At my recent Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute (SIYLI) teacher training session in San Francisco, I was lucky enough to share a hotel room with a Boston-based cohort member named Åsa (pronounced Oh-sa). Åsa and I had never met before, but we clicked immediately. Born the same year, we both have two boys around the same age, both have a history living and working internationally (she is Swedish by birth), both of us are business owners with a passion for spreading mindfulness, both are cancer survivors, and, most importantly, we share a similar sense of humor. That rich common ground meant we were either discussing super deep issues or laughing our heads off. What a gift!
As part of our SIYLI certification training, we are organized into pods of six cohort members with whom to collaborate until our next in-person session in September. The day we received our pod assignments and worked with our groups for the first time, I told Åsa excitedly about my incredible pod members (pictured above). Here’s a rough replay of the conversation:
“So listen to how cool and diverse my pod is…first there’s Clif, who works at Ernst and Young as a senior manager AND runs their huge Americas Region Mindfulness Network, so he’s already facilitated mindfulness training for thousands of people.
Then there’s Rafa, who’s Mexican and lives in Miami. He held leadership positions at American Express and Mastercard before recently starting his own mindfulness consulting firm called OnBeing Mindful. He’ll be bringing mindfulness training to companies in Latin America.
Then there’s Christina, who is Chinese and is a chief of staff at Lenovo in North Carolina, where she hopes to build mindfulness networks. She’s a powerhouse in a little tiny package who’s also navigating a demanding career as a single mom.
Then there’s Lemuel, who is African American and based in South Carolina. He’s a super cool professor, former dean, and owner of a consulting business that helps teams and companies create diverse, empathetic, and mindful work environments.
Then there’s Yasir, who lives just 20 minutes or so away from me and works for a fast-paced tech company. His perspective on how mindfulness practice supports his experience as a Muslim in America is fascinating!
And then there’s a soccer mom!”
I was so excited to tell Åsa about my most awesome pod that I only took about two or three breaths for the whole story. The fact that mindfulness was the common thread connecting our rainbow of ethnicities and backgrounds attested to the universality and power of the practice. I was giddy to be part of this tribe (not just my pod, but SIYLI as a whole).
“Who’s the soccer mom?” Åsa asked.
“Um…me,” I said. Wasn’t it obvious?
“Really? That’s how you describe yourself?” Åsa said with surprise in her voice. “But you’re an author and blogger and photographer and mindfulness coach and business owner who transitioned to all of that after being an economist!”
“Well, yeah. I guess so. But at my core I’m a soccer mom before I’m any of those other things. It’s still how I think of myself,” I said, also feeling curious about the label to which I defaulted.
Åsa reminded me that the son who still plays soccer is graduating from college and maybe it’s time for me to move on from this identity. We broke into wild laughter (for the umpteenth time).
But I could feel the significance of that conversation in my bones.
I remember how long it took me to let go of my identity as an international economist. I had worked so hard to achieve that status. When I unexpectedly stepped away from that career and shifted to part time work to raise my kids (and for a few years not working at all), I still answered the “what do you do” question with some form of “I used to be an economist.” I found safety in that label when I was feeling insecure about the reality of my being “just” a soccer mom.
But as Mothers Day approaches this weekend, landing the day before my eldest son graduates from college and the soccer career that has molded him into a young man who makes my heart burst with gratitude and admiration, I continue to wear my soccer mom label with pride and no apologies.
Mindfulness practice has taught me to observe my thinking patterns and let go of thoughts that don’t serve my highest purpose. Self-definitions are just a collection of thoughts. I’ve learned to let outdated labels and unhelpful self-definitions float away so that I can grow into new ones.
The funny thing is, after resisting the soccer mom label for so long, it’s now an identity that I know reflects and supports my highest purpose, even though I’ve now graduated from soccer sidelines.
Watching my boys and their friends and teammates grow, challenge themselves, play through good weather and bad, show up for each other, take care of their bodies so their bodies would perform for them, be gracious in victory and resilient in defeat, those experiences were not only their training ground. They were my training ground as well, especially when it came to recognizing how the nature of my own energy and presence (or lack thereof) impacted them. Those years taught me what purpose and fulfillment feel like, which I can now tune into and cultivate in my personal and business decisions going forward.
Being a soccer mom revealed my deepest passions – supporting others in their growth, holding a safe space when life gets hard, cultivating my own presence to share positive energy and facilitate healing, motivating and inspiring people, reducing suffering in whatever way I can, passing along skills I’ve learned to help navigate life with more ease, and helping others bring their best selves to the world in order to make the most of every moment.
Soccer mom? Yup. I’ll wear that badge until the end of my days.
Soccer mom Martha and her mindfulness BFF Åsa Fanelli, Principal & Chief Strategist of IdeaLift Group LLC in Boston
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