My name is Holly, and I am a Hot Hot Mess

The thing about the messiness of life is that it just gets swept under the rug.

We don’t post the real stuff of life on FaceBook.

No photos of tears and bed-head on Instagram.

Won’t find discussions about the inability to find a job on LinkedIn.

Sweep…Sweep…Sweep 

I am a driving, strong work ethic, devoted, perfectionist who doesn’t fail, known for my ability to get things done with high quality and on time … kind of person.  It’s in my jeans, my DNA, a familial trait, likely both nature and nurture involved.  Do you recognize this person?  In a loved one or colleague?  In the mirror?

We are reliable and successful, and likely exhausted, too.  We hold things together, so seemingly effortlessly, when life gets crazy.  And life DOES get crazy.  We have kids who get sick, and dogs who pee on the rug, and sometimes don’t shower ALL day because we are up at the crack of dawn DOing all these things. Doing, doing, doing, going, going, going… living up to the standard we’ve accepted, adopted, and created for ourselves.

I’d like to introduce you to a part of me.  Her name is “Hot Hot Mess”.  She showed up at a  training class I attended shortly after my 60 year old mother-in-law was suddenly diagnosed with a stage 4 glioblastoma brain tumor.  It was the worst of the worst case scenario.  Not only mom and Nana to us, but confidant, comforter, best friend, chef, encourager, and neighbor; someone we do life with!  Now THIS was MESSY!

 

The intimacy of that training class was the perfect environment to allow Hot Hot Mess (we’ll use HHM) to emerge.  She is the ultimate definition of vulnerable.  She has emotions and she shares them.  Her house isn’t always clean.  She feels what is happening in life right now, she sits in it and with it.  She is raw and open and authentic.  She is the opposite of just gulping it down, continuing the doing and going, wearing a glossy smile, and pretending like all is OK.  SHE is real. Sometimes I forget her and I have to remind myself, and invite her to be present once again.

We are literally designed to feel and express and to BE.  Life IS messy and full of the unexpected.  This is the human condition.  It is these experiences that chisel and sand and polish us into being our true and evolved self.  By gulping it down and sweep…sweep…sweeping it under, we miss opportunity to fully benefit from the evolutionary possibility of these experiences. Seeing and embracing our inner HHM is a gift to ourselves – permission to fully embrace the development opportunity in each messy experience.

The worst part, though, is the seeming standard we lay out there for others to see.  A bar so high it’s un-achievable.  An expectation that it’s not OK to be real and messy.  The gift in sharing your personal HHM is permission-granting to others.  It’s freedom to be real.  It opens us to real and meaningful connection and we are meant to live life within community, an essential ingredient to thriving in this life.

Be real, my friends.  Say hello to your HHM.  Embrace what’s possible when you fully feel and are present in this life.  Pay it forward by sharing it with others and reap the harvest of meaningful connection.

THIS is where I’ll meet you…

Greeted with a warm hug, a heart full of joy, tears to share, 

and a wide kind smile.