You can be a super hero, too!
We’ve lived in Italy for 5 months now, and I’m on week 14 of intensive language study. I always notice a theme once I get to this point: I’ve learned most of the grammar I’m going to need. And now, I’ve got to speak, even if every other word is a mistake.
Learning Italian, week 1
Last week, for example, I had to do a speaking exercise in class that I just did not want to do. Actually, it was much more than not feeling like participating. I was scared. Really scared. Because I knew that I was going to make a lot of mistakes and might not even succeed in getting my point across. It felt really similar to stage fright. But with stage fright, at least I know I’ve put in the work beforehand, practicing and preparing. In this case, I had no idea what I was going to say or how I’d express myself. And, I was in a class where many of the students a full level higher than me and half my age…
My first thought was to come up with a reason to leave. But I couldn’t really do that because that morning, I’d already arrived an hour late because I was trying to take my cat’s temperature (true story. I do not recommend trying this at home).
Anyway, after a couple of students took their turn, I just blurted out:
I’ve got to do this now or I won’t do it at all.
Fork in the road
So, I did it. And was it as terrible as I thought it was going to be?
Yes, it was.
In fact, the look on my teacher’s face was all the proof I needed to know this was true. But, despite my fear, I did it anyway. And I did not die, neither from the embarrassment, nor from the exertion of doing the exercise.
The upside? I learned a couple of key phrases like:
Ora or mai piu
Which is essentially, now or never
And
Non ci sono riuscita
Which means, I didn’t really manage it, I wasn’t successful…
But, even if I wasn’t successful, I did it. Even in the face of fear.
Free fall
Later that night, I had a really vivid dream where I was, guess what? going to school – but the school was not an Italian language school – it was super hero school! And in my dream, my cover was to pretend I was pregnant.
There’s nothing like dreaming you are a super hero to give your morale a boost! When I woke up, I felt pretty awesome about myself, haha. But why super hero school and why pretending to be pregnant?
Super hero school
You know how heroes, when they are interviewed after their heroic act often say,
Of course, I was scared! But I did it anyway.
I think about this a lot.
Years ago, when I was experiencing living in a new country for the first time, I started a habit that I continue to this day: I challenged myself to do something new every day, even if it was hard. Even if it was scary. So, I’m pretty sure that in my dream about being a super hero my subconscious mind was telling me, that it was proud of me for doing something that felt like heroic effort.
But what about pretending to be pregnant? That my super hero cover and super strength was motherhood? Isn’t motherhood supposed to be the classic “career-killer”? Isn’t it something we aren’t supposed to talk about, to gloss over or maybe even hide when we go to work?
The first time I was pregnant, weeks away from having our first child, I was told by a prominent musician in the community that he’d no longer be hiring me to play for his students because I could not be counted on to be reliable. He kept his word and never engaged me again.
Once I had kids, I worked my butt off to make sure his “prophecy” would never be fulfilled. It was always at the back of my mind that I had to show up, no matter what. If the kids were sick, my husband changed his schedule to take care of them or else they had to come to work with me. Once I dragged my 4-year-old to an afternoon of masterclasses I was playing for: I left the morning rehearsals 15 minutes early to rush her to the ER to get stitches and made it back in time, with her in tow, to play… Of course, it was fine and she even had fun! But in retrospect, I added a ridiculous amount of stress to prove, mostly to myself, that I was reliable.
The empowering thing about this dream is that it revealed to me that I’ve had a mindset shift: that motherhood helps me to be a better musician, teacher, performer, administrator. These days, I look at my career through the lens of a whole being, and lead with my WHY, my personal mission statement, my raison d’être. I know longer worry about hiding certain parts of my life experience in order to get hired. All those parts make me, well, me! As my dad always said, “Nobody can be you, so be the best YOU you can be.”
Super mom!
Still, maybe just one teeny tiny little day being a super hero could be fun!
Are you struggling with the multi-faceted, multi-tasking way of life and looking to unify all the many roles you take on in a day? Are you curious about what it would look like to make choices based on your core values, instead of how you define yourself to others?
