Michele Woodward

Powerful Coaching. Powerful Results.

women

A Woman’s Journey To Heroism

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img_5799Books, movies, poems, songs and numerous stand-up acts have been based on Joseph Campbell’s remarkable work on The Hero’s Journey. And rightly so. Campbell’s intensive study of the hero lore of many cultures uncovered a similar theme – a monomyth – recurring regardless of time and place.

It’s brilliant.

And it’s also only about dudes.

In the monomyth uncovered by Campbell, women feature exactly twice: The Hero meets a Goddess who inspires him, and then he meets a Temptress who, well, tempts him. The rest of the time, he’s a guy on a quest sometimes accompanied by other guys.

I had taken a stab at examining The Heroine’s Journey in a blog post I wrote back in 2014 – it was mostly about how we have a new female hero showing up in today’s literature and film, embodied by the character of Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games trilogy.

To really dig into the topic on a larger level, though, I had to do some thinking. I took out my journal and started writing to understand the similarities and the differences between a classic man’s experience and the hero’s journey of women I’ve know and read about.

I wondered where Campbell’s ideas intersected with what I’ve observed over my lifetime. The answer?

Not very often.

I had to refill the ink in my pen more than one time to get to the heart of the matter. And here’s what I think about a women’s hero’s journey. It starts like this: A woman is going along her merry way, doing whatever she’s doing. She might be stressed, she might not be. She might be rich, poor, old, young, whatever.

She’s living the life she’s living and then all of a sudden –

A crisis erupts. The floodwaters rise, the cow runs off, the husband runs off, the tornado’s a-coming, the rent needs to be paid, the boss is inappropriate, the nuclear reactor is leaking. Whatever it may look like, something bad happens.

And the first thing she does is try to fix the crisis. She mends and tends. She looks for solutions.

But there comes a time when she’s aware she can’t fix it – there’s no way it can be fixed at all – and has a moment of deep recognition that the only thing she can change is her idea about who she is and what she’s capable of doing.

Her identity shatters. Who she thought she was, and how she thought the world was – it’s all gone.

In the depths of her soul, she finally asks who she wants to be.

She embarks on a period of trial and error to find this new self.

In the course of her quest, she forms a tribe. These are women, men, children, animals who support her as she figures out who she really is.

She has experiences. She’s growing more and more conscious. She learns.

One day she has fresh awareness: She feels like herself. A new self.

A new crisis comes up, and she handles this one very differently. This new crisis allows her to see just how strong she is.

She has created a new life.

And the people in her tribe are safe. She can live happily and contentedly, thoroughly aware of her strength and resilience.

Women – does this in any way resonate? Clarify things for you? Give you hope that there is a path through any difficulty?

Now to the men who are reading these words – why does this matter for you? If you love a woman, or are father to a girl, and you want to be a part of her tribe, recognize that her journey toward a heroic life may be significantly different from the male hero’s journey you’ve been saturated in since birth. This may be why sometimes you don’t understand why the women in your life don’t seem to value what you value, or organize their lives the way you organize yours.

Because a man’s journey – according to Campbell – is an external adventure, full of battles where you can prove yourself.

And a woman’s journey – according to me – is an internal adventure, full of the kinds of moments which allow a woman rise up and know herself deeply.

Neither is right. Neither is wrong.

We prosper as human beings, though, when we respect and support the necessary paths each of us must walk to live our own heroic lives.

 

 

What Do We Tell Our Sons?

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Detail Knight Armor

Is there really anything we can tell our small sons that they don’t already know about girls?

Shall we tell them that they can be friends with girls? I think they already know that from school.

Should we tell them that girls can be excellent athletes? Our boys are probably on a co-ed team right now and everybody knows Sophie is the best player they’ve got, anyway.

Should we tell them that girls can be astronauts and engineers and poets and doctors and lawyers and moms and governors and Senators and anything at all?

Sure, we could tell our small sons those things – and have our boys say, “Duh, tell me something I don’t know”.

Girls as peers is their reality.

After the overwhelming response to last week’s post, What Do We Tell Our Daughters?, I did some thinking.

Do we need to have a serious talk about girls and their abilities with every boy under the age of twelve – boys who are experiencing a much different world than did their fathers and grandfathers?

Or do we really need to talk directly to the men in the survey? Men thirty-three to sixty-seven?

I mean, they are probably someone’s son, or were at some point. So let me talk about these guys – our big sons – and all the people who love them.

And believe me – I love men. In every facet of their wonderful complexity.

Many years ago I read a book which was so insightful, so helpful, that I reached out to the author to say “thank you for writing this book, you are amazing, did I say thank you?” That book was What Could He Be Thinking by Dr. Michael Gurian. Mike became a friend and I’ve relied on him over the years for research-based insights. He was also a guest on my podcast twice, here and here.

In fact, when wrote about this subject in 2009, (in a post which you might enjoy at this moment: What Do Men Want?) I explored Mike’s idea that all men view themselves as heroes on a quest – and that’s a really important foundational piece when we try to figure out why so many men surveyed by Harvard expect their female partner to subordinate her career and to be the primary caregiver for their children.

My friend Dr. Gurian suggests that the male quest is about achievement and status and it’s biologically wired via the testosterone, vasporession and other hormones influencing their minds and bodies. In his book, he quotes a 42-year old male pediatrician as saying,

I admire my wife, who can take ten years off work and just focus on raising children. Even I, who love kids and have devoted myself to them, can’t see myself separating my job from my life. If I didn’t have my work, my family would not have a reason to love me. I know that sounds strange, but that’s they way I feel. I need to be doing something to make them proud of me.”

I’ve heard this same sentiment expressed by many of my male clients. And I hear another thing from them – so many men feel like their quest is very solitary. They are alone, fighting the good fight, overcoming the odds, doing everything they can to achieve and make a mark.

For many men, work is the way they identify who they are – alone, against the odds, proving something. And other men in the workplace are worthy competitors who help a man measure his success.

But today, there are women in the mix. Talented, educated women who have things they want to accomplish in their own careers. They bring plenty to the table – skills, expertise, perspective and, yes, drive.

And here’s the deal: Today, a good woman can help a good man reach his goals – not as a meek help-meet, but as a hero in her own right.

In What Do Men Want, I suggested that all men see themselves as Luke Skywalker – a hero on a quest – and we all know that while they gave Princess Leia a weapon, she didn’t shoot very well.

But times have changed, and now we have Katniss Everdeen who happens to be a very good shot. And she has Gale, and Peeta, and Haymitch – all good men – who support her, and she supports them in turn.

She is not subordinate in any way, and yet a revolution is fought and won.

So, this Katniss analogy right here? This is what I would tell the men in the study:

All the women in your life have the ability to be the strong, courageous, warrior partner you need to fulfill your quest.

When given half the chance, your female partner will have your back whether it’s at work, or at home.

Because she really wants you to achieve your quest – you’re life’s mission – and all she’s asking is that you want the same thing for her.

 

What Do We Tell Our Daughters?

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My daughter, Grace, is in her first year of college at a very competitive school. To qualify for admission, she took nine Advanced Placement credits in high school, captained two varsity sports teams, went to regionals in the science fair and wrote, directed and performed a one-person play.

Excited group of graduates in their graduation dayShe’s taking sixteen credits in her first semester of college and has begun talking about the best graduate studies for her career goals.

Her female friends, also at good schools, were similarly focused in high school and are achieving in college. They plan to go to medical school, to get PhDs, to excel.

This is what we want for our daughters, isn’t it? That they can be anything they set their minds to? That if they work hard then the sky is the limit? That there is no boundary to what they can achieve with their lives?

And yet.

And yet, here comes a new study from researchers at Harvard Business School that shows high-achieving women don’t feel a great deal of satisfaction in how their lives have turned out.

To tell you the truth, once I read the study I had to take a few days to process and understand it because it rocked so many of my assumptions.

You see, the researchers sampled 25,000 graduates of the Harvard Business School and found an enormous gap in expectations between male graduates and female graduates. It looked like this (for the Gen X group age 32-48):

– 61% of men expected their careers to take precedence over their wife’s career

– 70% of men reported that their careers did take precedence over their wife’s career

– 25% of women expected their husband’s career to take precedence over theirs

– 40% of women reported that their careers took a backseat to their husband’s

That’s a lot of disappointed women.

Think about it – they went to Harvard Business School. They expected to have a career parallel to their husband’s career – but…they didn’t.

There’s another question the researchers asked which is relevant – and it’s about child care:

– 78% of men expected their wives to handle primary responsibility for child care

– 86% of men reported that their wife was the primary caregiver for their children

– 50% of women expected to be the primary caregiver

– 65% found themselves doing so

So the majority of women expect a career-leveling partnership with their husbands, while the majority of men actually…don’t.

Women expected they’d be 50-50 partners with their spouse when it came to childcare, but men didn’t share that expectation.

It manifests itself this way: Men report greater satisfaction with their professional lives than do women. Across the board. Women feel stymied when it comes to having meaningful work and professional accomplishments. They feel like they haven’t had the chance to grow professionally the way they’d like to.

I wonder if part of the reason women are paid less than men for the same work is because the person deciding who gets paid how much is a guy who brings his own views to the table, thinking a man’s salary is “must have” while a woman’s salary is “nice to have”. Maybe women aren’t promoted because subconsciously the boss thinks she’ll step back and subordinate her career to her husband’s if he needs to relocate for his job. Because aren’t men’s jobs more important? And all women are primarily taking care of kids?

There’s a big, untrue belief that women want to opt out of their careers to care for children. The researchers write:

Our survey data and other research suggest that when high-achieving, highly educated professional women leave their jobs after becoming mothers, only a small number do so because they prefer to devote themselves exclusively to motherhood; the vast majority leave reluctantly and as a last resort, because they find themselves in unfulfilling roles with dim prospects for advancement. The message that they are no longer considered ‘players’ is communicated in various, sometimes subtle ways: They may have been stigmatized for taking advantage of flex options or reduced schedules, passed over for high-profile assignments, or removed from projects they once led.”

I also wonder if the reason so many of my fabulous, gorgeous, achieving female friends are still single is because a guy subsconsiously thinks, “She’ll never put her career on hold for me” or “She’s more successful than I want my wife to be.” If my hunch is true, how sad is that?

So what do we tell our daughters? Do we tell them to work hard, do well and excel in their chosen fields – to maybe end up graduating from the storied Harvard Business School – only to have to a secondary, unfulfilling career? Or to stay single their whole lives? Or, if they want to be truly successful, to never have kids?

And what do we tell our sons? Do we tell them that their work is always going to be the most important thing in their marriage? That women’s careers don’t matter? That good fathering amounts to less than a part-time gig?

Or do we take a deep breath and start thinking and talking differently? Talking about individual needs, the amazing power of true, loving partnerships and the joy that comes from allowing one another to be at their best – whether that looks like someone staying at home and someone going to work, or both going to work, or both starting freelance gigs so they can parent the way they want? And maybe thinking about how to best utilize people in the workplace based on their accomplishments and abilities without a thought to gender?

It’s a conversation we need to have, and a mindset we need to shift.

So, yeah, I know what I’m going to say to my daughter and also to my son.

And I’m saying it right now.

 

Happy The Man

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Carolyn Hax writes an advice column in the Washington Post. Today, she ran an item which made me stop, think, say “whoa” and immediately draft a response. It was that kind of letter, which I include for your perusal:

On the husband who is generous to himself and others but not his wife:

The wife doesn’t say how much sex they have.

I’ve found there is no amount of effort I can expend that will cause my wife to give me sex, the only thing I care about other than food, scuba or golf. I love her, but I’ve come to love her as a friend and business partner.

For men, there is no romance without sex. Lack of sex causes esteem issues and a general feeling of discontent.

These days, my wife gets the same birthday effort I give any friend. I say, “Happy birthday.” I save my efforts for people who may respond in kind. My golf buddies and I spend nine of 18 holes talking about how none of us has enough sex. The sex we do get is boring. The analogy we use is we own an ice cream store and we have to eat vanilla — when we can get it.

My wife does yoga and expends every effort to look good on the outside, but I only get to look most of the time. I take the kids to give her “me” weekends. I cook and do my share around the house. In fact, the weekends with the kids are more fun without her now because I’m not distracted by my disappointment over sex.

You mention that perhaps the wife was misled during courtship. Well, that works both ways. There are limits to the criticism I’m willing to endure from someone who refuses to understand my needs.

Did you notice what I noticed?

“…cause my wife to give me sex…”

Obviously, this fellow believes that sex is something he receives – like a stack of freshly pressed shirts – rather than as a mutually pleasurable experience for a couple.

You and I know that what we focus on becomes stronger in our lives, so every time he talks about the lack of sex in his marriage with his golfing buddies, he’s making that lack bigger and bigger and bigger – and actually making a happy sex life more difficult to achieve. Because he’s already decided how it’s going to be.

She gives. He receives. That’s the deal.

But what if he turned it around? What if he thought about what he gives more than what he gets? What if he went into every moment with his wife oriented toward giving her pleasure? Not just the physical intimacy portion of the program, but in the household chores, in the trips to the store, on the soccer sidelines? What if he shifted from one mindset to another?

What if he truly put her first?

My guess is that the sex-being-withheld focus would give way to deep connection, real happiness, and, yes, more sex.

Happy the man whose greatest treasure is his wife’s pleasure.

And you may quote me on that.

If the letter from this frustrated guy resonated with you and your relationship, take a hard look at the reality you’re choosing to make stronger in your life. Because even if you feel it’s being done to you, by focusing on what’s not working you are totally choosing it. If that’s not the reality you want, make a new one.

Focus on giving, rather than receiving.

And prepare to be worn out.

In a totally good way.

 

[graphic: Zach Galifianakis, Washington Post]

Let’s Re-Cap

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Want to take a walk with me? Let’s walk back through some of our favorite blog posts of the year, shall we? And feel free to dawdle wherever you want.

We looked at a big, honking question on February 8th – What’s Your Why? Using the book Man’s Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl as a framework, I talked about how to figure out your own, personal “Why?” so it’s easier to get to the “What?” and the “How?”

Power Talk on February 15th was all about how to nail a job interview, or shore up your position at work. “Why not use this question — “what are your expectations for me in the coming months?” — with your boss, or your board, or, if you’re brave enough, with your subordinates? Why not use this question to touch base, and to “sell” yourself and your abilities?”

The Absence of Perfect, Part 2 on March 1st looked at perfectionism: “You can hold on to your idea of “perfect” or, as I suggest, you can ask yourself, ‘what’s my best option right now?'”

Meeting Faith on April 12th was a personal favorite. I really did meet Faith. On an airplane. And she’s a PhD candidate with a fascinating personal story. Meeting Faith restored my faith that strangers are just friends I haven’t met yet.

Do Less, Get More from May 24th was not a slacker’s mantra, but rather an explanation of my 100 Units Of Energy theory. Oh, and it comes with a free recording!

Change your thoughts, change your life. That was the subject of A New Normal on May 31st. “When normal’s not working for you, just make a new normal.” Sounds so easy, doesn’t it?

Deep in the throes of writing a book that is still in process, I shared How To Tell A Story on June 7th, which debuted my simple tool: Now Words/Future Words. When you look at how things are now compared to how you’d like things to look in the future, you can consciously shift away from stuff that’s limiting you – toward stuff you really want.

Did I tell you about Meeting Sandra Day O’Connor? Yes, as a matter of fact, I did. On June 28th. This is a post about authenticity and knowing oneself. As Madame Justice clearly does (for those keeping track, this is the post about Being Your Own Buddha).

More Than Anything from July 26th, asked: “‘What do you want more than anything right now?’ Stop. You have an immediate answer, don’t you? That’s your gut talking to you.” Listen.

What’s The Point? on August 2 struck a chord with, “Never confuse urgency and drama with meaning and purpose.”

And this one was an eye-opener. Mama Ain’t Happy from September 20th discussed the disturbing findings that once a woman hits 47, her happiness declines rather dramatically. How to cope? Well, I urge women to… misbehave. Yep, misbehave and have fun.

In You on October 18, I talked about how you can change your language and find your power. It’s as simple as changing “don’t” to “will”.

As in, “I will keep writing my blog in 2010” And, I will. Every week. I thank each of you for reading, and for sharing posts that resonate with your friends and family. It’s a pleasure, a privilege and a responsibility to write – and an honor when you tell me that something I’ve written has touched your life.

So, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for the connection between us. Bring on 2010. We’re ready, so let’s get going.

What Do Men Want?

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Super hero flying into imagination

Last week, I wrote about the surprising fact that as women age they grow increasingly sadder — their happiness peaks at 47 and goes downhill from there.

If you clicked over to Marcus Buckingham’s article, you may have seen a little graph that showed women’s slide into unhappiness over time. But juxtaposed against this female happiness drop-off, you may have noticed that, starting at age 47, a man starts getting happier.

What? Men get happier and women get sadder, starting at the same mid-life point? There has got to be something to figure out here, don’t you think?

There are two psychologists whose work on men’s emotional health has been very illuminating for me — Dr. Terry Real and Dr. Michael Gurian.

Gurian has provided an apt analogy to understand the flow of men’s lives. He says that all men view themselves as warriors on a quest, and that the challenge at mid-life is to make the move from warrior to wise man. In my shorthand, a man must shift from being Luke Skywalker to becoming Obi Wan Kenobi.

When I think about Luke Skywalker, I think about a young man in a hurry. Impatient. Wants it now. Rash. Reckless. An anxious striver. In contrast, who’s Obi Wan? Centered. Strong. Wise. Comfortable in his own skin. Peaceful. Happy.

OK, you’re thinking. Star Wars. Quest. Sure. Quest-schmest.

Consider this:

“If you are a woman, you may have noticed that your boyfriend or husband may talk in the evening about his accomplishments or inventions or the way he vanquished a business opponent. He is involved in realigning his sense of self-worth with what happened that day along the lines of the heroic intentions that he (or perhaps even you) projected for himself. You may notice it gives him pleasure and pride to review his accomplishments and potentials, whereas you may feel less of a need to review your own with your friends or even with him. As he provides you with details of his potency — his accomplishment and potential — a beautiful and mysterious thing is going on: he is bonding with you through the presentation of himself.” [What Could He Be Thinking? by Michael Gurian]

Feel familiar?

So a man is on a quest. When we think about quests, we tend to think big. The Holy Grail comes to mind, doesn’t it? But each man gets to designate his own Holy Grail — the only qualifier is that it has to feel big to the guy. One man’s life quest might be to produce an error-free P&L upon request. Another man may seek the cure for cancer. One might pursue the perfect model train set up. Another may strive to have his name on a building dedicated in his honor. One may want to post the highest score ever on Call of Duty 4.

Whatever it is, it’s the man’s motivator — and it’s really important.

Now, let me take a moment and speak directly to my sisters.

I believe strongly that what men want most from women is safety and deep acceptance. For much of his life, a man may have been told that he’s too smelly, or too dirty, or thinks about sex too much. He’s also told he needs to be in touch with his feelings, talk it out, feed the baby — while he’s being told to be strong, a lone wolf, and eat what he kills.

A man often gets the message that whatever he does, he’s gonna be wrong. Some how, some way, he’s wrong.

But when women provide a safe place for a man to be all the things he is, right and wrong, smelly and sexy, and give him deep acceptance of his quest, then men can fully relax, be authentic, be themselves… and be happy.

Because the old saw that men have the emotional life of rocks is just plain wrong.

“The main point is this: men are just as feelingful, just as relational, just as connected, just as dependent, just as needy, as women are. The idea that women are relational and men are rocks is just nonsense. I don’t believe that men are from Mars and women from Venus. I think we’re all from the same planet. What’s going on is that men had been coerced since boyhood to forego these relational qualities and skills and squeeze their sense of membership and self-esteem through performance. I believe that in this culture neither girls nor boys are taught healthy self-esteem. Girls are taught to filter their sense of self-worth through connection with others, and boys are taught to filter their sense of self-worth through performance. That’s a very vulnerable foundation for one’s sense of self-worth.” [Menweb.com Interview with Terry Real]

What do men want? After knowing them — by being their daughter, their sister, their wife, their friend, their girlfriend, their coach — I can say, men want to be men. They want to be recognized for the heroic things they do, and appreciated for their life’s quest. Regardless of scale.

And at age 47, a man might just feel accomplished. Financially, emotionally, physically. Men head into their peak earning years at age 50 — maybe that’s why they start to feel happier.

Their quest starts to pay off.

After all of those years of anxious striving and being wrong, finally they begin to be comfortable in their own skins. They know who they are and that what they want is OK and right.

If they’ve played their cards right, they’re Obi Wan.

And the Force is with them. Who wouldn’t be happy?

Mama Ain’t Happy

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Turns out women aren’t happy.

Turns out the older women get, the sadder they become.

Turns out once she hits 47 years old, a woman’s happiness declines quite steadily.

Or so I read an article this week in the Huffington Post, written by Marcus Buckingham.

Buckingham is a smart guy — his work has transformed the way we talk about work and life by shifting our collective focus from shoring up weaknesses to centering in strengths.

I like him.

So back to this women-are-increasingly-unhappy idea… what’s the deal?

In the article, Buckingham says it’s not because women are paid less than men, although that is a fact. Nor is it because women assume more of the household chores than their male partners. Also a fact. And it’s not because women have limited opportunities. Because we have so many more opportunities than our grandmothers did.

Why are women aging unhappily?

Of course, I have a theory.

Let’s call it the Disillusionment Theory.

From the work I do with women, it seems that for a certain generation the message we got growing up was, “Be a good girl, don’t have strong opinions or talk too much, get along, be pretty enough to catch a husband, have kids and then everything will be easy for you.”

And what happens to many women by the time they turn 47? The kids you put your life on hold for are grown up and have their own lives. The husband you put through medical school left the marriage. The parents who defined you as their darling good girl have died. Your body’s not the same. The media tells you that you’re no longer pretty enough or young enough to catch a man’s eye, let alone a second husband. It’s grim.

Because your whole life you played by the rules, but in mid-life the rules seem to have changed. Life is not easy.

Nothing’s the way it should be.

But we know, and Buckingham documents, the women who find deep happiness and satisfaction despite the loss trajectory of their lives. What do they have that other women don’t?

Buckingham gives us some juicy tidbits about the happiest women — they:

* Don’t agonize over who they aren’t—they accept and act on who they are. They have discovered the role they were born to play and they play it.
* Don’t juggle—they catch-and-cradle. They don’t keep things at bay, but select a few things and draw them in close.
* Don’t strive for balance—they strive for fullness. They intentionally imbalance their lives toward those moments that make them feel strong.
* Always sweat the small stuff—They know and act on the specific details of what invigorates them (and they let go of what doesn’t strengthen them).

So, to be happy at mid-life, women have to focus on what makes them happy and do more of that. And they have to let go of what no longer makes them happy. They need to find new ways to define themselves — based on their strengths — and drop the old ways they were defined.

In terms I use as a coach, to be happy in mid-life women need to move from living in their “social selves”, concerned with What Other People Will Think, to living firmly in their “authentic selves”, which is who they are at their very core.

Calls to mind Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s famous quip, “Well-behaved women seldom make history.” Perhaps especially in mid-life, it’s “Well-behaved women are seldom happy.”

Y’know what? I choose happy. If that makes me appear less well-behaved, then so be it. And you are welcome to join me.

And for my fabulous guy readers — if there is a woman in your life who is approaching the happiness tipping point, what can you do? Try this: encourage her to misbehave. Encourage her to step out and step up. Throw away the old rules, and join her in making some new ones. Believe me — you will love it. By encouraging the woman you love to be more fully herself, you will be amazed at the joy and happiness that will flood your life. She’ll be more her, which only allows you to be more you.

Meeting Faith

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photo (3)

I met Faith on an airplane.

She settled in next to me and when I introduced myself and held out my hand, she took it saying, “Wow, that’s so polite. I’m Faith.”

For those of you who have always wondered, how did Faith look? Like a walking goddess — you know, like JLo, without the attitude.

Now I could go all allegorical on you and imagine some deep and meaningful conversation with Faith…

But I really did meet Faith. And she’s a PhD candidate at Northwestern University in Chicago. Young and vibrant, Faith turned out to be wise beyond her years. And we had a surprisingly deep and meaningful conversation on our hour plus some flight from Chicago to DC the other day.

I walked away from meeting Faith with more faith, and that’s what I want to tell you about.

Faith comes from a family that didn’t have many things, and couldn’t provide Faith with many opportunities. But a great one fell in her lap when she was 14 — she got assigned a Big Sister.

This Big Sister inspired Faith, coached Faith, believed in Faith.

So Faith decided to try getting into a college, something that no one in her family had ever done.

And she got in.

And excelled.

And kept going.

And now Faith is a PhD candidate who hopes to use her training to help the community she came from.

She’s got vision, she’s got direction, and she’s got hope.

She’s Faith.

Our conversation was so powerful that I noticed the people across the aisle straining to catch our chat. What did we discuss? We talked about fears, and redefining oneself. We talked about what it’s like to be highly educated in a family made up of people who are not. We talked about how relationships work and how they fall apart. We talked about what women need to do to preserve their identities and their options while in relationships. We talked about books that have been important to our lives, and meaningful quotes. We talked about the past and we talked about the future. We talked about what we believe about the world. We talked about faith.

The plane touched down and we left each other with a smile and a wave. And as Faith walked away, down the airport hallway toward whatever’s next for her, I said a little prayer of thanksgiving. Thanks to that Big Sister who reached a hand out to a promising young girl, and thanks to all the other hands that have helped her along the way. Thanks to Faith who could have made other choices about the direction of her life but hasn’t. And thanks to Providence for placing us side-by-side on that airplane.

Because I walked away from my meeting with Faith renewed, restored and hopeful. Meeting Faith helped me remember that people touch people in the most unexpected and important ways. That people, by and large, are good and generous. That strangers are simply friends I haven’t met yet.

Yes, I met Faith on an airplane. Where I least expected her. Which just might be the most important lesson of all.