My Systematically Mystical Summer

I don’t know about you, but I did NOT end up having the summer I intended to have. 

I spun off in two directions: one pragmatic and logical, the other experiential and mystical. 

And it broke my brain. 

Listen to what I learned and how it's affecting this podcast. 

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I also coach women leaders (individually and in groups) and facilitate campus workshops. Learn more at the website.

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Transcript

Carole: 0:08

Hey there, welcome to the Uplift podcast, where we talk all things leadership for women in higher ed. I'm Carole Chabries and I want to help make your leadership path a little easier, a bit brighter and a hell of a lot more fun. Here at the Uplift, we mash up real stories, real feelings, real theory and occasional f*** bombs, all to help you become the kind of bleeping awesome leader you would love to follow. I'm so glad you're here. Let's jump in. So I don't know about you, but I did not end up having the summer I intended to have, or that I wanted to have. During the spring, I started to see some things in my business that needed my attention and I thought, oh, summer, summer is a great time to do that. I'll dig into that work over the summer because I thought it would be quick and easy, something I could wrap up in June. It was not, you would think. After years in higher ed, I would know don't put something off to the summer, thinking you'll get it done. But I apparently have not learned that lesson yet. Anyway, early summer I head off in two different directions, mentally speaking. First, I really wanted to focus on business systems. I won't bore you with the details here, but the best analogy I can think of is imagine trying to be a faculty member on a campus where you're teaching classes, advising students, you're doing your service, you're creating new knowledge through research, you're creative practice, and you're doing all that without the infrastructure of, say, a registrar or an IT office or a facilities team or maybe even marketing and communications. I wasn't really feeling burned out and overwhelmed per se, although people told me I was. So I did start to listen, but I could clearly see that I needed to put some systems into place so I could follow standard procedures and get faster things instead of constantly shooting from the hip. I wanted to be able to use automations to my advantage, all that stuff. So that all seemed really straightforward and I'm enough of a process nerd that I was pretty excited about this and I was like June, I can put all those systems together.

Carole: 2:23

The other path I put myself on was well, it's a little harder to explain. I thought at the time it was some basic self discovery. But pretty soon I was meditating. I was doing regular visualizations and journaling. I did some energy work and some healing work. I even explored human design, which was fascinating. At one point Shannon looked at me and said who is this new age woman in our house and what has she done with Carole? I was just like, shut up, she is busy working, whoever this new age woman is, anyway. So part of my brain was busy being systematic and part of my brain was all touchy-feely and woo-woo and mystical.

Carole: 3:07

And then late in June my brain just sort of broke and all I can really say about that is this a broken brain will struggle to put together systems and processes and a broken brain will struggle to visualize and do some self development. So all that brokenness, that was July. And then in early August I took a stupid bone-headed tumble while walking the dogs and I ended up with a concussion. So for a little bit there my brain truly was broken and let me just say, new window on traumatic brain injuries, holy cow. Then by the end of August all the fog started lifting together, kind of like an old-timey movie theater curtain, and I could see my life laid out for me again, like this nice little stage set. It all made sense. Now it's true that that life looked less like it had, less like a sort of Frankensteins reanimated monster held together with duct tape and bailing wire, and more like a life I was interested in living. So here it is, mid-september and as I record this, literally, the sky is blue and the birds are singing and I'm feeling not just like myself, but like a much improved version of myself. So thanks, Summer 2023.

Carole: 4:33

I learned a lot of major lessons over the summer, but here's one that is really resonating in how I work. After years of working in higher administration, I realized that I have come to let my days, and therefore my life, be ruled by deadlines. And sure, deadlines have their place. You know file your taxes on time so you don't pay, fine. Get to the airport on time so you don't miss your flight. Submit your receipts on time so you get reimbursed so right, like deadline structure, those are good, but I've carried this idea of deadlines and structure into work where I didn't really need it. I didn't really need all that structure, but I carried it over simply because deadlines and structure have become my habit.

Carole: 5:14

So, as I unpack what I'm calling my mystically systematic summer, I've come to see alternatives to the systems and structures I've been familiar with for the last two decades, and seeing them and breaking away from them turns out to be pretty damn liberating. More than anything, I'm feeling that establishing structure when I don't need it creates a kind of heaviness, and I don't want that Sort of like, on the one hand, having a friendly, inspiring conversation with a group of colleagues or, on the other hand, following Robert's rules of order. You can have the conversation either way, you can talk about the issues in both ways, but one approach just has structure that is heavy. So, even as I continue putting systematic stuff into place for the business, I'm exploring where those systems help me versus where they are sloggy habits, which is why, if you're keeping track, you noticed there was not a podcast episode last week. I love everything about podcasting and yet the structure, the entirely self-imposed structure of a weekly episode dropping Mondays at 10 am Central was starting to feel heavy. The podcast didn't feel heavy, but the structure felt heavy.

Carole: 6:26

So I've been trying to figure out what to do. I toyed with the idea of abandoning the podcast and that just made me sad, and I'm still exploring the idea of making it private. It's interesting to me and I have some good reasons for doing it, but I'm not quite ready to do that. So I just thought what if I quit telling myself that it has to drop every week. What if I let go of that structure? What if I drop it when it wants to drop? So last week I tried a week with nothing, no announcement that nothing was coming, no filler content and no episode, just nothing.

Carole: 7:00

And since you're here listening now, I can safely say the world didn't end and you didn't go away. So this is just to say there will be less structure around here for a while. I don't even know what that means, except I'll be doing what I want when I want, with people who want to come along for the ride. I'm going to try to stick to the Monday Drop Date for now, but who knows what will come of that? Not me and I'd love to turn this into a grand experiment together. So do me a favor, would you, and shoot me a message over on LinkedIn or Facebook, if you follow me there, or via text, if you have my phone number, or email me at carol that's carolwithinee at the cleriogroupcom. Tell me what you'd like to listen to and we'll see what emerges together. And that, my friends, is it for today. I'm even scrapping the outro for now. See you next time.