Being Geek Chic is a blog about one woman navigating the male-dominated industries of production and tech. It's written by Elizabeth Giorgi, Founder, CEO and Director of Mighteor - one of the world's first internet video production companies. Learn more about Mighteor here.
I’ve spent a lot of my time lately thinking about what it means to have a good attitude in the face of painful things. Like having a good attitude about the future even when we’re worried about the big world outside looking uncertain. Or coming to work with an assumption of progress and joy, even when projects are late or budgets are tight. Or just allowing ourselves to feel good when we’ve been swimming in a pool of bad for a while.
It’s the decision to Choose Up.
To choose to lift yourself up. To choose to lift your community up. To choose to lift someone else up. Not because you have to. But because you know deep down that choosing up is the right thing to do for us all.
It would be easy to say that this is just some petty play at positivity. I understand that. But actually, hear me out, because it’s not.
In the last year, I was hospitalized, lost my beloved stepmother suddenly, went through the pain of sudden widowing with my father, went through legal hell, supported my partner through an equally unimaginable death and all the while tried to hold myself together for my business. It was a heavy year. And a heavy time in my life.
There were moments where the bottom felt like it had no ending. Where I would seriously find myself thinking: “What the fuck? How does this get worse?”
And in those moments I would get the same pleasantries that we all get from our family and friends. I would hear things like: “This too shall pass.” And “If you have a positive attitude, good things will come.”
But all I could imagine was this moment, right now, with the pain and the questions and the fear. And somewhere along the way - I started saying to myself. “I just gotta get one step up from this dark bottom.”
See, I stopped aiming for the impossible - blissful happiness. Joy. A carefree feeling.
And as soon as I stopped wanting for those big, lofty dreams of the heart and mind - I started to be able to focus on what I could move forward with in that moment. I started to see that I could make my way up - one small choice at a time.
By choosing to just compliment someone for no reason.
By choosing to go to bed an hour earlier and allow myself to rest.
By choosing to be happy about the perfect coffee.
These small little moments were my way of choosing up. Because it was all the control I could muster over my mental and emotional well being.
And it parallels nicely with my new vision of my career as a woman entrepreneur in a time where things seem uncertain on a global scale. I don’t have the patience or the capacity to drown in that fear. So instead I choose up.
That was the theme of my conversation last week with Lizelle VV of Women Who Startup as part of our new Mighteor Monday live stream. And it’s the theme of my entire next quarter at my business. We are going to focus on choosing up for one another. Because it’s the right thing to do.
I know that our minds can’t always control where we are at. Believe me, the prescriptions I stare at tell me this too. But I do believe that part of every healing journey is in making choices. And this isn’t a compass. The directions are 2 dimensional. There are other choices. There are directions that we didn’t even know we could define in a cardinal way. Choose a direction that makes your life better.
If the memes on Twitter are any indication, 2016 has been rough for a lot of us. For me, it’s been painful. I’m proud of what I’ve achieved this year, but the huge professional successes seemed to drown in the shadow of my personal life. I wish I could say that I feel like everything has leveled out, but even now, my personal struggles often prevent me from seeing the beautiful world that is around me.
As a result, I have spent a lot of 2016 on the treadmill and at yoga reminding myself why I need to be optimistic about the future. Here are a few I thought I’d share with you in hopes that you’ll find some reasons to be optimistic as we say goodbye to what has been a rough year for nearly everyone, it seems.
If you haven’t taken the time to try and find the things that you’re grateful for in 2016, be wise and take the time. Grief and pain and loss are part of life always - and sometimes the most painful parts of life all stack up. But, the thing that will make us survive the downs are realizing that the ups have happened and they will CONTINUE to happen.
Let’s not pretend like we don’t know that this weekend is an emotional freaking atom bomb. If you’re in a relationship: this is the weekend of wild joy or brutal disappointment. During the various loves of my life, I’ve experienced both.
If you’re not in a relationship: this is the weekend of wondering. Why am I alone? Is it OK that I’m alone? When will I meet someone new? During the various chapters of my life, I’ve wondered all these things too.
But you know what I never wonder about? I never wonder about how much my girlfriends love me. I never wonder about how much I love them. I never wonder about how thankful I am that they are in my life. And I certainly never experience brutal disappointment at their hands. The women in my life make me feel like I can achieve anything. They fill my heart. And you know what? I’m fairly confident they have a role to play in my life until… well, until we die.
That’s why this Valentine’s Day, I’m having brunch with some of my favorite gal pals. Because mimosas are a beautiful thing, but friendship is even more beautiful.
Or as Leslie Knope would say: “If there’s a law against friendship, then lock me up!” So Happy Galentine’s Day to you too.
“Tell me thy company, and I’ll tell thee what thou art.” – Miguel de Cervantes
It’s a cold December evening and I’m sitting around this gorgeous, vintage weathered farm table with five of the most beautiful women I know. Snow is gently falling outside. The tiny restaurant’s kitchen’s fire warms up the entire room. I’m a little buzzed from my pre-dinner cocktail. And I am happy. Stupidly. Blissfully. Electrically. I am with my women.
As I sit there, I think: Seven months ago, four of them weren’t in my life. One of them was still in an unhappy marriage and living in California. I’ve just ordered a perfect bottle of Malbec so we can all toast. And what are we toasting to? Our breakups. Our terrible, painful, heart-wrenching breakups. Because somehow, they brought us together. Somehow, we all managed to make March through June of this year our “end long-term loves” period. The following July through December has been the “falling in love with new women” period.
My high school days were entirely devoid of female friendships. It’s a fact that I was always tremendously defensive of, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to appreciate the rarity of that connection. It wasn’t that there weren’t women around. It was that they weren’t “my” women. The people who saw me. And whom I saw on a soul level. When I went to college, I met the loves of my life. I remember having few boyfriends because I spent so much time trying to plan adventures with Katie and Mollie and Nyssa. They were my original squad. My original sisters. My original soul mates.
As I’ve gotten older and life has taken me from one state to another, I have borne witness to the chapters of these women’s lives. Through marriages. Children. Job changes. Masters Degrees. Terrible breakups. And affairs. Yet our 20s are a funny thing, because they are often the time of our first major distractions. Those first psuedo-marriages with live-in partners. And all the compromises we humans make to make those situations work. Specifically, the compromises women make to make those situations work.
And I don’t resent it. It’s part of humanness. Part of growing up. Part of being. I know that. But I see things like this talk between Lily and Jane and I think: how many times over the decades did they get distracted, only to find the love they most needed in the partnership they have with each other? I would guess it’s in the double, if not triple digits.
So I’m back at that table. Malbec in hand. Toasting to these women. I love, love, love giving a good toast. I love telling people I love them when I do, because it’s a gift so rare. I love sharing words. And tears. And laughter. They are my new set of soul mates. My 30s soul mates. My next chapter soul mates. And even though you never know what is going to last or for how long, it feels like the most perfect little pocket of time. One that I’ll revisit when the first in the group gets married or remarried. One that I’ll remember when that restaurant passes by my rear view mirror. One that I’ll hold onto with precious care and recall in drunken moments of nostalgia.
The women in my life saved me this year. But these women, specifically, saved me. For whatever the future may hold, it is the women in our lives whom we can come back to and be our true selves. A gift so rare, so precious, that we had to give it a proper title. We had to label it with the soul.
To my sisters and soul mates, you are a blessing. Cheers to you.
If fear could blow up my phone, it would be. Imagine text after text with fire emojis, angry faces and large, bold Xs. When I go to work each day. When I go on dates. When I think about my next professional move. When I talk to my family and friends. Me and fear, we’re kind of seeing each other. Way too much.
But this isn’t a toxic relationship. It could be. But instead, I’m accepting it. I’m willingly looking it in the eye and saying: hey, come hang out over here. This is a conscious choice and I’m not blocking fear on my phone anytime soon. Sure, sometimes, I’m still terribly scared, but most of the time, I’m aware, willing and participating in the relationship.
Let me get away from the metaphors and just narrow in on it: I’m seeing fear because I’m dating again. I’m seeing fear because I’m trying to grow my business in a huge way. And I’m seeing fear because my heart feels totally capable of being broken again. You only get there when you’re healed.
There’s no point in pretending like it’s a mystery: I was really, really unstable and unhappy for at least half of 2015. But what’s weird about being unhappy is that you don’t really fear being any more unhappy when you’re in it. You dread it. But you don’t fear it. That’s how you know you’re truly fucking sad. You can’t imagine being sadder.
So imagine me now… laying in bed talking about my favorite pre-Pixar Disney movies and trying to bask in the happiness. All the while, knowing that pain is likely on the other side. I write stories for a living - and MOST of the ones that real people live don’t close with happy endings. That’s why we write them. Because we are always trying to even the score.
At the same time, I am writing checks with lots of 0s after the comma to build a next iteration of my dream business. The comfortable home, the expensive bottles of wine and the addiction to the nice makeup at Sephora has to go on hold while I build a new room in this career castle. Before the addition, we were doing just fine. But I also wasn’t chasing after happy while having a love affair with fear.
I guess what I’m trying to say is; If you’re flirting with fear, maybe ask it to hang out. You might be surprised how happy accepting it can make you.
