On Titles

We are not what we do. We’re really not.

Photo by Scott Schell

I wrote this story in early 2016 - when I was in between my career in public health, and not yet steady in my career as a coach…

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It took me years to call myself a yoga teacher.

Six in fact.

Eventually I was teaching more yoga than I was consulting, but I continued introducing myself as a management consultant because this felt more comfortable.

I started my career as an officer in the Air Force. The minute I graduated college I was someone’s boss.

I took on that hierarchical sense of self, that cultural construct of career and self-worth as one — and I’ve been working my way out of it for a long time.

These days I’m not working, not really, not in the water cooler kind of way Americans think of work.

I teach a few yoga classes a week.

Oh, and I’m the primary care giver to a new human.

I’m a mom.

It’s still fun saying that.

I’m also married, so I guess that makes me a house wife.

If I paid someone else to watch my kid we would call them a nanny, or a teacher. But if I choose to do it myself, we strip any sense of “job” out of it and call me a stay at home mom.

This sounds like a title for someone who is ill or bed ridden — a prisoner, or a shut in, who does not leave the perimeter of the homestead.

I’ll have you know that we leave the house all the damn time.

Why not call those of us who decide to raise our kids nap wizards. One handed martial artists. Spiritual masters. Or, simply, the most patient fucking people on the planet.

I’ve quit jobs to travel. I’ve worked very little, and consulted part time, but now that I’m on 24 hour duty, with the most demanding client I’ve ever had — now I’m supposed to feel like I’m not doing anything with my life?

Seriously?

Shaping a human? Guiding a life?

I grew her. In my body.

And then pushed her out.

Now I’m feeding her. From my body.

These are tasks worthy of a better title.

I once wrote a master’s thesis I called an adventure in career change.

And this is my latest adventure.

This is not a pause.

As all of you parents out there know — this is certainly not a break.

I’ve had cushy jobs, with shmoosy titles and don’t get me wrong, I miss the benefits, and I miss the illusion of security.

The title of being a management consultant in global health was easier at a dinner party. People opened and became curious.

When I say I’m not working, it’s as if I said I’m coming down with an active case of teburculosus. People react like they might catch it.

I’ve taken a lot of scary risks to pursue work, and a life, that feels authentic and important.

At first leaving my full time job to take a short term consultancy was terrifying. And then I loved it, and kept doing it.

The idea that life or God, or the universe or whatever vernacular you are comfortable with, gives us as much as we can handle feels very true to my experience.

It’s like marathon training. At first 13 miles seems unthinkable, and then it’s easy compared to 18.

And this choice comes from that same drive.

I’m more prepared and able to take this risk — which is good because what I’m doing now, is by far the scariest, most authentic, and important thing I’ve ever done.

So, I’m a wife. I’m a yoga teacher. I’m a writer. I’m a mom.

I am constantly at my growth edge.

But even these titles, that I cherish, and enjoy and choose — are still not who I am. Not really.

Who we are is ineffable. It cannot be described, but it can be felt.

It can be felt in how I teach, how I write, how I mother my daughter and how I love my partner.

Hopefully you can feel it here.

What I’ve learned the hard way, is that if we let our titles own us, if we hold to them too tightly, we forget that we can take them off. We forget they are just an overcoat we wear in public.

Allowing who we are underneath, seeing that, being that, in the world — is, I believe, the ultimate vulnerability.

It’s very tender, at first, exposing what is underneath that armor.

And it’s scary being naked in public.

There is nothing wrong, necessarily, with wearing a coat. As long as we are clear on the difference between the wool and our skin.

Because what a shame it would be to go through life wearing someone else’s coat when we have such beautiful skin to share with the world.

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