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Embracing
Confusion
By Martin Brossman
I have lived most of my life feeling like the
Charlie Brown character “Pig Pen.” But instead of a
cloud of dust behind me, I left a trail of chaos,
all the while fighting a head full of confusion. As
recently as 10 years ago I was deeply lost in a fog
of resignation, unconsciously convinced that at any
moment men in white coats were going to tap me on
the shoulder and say, “Okay, we found you, you’re a
fraud, you’re just too stupid to be alive, COME WITH
US.”
Because I was diagnosed as a child with dyslexia and
as an adult with attention deficit disorder (ADD),
it’s no surprise I’ve had struggles and challenges
along the way. But with a lot of work on myself, and
with the help of personal coaches and loving friends
and family, I am finally living a life I love. And
now I work as a personal coach helping others find
their path in life.
Much of the first 32 years of my life I viewed
myself as a broken dyslexic with ADD (though I
didn’t know the term at the time) that just could
not get fixed. The outside world viewed me as a
bright and creative person, but one who seemed to be
extremely intense, to lack confidence, and be easily
distracted. I would like to share the story of my
transition from embodying brokenness and confusion
to grabbing hold of the reins of my purpose and
passion.
Could Someone Just Give that Child a Biscuit,
Please!?
I used to tell people that I was so noisy as a child
that my parents thought they had three kids and
that’s why they would never give me a brother or
sister. While my parents allowed me my energetic
childhood fascination with things, some other adults
weren’t so supportive. My mother tells a story about
a dinner gathering where one woman, after watching
me all evening, asked in exasperation, “Could
s-o-m-e-o-n-e just give that child a biscuit,
please!?” Perhaps she was one of the first to notice
my unbridled and maybe even fragmented energy, but
she wasn’t the last. People like her appeared in my
life all along the way, and it was not until I was
36 years old and was diagnosed with ADD that my many
years of confusion and my many critics fully made
sense.
I’m Sorry, I’ll Try Harder From Now On
My parents’ creative wisdom allowed me to experience
myself as quite normal, with a few exceptions, until
fourth grade. For example prior to fourth grade, I
avoided sports because I was often confused about
whether to move right or left during a game and
would make mistakes that would lose points for my
team, so my parents supported my decision not to
play. Then sometime during fourth grade I had real
problems keeping up with the reading and writing
assignments. One day I was told that I was to work
with the lady who taught the “retarded children” -
the kids that we brutally made fun of - and now it
seemed I was one of them. I assumed something was
seriously wrong with me.
I remember sitting outside the principal’s office,
hearing my mother inside say, “If you just watched
how he is able to maintain an engaging conversation
with any adult….” Sure of my intelligence, she
marched me off to a reading lab for diagnostics and
testing and sure enough, my IQ was over 140, but I
was dyslexic. While it must have been a relief for
my mother to learn why I was having problems
learning, I still believed something was REALLY
wrong with me. “I’m BROKEN,” I thought. “I’m sorry;
I must try harder so I won’t be found out.”
You’re Broken – Hurry Up and Get Fixed
So I tried harder – harder than anyone else, and
with tutoring and sheer will power, I graduated from
college in Math and Computer Science and pursued a
job that I thought would make me “be someone” –
working with IBM in technical support. Little did I
know that I had chosen the most challenging possible
job for a person with ADD and dyslexia. My
colleagues spoke in acronyms all the time; it was
like being surrounded by barking dogs. The logistics
of juggling service calls all day, managing high
volumes of parts, and having to read technical memos
in front of customers was a nightmare for me, but it
was one I was determined to overcome. Management at
IBM was perplexed because I seemed so bright and
energetic, so why, they wondered, could I not keep
my simple paperwork managed consistently? Though I
was loved by my customers since they knew I would do
whatever it took to resolve their problems, the
other challenges of the job eroded my
self-confidence as a useful employee and I continued
to feel I was about to be “found out.”
I had what looked like a wonderful career, a house,
and a beautiful wife, but I was miserable because I
felt like a failure at my job and could not figure
out what I wanted to do that I could do well. The
job stress destroyed what I had thought of as a good
marriage, and things got much worse. Scared of
losing my job and marriage, I became determined to
“get myself fixed.”
During some personal development courses, I noticed
that I kept raising my hand and saying, “I am
confused.” Then one day I just tried out the phrase
in my head, “I am confusion, I am confused, I am a
broken dyslexic” and at that moment I realized that
I had built my entire identity around that
statement. It was like being a fish and waking up to
the concept of water, then realizing I was in
polluted water that I had somehow gotten myself
into. During this time my marriage ended, which put
me in a terrifying, but very powerful place – I
became a man with nothing to lose. I saw the
insanity of my life. I saw that I had arranged my
whole life to support my belief that I was broken
and stupid, and that stupid brokenness was the only
identity I knew.
Choosing Life
I then realized the only way out of this hell I had
created was to build a “new me.” As I set out to
dismantle my old identity of confusion, I peeled
back layer upon layer of “I’m broken.” But I felt
more and more despair and less and less worthy of
being alive as I peeled away, because it had never
occurred to me that I had no identity at all without
the old one. I was totally adrift in my polluted
water. At my lowest point, I finally acknowledged
that there would never be enough evidence that I was
worthy to be alive, so I decided I would have to
take it on faith that I deserved to be here.
Besides, I would rather spend the rest of my life
living out the possible lie that I was “smart
enough” than continue my life as stupid and broken.
And after all, even brilliant people do colossally
stupid things sometimes, so maybe there was hope. My
journey began.
Falling Through Fear
After I decided to choose life, I let go of my past
and stared down my fear and began to search for who
I really was. As I looked for models of strong,
balanced people, I noticed that they spoke from
their whole body as if they were always “there” and
I realized I didn’t even know what “here” felt like
for myself. I also noticed that they had a strong
sense of why they were here.
I became conscious of a pattern of separating my
emotional self away from my body in times of
emotional pain. So I began a process that I can best
describe as calling myself into existence and
bringing myself back into my own body when I felt I
was breaking off. I pursued many kinds of help, such
as biofeedback, transcendental meditation, and
aikido, and all had some positive effect. And I also
trained to become a massage therapist and began
working on nutrition. And gradually the intellectual
notion that “I have value” began to work its way
from my head into my body.
Owning Who I Am
I gained the confidence to begin asking myself
identity questions again, and with the help of
personal coaches, I chose to identify myself as
someone who was “smart enough” and committed to
supporting people in living lives they love. This
was just step one of a staircase of 100 steps, but I
was eventually able to say with clarity, “Who I am
is about people living lives they love.” And to
remind myself if I lost confidence, I took a card
around with me that said that very thing.
After being diagnosed with ADD in the course of all
my self-awareness work, the confusion began to make
sense. But instead of seeing it as my enemy, I
realized it was a part of my energy that was to be
valued and harnessed. It didn’t have to be my
identity, but it could be my fuel. So I developed
strategies to live with my particular brand of chaos
and recognized my gifts that had been bound up with
my confusion all along.
In the course of working with clients and computers
in my old IBM days, I had learned that what my
clients valued more than their fixed computers was
my listening to them and really hearing them. My
sense of empathy was highly refined due to my own
suffering, and as I gained the courage to dare to
believe I could live a life I loved, I realized I
could help others do the same.
In the meantime, I have spent the last 10 years
developing strategies to help me cope with my
“gifts” and would like to share a few ideas.
· Less is more.
I have condensed my life down to only six major
activities (from the 30 or more I was trying to
juggle before I wised up): personal coach, corporate
trainer, computer consultant, body worker, hospital
volunteer working with humor, and leader of a men’s
group.
· Complete as I go.
I remind myself to close the cabinet door when I get
something out. I remind myself to finish the task at
hand before I start a new task, even though the
temptation to dash off to something new is
ever-present.
· My mind is not my best
appointment book and calendar.
My mind is best suited for creating and thinking,
not keeping track of agreements, tasks, and events.
Often in the past when I said, “consider it done,”
at that moment I actually considered it done and
took no further action. So I must diligently use
computer appointment books and calendars, so when I
say, “consider it done,” it will actually get done.
· The safest place to be is
RIGHT HERE!
I am where I should be on my journey and I must have
faith in that fact. I had no idea how unconsciously
afraid I was of just being in the moment.
· Remember I am not dyslexic and ADD, but I have
behavioral patterns called dyslexia and ADD.
I am not broken with a need to be fixed – I am a
whole person with my unique capabilities and
challenges just like other people have. I do,
however, have patterns that need to be managed.
·· Living out of “what does it take” rather than “the
way things should be.”
It’s about living out of the commitment of doing
WHATEVER IT TAKES to make my life work and express
myself fully. This article was first dictated to a
ghostwriter, then reviewed with “text-to-speech”
software. Without 110% commitment to “whatever it
takes,” no real change would ever occur.
· Developing and being a compassionate observer of
myself.
I had to develop a compassionate observer within
myself that assists me in keeping track of where I
am in time and location, as well as how aligned my
current actions are with my purpose. My
compassionate observer sees being judgmental as
unproductive at best and devastating at worst.
· Learning to surrender to mastery.
I became suspicious of my tendency to be pulled off
course anytime I was beginning to get good at
something. It was as if I had a natural aversion to
connecting fully with a skill or a concept to the
point of mastery. So I learned to gently, but firmly
bring myself back on course long enough to reap the
benefits of mastery. Often in the past, the one
thing I was naturally masterful at was losing sight
of my accomplishments, so I have also learned to
find ways to remember and celebrate them.
· Maintain a relentless sense of humor!
What else am I going to do when I find myself at
work with one black shoe and one brown shoe? The
more I can laugh at what I am most ashamed of, the
easier it is to let go of the shame around it.
· Have an external feedback system.
I set up external structures and people to give me
feedback when I am off course and to help keep me on
task - for example a personal coach and assistant.
(I found it is not wise to depend on your partner to
do this; it will wear down your relationship.)
· Learn the signs that tell me when it’s time to
stop and refocus.
I learned to know the signs that I had lost control
of managing something and learned to stop, realign
myself with my purpose and goals, and then schedule
time to get it managed. (I realized managing my
responsibilities does not mean that I have to do it
all myself.)
· Owning My Power
As I look to my past, I am now able to see each
struggle as a gift. The digging that I did to
unearth the misplaced responsibility and blame and
confusion that had become my identity is the same
digging that allowed me to recognize the vein of
gold that is my energy and enthusiasm and
sensitivity. I believe my late diagnosis of ADD was
in some ways an advantage - if it had happened at an
earlier age, I would not have experienced some of
the suffering that has given me the compassion I
have today. And I believe the depth of a person’s
emotional pain can reveal the height of his or her
potential in life.
While I understand the necessity of medication at
some times in a person’s life, I think it is
irresponsible to use it without strong and
consistent behavioral and emotional work in tandem.
For without doing the daily work required for real
change, medication can smother the struggle that
helps fan the fire of the soul, and then people are
less likely to find that identity in life that is
their calling – the one that’s so big and exciting
that when they take it on, it will transform their
attention deficit.
I believe in my heart that most people who are
attention deficit are uniquely gifted souls that are
here to be fully expressed. So they must embrace the
confusion, the wild energy that they may have felt
cursed with, but is indeed a blessing. They must
grab hold of the reins of their wild horse and ride
it fearlessly! Yes, it’s hard work, but the world
will be a better place after they’ve made their
marvelous unique mark.
Martin Brossman is working on a book about personal
transformation and can be reached at
Martin@CoachingSupport.com ,
www.CoachingSupport.com
or (919) 847-4757. The ghostwriter, Miriam Sauls,
can be reached at (919) 302-5454,
www.miriamsauls.com or mmsauls@bellsouth.net. (2653
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