A few years ago I was working a job marshaling a chorus of ringing phones in the customer service office of a busy bakery. One morning I overheard a managing partner deflect a coworker’s demand for her attention, stating the obvious,
“I am very occupied.” She returned to her elevated task without missing a beat. The interrupter walked away and, I suppose, figured out a way to solve his problem on his own.
In those four words, my mentor signaled her time was valuable. I immediately wrote ‘I am very occupied’ on a scrap of paper and put it in my pocket. I carried it home, remembered not to send it through the washing machine, and pinned the little scrap of paper above my writing desk. What must it have felt like to be that confident? I had no idea. I’ve been professionally interrupted my entire life. As it turns out, I designed it that way. The whole point of every job I’d ever held was to drop everything repeatedly and meet the immediate needs of another person. I had no idea how to ask for the focus I needed.
It’s good to be curious about our origin stories, they explain so much. When I was in middle school, my mother died in my arms on our bathroom floor at the end of a valiantly fought battle with cancer just after midnight on a sad, summer evening. I understand this sorrow has set me apart from most other people. From that moment on my life no longer belonged to me. I belonged to people who needed me. Well, that’s what I thought. My father occupied our house, along with my younger sister and me, but his presence disappeared. I began to disappear, too. There’s not a lot of room for yourself when prioritizing the ceaseless needs of others. I gave in to a life draped in caregiving and tried to rescue as many people as possible from pain. Until I learned it’s better to just be there with them holding their hand when bad things happen, instead.
Not long after ‘I am very occupied’ happened, I left the task of solving bread emergencies to others. I returned to teaching preschool to remember things like whimsy and continued to volunteer in children’s grief group programs, knowing grievers and mourners are my treasured tribe. Grief will always be the great driver of my life and I’ve found ways to approach it that feel safe and compassionate. Quietly, I began to write and send tender grief stories for children to publishers with little hope of seeing them in print. I’ve been collecting rejection letters like receipts for therapeutic interventions. Writing out your stories is healing and the most important reader is you.
A few years after I left her employment, I met the managing partner who had impressed me with the value she placed on her time at a local workshop designed to help women fulfill professional visions. I was there to network and find out how to grow my online coursework in grief support training for teachers. Light filtered through the whimsically painted event space windows as women drank coffee twice as dark as it should’ve been out of responsibly sourced paper cups. Spirits and sugar levels were high as participants sampled the bakery’s signature raspberry rugelach and tasted the magic baked into the brownies. My mentor approached me, smiling broadly, and asked about my work as she motioned to others she was now very occupied,
“Hello Suzanne, great to see you. What have you been up to lately?”
She listened carefully as I offered a brief description of my work integrating grief support training with writing gentle, nurturing stories for children and adults. I remember feeling she validated my passion and my worth with her full attention, ignoring the growing clusters of women hovering nearby. When you share a vision with a respectful listener it will increase the chances it’s actualized. It felt good to be reminded not only do I have the right but the obligation, to lift up what’s important to me. I’m responsible for my own clarity.
I take more risks with my writing now. Although not entirely over it, I rescue fewer people and by lending confidence in their own abilities by affirming them. I’m more forgiving of myself when I stumble and do things like waste money on failed marketing efforts or find technology slightly mindboggling. I give in less to the unkind voices of self-doubt and procrastination. I didn’t get to this place by wishing, and certainly not by myself. Years of work with a capable therapist and the unconditional support of my loving husband, kids, and friends have given me permission to feel worthy of my own attention. Really, they just couldn’t relax while I spun out accomodating and compensating for everyone. That’s hard to watch.
It’s taken me a lifetime to learn a lovely human truth; you can take really good care of others while taking really good care of yourself. Nothing brings our loved ones greater joy than to see us occupied with what we love, which in turn kindles permission for them to do the same. Claiming your focus will feel a little awkward at first like balancing on stilts or asking for directions in a foreign country, but I encourage you to try it. It is what everyone who loves you is waiting for.
Copyright (2021) Suzanne Bayer. All Rights Reserved