Pathmaker, Pathmaker, Make Me a Path

Pathmaker, Day 2 of 2. 

It is as if the essence of my being has been squeezed out of a wet rag into a bowl and now my limp musty body is hanging on the dowel drying out with that dank dishwater smell wafting up from it. 

I may have a slight bent for the dramatic. This did not show up in my assessment anywhere. I found a pitfall in this test obviously. Even with this obvious hole, I would recommend you find an opportunity to take yourself through this psychometric assessment. It concludes with investigating many nuances of who I am which is wonderful. It frees me to be who I am and understand who my neighbor is. It encourages me to see others for who they are and embrace our differences. 

I see my peers, my coworkers, my teammates as more valuable as I can understand more of the world through their eyes. If nothing else, this is invaluable. 

Who are people you need to take time to know better that you might see life through their eyes?

The Pathmaker, Day Un

Day 1 of 2 in The Pathmaker ‘Discovering What To Do…With Who You Are.’ 

It is good. It is a process that brings definition to lives and understanding, as the tagline says, what to do with who you are. 

I would say the process is built around bringing out the why your clock ticks the way it does. This is an odd sensation for me. I’ve felt like people who are gifted in this area have attempted before to do odds and ends in helping me clarify who I am, and they missed the mark. I’ve been through Myers Briggs and many others. This process seems to finder a deeper accuracy. Though it does involve a questionnaire, more of a binder of assessments, it is definitively just as much about the interview process as it is anything else. 

The interview process is what sets this psychometric test apart. The interview process has two very important variables. The first variable is me. Am I willing to be honest, transparent, and involved with a complete stranger in understanding who I am. I hope by the end of all this everyone going through this process would answer, “Yes.” to that question on my behalf, as much as I think I would answer yes. The second variable is the interviewer. 

The interviewer must be someone who you can connect with and really understands how to ask questions to me and how engage with who I am. I would say the leader of this process is a good interviewer. He is able to read me and my teammates well. He sees how we act and react to the questions and he adjusts accordingly. I don’t think this is a perfect process; however, this process will unlock most if not all the doors for me to have direction and a compass to help me understand myself. Today, I walk away with a draft, maybe a final draft, of my life’s purpose statement:

“I must be challenged by the Holy Spirit to create opportunities for others to pursue excellence.”

I do not know if this is the final draft. I do know this statement resonates with me quite a bit. I am thankful to have someone who is so perceptive to who others are that he can see into who I am to help me craft this statement. I look forward to another day of digging into myself and I am thankful that I have had this day of learning about myself (as if I haven’t had enough of these lately.)

Who is helping you dig into who you are?

Making Paths,

—JT

Pathmaker

Part of the reason my sabbatical is so well timed is because I am going to be doing a personality assessment with the rest of the staff team I work with. This is well timed. I’ve already gone through the binder of questionnaires, and today is the first day of the process.

Something that gives me a leg up on the situation, which is great because I hate going into situations like this blind, is my counselor is the one administering/leading the process. Since I’ve already met with him I feel like I have a good start on the process. Hopefully this doesn’t come back to bite me and leave me bored for too much of this two day seminar. 

Long term, I’m excited to see where this goes. Tomorrow I’ll be posting my initial reactions to the process, workshop, and interactions I have with people throughout the process. I will post more discussion about this process later this week when I’ve had some time to digest and I’ll post everything from a zero foot view and a 10,000 foot view about me in the weeks to come. 

The best question I can leave you with is this, when was the last time you sat down and looked in the mirror at yourself and analyzed where your natural gifting is? Do you work in that field or position? Do you utilize that skill set often? What is stopping you?

Errbody in The Club

“To err is human; to forgive is divine.” — Alexander Pope

This resonates well with where I am at. My dad definitely ‘err’ed. However, I cannot throw the baby out with the bathwater. I have to recognize the other 21 years of my life where my dad raised me and took care of me. My dad hugged me everyday and told me he loved me. My dad came to most of my events like baseball, basketball, football, concert band, jazz band, musicals, and who knows what else. My dad tried to be there for all of it. My dad told me I could do anything I set my mind to. Part of the reason I am who I am today is because he still believes in me.

Today, I choose to no longer define him by his greatest mistake in my life. 

I choose to no longer define myself by the greatest mistake he made in my life.

I choose to define him by the 21 years he was a good father to me.

I will define myself by the healing and growth I am gaining moving forward.

What do you define yourself by?

Who has hurt you?

Who do you need to forgive?

Where The Buck Stops

Yesterday, I talked about my dad’s past, how little I know, and how that affects me now. However, I didn’t talk about the people who did know my dad. I didn’t talk about my half siblings.

There are my 5 of them. They’ve mostly lived away from me. They are all quite a bit older than I am. They range from 30 years to 8 years older than I am at least. I don’t know for sure. This goes to show how well I know them all. 

One of them I didn’t even get to meet till last fall when we all were together for the first time ever. She is a sweetheart. They are all wonderful people. My heart aches because of how little I know them all. They are all great people whom I wish I knew better.

Unfortunately, the phone line goes both ways and I have most of their numbers and never call.

So I am more to blame than they are for not knowing them. 

They had the same dad as I did. But the person he was to them, is not the person he was to me. (This truth cuts me to the core.) 

I sat up late with one of them and told him about the man I knew as my dad and he told me of the same man. I can hardly believe my dad could treat anyone so horribly.

He abused them. 

It kills me to know I was raised so differently.

It makes me feel responsible. That night, my half brother told me I’m not responsible. But I still feel like I am.

I can see why my dad was who he was. He didn’t have a good relationship with his dad. He told me my whole life that his dad said, “I love you.” only one time in my dad’s whole life. My dad never recovered from that. He took it out on his children. 

My dad carried the pain his dad left him with and never dealt with it. I know that because I can see how it still affected him through my life and to the end of his life. 

I’m not going to carry that pain.

I’m making changes and pulling the plug.

The pain stops here.

What pain do you carry from your father and your father’s father? 

How are you stopping it from rolling down hill to your children?

Where the buck stops,

—JT

The Dad Life

This is the dad life. If only I could encapsulate 68 years of my father in a video like that. I could maybe cram the 27 years I knew him into a video that skips a rock over the surface of his life. But truly, I don’t have much more than that. Lets be real about those first 8 years or so, I didn’t really know him in the sense of a friend or neighbor. I knew him in the sense of I woke up, ate, played, and stayed out of trouble. 

Otherwise, I don’t know much about anything before that. He told me many stories of his growing up years, but he left out the hard parts and accentuated the good parts. Some people might say he exaggerated the good parts. I would agree with that. Which isn’t that rare, we all do that to some extent. I couldn’t prove the stories he told were outright lies though. 

I couldn’t really prove much more than what I can remember and what other people corroborate. Which isn’t surprising. The more I learn about my dad the more he is a bit of a puzzle to me. The things I can prove are things like my grandpa Jack Patrick Manning being a cartoonist. 

But I can’t prove that he was a cartoonist at Hannah Barbara as much as my dad said he was or that he drew cartoons for training videos for the Navy during WWII. My dad told me all sorts of different thing about himself.

My dad was in the Navy. 

Was he really a pilot? Did he do barrel rolls in helicopters like he said he did? What about the stories he told about his time in Vietnam? Can I prove those? Do I want to do the work of proving/disproving? How do his stories interplay with him being dishonorably discharged from the Navy?

My dad raced race cars.

How about his stories about racing against Darrel Waltrip and Dale Earnhart?

My dad knew the Beach Boys.

Then there are stories about how my dad sang the high part of Barbara Ann for the Beach Boys…

You could see how I might start to become skeptical and cringe when my friends teased that my dad probably knew George Washington and signed the Declaration of Independence. But I am cringing because I know there is more truth to their teasing than maybe there is to his stories. 

You see, the more I talked to my half siblings, the more it became apparent that my dad lived a rather remarkable life. I’m sure there were mundane moments. But truly, his life was remarkable. He built homesteads and settled his family into the wild wilderness of Montana. Providing for his family off the land. 

But he never settled for reality. He always had his extra he had to add to the story. 

His life was a good story he never settled for. He always wanted more than what was real.

I now struggle with this too. I want more than what is real and I want to exaggerate my stories.

I can’t let myself do that though. Reality is where I wake up and go to sleep every day.

Reality is where my wife and my friends are. 

Reality is where my community is.

Where do your stories come from? Where do you live? Do you tell your friends, children, and family about the true version of you and who you’ve been?

Cope–enhagen, Germany

Copacetic: Adjective, “In excellent order.”

Isn’t it funny that the word cope is almost contained within copacetic? And just looking at ‘copacetic’ and ‘cope’ you’d think they were both just a brother and sister word. Yet, when you visit the authoritative source on all things, you discover, ‘copacetic’ and ‘cope’ are actually unrelated. Now, this is where the conversation about these two words truly becomes scintillating. 

One of my defense mechanisms. 

Over intellectualizing.

I don’t want to admit how I over intellectualize things and think them through 300 different ways and then feel nothing about them. And that is how I ended up down the rabbit hole of copacetic versus cope. 

Another one of my coping mechanisms is shoving, (maybe more accurately, another part of my coping mechanism.) I just take whatever it is that is bugging me and shove it. 

Somebody hurt me?

Shove it.

Displeased with my body, too fat, too skinny!?

Shove it.

I feel insecure because I don’t think I’m smart enough?

Shove it.

My dad left and I’m mad at him because he abandoned me and my mom?

Shoved it.

Shoved it for 7 years.

My dad died and I never properly reconciled with him face to face and now I feel alone in the universe. Lost because I never got a hug from my dad to truly comfort me and make me feel loved and affirmed like only a father can love and affirm his son?

Yup.

Shoved it for a year.

But wait, how can I just shove and intellectualize everything? I have to have an outlet. I have to be able to do something to preoccupy my mind. I can’t just sit at home ignore everything that is boiling under the surface. At some point I’m going to be alone and faced by the truth of what has been shoved and intellectualized into oblivion. 

Final step to my coping mechanism, video games. 

However, this cycle has to stop.

Now I am on the verge of tears as I know I cannot shove big things anymore.

I am trying to learn healthier coping mechanisms. 

I am facing this overpacked suitcase of baggage.

Equipped with a good counselor and an amazing community.

How about you? How have you been coping? 

When are you going to face your baggage? 

Who is going to help you?

One Down

One appointment down. One more to go. I suspect there will be, “One more to go.” for quite a while to come. 

30 minutes ago I was sitting with my newfound friend, counselor, and wise confidant. Now I’m sitting down in my corporate coffee shop of choice full of information about me. It is interesting to sit down with someone who isn’t close to me and talk with them as if they are my friend whom I’ve known for years. And afterwards? I walk away with new insights to who I am. Today’s insight is: “My dad is my hero.” 

When he left, my hero threw in the towel. 

My Superman threw in the towel. 

My dad was my inspiration.

When he left, my inspiration left.

My dad challenged me to stretch myself.

When he left, I stopped challenging and stretching myself.

Now, I have to let my dad be my superman again.

I have to forgive my dad.

When I forgive my dad, I will be breaking down the walls that stop him from inspiring me to challenge myself. When I face a challenge and achieve excellence, I am then inspired to challenge myself again.

I face that challenge and I am inspired to excel and achieve excellence, because my dad believes in me.

Whether he is sitting next to me, a million miles away, or 6 feet under. 

My dad is my inspiration, he loves me, and wants the best for me.

Today, I go home, eat dinner with my wife and tell her about my appointment.

Tomorrow, I challenge myself to forgive my dad.

Forgiving my dad, wholly and fully, will mean I’ve achieved excellence again. If I achieve excellence again; then, I might be inspired to challenge myself again. Then who knows what might come next. Will this unlock me challenging myself and achieving excellence over and over again?

Apple a Day

“Apple a day keeps the doctor away.” – Johnny Appleseed

Unfortunately, there is no apple to keep the counselor away. I’m still a little in shock that I’m going to go see a counselor today. I don’t know how to feel. I want to go. I am excited to go. I know I’ll be better for going. I just don’t like the reality. It has always been the sort of thing where I know it is good for people. 

I think it is good for me. 

I just don’t want to do it. Makes me feel like there is something wrong with me. Something more wrong than I thought. I don’t like feeling like I’m more broken than I already feel like I am. I want to feel good about who I am. 

All these feelings make me realize how I actually view going to counseling. 

Going to counseling is ok for you, it is ok for them, it is ok for everyone else. But I don’t really need to go. I’ve known I needed to go to counseling for years. Especially considering that I know there is emotional turmoil has been weighing on me for some time now. I even took a class on family communication that outright said, I’m paraphrasing, most people in their mid to late 20’s should probably go to counseling whether they think they needed it or not. We are all raised by someone and they weren’t perfect and as a result, neither are we. Doesn’t mean we’re going to go all ‘Silence of the Lambs’ out there. But we do need to process through where we are in life in a healthy way with someone who is trained in helping people process life. But I still waited, put it off, and ignored it. Thats how I deal with things, shove them down deep. The more they hurt, the deeper they go. This one bubbled up to the surface and is fighting back. 

Here I go. 

Today, I had to break down some walls. 

Today, I go to to see a counselor.

Going to counseling today shows me that the social stigmas about going to counseling are deeper in me than I thought they were. Today I’m breaking those stigmas and I’m going to be better for it.

What about you? Do you have stereotypes about people who go to counseling? How are you breaking those stereotypes? Why aren’t you going to counseling?

Nervously, 

—JT

Life of Mom

Wow, cannot hardly believe what starts to happen when you talk to your family.

Unlike the stereotype, when I go visit my family (specifically my mom’s side of the family,) It is about as low-key as it gets. For example, it is not unheard of that we might move a holiday’s celebration to the day after or before the holiday because of all of the plans getting bounce around and everyone being so busy. We succumb to the shuffle and don’t let family take priority. We don’t have any drama, just more than our fair share of spunk and spiciness. We don’t pull any punches, we just tell it how it is. 

This low-key nature comes at a price though. The price of all this is that we don’t talk about anything deep. We’ll talk about the local news, which isn’t much in a town of 382 people. We’ll talk about what has gone on with family health. We will never go deep. We will never get personal. 

That changed a little this year. I spent most of a day traveling with my mom, step-dad, and wife. I told my mom about my impending sabbatical, I told her about my upcoming counseling appointment, I told here how I’ve been doing for the past bit. Though I was emotional, it went well. We moved on in topics shortly thereafter and kept talking. And we small talked most of the day away or didn’t talk. 

I like not talking, it is easier than small talking. A restful silence, when no one is stressed by a lack of conversation, is golden silence for me. I love a golden silence. My mom is good at golden silences. A day of golden silence is wonderful for us. Though, this time we had a 3 hour car ride. 

So, my wife, my step-dad, my mom, and I packed up and drove the last leg of our journey to my mom’s family and on the way, it came up about my mom’s early life. 

A life I know very little about. 

A life I had never really heard about.

I asked about this life. 

I asked where she came from. 

I asked what she used to do for work.

Where she went to school.

Why she went to these places.

Why she didn’t go do this other thing.

I asked until I was full. Full of joy. Full of emotion. Full of fulfillment. 

And my mom told me it all. 

Now I have an understanding about myself I’ve never known. I always grew up with my dad working on and fixing cars. My dad always tried to tinker with technology, unsuccessfully. But I had never known what my mom did. 

She was a computer programer. (She used punch cards. And a bit of software in the 1990’s)

This changes things.

I’ve never understood why I am so tech savvy and actually enjoy technology to some extent. I’ve never understood why quite a bit of technology comes fairly naturally. I’m no tech genius. I am under 30 and I’ve grown up with technology. This has been my default explanation to myself why I do well with technology, at least better than the generation before me. 

Now that I’ve heard my mom’s story, I can believe that there is an inherited natural gifting with technology (or at least a reasonable possibility for natural gifting.)

I have always been entertained by coding, but now I have a reason to give it a try. 

I know who my mom is and where she came from.

I can now better understood who I am.

If you have children, sit down right now and set a reminder in your calendar/phone/schedule an email to be sent to yourself. Your children need to know who you are and where you’ve come from. And if your parents are still alive, go ask them where they come from. Take them out to dinner or coffee or go for a walk and ask them, “What is your life’s story.” You might be surprised about what they tell you. 

You might better understand who you are because of it.

I admit it, I grew up as a tunnel visioned silver spooned child. I couldn’t see much outside myself. 

But now that I can, my life is so much better. 

Now that I’ve heard my mom’s story, I can go to counseling and talk about who I am. 

I know who my mom is.

I know better who I am.

When are you going to tell your story to your children?

When are you going to ask your parents for their stories?

Living a good story,

—JT

All Things Have...

All things have a beginning. I always hear this phrase in reference to the end. But I would argue the part of things worth paying attention to is the beginning. My life has a beginning. This is me,skipping a rock over the surface of my life. The highlights and lowlights of where I have come from.

Note: Grab your coffee now, make a bathroom run, and settle in, this is longer than what I usually have to say. (28 years doesn’t condense well.)

1986. I was borned in Laguna, California. I have no memories and I know very little about my time in California. 

My earliest memories come from Port Orchard, Washington where we lived for a couple of years before we moved to Jacksonville, Florida. We moved to Jacksonville for my mom’s job. She worked at Merril Lynch down in FL as a computer programmer and my dad worked for an auto parts distribution company. I have very little grasp of what my parents did besides this. For the last two years of our time in Florida, my half sister lived with us for her last two years of high school. The school we went to was University Christian School. I enjoyed my time there, though the only events of note were the few moments I was in trouble whether it be due to my own actions or false accusations from others.

[Having to explain that I lived in Jacksonville, I actually had to look up my old address in order to make sure I was explaining it correctly. I wanted to make sure I didn’t live in some suburb of Jacksonville with a proper name I’ve never known because I’ve always just called it ‘Jacksonville.’]

I lived in Jacksonville for about 6 years before I moved back to Port Orchard (PO). When we moved to PO, I went to Orchard Heights for 5th & 6th Grade (public school), South Kitsap Christian School (private school) for 7th & 8th grade, John Sedgwick Junior High (public school) for 9th, and finalized my educational career at the esteemed South Kitsap High School (public school). 

We moved to PO because my mom took a job as a computer programmer with Northern Life Insurance Company. This led to a job with ING Direct, as they were bought out and became a subsidiary. And then all of a sudden she was no longer working there. 

ING is owned by a European group. When they bought Northern Life Insurance Company, they decided to outsource my mom’s job because they already had a workgroup doing the same/similar work as my mom on the east coast in CT. So, she went from a well paying job to unemployed, to working part time for a local author as an accountant. Obviously, the economics of it all don’t balance well and my parents didn’t change their lifestyle even though their finances changed.

Meanwhile, my dad was working at a local auto parts store (not Napa Autoparts, but this is the right idea.) He was also involved in a local performing arts theater and so was I. 

Growing up I had always been involved in sports to some extent. From T-ball on up I played baseball, there was even a year while we were in Florida that I played football. I would estimate a failed year. 

They sorted the teams by weight class and I was a chunky kid who was destroyed by kids three and four years older than I was. When you’re getting stomped on, it leaves a sour taste in my mouth. I’ve gotten over it, it is just unfortunate. 

I started playing basketball and continued playing baseball when we moved back to PO. I played both sports on and off till 9th grade. Starting in 9th grade I began lessons on the electric bass and got involved in musical theater. Both were great for me. I am not very competitive and this allowed me to be more creative and dig into art I could wrap my hands and mind around.

Music stuck with me through high school. I tried the JROTC and DECA programs at my high school; but, music is what really resonated with me, whether in bands, theater, or just rocking out in my room playing along with the radio. 

Music took me to college. The University of Idaho (U of I) Lionel Hampton School of Music is where I landed. I had a friend who was going to school at the U of I at the time and I decided if it was good enough to him, it is good enough for me. 

Before I moved off to college, my parents lost their house due to their financial choices and in the summer of 2004, we packed up all our worldly possessions and hit the road for a sliver of real estate they owned near Santa, Idaho (there is no claus that requires me to mention this.)

I was there with them for a less than a month before I went to Moscow, Idaho to go to school. Still further financial issues caused them to move to Moscow as well after I had been going to school for a couple years. They lived in Moscow for a year while I finished my third year studying Music Theory. 

This is where things slow zoom in the most. I’ll still try to be brief but I can’t leave out too many details either. 

After my third year at school my dad decided to leave my mom. Thus leaving my mom and I in Moscow. I decided to take time off from school, I wasn’t really doing well at this point and I didn’t really care about it anyways. It was good to have a break. I had been working as well as going to school up to this point and it was good to get to focus on just the one thing at a time. I transitioned positions from Quiznos Subs as a Sandwich Connoisseur to Starbucks to be a Barista. 

While working at Starbucks I started making friends and connecting with people. My time spent at Starbucks, about 4 years in all, in the Fall of 2008, I met one special young lady who, in the Fall of 2010, became my wife. My mom has also since remarried to a great man who has become a second father to me in ways. 

I returned to the University of Idaho in 2011 to complete my degree, a Bachelor of Science in General Studies, Minor in Business, and Entrepreneurial Certificate. I Graduated in 2013, meanwhile working part time at a local church where I am now working full time since I graduated. My peers (really more my friends and family at this point) are the same people who love me and support me enough today to take a sabbatical so that I can deal with the issues that cause me to be so misplaced. They see me and they know I’m not doing well. This is extremely apparent in the way I interact with so many of them as this last year has been especially difficult. 

June of 2013 my dad passed away. And this summer, almost a year later it all finally caught up with me. The stress of work and the reality of life finally dropped on me all at once. 

And now my community loves me enough to send me out the door for rest and healing. They love me and want the best for me. I now strive to rest and heal. Having laid it all out in plain text, changes little but gives me hope as I continue to grow and heal from these years of suppressing my hurt and feelings. 

That is how I’ve dealt with the loss and passing of my dad. I have pushed it way down deep in side of me where I don’t have to look at it, think about it, or even fathom it. After my dad passed, I told enough people about it so I wouldn't be bubbling over anymore. 

It has been bubbling over again.

Now I have to deal with it. 

I’m not growing. 

I’m hurting people I love.

Now I’m dealing with it. 

Timidly,

–JT