the cachet of selling snake oil. Even my mother went out of her way to mention (in hushed tones) that a friend from college trained to be a life coach, but had never attracted enough clients to make a living at it.
All these changes I was making did, in fact, feel precarious, and somehow George's lack of confidence in me was especially disturbing. I tried to laugh it off and reassure him that all would be well. I was trusting that the Universe was benevolent—and I hoped I was right.
I needed more practice coaching clients, so I offered coaching to our kids (with a cash incentive!) so I could try my skills on them. George was skeptical at first, but came around when he realized he could earn twenty dollars and after I assured him that I had no hidden agenda.
I let George guide his own session by asking him to think of one thing he had to do that week that he didn't want to do. He picked disciplining Josephine, his younger sister. He had recently taken it upon himself (without our encouragement) to step in when Josephine was really angry. Lately, she'd had a few tantrums and occasionally had thrown things at people in anger. As we dove deeper into the subject, I asked him: “Why do you believe you need to discipline Josephine? You're not the parent.”
Finally, he confessed. “If I don't step in and stop her now from doing bad stuff, she could end up in jail later, or get in big trouble at some point in her life.”
Suddenly I had a significant new insight into why George was sometimes so hard on Josephine. Deep down, he loved her and cared about her, and was seriously worried that she'd end up in jail if he didn't put a stop to her behavior.
Days later, Josephine got angry and threw a portable phone in a huff over a perceived slight. George began to charge after her. “George!” I shouted. “Stop now! Not your job. I'm the mom. I've got this.” He stopped and shrugged his shoulders. I allowed Josephine to calm down in her room for a while before I knocked on the door to talk with her. And this time, I wasn't as frustrated with George. I could see that what he was doing stemmed from love and concern.
George wasn't the only volunteer from whom I learned a lot. Charlie, our scarlet macaw—uber-affectionate, charming, and prone to loud squawking at times—asked to be coached on the thing he hated doing most: brushing his teeth. When I probed deeper into what might happen if he skipped brushing his teeth, I discovered something very revealing.
“If I don't brush my teeth, I'll get in trouble,” he told me.
“So what; you've gotten into trouble before,” I prodded. “Why would that be so bad?”
“Because I might have to make all the beds.”
“Well, you've had to make beds before. Who cares? Why would that be so bad?”
Charlie looked concerned. “Because if I couldn't do it, I might get sick and throw up and then it would be a mess.”
“Okay. So you've made messes before. Why would that be so terrible?”
“Because then I might have to leave this family and go live with a different one.”
Incredible! I suddenly understood. Refusing to brush his teeth was linked deeply to his adoptee fear of being abandoned by our family. Suddenly, as I replayed all his fits at bedtime about brushing his teeth, I got it. This wasn't about finding the perfect SpongeBob toothpaste to inspire him to brush. He just needed reassurance that his place in this family was permanent. When I told him that, no matter what ever happened, he would always be our son and that he would also always have his birth family, he leaned in for a hug. Mark and I continued to reassure him all summer and, sure enough, the bedtime tantrums around brushing lessened dramatically.
I still worried, however, that George was right—that choosing a career as a life coach would be professional and social suicide. After my experiences with him and Charlie, however, I wasn't about to quit.
At first, three months of sabbatical freedom felt like an enormous amount of time to me. And, for once, my time wasn't consumed by caring for an infant. I planned to use the time to focus on learning more about coaching. Inspired by my earlier interest in découpage, I also hoped to do more work with my BFF Suzi, with whom I shared a passion for interior design.
I was forty-two and, for the first time since I was fifteen, my sabbatical afforded me the rare gift of some unplanned free time. And it was summer—when happy, well-groomed, organized families leapt off docks into lakes, traveled harmoniously, planted gardens, set up lemonade stands, and went to the beach. Until this point, I hadn't been able to do many of these things with my kids, except on scheduled vacations. Now they could finally sleep in. So could I. I welcomed this strange new leisure.
Not so fast, missy.
My mother called the house in early July to ask what exactly I planned to accomplish on my sabbatical, warning that I'd better set some clear goals or I might be disappointed. I suppressed a sigh, and tried to explain that all I'd ever done was work and accomplish things. Couldn't I just rest for a while? Her response was to warn me how quickly the time I had would fly by.
I felt defeated that even my own mother didn't really approve of me taking a complete break. It also annoyed me. Yet, I sensed she was right. But what else was I supposed to be doing? I had quite a bit going on with life-coach training and part-time design work with Suzi. Couldn't I just be?
That summer, the days passed gloriously slowly, as if the Universe had held all of those sunny days when I was working in the hospital in escrow and delivered them to me in a grand payout—one big, warm, cloudless
day after another. I relished each day, each breeze. Our neighbors probably thought I was nuts—standing at the bottom of the driveway, admiring the kids’ chalk art and exclaiming over the beauty of the day. It was as if I had been born again—not in a Pat Robertson way but organically. As if a long-lost part of me were waking up and coming to life.
For the first time, I was able to offer rides to other kids to and from soccer. I could begin to repay all the favors I'd received from others. This felt deeply satisfying. I suddenly understood that, when other moms had helped me out in the past, saying “no problem” or “my pleasure,” they really meant it. I drove to several of George's games in Minneapolis with a carload of teenaged boys, and it was such fun to listen to their banter and hear them belting out “All the Single Ladies” at the top of their lungs in a newly achieved lower register.
On other days, we just went exploring like life pirates. One day, I took the three younger kids to a place just up the north shore of Lake Superior—a sort of rabbit-and-llama petting zoo coupled with odd logging-camp paraphernalia, including large papier-mâché loggers posed in funky logging-camp scenes. It was endless fun to watch them feed the critters, and the trading post had rock candy, agates, and jackalopes. It was the kind of aimless, imaginative, idling time for which we had all been longing.
There were also dark days when I was overwhelmed with learning about coaching, keeping the house neat enough to live in, and trying to navigate the many locations for weekly soccer games, practices, and skill sessions for Katherine and George. My brain struggled to keep all these details straight. All I ever wanted to be was home and now that I was, why was it so incredibly hard?
Between soccer games, design work with Suzi, and coach-training calls, I had a little surplus time in the early morning and late afternoon when the kids were either sleeping or otherwise entertained. I began to wander outside with Buttercup, our pug. I never realized how Nature-starved I had been until now. I walked to the edge of the woods near our house and stood there, looking into the shady darkness. In the stillness, I could sense a great buzzing energy, but I wasn't quite ready to find out what it was. Instead of going into the dark woods, I hung out in the cattails at the marsh near the edges of the woods with a bunch of red-winged blackbirds, who really were excellent company.
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