What we’re talking about when we’re talking ‘Bright Gray Areas’
When I started my coaching practice, I considered calling it “Bright Gray Areas”. It’s a concept that keeps coming up, in my work as a coach and consultant, but also throughout my life. However, it takes a little explaining (when I ran the name by my spouse, he said, “Hmm… It sounds a little like a concrete company?”) so that’s what this post is about. It’s kind of like opening a big door - there’s a lot to explore ahead!
We’ve got to start somewhere. So let’s talk about possibilities. Let’s talk about philosophy. Let’s go there. Let’s dive in.
Always having a good time
My dad had a philosophy on our family:
“We always have a good time. Even when we’re having a bad time, we have a good time doing it.”
Having a good time while you’re having a bad time sounds contradictory, and perhaps it is. It could even be confusing, but hey, so is being trapped by having a bad time. We live in a complicated world. Dualistic things can be(and often are) true at the same time. Living is not as clear as black or white. There are a lot of gray areas. At the heart of my dad’s philosophy, I found the wisdom of how there can be a lot of brightness in those gray areas.
Who’s afraid of the big, bad times?
My father and me, having a good time.
Growing up in our family, we were always finding new things to be interested in, coming up with new ideas that fascinated us, and figuring out ways to have fun with what we were doing. It meant we always had a healthy supply of fun, interest and fascination, and we liked sharing it with others. In doing so, life brought us many friends and loved ones.
From the outside, it may have looked like good times all of the time. Sometimes folks thought we were crazy at the amount of fun we could create out of the most mundane situations. They’d often be surprised at how the off-the-wall idea we came up with was somehow exactly what the situation needed. Some thought we were tough, or resilient for how much we could handle, and how good we were in a crisis. But on the inside, like any family, we had our share of hard times, sad times, scary times and bad times. But we also had a way of making room for better things as well. It didn’t get rid of the pain, the struggle, or the badness, it just made certain that the ‘bad time’ wasn’t the whole story. Even though living this way could be awkward and downright weird at times (I’ve laughed while crying more often than not with my family), it made sense to us. It meant that the good, the bad, and even the mundane were all normal and OK. None of them enchanted or paralyzed us - none of them pinned us down (not for long, anyway). We moved through our bad times (not trying to avoid them) because we weren’t afraid of them (we did respect them, though, and there’s a difference).
The Gray Areas
Fast-forward to adulthood in the 21st century, life is complex, and rarely (if ever) what we expected it to be (especially if you’re a leader, entrepreneur, or elder millennial). We’ve got endless responsibilities, information, conflicting priorities and perspectives to think about in an ever-connected yet ever-isolated world. Uncertainty is part of our everyday experience. There may be no right answer, or many. Change never stops, but sometimes it stops us in our tracks, wondering, as the Talking Heads put it, “Well… How did I get here?”.
Life is jam-packed and not knowing the way, or worse, having a setback or failure is a terrifying thought. We want a smooth, swift, and straightforward path. We’ve grown averse to obstacles in our hot pursuit of perfection. In our craving for definitive answers, we’ve forgotten what it’s like to be fascinated. In our need for stability, we’ve lost sight of how to have fun for fun’s sake.
Photo by Artem Sapegin on Unsplash
We want so much to make the Absolute Best Decisions, to find the Absolute Best Way Forward, that if we’re not on that perfect path, we may feel obligated to perform as though we are. “Fake it til you make it”, as they say. Because under current conditions, it can’t be possible that we don’t have it all figured out. It seems like that’s just not allowed.
The Expectations
So we hope for the best. But are we hoping, or expecting the best? Is all the best, all the time really all it’s cracked up to be? If we only expect the best, we lose sight of the good. And if we only expect the good, then we lose the chance to learn, grow, and change. We miss out on the challenges that show us who we are and what we’re made of. We don’t really gain much from performing the perfect path, or for putting expectations on ourselves that everything should be swift and straightforward. We didn’t roll up to life with things laid out for us in black and white. We didn’t get a user’s manual. Nobody did.
On the other hand, if we expect the bad too much, we forget all the good stuff that we could be enjoying. We forget our strengths in fretting over our weaknesses. We become cynical. We lose trust, hope and connection. It sounds like a bleak existence, but one that’s all too easy to buy into.
“Gray areas are the places where our brightest moments and ideas can come to life, if we can make space for them to. ”
But what we forget is that it’s normal to have good times and bad, even simultaneously - it’s not about either/or, but both. And as such, it’s normal to not have it all figured out. It’s normal to live in the gray areas.
The Brightness
If our yearning for a perfect path has us only seeking black or white, we’re used to urgently spinning our wheels to find it. We don’t acknowledge the gray areas because they frustrate us; they scare us. But we live most of our lives in the gray areas, and is it really practical to keep hiding from them? Perhaps we can build our awareness of how to blend, balance, and brighten them.
The gray areas can inspire plenty of overwhelm. The rollercoaster of it all can be exhausting. But what if a great deal of what wears us out isn’t the ups and downs, but the mental energy we spend around them - in anticipating and responding? Perhaps if we allowed ourselves to get to know our gray areas more authentically, we could find ways to interrupt the overwhelm long enough to grow comfortable with the gray. Perhaps we could learn ways to blend the good and bad, connect the known and unknown, and enjoy living in them a little more. Perhaps this is a way to create the balance and rhythm so many of us want, and become less prone to burning out all the time.
A Way Forward
There's a lot to love about the gray areas. That's why I love being a coach. Coaching helps clients spend a little time in those gray areas, facing what’s there, and shining a light on it. Coaching makes courage possible. Coaching helps reveal what your gray areas have to teach you. Coaching means you’ve got a supportive witness to these discoveries who sees your spirits lift, and celebrates with excitement for your next steps. Coaching makes space for all of our parts and pieces. It's a thought partnership that supports you to process, get stronger, and grow.
Image by Lucas Ludwig via Unsplash
To me, brightness makes way for a lot of great results, like finding new possibilities. Brightness can turn tragedy into mystery. Brightness means we can disagree, and still hold space for other ideas and perspectives. It shows us that curiosity is a real power, and one that will reward you greatly. It means we don’t have to like everything, but there will still be plenty of things to like. Brightness makes way for learning and improving, and leaves room for laughs. Brightness celebrates not knowing it all, because it’s wonderful that there are still countless fascinating things to discover. Brightness keeps you looking and finding even better paths forward.
Just as bad times, good times, and gray areas are totally normal, they’re also temporary - they don’t last forever. So it’s good to find the brightness so we can explore and learn while we have the opportunity. Gray areas are the places where our brightest moments and ideas can come to life, if we can make space for them to.
My intention for this blog is also a gray area with a lot of brightness - there’s so much we can (and will) explore, and so much brightness to shine on a variety of topics, some of which I’ve already touched on here. We’ll find clarity in the fog of life and work. We’ll explore conflicting narratives and dare to see how multiple things can be true at once. We’ll consider possibilities we didn’t know we had access to, and relish in the excitement of where to go next. And we’ll have a good time (even when we’re having a bad time).
If this sounds interesting to you, or if you’re just curious, I hope you’ll join me.
