Serena of the south west

What’s it like to realize that you’re not the person you thought you were halfway through your life? 

Exhilarating? 

Terrifying? 

Liberating? 

Nauseating? 

All of the above?

Let me tell you something about a little discovery I made this summer: I’m good at sports. 

That’s right. I AM ATHLETIC.

You see, I always thought that I was terrible at sports. That my world was with the “artists,” the creatives, the intellectual misfits, the indie rockers. 

This belief started in Junior High School. When I was a shy and uncomfortably overweight pre-teen who’s parents had recently divorced. 

I had been playing the violin for a couple of years in elementary school at my mom’s urging. When it was time to chose a Junior High School my mom convinced me to apply to Mark Twain For the Gifted and Talented (I kid you not, that was the name!!). A special public school that bussed kids in from all over Brooklyn. 

You had to have a “talent” to get in. And I got in with my violin playing (which actually sounded more like cats screeching to an agonizing death).  

The rest of my friends from elementary school made it into the “Dance and Athletics” programs.

From the very moment I was selected for music, I became certain that I couldn’t also be athletic. There was a lot of proof in the pudding—as a chubby prepubescent kid I couldn’t climb a rope or do arm lifts to save my life. 

I wasn’t part of the confident, athletic crew. I belonged with the creative, sensitive crowd. 

Over the course of my life, I’ve experimented with lots of physical activities from swimming and jogging to yoga. But me, athletic, not in a million years. 

That’s just not part of my identity. That’s not of my DNA. 

But this summer something shifted. I decided to take some tennis lessons while vacationing in the south of France in the small village where my mother-in-law lives.


I signed up for a course with the 73-year-old French coach named Jean Pierre who was my husband’s coach as a kid and is still kicking it strong! 

My motivation? If I’m being honest with you, << Test First Name >>, I though it was a legitimate escape from my motherly commitments and a chance to take in some fresh mountain air. Plus my son and my husband are tennis-obsessed and it was a way to taste their world and see what all of the fuss was about. 

Thirty minutes into my first course, after Jean-Pierre showed me how to hold the racket, how to position my body in order to hit the ball at the right angle, he stopped our training and came up to the net. 

He said, “Are you sure you’ve never played tennis before? You’re really good at this.” 

And then he went on:

“You pick things up quickly.”

“You’re determined.”

“You observe and adapt quickly.”

“You’ve got great sense perception.”

“You’ve got personality.”

I laughed at his compliments a bit awkwardly, but still let them linger in my mind. 

What he said about me didn’t totally surprised me. He was pointing out parts of my character and personal narrative that I believe are true, but that I've never applied to tennis. 

I saw myself in the person he described even though the context was unfamiliar.

You see, << Test First Name >>, you and I have inherent skills and talents that we think are reserved for certain contexts, certain vocations, certain professions. 

But what happens if we decide to apply them elsewhere, in a field that excites us but that’s totally unknown? 

What if we can actually thrive using our inherent skills in a space that’s foreign? What does that say about us?

What parts of our identity lay dormant because we haven’t yet decided to experiment who we are in a new environment?

I don’t plan on becoming the next Serena Williams, but I do have a tennis class this Friday that I’m excited about because it’s a new chapter in my life that makes me feel alive in a completely different way. 

What inherent character traits can you plant in a new pot?

Maybe you’ll realize you’re more than who you think you are. 

That there are sub plots to the narrative of your life that are waiting to be explored. 

Self-love summer roadtrip

What if this summer became your self-loving springboard to the rest of the year? A map to your emerging tastes and desires that you can unpack once the pace picks up again in the Fall.

Summer is a prolonged, precious break from reality. A time when routines change. When everything slows down. When you give new things a try. Reconnect with friends and family. Hike, swim, drink litres of rosé. 

But how many times has summer’s special glow been zapped away your first day back home? 

What if this year you decided to freeze-frame summer’s most essential parts and use this season to truly get to know yourself?

Since the stakes are low and the pace is slow, summer is the ideal time to dissect your daily decisions to see who or what’s driving your everyday moves. 

Who’s really calling the shots?

Is it the “true” you? 

Is it what you think people expect of you?

Is it what your family wants? 

Is it what you think looks great on Instagram?

Start practicing your decision-making skills on decisions that don’t matter much.

The best way to build muscle for those big decisions down the road (e.g. changing careers, starting a business, going back to school) is to start getting familiar with the real you.

The one that isn’t performing for others. The one that isn’t searching for recognition. The one that isn’t taking care of everyone else or living up to other people’s expectations. 

The best time to find that person is when the stakes are low. When the biggest decision on the line is what ice cream to order (not to say that ice cream isn’t a serious matter!).

So if you want to try out some new sensations and get to know yourself better join me on this Self-Love Summer Road Trip 2019.

Taboo vaccines and fear inoculations

She looked down at the screaming woman’s face and instantly felt her stomaching tightening up into a tense little knot.  

The fierce and wild expression seemed out of place with all of the softer pictures and words in her collage.

Like someone else had stuck it there by accident, or worse, glued it there intentionally to make her sick.

Over the last few weeks I’ve done four vision board workshops and spoke with dozens of women about what they see in their collages.

Each collage is made up of cut-out images and words that my clients choose quickly and then edit and arrange on their boards with care.

When the collages are all done and everyone has started talking about the lovely things they see in their boards, I shift speed and throw out a doozy of a question. 

What part of the collage makes you feel uncomfortable?

That was the question I asked that led us to “the scream.”

The question hits hard, especially since all of the other questions are as sweet and cuddly as a basket full of puppies. 

It’s my favorite question. (And no, I’m not a sadist.)

So, why do I love that question so much?

What we recoil from and find irritating, repulsive or just flat out unacceptable (mostly in others) is the proverbial “pot of goal” of personal development. 

It helps us uncover a desire or need that seems totally off-limits to us. Unauthorized. Unorthodox. Taboo. 

Watching others nonchalantly behave in that taboo way feels like nails across a chalkboard. Just plain wrong! 

But, you want what, it’s not about them, it’s about you. 

The reason that image or behavior shocks us is because we need a little bit of it in our lives. Let me explain.

Like a vaccine shot to protect us from getting deathly ill, we need a little bit of what repulses us to balance out the rest. 

What we can’t stand in others is what we’re missing (to a certain degree) in ourselves. 

Here are some examples:

Repulsion: That “pretentious snob” of a co-worker who’s loud and outspoken in meetings even though his ideas are so basic and boring.

Vaccine: Accepting imperfection. 

Next steps Don’t kill your ideas before they’ve hatched. Share them even when you’re not 100% convinced others will appreciate them. 

Repulsion: That “selfish” and “insensitive” friend who always arrives late. Always. And never apologizes for it. 

Vaccine: Living in the present. 

Next steps: What’s most important to you right now? If there were no consequences to any of your decisions, what would you decide to do?

Repulsion: That “rigid” co-worker who’s “inflexibility” and “hesitation” keeps everything stuck in standstill.   

Vaccine: Slowing down the process. 

Next steps: What would happen if you slowed down the process and embraced the journey without racing to the destination? 

You see where I’m going with this?

Now let’s get back to that screaming face in the first sentence of this post. What did my client find so repulsive about it? 

As a new entrepreneur starting out in the wellness business, it was a reminder of how scared she is about speaking publicly about her new profession and how terrified she is that she’ll never get over her insecurities.

What she realized during the workshop was that the scream symbolizes brazenness, intensity, determination. The exact qualities, in vaccine-size-doses, that she needs to develop in order to live off of what she loves. 

It boils down to identifying (and accepting), rather than reacting to and recoiling from what makes us uncomfortable, like the dragons in this famous Rainer Maria Rilke quote:

“How could we forget those ancient myths that stand at the beginning of all races—the myths about dragons that at the last moment are transformed into princesses. Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.”

Where does this mean for you?

• Next time you have a strong reaction/repulsion to someone’s behavior, move beyond the “EEK” feeling and try and see what bothers you so much. 

• What has this person allowed themselves to do/be that offends you so much ?

• When you peel back the onion, what permission in its purest form is at the root of their behavior (honesty, spontaneity, self-love )?

• What vaccine-size-dose of that permission could you inject yourself with?

• What one thing could you try differently now that you’ve been inoculated?

Keep me posted on what you uncover, and if you want to go further and tackle some more of taboos, reach out and book a call with me.

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Photo by Gabriel Matula on Unsplash

When Ideas Get Under Your Skin

I had a very intimidating social studies teacher in High School named Mr Savage. 

He would walk into the classroom, silently go up to the blackboard, scribble a provocative open question, like “What is democracy?” in his chicken-scratch handwriting and then stare back at the class with his beady little eyes. (can you tell how much of a fan I was??)

He’d smile slyly with pinched lips revealing a little scar alongside his mouth. Then he’d gesture to the class to let the debate begin. 

I dreaded that moment. I was a shy and insecure adolescent and that kind of intellectual dogfighting made me shrink even further into my shell. 

Mr Savage didn’t give homework, but he did assign two big writing projects per year that were famously tough. For one project we had to propose our ideal presidential candidate and then argue and defend why we thought he or she should win.

Feeling totally overwhelmed, I asked my dad for help. He’s a school teacher and a very opinionated liberal. This kind of thing was totally his cup of tea.  

He suggested Ralph Nader. This was back in 1990 and Nader at the time was a relative unknown. It seemed like a cool, underground pick. I let me dad run with it. 

My dad wound up writing most of the paper. I was nervous handing in the assignment and felt a bit guilty about getting a great grade on something I didn’t write on my own. Then I was thrown a curveball: I got a really shitty, grade on that paper. Or rather, my dad got a really shitty grade. 

And what was the message that stuck with me after this experience? Not, “cheating is bad”, or “Ralph Nadar is a terrible presidential candidate,” or “failing with your own ideas is better than failing with someone else’s”. 

No, the one that stuck for me was:

You’re a terrible writer, Zeva. Your dad thought so, that’s why he wrote your paper.  

I lived with this belief for a long time. In college, writing assignments were torturous. I’d spend double the time as my peers on my papers. I was ashamed every time I handed something in. Even when I got positive feedback on my work I was convinced that someone was just being generous and feeling pity for me. 

The belief penetrated under my skin and became my ugly little secret:  I was a terrible writer and a fraud for getting into my school. 

Five years after graduation I moved to Paris and went on an interview at a magazine where a friend of mine had worked. Rebecca, the editor-in-chief of the magazine who interviewed me asked if I had any writing experience. I said “not outside of the writing I did in college.” She answered back,  “well, you seem smart, and if you got through Vassar I’m sure you can write.” 

She hired me on the spot. 

I was thrilled to get a job, but terrified that my ugly little secret would slowly reveal its disgusting face and she’d realize that I was a total fraud. 

But it was my job. I had no other choice. I had to write. And I started to get better and better at it. 

Over time, I got some extra freelance jobs. People started to pay me well for my words. 

I was slowly and steadily growing into the person that I was convinced I was not. A writer! Go figure. 

Where am I going with this?

I speak to a lot of people who feel like they’re not credible or capable of doing something because long ago they had a bad experience, or were told that they weren’t great at it. 

Over time, those feelings grow into beliefs and get more massive, dense and resilient until they become as real and unquestionable as the nose on your face.  

How does this happen? 

“Ideas get under your skin, simply by sticking around for long enough”  explains the neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett in her book (that I’m obsessed with), How Emotions Are Made.  “Once an idea is hard-wired, you might not be in a position to easily reject it.”

Some of these hard-wired, unshakeable beliefs could be:

I’m bad at writing 

I’m bad at relationship

I’m bad with numbers

I’m bad at business

I’m bad with conflict

I’m bad at confrontation

I’m bad at making decisions

I’m bad at making changes

I’m bad at being bad….

There is nothing concrete about these beliefs. They’re just dirty little secrets that prevent us from taking action on what we want. From seizing opportunities to igniting change. 

What dirty little secret prevents you from moving forward with meaning?

I promise, I won’t tell :) 

Get into your growth groove

It was the official rentrée, the first chaotic day of reality after a long summer break. 

We were walking among perfectly-coiffed kids with their new backpacks and outfits on their way to school when I glanced over and saw my toddler hobbling along with his heels hovering in the air. 

“Shit!” I said to my husband. “We forgot to get him new shoes.”

My son was so obsessed with his red suede Adidas we conveniently overlooked him busting out of them. 

Next day at the shoe store, we embarrassing learned he had grown, not one, but two shoe sizes! Needless to say when he put his new sneakers (Adidas, again!) he was reborn.

Ripping his beloved pacifier out of his mouth big-boy style, he started running — down the ailes, down the street, to the park, around the park. Tirelessly, enthusiastically, like he had a new set of Duracell batteries on full blast.  

It was a total and immediate energy upgrade. 

As a kid, things like new shoes are empowering evidence of your growth. Your potential. Your energy. Your strength. 

But what happens as an adult? When the changes in your body no longer signal empowering growth? What other signs define it?

Since la rentrée kicked off there’s been a common theme among the people I’ve met with. 

Growth. And the desire for more of it day-to-day. 

As a coach, when I hear someone talk about big concepts like "growth" my next move is to dig in and investigate just what it means: 

• How do you know when you’re growing? 

• What do you need to grow?

• What does it look like? 

• What does it feel like?

• What does it allow you to do?

To one woman I spoke with it means working transversally across different formats and departments and having the freedom to innovate and bring value in her own unique way.

To another it means transforming theoretical concepts into tangible actions and making a concrete impact in the word.

To another it means going super deep and developing her skills and proficiency in a specific field. 

Here’s what’s important to remember about the growth groove: it’s not a one-size-fits all concept. 

It means something different to us all. 

But it is a mindset that needs nurturing if you want to feel alive. 

Without growth, you wind up feeling dullness, stagnation, inaction, sluggishness. 

The very feelings that make you want to curl up and call in sick for a few days, or even a few weeks. 

In France insurance companies and the government are freaking the hell out. Since the beginning of 2018 there’s been a 6% increase in medical leave payments. 

The cause? No one can say for sure, but the government thinks employees are feeling more and more stressed out and crappy at work and they want companies to do something to fix that (or start paying the bills).  

Growth isn’t a blanket panacea. I'm not suggesting that it's the end-all solution to a suffering system. 

But I do believe that companies should spend more time observing and asking questions about the type of growth that each employee craves. 

It’s likely not what they think it means to their employees (moving up the ladder, getting more vacation time, or a bigger salary). It could be a lot simpler than that. 

My suggestion?

If you’re a manager and are struggling with team burn-out: 
Get to know the growth needs of each person on your team. Spend quality time on this. Look for concrete examples. Observe trends. In what context does your employee thrive? When do they limp around like a toddler in tight shoes? 

If you are thinking about making a professional change because you’re not growing:
Get crystal clear on what growth means, looks and feels like to you in your quest for self-realization. 

So tell me dear reader, what’s your new pair of Adidas like? How do they look? What do they feel like? And what do they allow you to do?  Leave a comment below or send an email to: zeva@zevabellel.com