Dear John Venn
A blank template of the Venn diagram that expresses the facets of my current life. My continuing work is to balance its content and nourish its intersections.
A typical homage to John Venn, the English logician and philosopher best known for the diagrams that bear his name, might be delivered with a bit more academic polish than this one, but… the thing is, a good Venn diagram really does it for me. I’m charmed by this vaguely nerdy whilst elegant art form with the power to inspire deep reflection. Sigh.
Only recently did I reflect on my life in Venn diagram form. Doing so set the stage to reveal everything that mattered to my pursuit of a joyful and satisfying existence.
For many months I had been examining my thinking around devotion as I had come to suspect myself of occasionally allowing control to masquerade as devotion in my psyche. I was eager to root out the devotion imposters. Once I began testing some of my more problematic devotion tenets for aspects of control, many bound up parts of me started coming loose. It was a wild and good feeling, and I could sense its potential to affect my parenting, co-parenting and mental health for the better.
During my work with the smart and thoughtful Jim Myers at Innovative Consulting and Coaching, this challenge to my devotion thinking and my Venn reverence coalesced as a three-circle teller of truths. I was seeking Jim’s support in sorting out the operational uneasiness I was experiencing in my day-to-day life, and I was eager to visually express for him what needed sorting.
I will pause here to shamelessly promote my profession of coaching as an effective, goal-oriented practice. A coach helps their client to identify their desired outcome and then walks the path with them in seeking that outcome. The methodology of coaching, and my sessions with Jim, offered me designated time and thinking space at the trail-head of my not-yet-beaten path. I used that time and support to get clarity on my goal – more balance and joy in the functionality of my life – and to lay out all the elements at issue. The resulting diagram, filled with all the obligations, pleasures, and wishes that make up my life, became a map of my path options.
As I took Jim through my purpose in the diagram, I shared the realization that until the birth of my first child my life in Venn would have been expressed in only two circles – Career and Self-Care. This is to say that all the things that were necessary to my survival, or that enhanced my enjoyment of my life, fell into one of each of those circles (categories). Some aspects, as it goes in a Venn diagram, thriving in the space where the circles overlapped, known as an “intersection.”
When I left my career to devote my time and focus to being a stay-at-home mother, my Venn life remained a two circle affair. However, I had swapped out my Career circle for a Momming one.
I see now how that trade was more complex than I had the awareness or support to understand at the time. We all know parenting is no average job, but 14 years into the adventure I can plainly appreciate its capacity to undo a grown person. Over the course of my children’s lives the direct correlation between the measure of humility and self-awareness with which I parent at any given time and parenting’s potential to simultaneously enlighten and beat the crap out of me has proven undeniable. When I swapped an advertising career for momming I was seeking more profoundly stirring purpose. What I didn’t fully understand was that all the deep, sticky gunk that drove one’s work ethic in a professional capacity was going to manifest differently in this new job called parenting. The damage and fear that had made me an incredibly effective and motivated professional mostly continued to serve me well as a mother, but that sticky gunk did sometimes jam the gears of my momming machine.
When I recently added Career back to my life, I was suddenly living a three-circle Venn life for the first time. I snapped Momming, Self-Care and Career together and rather quickly that new machine revealed grinding parts and an unsettling hobble. It seemed three circles was testing my equipment in a new way.
With my current examination of devotion versus control well-underway, I quickly suspected that supervillain of sticky gunk, Control, of causing the trouble. With my coach encouraging me to stretch my thinking and broaden my perspective, I went about looking for Control’s coloring in the tasks and wishes that littered my three-circle mind map. Eventually, by way of some uncomfortable self-reflection, I was able to tease apart what choices, plans and actions were true devotion to my children, my work and myself and which had cracks revealing fear-driven control.
It became apparent that several of those devotion imposters had gone about starving my Self-Care circle. More problematic though was how they were cleverly and significantly hindering my ability to cultivate robust intersections. No wonder I was hobbling! Little to no fuel was reaching the Self-Care facet of my machine and flimsy intersections meant the entire contraption was barely fastened together.
I dragged my hobbling three-circle machine into the spotlight, conjured up my courage and yanked off Control’s devotion costume for myself and the eagerly watching crowd – my therapist, my coach, my children and even my ex-husband. We (ok, mostly “I”) gasped at Control’s naked shape and then quickly embraced the relief that ensued. I moved tasks, pleasures, and plans around and between my Venn’s lovely curves. I’m invested in the continuing work of nourishing the intersections and seeking overall balance.
Poor Control – too strong for its own good. Too big and brawny and loud to hide effectively forever. Our best intentions can get caught up in our sticky gunk. If one can brave a hard look inside, they will often be lucky enough to spot some of those stuck parts. Chances are they can be scrubbed up a bit, fit back in where they properly belong, and life will move forward a little more smoothly.