Category: bravery

Shame Hurricanes, and Real Talk with Katharine Mac

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I am a perennial optimist. I am optimistic about the weather, relationships, business opportunities, the kindness of strangers, and even more shockingly, I am optimistic about the Mets every.single.Spring. (This year is going to be their year you guys, mark my words.) At times this is an awesome quality. It keeps me hopeful, motivated and enthusiastic. 

And then other times, my optimism can bite me directly in the butt. I have gotten soaked in a rainstorm because I was *sure* the sun would stay out. I have stayed in relationships wayyyyy longer than I should have because I believed that this week would be the week that my significant other would love me the way I needed to be loved. I’ve gotten my wallet stolen, because I believed no one would just take it out of my bag if I left it out and I have rooted for the Mets, and been heartbroken every Summer. (I need to reiterate here, this is something that happened in the past, not this year. This year we’ll kill it!) 

Because I am such an optimist, when life goes sideways disappointment hits me pretty hard. What goes hand in hand with that disappointment is shame. I feel embarrassed about having been excited. Why wasn’t I more realistic? How could I have been so stupid? 

This feeling hits me especially hard when I have been optimistic about something and I’ve excitedly told people about it, and then it has fallen apart. This happened to me when I was looking for an agent for How to Get Run Over by a Truck. A writer friend had introduced me to his fancy pants agent, and she had told me that my manuscript (my manuscript!) had promise and that she would consider taking me on as a client if I worked with an editor that she recommended. I did exactly as I was told, and I immediately hired the editor. All the while I told anyone who made eye contact with me about this ahmazing agent who was a very big deal and was so excited about me and MY work! We were going to be STARS! 

Fast forward a year: my manuscript was in incredible shape because of the editor I worked with, my life savings were gone, and my optimism was at an all time high. I get an email asking me to come to the City to meet with the fancy agent to talk about the next steps. I put a bottle of celebratory champagne in my fridge to open when I got home from this meeting, I was amped! 

Welp, the meeting went the exact opposite of how I had anticipated, and the agent told me that the book wasn’t publishable, she couldn’t represent me, and that the only possible way for this to get published would be for me to start all over again, and spend more money on hiring a ghost writer.

When I got home that bottle of champagne got opened, and I drank it, by myself, in the dark, with a straw. 

All of my optimism drained out of my body and disappointment quickly filled the void. Disappointment brought its high school bully of a best friend…Shame, and boy did she have a lot to say!

Shame kept saying some pretty terrible things to me, making me feel stupid for being so hopeful, for wasting my money, for thinking I was good enough, smart enough, talented enough to for someone to be interested in representing me and my manuscript. These days, I call that voice Katharine Mac (the terrible annoying twin sister of my fun alter ego, Katie Mac) 

This voice pestered me non-stop for weeks, leaving me emotionally crippled, and mentally exhausted, until one day after another unending monologue of why I was an awful person, I said out loud: 

“I get it, I hear you, but could you shut the f*&k up? I’m busy.” 

I startled myself when I said it, but holy shit, that felt good. 

From then on, any time that Katharine Mac has acted up since then, I have treated it like I would any other rude person in the real world: acknowledgement of their feelings, a directive to either shut up, take a nap or grab a warm beverage or a snack – because they seem to need some love, and then get back to doing what I need to do. It has been the most helpful experience of my life. 

What I’ve come to realize is that Katharine Mac is going to show up when disappointment strikes. She is going to try to make me feel stupid, ashamed, and unworthy of good and positive things, but she won’t be successful. Because just as quickly as she shows up, she can be quieted down and in her place can be the voice that says that strangers will return your wallet, that the sun will come out, and that 2020 is the year the Mets win the World Series. 

Practice What You Preach: A 30 Day Challenge on Bravery, Growth & Gratitude.

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I am one of the luckiest people in the world, because I really love my job as a coach. I love helping people as they move through big challenges in their lives, supporting them as they make big goals, standing next to them as they face their biggest fears. I am in constant awe of my clients and their openness to growth, their consistent bravery and the fact that our sessions allow for them to reflect on the good things in their lives that they are grateful for! Its beautiful, and its badass and I realized last month – I WANT IN!!! I want to push myself to be brave, to engage in activities that make me feel like I am growing, and Lord knows I love me some gratitude so why not throw that in there too!

Spring has always felt like a transition time – I mean the weather is changing, why can’t I? So, I put together a spreadsheet where I am going to record all of my acts of bravery, growth, and gratitude and I’d love for you beautiful humans to keep me accountable as I move through this month!

If you want to join me, you can make a copy of the spreadsheet for yourself, and we can all make some small changes together!

30 Day Challenge: Bravery. Growth. Gratitude.

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The hospital where I did my rehab after my crash recently interviewed me for a promotional video. It was super fun and also amazingly awkward, especially when they were videotaping me powerwalking like a muppet around my neighborhood. I felt like people staring at me, wondering why in the world people were videotaping someone powerwalking – running, maybe – powerwalking? Weird.

When I watched the video I was struck by two things: 1. There was one hair in my bangs that was stuck to my forehead that after I saw it, I couldn’t stop wondering why no one had told me to adjust it 2. I said something at the end of the video that I was afraid I didn’t totally believe.

“My win isn’t going to look like someone else’s win, but that doesn’t make it any less sweet, any less important and definitely any less beautiful.”

Real talk, that’s a badass quote, and I truly loved it. But I felt like this statement wasn’t true in every facet of my life. I felt like it was true about my physical fitness – I had accepted that my ability to exercise, run, walk, and compete is going to be different from others  in light of my injuries and my accident. It has taken me over 10 years to get there, but it is my truth now – being different is my reality.

What I have been struggling with is accepting that my life, my work, my wins are different, not only from my contemporaries, but also from my past self. What does a win for me even look like? How do I know that I am successful If I didn’t get a raise, or a title change, or a bonus or just an old fashioned “Attagirl” from my boss?  How do I feel successful in the world without a clearly defined path to a gold star?

This gold star search had been consuming me. I scrounged for confirmations of my success anywhere I could: from the likes on the articles I wrote, from my boyfriend acknowledging the smallest bit of good news, from the amount of money I would make on speaking engagements. I needed someone on the outside to tell me that these wins were enough. Mind you, they had no idea that their validation was the only thing that was keeping me afloat on this turbulent sea of self-doubt about whether not I was a good person, if I was worthy of love, if I was living my life correctly. Which is an ungodly amount of pressure on a person who thought that they were just receiving a call about the fact that a hospital might have me come in to speak in the summer. I would hang up the phone wondering where my fireworks and backflips were.

Then, I got this photo:

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My smiling face, with the words that I needed to hear right next to my head. And I thought to myself – “Who says that this isn’t a win Katie McKenna? How says someone taking your words and taking a fancy photo of you, and putting those two things together, isn’t a goddamned win? Will it increase you salary, no – it absolutely won’t. But, is it awesome? It really really is! It is different than other peoples win’s because these things aren’t happening to people that you know – they are happening to you! And that is worth its weight in Atta Girl’s.

It’s a new year, and it’s the same me – but I am hoping that 2018 is full of a shift in perspective, and an easing of what our lives “should be” and a celebration of all of the sweet, important and beautiful wins that we are experiencing right now. They deserve their own gold stars, and you do too!

When You’re Scared it Just Means You’re About to Do Something Really Brave

Today, I feel super weird. I am closing out my first week of not having a full time job in quite a long time. Truthfully, this is my first full week of not having a full time job in tandem with a side hustle. So, I feel intensely odd.

This weirdness is a funny mix of being confused about how to measure myself when I don’t have something to point to and say: I accomplished this thing this week. I was paid for it. I have worth! And wondering what I am going to do now that my life feels like it is truly in my hands.  I can choose what I want to be when I grow up! I can be responsible for my own happiness! I am not going to lie to you, it is awesome, but is also TERRIFYING. 
These anxious thoughts keep running through my brain: what if I waste my time? What if I make the wrong decision? What if I squander this opportunity, what if I can’t make money doing what I want to do? What if I end up broke and have to move out of my lovely Brooklyn apartment into my parents house in Vermont…wait actually that doesn’t sound too terrible…I could become a maple syrup farmer, and live off the land (just kidding, I am going to eat the food in my parents pantry) I would totally crush it there – I look excellent in plaid!  
My biggest anxiety is that I am going to let the fear paralyze me. That I’ll lean into the worry that I’m not smart enough, capable enough, driven enough or good enough to create a new beautiful phase of my life. I know that I’m not the only one who feels this way.  I’ve heard it from countless friends when they are about to embark on something new, different or outside of their comfort zone.

That feeling that we aren’t “enough” is a really hard one to knock out of our minds.  It haunted me when I started writing this blog, when I worked to get my book published and when I started to speak professionally – who was I to try? How dare I say that I am enough? 

I am trying to remind myself that even though I heard all of those negative voices shouting at me, I did all of that shit anyway.  Mostly because of some amazing advice from my best friend Leah Bonvissuto told me, “When you’re scared, it just means that you’re about to do something really brave.”

Believing that at some point I would look back at this moment not as one where I was scared, but as one where I acted brave, where I made the choice that was hard and scary not the one that was safe and easy, reminds me that I am stronger than I think. That there is more courage inside of me than fear. That I am enough. 

So today, and every day forward, I am going to do my best to acknowledge that I am scared (and to be cool with it) and I am going to really, really push myself to be brave.