All of us humans carry mythical stories in our heads. We tell endless narratives about our own lives, many of which are not true. (And not useful, either.) One of my great stories is that, out there in the real world, there exist The Shiny People. And, the story goes, I should be one of them.
I like deconstructing my stories and squinting at them sternly and identifying the bits which are not useful and not true. I love to trace where they come from. I adore digging the valuable information out of them, because they so often have something vital to tell me.
I went round and round with The Shiny People. I had a phase where I decided they did not actually exist, that they were merely a figment, conjured up by the Not Good Enough gremlins. Now I start to think that perhaps a version of them does exist. They might not be quite as shiny as my story told me they were, but they are good at things I find hard - like organisation and structure and time management.
My new story is that, even if they do exist, I don’t have to be them. My horses have taught me to work with the grain of their individual, horsey nature rather than against it. I carry that across into my own human life. I am learning to work with the grain of my own nature and shininess is not one of my innate traits. I have cussedness and creativity and good humour and an ability to laugh at myself, which I think I got from my dad and for which I thank him daily. I got given a socking great dose of perseverance, and I don’t know what I’d do without that. But I’ve also got a streak of flakiness. I’m a lateral thinker rather than a linear thinker, which is brilliant for writing books or working imaginatively with horses, but which is not tremendous for keeping schedules or getting my tax returns done.
And now I work in what the shiny pros call a ‘public-facing business.’ In other words, I have lovely clients who pay me actual money, and a part of that does require a certain degree of shininess and professionalism. I’m happy and confident that I can give them the good stuff when we are talking on the Zoom or when I’m writing them essays or when I’m inventing missions for them. That’s all in my natural wheelhouse. But there’s quite a lot of getting behind and becoming tangled up in my endless To Do lists and even, as today, a complete muddle about time. (Luckily, this particular client was generously forgiving.)
As 2024 gets cooking, I am writing down the areas I do need to shine up a bit. I can’t simply sing a song and make excuses. But - and this is a lovely, perspective-shifting But - that does not mean I have to live in the story that I must become The Shiny People and scold myself if I never reach their dizzy, gleaming heights.
A client I’ve worked with for many months said to me on Monday: ‘We don’t come to you for professionalism. We come to you for the other stuff, that only you can give. We come to you for authenticity.’ I proved my lack of professionalism by getting a little tear in my eye. She gave me some other precious compliments which I can’t write down here, because my British story is telling me: we don’t brag; we don’t show off; we don’t big ourselves up. (Even the bit about authenticity is giving me a slight shiver, but I’m rationalising that I can include it because the red mare gave it to me, so I won’t take credit for it. Ah, that old island story - perhaps that’s the one I need to deconstruct next.)
I’m telling you all this because I think so many of us humans get fixated on what we think of as our non-shiny parts. We’re rubbish at this, and we wrangle with that, and we’re no earthly good at the other. We look at the people who do seem to have got it all shined up, who do look polished and professional, and so many of us feel scruffy and a bit second-rate by comparison. I’m teaching myself to acknowledge my abilities and strengths, however much that goes against the self-deprecation I was brought up with, and to build on those. And then I can take a flinty look at the reality of my non-strengths, and make an effort to fill in the gaps which need to be filled. (Another thing the red mare has taught me is that there is no room for complacency. There will be no coasting, not on her watch.)
So I think what I’m trying to say is: there are places in our lives where all of us shine. And it’s a humane, compassionate, beautiful thing to stop every so often, and mark those. (Maybe it’s: we are allowed to shine.) The Shiny People don’t have to be a threat or a lash or a mark of failure. If I step into abundance rather than scarcity, I can watch them shine, with love and admiration, and aspire to some of their powers.
Or something like that.