Andy, now two and a half, is incredibly fun to be with.  He has a gentle, playful personality and as one-who-has-an-older-brother, he works hard to keep up.  His place in the family has come with some benefits, some of which may not be fully appreciated for years to come.  With child number two, or three or four or …., there is not nearly as much time for doting; these kids discover independent play and learn to find ways to amuse themselves early in life.  This is Andy.  He is quite content with himself.  He also welcomes others to join him when they have time, but he definitely displays independence even at this age.

I’ve been really loving his communication in these past few months.  He can say anything he wants, he speaks in complete sentences, and has a very quick sense of humour.  So, when he can get a word in edgewise, he always has great things to say.  A couple of months ago, not to be outdone by Ben, Andy wanted to learn the ‘Exploding Dice’ trick that Ben had just received and was trying to perfect.  We set up an Andy version of it.  He started by saying, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, I am going to make this dice explode’.  This was followed by some silence, then prompting and then, with great expression and showmanship, ‘Abba da DA da!  He would then complete the trick with one shake of his tiny hand, look with wonderment at this same hand and exclaim with delight, ‘It worked!’.

I could watch this trick for hours.

This week I’ve been sorting through some clothes, hoping to make a donation in the next week or so.  I always have some clothes on hand for the boys for days when we suddenly find ourselves needing a fresh shirt or socks, but as I sorted through their clothes I realized that many of the things I have are things that have been outgrown. 
Andy saw my pile of sorted clothes this week and picked up a green sleep sack he used to use.  He asked me what it was.  I told him it was what he used for sleeping when he was a baby. 

‘Oh’, he replied.  He thought about it for a minute and then said,  ‘Was I a little tiny baby?’

‘Yes’, I replied.

And then from him,  ‘But now I am Andy.’

This stopped me in my tracks.  I can’t get it out of my mind.  What a sense of self he has. 

He is Andy. 

All of us go through life wearing many different hats.  Often, we wake up already wearing a hat. Perhaps that of Mom or Dad,  Gramma or Grampa, or runner, or current event enthusiast.  Throughout the day we quickly and easily change into CEO, teacher, doctor, mechanic, consultant, or cashier.  We might don the hat of organizer, nurse, comforter, driver, friend, sister, brother, aunt or uncle, social media expert, disrupter, comedian, coach, cook or musician.

While it isn’t easy to admit, there are many times when we change hats, that we also change ourselves to make our hat look ever so slightly better. 

Andy hasn’t learned to do this yet.  Part of me hopes he never does.  There is something so grounded and precious about a person who knows themselves so well, and has become the version of themselves that best represents themself, that they don’t change when they change their hat.  It’s an admirable quality to not bend and twist ourselves into more palatable expressions of ourselves.

Here comes Christmas.   The season is upon us.  With this week’s snow I feel like it is now rushing toward us.  I, like everyone else, have a closet filled with hats I’m going to need to wear this season.  But what I‘ve been focusing on since I heard little Andy say, ‘But now I am Andy’, is thinking deeply about what small adjustments I can make so that at any time, no matter what hat I am wearing, I can simply know,  ‘I am Elizabeth’.

This involves dropping my self-imposed expectations of how I should show up in various roles.  Andy’s wise little comment has made me realize there is absolutely no reason for me to send my representatives out on my behalf.  Not anywhere.  Instead, I will ponder who I am at my best self, what it is that makes me me, and practice simply showing up as her.

I suspect when we do this, we are at our absolute best.  What a gift this would be to others in our lives.  Most of our family and friends don’t need the mother, CEO, coach, nurse, organizer, expert, version of us.  They don’t need us to show up in any fancy hat.  They simply need, and want, us.

This season, I challenge you to show up as yourself; your truest, best version of yourself. The version you would be proud to have someone accidentally see, or the version you would be proud to have shown on the front page of the paper.
For my part, I’m going to do this too.  I’m also going to continue to encourage Andy (and Ben, of course) to continue being himself, to follow his passions, to lean into the things that bring him joy, and to continue to be able to say, ‘I am Andy’.
I’m taking the rest of this month off from this blog.  I’ll see you in the New Year.  May this Christmas Season be one of peace, love, hope and you. 

My inquiry for you this season is to finish this sentence, ‘Now I am …’
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Elizabeth is a certified professional Leadership Coach, and the owner of Critchley Coaching.  She is the founder and president of the Canadian charity, RDL Building Hope Society.   She works with corporations, non-profits and the public sector, providing leadership coaching.  She creates and facilitates custom workshops for all sizes of groups and has expertise in facilitating Strategic Plans for organizations. Contact Elizabeth to learn how to live into the sentence, ‘And now I am me’.
 

I had to stop at the mall this week, not to do some shopping, but to attend to an appointment I had in one of the offices there.  The parking lot reminded me that it really is December.  Walking into the mall reminded me that it’s time to get my act together.  My last month has been filled with work commitments and a wonderful weekend away with my family.  Not much time has been spent shopping, or even thinking about shopping for that matter.

When I entered the mall this week, I headed straight for the down escalator, as my appointment was on the lower level.  Coming up the escalator at the same time was a woman carrying a few shopping bags.  As she approached the top of the escalator her largest shopping bag began to rip.  It started near the handles and as she tried to juggle the other packages to free up her hands to save the large bag from spilling, the bag let go.  Her purchases spilled out.  Luckily, she had arrived at the top of the escalator, and with no one behind her, she and I easily gathered up her things.  The bag was not salvageable, so she had to make due, leaving the mall with her arms full of her purchases.

I’ve thought of this brief encounter several times this week. 

If we stop in any mall and just watch the people passing by, we can notice people with all kinds of shopping bags.   I enjoy trying to guess what’s in the bags; not the exact things, but in general.  I always wonder what they are carrying.  Some carry just one little bag.  Some have a million little bags, each from a different store.  Some have a large bag, that they might fill with smaller ones.  Some are heavy and some look light.  Some are plain, and some look like they were taken right out of a Hallmark movie.

Every one of us carries shopping bags.  Some days they are filled with treasures; things that are light and easy to carry.  When we carry bags like these, our load does not burden us.  Rather our bags are filled with plans and dreams, or wonderful memories we hold dear. 

Other days are bags are heavy.  It’s hard to even get to the car, bus, train or plane with them, and they certainly don’t fill us with energy or wonder.  In fact, sometimes we cannot even find a place to put these heavy bags down.  We carry them around all day and night, finding it hard to get any relief from the carrying.

Still other days our bags are neither feather-light or lead-heavy.  Instead, they are simply overflowing, even splitting open with things falling out.

It’s impossible to tell just by looking how heavy any one of these shopping bags really is.  It would be easy to think that those who carry those small pretty bags have no trouble at all lifting and carrying them.  It’s equally easy to prejudge someone with a ripped bag, things spilling everywhere, imagining that they too are like their bag – kind of out of control and overburdened.

In truth, we have absolutely no idea.

This year is no different from any other.  Everyone is carrying around invisible bags.  Some are heavy, some are light, some plain, some pretty, some too much, some not enough.

In our family, we will be carrying a new bag this year.  We don’t quite know how to carry it.  Our nephew, Anthony, was taken from us far too young this past summer.  It’s a difficult time of year to carry the contents of this bag.  My sister, Mary, Anthony’s mom, was telling me that she had been out for a walk one evening this past week and ran into an older couple from their neighbourhood.  She sees this couple often and over the years has spoken to them many times.  They asked Mary if it had been their son who had passed away. They had seen the obituary in the paper.  Mary replied that yes, it was Anthony.  They then told her that they too had lost their adult son, his wife and their two small children in a car accident twenty-nine years ago. 

This couple has been walking around with this precious package for many years.  No one would guess what they carried in it.  Mary had no idea, but it took very few words for them to understand the weight of each others burden.
Meanwhile, here in Alberta, Ben and Andy spent the day with us on Friday.  Ben, who misses very few details, noticed a brown Amazon box in my office.  He wondered aloud who it might be for.  I explained it was for a little boy who comes from a family who doesn’t have enough money for many toys.  He knows about this family we help each year.  Then he spotted another package.  Again, he asked.  That one is for Grampa, I told him.

I could see some worry starting to creep in.  Finally, he said, ‘It seems like there are a lot of packages here, but none are for me.’  I smiled and told him that in fact, there are several packages here for him but I’ve hidden them all, so he doesn’t spoil the surprise of Christmas.  The worry in his face eased.

This is the tricky part of this blessed season.  It’s important we continue to find the joy of the season and celebrate its simple wonder.  It’s important to help the children in our lives feel the magic of the season.  But we will also notice people at the top of escalators, at our place or work, or in our own families, needing a hand to just manage all their shopping bags and packages.  And at the same time, we understand that many people carry heavy, heavy, packages.  Most often, these packages are completely invisible to us.  We have no idea.  Even when we do know what is being carried, it’s impossible to carry those packages for them. 

What we can do this season is simply notice packages, those both visible and invisible.  We can ease up on our judgement.  We can avoid adding to peoples already full bags.  We can walk beside.  We can notice ways to help and follow through.  We can smile.  We can have compassion.  We can spend time. We can be kind.  We can love.  

May your packages be light this week, and may you find time to ease the weight of those carried by others.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘I wonder what’s in that shopping bag?’
​
Elizabeth is a certified professional Leadership Coach, and the owner of Critchley Coaching.  She is the founder and president of the Canadian charity, RDL Building Hope Society.   She works with corporations, non-profits and the public sector, providing leadership coaching.  She creates and facilitates custom workshops for all sizes of groups and has expertise in facilitating Strategic Plans for organizations. Contact Elizabeth to learn how to gently watch for heavy shopping bags.