You Can Save The World
Stepping Over My Bully To Change the World
By Lori Myren-Manbeck, Ph.D.
Licensed Clinical Psychologist
CEO, Inclusive-tee
Author, You Can Save the World...In Fact You’re the Only One Who Can
Throughout the month of February, Inclusive-tee and partners around the world are holding the We Can Save the World Sustainability Challenge. Join us to learn simple tips you can use to live a more sustainable life; hear some amazing presenters; and win some incredible prizes.
Read on to learn how a bully almost stopped the challenge from happening and sign up here
https://www.facebook.com/groups/inlcusiviteesustainabilitychallenge
On January 1, 2021 at 5:30 am, I started writing my New Year’s Resolution. I wanted to clearly state my biggest intention for the year, the one goal that would drive all my decisions. Here is what I wrote:
“I resolve to do everything in my power to create a sustainable future where everyone thrives”.
I quickly realized that, while my intention looked good at first glance, it was incomplete. In fact, the resolution was fairly meaningless in its current form. Because of the way it was written, I could do it---everything in my power, after all, is pretty vague. What if I simply accepted that everything in my power meant recycling plastic and stopped there? I could have left it and, as I have done previously, forgotten the resolution the next day.
However, this resolution is different, part of a pattern of changes, a piece of the whole. Over the past four years, I have been pulled, or maybe dragged, to do something more to make a difference. Four years ago, the pull led me to launch Inclusivi-tee and commit to promoting justice in everything we do. Since then, it has pulled me to organize fundraisers and create sustainable fashion.
In November, the pull led, with the help of my company’s intern, Eileen, to the completion of my book on sustainable living. Inspired by the book, I organized a small 21-day sustainability challenge in December, during which I offered daily tips on living a more sustainable life. I started decluttering my house and clearing a path, literally and figuratively, to move forward. Then I faltered. I became uncertain just as it was time to forge ahead. I understood there was something in the path. I could feel it when I thought about a New Year’s resolution. But I could not name it. It stood there, large and looming and hidden. I realized it had been there for years, stopping me from becoming fully me, creating doubt, sewing seeds of self-sabotage.
Instead of accepting that I can make a real difference, that I have the ability and the responsibility to influence the world in a positive, powerful way, I just stop. I go so far and then it is as if I have hit a brick wall. I see the bricks, I know I have to dismantle them, but they seem so BIG, so durable, so strong. So I write a resolution that starts but goes nowhere, a meaningless resolution that hints at a great undertaking but promises much less.
I am locked in a battle that has been raging since I was eleven or twelve, a battle between the voice that I know is mine and the voice of my bully. Most of the time, my voice is much stronger. I tell the bully to go away and he quiets. Most of the time, I know that I am a worthwhile force with an important message. Most of the time.
But my bully is powerful and noisy. My bully is persistent. My bully knows when I am tired. Then my bully's voice rings out, "You are worthless. You are stupid. You can’t do anything." I know it is wrong but he is loud. He stops me from taking the final step, from writing the resolution that holds me accountable, the resolution that changes the world.
I remind myself that my bully becomes most active when I am about to do something important: interview for graduate school; defend my dissertation; open a business; write a book. I remind myself that I did all of these things anyway. I stepped over my bully and DID THEM ANYWAY. I remind myself that I AM the powerful force I was before my bully showed up. I am the girl who danced in the rain and sang at the top of my lungs. I am the girl who believed in magic. So, I rethink my New Year's Resolution, I add weight to the conviction. I add power.
I resolve to step over my bully and jump in, joining partners around the world to make 2021 the year of sustainable living and creating a future where everyone thrives.
My challenge for you is do the same. Step over your bully and resolve to create the world you want.
As for me, I am starting the year with a second sustainability challenge, bigger, stronger, and more powerful than the last. After that, a book launch and Sustainability Conference. Then, a food-centered sustainability challenge in the summer. Then, who knows? It is going to be an amazing year.
You can sign up for the We Can Save the World Sustainability Challenge here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/inlcusiviteesustainabilitychallenge
Lori Myren-Manbeck
Founder and CEO
Inclusivi-Tee - Creating a wave of progress, one tee at a time!
www.inclusivi-tee.com