From not enough to belonging: Stories from camp

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Music (00:00:56) – She is dreaming, she is drifting. Never been so wide awake. Captured in the moment by the beauty all around her. There’s nowhere else that she would rather be.

Koren (00:01:12) – Hello and welcome. This is Koren Motekaitis. And you’re listening to How She Really Does It, the place where inspiration and possibility meet. In last week’s episode, I talked about overcoming resistance, and I used my recent return back to my summer camp for the 95th reunion as many examples.

Koren (00:01:38) – And today I’m going to share more stories and more insights that and I’ll be using my camp stories as an example, because these stories that we tell ourselves often diminish ourselves and it helps create the internal resistance, like I talked about last week, of overcoming that resistance and these stories can trigger are not enough and quite frankly, challenge our belonging. So I’m going to take you back to a different century. I’m so old, 1985, my dad had a phone call with a man that changed my life. Buck Dawson and Buck was the camp director, and he was also the executive director for the International Swimming Hall of Fame. And Buck had been on the cover of Swimming World magazine. And Buck has a patch on his eye from war from World War Two, and he’s quite the character. And my dad saw this article about him, read about the camp, thought this would be a hell of an experience for my daughter, called him up. They totally too connected because they’re both characters and next thing I know, a few months later, I was being shipped off to the other side of the continent to a different country, and didn’t even know what I was getting involved with, that I was going to be sent to a place with no electricity, no showers, my little picky self with food was going to be really tested and having to swim in the lake all summer for seven weeks.

Koren (00:03:10) – And here’s the thing is that the few months before I left for camp, it was a huge low point for my family and talk about a lot of shame. But I was in seventh grade and I was 12 years old and my family lost their home. We went into foreclosure, so we really didn’t have the money to send their child off to camp. And I recall it being like a few thousand dollars and being able to go off to camp. But my dad sold some product. He was an inventor and a manufacturer, and he made educational manipulatives for kinesthetic learning and they’re math products. And I remember him selling it, the product, and he was waiting for the money. And it took so long that he actually drove to LA, which is like a six, maybe a six hour drive back then to go pick up the check and get paid so that he can send the money for me to go to camp. That is not how I recommend spending money. When you lose your house and you’re having a hard time paying your bills, then to do something extravagantly for your child.

Koren (00:04:08) – The prudence in me is like, ooh, I can’t believe he did that. And also, as I was putting the show together, I thought, wow. And again, I’m not encouraging debt. That’s not what I’m saying. But how often do we not allow ourselves to do things because we’re like, we don’t know what the gains are going to be, what the ROI is going to be. You know, we’re going to make this investment. What’s going to be the ROI? My dad really believed it was going to be one hell of an experience in my life. And, you know, going to camp has been the biggest game changer in my life. Right? That just the experiences and and it’s contributed so much to who I become and it still contributes as I process it of what I’ve gone through over the years and not just 1985, but there’s been so much learning about the summer of 1985. So here I am, going to camp into another country across the continent. I’ve only swam in pools.

Koren (00:05:03) – I don’t like beaches. I don’t like sand. And I’m going to be swimming in a lake all summer. But here’s the thing. Remember, my family had just lost their home. We’ve moved to another town a couple hours away, and I didn’t know that it was I was feeling shame. But, you know, there had been so much financial stress growing up in my life that it was just this dark cloud. And so I don’t remember when we left or how. But I want to say it was like in the darkness of night. And it may not have been the darkness of night, but the shame felt that way, right? So now I know that that was shame I was feeling. I didn’t have the vocabulary. Plus I did not like that word. We didn’t talk about it. My parents didn’t say, okay, this is what’s happened. It wasn’t very pragmatic. It was just the silence of having that shame and then that running away and moving to someplace else, hoping for something better and, you know, renting a house.

Koren (00:05:58) – And there’s other stories with that. But so because there wasn’t any processing here, I go off to this camp and my immediate thought is, well, only rich people can afford this camp, right? It’s seven weeks, so I don’t belong here. I was the poor kid. I wasn’t, you know, somebody that belonged here. And I would go around camp and it was really quiet and very shy at the time. And that was part of, I think, my own just survival skills, part of my way of being at that point. And I was 13, but I had this internal knowledge of my family’s situation and I didn’t even have the words back then. But I’ve shared with you all here over the years that, you know, I had this belief that I was a loser from Loser Street. Part of it was the family dynamics part. It was being biracial. Part of it was our low socioeconomic status, right? So I just thought, okay, I’m just a loser from Loser Street.

Koren (00:06:49) – And then here I am going to the summer camp, which in my brain was for rich kids only. So I had this internal knowledge of my family’s situations, which then allowed me to create more stories that I was the only one going through this because other people had rich families and that is why they’ve been able to come already for multiple years. And that was again, another thing that I was behind on. I could like stockpile all the reasons why I wasn’t enough because this was my year one and it was others year four, year, five, year ten, and they really belong. But I don’t because I’m just getting here. And here’s the thing. None of this was really true, but I had this story that I created to prove to myself the difference about me from the others. Then to create that conclusion of my own lack of belonging. So that’s my 1985 year old self. I was 13. In 2003, I went back with my bonus daughter and my daughter because Rosemary Dawson, who was the camp director, also with her husband, Buck, she had passed.

Koren (00:07:52) – So there was going to be a service and that’s where some of my own healing had occurred because, you know, I’d done a lot of work at that point, 2003. That was 20 years ago. So what was 30? And some of the people that are so afraid of, I got to know them, right? We didn’t have this armor, this power over, this armor to protect ourselves. And I got to know people. And as I was more comfortable with my own journey and, you know, being able to really challenge that I’m a loser from Loser Street or money doesn’t happen to people like me. Right? As I did my own healing, I was able to overcome a lot of my stories. And then what happened was I was able to hear other people’s stories. So, yes, there were some people who came from wealthy families, you know, And in fact, I had a camp friend who did come from a very wealthy family, and he was sent to camp while she was from a wealthy family.

Koren (00:08:50) – There was a lot of abuse at home. And sexual abuse, I think, was both from her brother and her father. And she would go to camp year after year and then until she ran away from home at like 13 or 14 and she was homeless during the year. But then camp became her safe haven and she would go to camp in the summers. And I think at that point she didn’t have the money. She was disconnected from her parents. And I think that the camp scholar shipped her and had a place for her to belong. And I’ve heard stories like that time and time again of whether it’s not that directly connected, but camping, a safe haven, kids being on scholarships. Right. Families who, you know, went through a divorce with their father typically. I mean, this is the 80s, right? 70s and 80s, where fathers were leaving their wives and their children and then not paying in the family, being in a hardship, but the kid really needing to go to camp and somehow, some way, Buck and Rosemary created spaces and opportunities for these kids.

Koren (00:09:50) – And one of my friends told me just this past weekend at the reunion that, you know, they couldn’t afford to go to camp and her mom was able to get a scholarship for her. And I never knew she was a scholarship kid. I thought she was one of those rich kids. Right. And her mom got a scholarship and her mom eventually as she started. And rebuilt it, went to school and built a career for herself to raise her family. She repaid the scholarship back to camp with inflation. Right. So what it would be at that point. So there’s these stories over and over again. And had I only believed that I was poor and everybody else was rich and I’ve kept that, it would have probably just kept me further and further away from camp. But realizing like, oh, I wasn’t the only one. And yes, there were rich people and there were not. You know, there’s also there were the kids whose parents were teachers and couldn’t necessarily afford camp, but they could come and work to help pay for their kids camp experience, you know, so either they work for Buck in the off season.

Koren (00:10:57) – And I think there was somebody who at the time he called it her secretary, we would now call it, you know, an administrative assistant, but his daughter went to camp. And I didn’t even realize that until, again, this weekend when somebody mentioned that there were coaches there and their kids went to camp. So there were lots of different ways. And so my my invitation for you is if you notice that money story getting in the way and thinking that you’re the only one. My hunch is you’re not right. I had that same story when I was in university and I thought I was the only one on financial aid and I had so much shame about it. But I wasn’t the only one. People just didn’t talk about it. Right. Because there’s so much shame and not having enough and thinking that we put such a status on wealth that people are better. Not necessarily. Some people have more finances than others. It doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re better people. But that really stuck with me, which then created disconnection and then impacted my own belonging.

Koren (00:11:57) – You know, as I shared earlier, another shame story that I had at camp is and I heard about it at the reunion. I was we were on the main dock talking one night watching the Northern Lights. Yes, we saw the northern lights. Oh, I’ll be sharing it on Instagram. But we were there on the dock lying down, talking, and it’s in the darkness of night. We can’t really see each other. And I heard somebody say, oh, well, I only went to camp three years. And it was that dismissiveness like, See, I don’t really belong. I’m not really a real act maker because I only went for three years. I’m like, wow, how often do we say that about ourselves? Oh, I only did this. I only I only went to partial university. So I’m really not that smart or I only swam. I’ve had parents say this to me for years. I only swam high school. Well, you’re still a swimmer. Actually, we call a swimmer because if you’re not swimming anymore.

Koren (00:12:51) – I’m a swimmer. Right? I swam once in my life. I’m no longer a swimmer. But you swam. It doesn’t mean that you had less of an experience than somebody who was an Olympian. You had your own experience. But we do this. We discount our time because it’s not enough. And we judge ourselves and we tell ourselves that we don’t belong with those kind of comments. And here’s what I think about, you know, because I’ve thought a lot about this since then, is I don’t think Buck and Rosemary would have ever wanted any camper to feel that they didn’t belong in camp. Right. I think they really wanted camp to be a place for them to return to and to be a safe haven, to be a place to challenge themselves, to be tough. Right. Resilient, have grit all before all of the stuff that we’ve been hearing in the last 10 or 20 years. I mean, they were like doing this in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, you know, Rosemary even much younger than that.

Koren (00:13:49) – And I’m talking about the decades, so I guess much earlier than that. But they wanted a sense of belonging. I’ll never forget 1985. You know, I’m on the school bus. I’ve just traveled across the continent to another country, landed in Canada. I think that was the first time I’ve ever been out of my country and get on this bus, this charter bus, and nobody knows who I am. They mistake me for somebody else from California, but I wasn’t her. So then, you know, feeling like I’m not good enough and I get off the bus and there’s this woman, Rosemary Dawson. She had the chain for her glasses. So hanging off of her neck, big smile. She’s never met me or seen me before, right? This is pre-internet days, smiles and gives me a big hug and welcomes me to camp. And it was continuous. Now I was deathly afraid of her until 1999 when she came and stayed at my home. But I was definitely afraid of her for a really long time and she passed in 2003.

Koren (00:14:43) – So it wasn’t there wasn’t that much time. I wasn’t afraid of her. And a lot of that was also just my own upbringing, right? You respect your elders. You’d be afraid, be a good girl. And then it was also, you know, Rosemary was quite stern and harsh, but she wanted a place for us to belong. Right. I knew they made efforts to see people to know the campers, and they had strict rules. So I just don’t think that Buck or Rosemary. Would want any camper to think, oh, you only came one year. That wasn’t enough. They probably had the perspective and understanding that every year families couldn’t do it like mine couldn’t do it. But you came once and you’re a camper. And then it got proved over time. Because when I went back in 91 as a counselor, they greeted me with open arms. They welcomed me right when I went back to visit in 93, you know, again, there was that welcoming when my husband and I went to go coach for two summers and be on staff in 97 and 98.

Koren (00:15:37) – They were really happy to have us there and I was scared out of my mind because that meant I had to eat at the head table with the grown ups and that meant I ate with Rosemary every day, seven days a week. But it wasn’t about how many years that I went. It was the fact that I was there. So we discount ourselves from the stories that we’d say of how many years makes a difference and when. We only matter if we get some magical number, right? Was it five years, ten years? But really, the fact that I went to camp is what matters. The fact that these other women went to camp is what matters. I met people at the reunion that, you know, went for a year or two in the 70s, and they had their experiences. And the beauty of camp is that we’re connected, right? We’re connected from the cabins, from the swims. It was fun to hear about, you know, somebody who she was an alum and she’s 83 and what her experience was like.

Koren (00:16:31) – She swam, she was there in the 40s and 50s. And what did they do and what did we do differently and were connected. And I don’t even know how many years she went to camp. I know she’s a second generation and her daughters a third. And then they’re going to have a granddaughter go. And so then we can get stuck of, oh, well, somebody’s a legacy. And I’m not a legacy, but it’s really not, it’s not that people are more important. And that’s what’s really important to convey here. Right? There may be some repeatability, but we put so much importance on that as being the value and being more important or making you more worthy. But that’s not the case. And then noticing when you do believe in that cultural programming, how does that impact you? For me, I would go small. I would say, oh, I don’t matter. I would go more inside. I would be disconnected, Right? I wouldn’t reach out to people. I wouldn’t share my stories.

Koren (00:17:25) – And I did. At the reunion, I talked a lot about the belonging and how, you know, that was one of the things that when I was thinking about when not going the week before my trip, after everything was all paid for, was, oh, you know, I won’t really know everybody. There’s going to be people that have been there. They’ve been close forever. And, you know, I come in and out. I’ve had this spotty attendance at camp and I shouldn’t go, right? And it was that my own lack of belonging showed up again instead of just going in realizing that I get to see some old friends and I matter in that connection is real. I can make new friends, I can learn other people’s stories, and I can have that sense of belonging. In. What other thing is? Sometimes we can take one story, one piece of data, and then use it against ourselves. Right. So even though I went in 85, 91, I was on staff again in 97, 98, visited in 93, went many, many times in the 2000s decade, went back in 2017.

Koren (00:18:31) – And I’m still trying to figure out if I went in 2014, I might have. Oh, I was only a camper for one year, so I don’t really belong. Right. Which isn’t true because over the last 30 years or 28 years, I’ve gone to camp a lot in various forms. This is the shortest that I ever went to camp was a holiday weekend, right? Typically I’ll go there for the minimum of a week, sometimes two weeks, and I’ve been as long as 7 or 8 weeks. So I’ve had a variety of time at camp and I can take that one data point of 1985 and use that against me, use it to weaponize my own belonging. Notice the story that you tell yourself, are you doing that in your own life? Is that creating disconnection from what it is that you want? Is that creating a lack of belonging? Another aspect about camp is that it’s a competiton. When I went, it was a competitive sports camp and really it was known as a swim camp, right? Buck and Rosemary were real big in swimming.

Koren (00:19:38) – I stand on the shoulders of many former female athletes and swimmers that they encouraged to swim, that they coached and that they led. And so there’s quite a bit of history with even USA Swimming and Canadian Swimming at camp. And there were lots of great coaches that would come on through Olympic coaches and a lot of Olympians. I mean, it was quite the camp and it was really easy to go, oh, well, these are, you know, amazing people who have accomplished so much and I’m not right. And then there was again, it was a swim camp. So there was the comps, the competitive swimmers, and then there was the non comps. Right. Who were people who weren’t? They were girls who weren’t swimmers. They may not have noticed what they were getting involved with when their parents sent them off to camp. Or maybe they were runners or maybe their parents wanted them to be taken care of so that they could work. Who knows, Right. So but we had competitive swimmers and non-competitive swimmers, but the non comps, they always had a swim class because as Rosemary would say, you know, it’s really important that everybody learns how to swim, which she would look pretty right? We’d have pretty strokes so that we can go back to our country clubs reigniting for me, oh, these are all rich people, right? They go back to their country clubs.

Koren (00:20:46) – What I would add is or their communities and to be able to get into the pool and be able to swim and look really pretty. They didn’t have to be these world champions to be able to take up space and sit and be proud of themselves, of look at I can do this. And that’s the same thing I want from my AquaMonsters is that they are proficient in swimming. So I’m not as concerned about the swimming pretty but that they can, you know, be proficient so that they can be safe and enjoy the water and then allow them to expand. Do they go into oceans? Do they go into rivers? Right. Where they’re not afraid because they have a skill set and a competency? So one of the things that happened at the reunion is a friend of mine at one of our meals said that when she had come to camp and she struggled with her own belonging because she had come, I think, a cabin one. So they were all like 15, 16. They’d been together for years.

Koren (00:21:38) – Very cliquey group. She struggled with her own belonging. And then this idea that, Oh, there’s all these really great athletes that are here and I’m not one of them. That was her story when she was telling me this, I was like, Damn, we all have these stories of how we don’t belong or how we’re not good enough, right? We come in, we take some data points and we don’t really know all the stories that goes on until it gets unpacked, you know, or were made aware of them like I have been over the last 20 years. And then as a coach, you know, I saw a different aspect, especially with that athleticism. And it was so interesting for me because this friend of mine, you know, when I’ve known her, she was part of what I would call the in-crowd. Right? She was beloved. You know, she’s achieved a lot of awards. She did the swim to the mag, which is a really long, long way. I’ve never done this swim to the mag.

Koren (00:22:26) – You know, she’s been so much a part of the fabric. And to hear her say, oh, I wasn’t as fast or as a good of a swimmer as others, we get into that comparison, right? And remember, comparison is the thief of happiness. And instead of like owning our own experience of like, I love to swim and wow, isn’t that cool that somebody is going to swim to the mag if she can do it? What about me? Is that something I want to try to do? Or, wow, this person’s going to swim to Ahmic Harbour? I’m really afraid, but I can do it with them. Or we can use it to inspire us versus get us into these shame storms where then we may tap into our adrenaline to overcome it, right? We may tap into our fear to be like, I’m going to do it. I’m not going to get left behind. But that’s really exhausting and not long term sustainable. So here’s the thing. My friend was able to share her vulnerability of not being enough.

Koren (00:23:23) – She didn’t say she wasn’t enough, but she just shared with us about how she didn’t think she was a good enough swimmer. Right. Which then triggers our own belonging. And the story that I’ve had of her was actually quite different as she was so beloved at camp with lots of years and lots of accomplishments in swimming and in other sports like War Canoe. And one of the things that as we go through and we have these stories, it’s so important to have perspective. And so it’s really important for us to question our stories as well as have people who will give us feedback, who are people that are on our team, who are going to give us feedback, not to blow smoke or to tear us down, but to give us honest feedback. So I was sitting on the main dock. I spent a lot of time at the main dock on the last night, and I was talking to an old friend who, she went in the 70s, I think. I don’t think we ever overlapped at camp and we are talking and I shared with her, I said I almost didn’t come because I just feel this lack of belonging.

Koren (00:24:30) – Like, you know, I only came to camp one year and does it really matter? And it was so interesting because she told me she goes, you know, Koren, she goes, you know, I’d come in and out through the years, and Buck would always be he’d always be talking about you. And he would be. He was so excited. When you were coming back to coach. It wasn’t about Pete, but you were coming and you were going to be here. And I just remember him talking about you. And so sometimes when you can have that special I didn’t know that this was going to happen, but it was like, oh, now here’s the thing. When you get that insight from somebody, it’s really, really vulnerable. And I can’t believe I’m sharing here with you all, but this is an example of what you may be experiencing. It’s so important to take it in because I used to take that stuff and I would discount it. I would say, oh, she’s just saying that there’s no reason for my friend to say this, right? She gave me some information that I didn’t know because what happens all the time is we speak so greatly of people we admire to other people or and I’m not saying Buck admired me, but we, you know, whether it’s we love them, we just were so excited or whatever.

Koren (00:25:34) – Right? We just speak so greatly of other people, but we don’t tell them because it’s really, really vulnerable and we don’t want to we don’t want to like, overwhelm them or be too much around them so we don’t tell them. I’m constantly inviting my clients. I’m like, they tell me all they rave about, you know, their friends, their colleagues, you know, their partners, whoever. And I said, oh, have you told them that? I’m like, Well, no. And I said, That might be great to tell them. You’re telling me. And it’s great that you’re feeling this and you’re thinking this, but what have you told them? That’s a really vulnerable act. And so I’m grateful because Buck is no longer alive. I’m grateful for my friend sharing this. And then it’s my job to work on receiving it. Okay, so these are camp stories that I’m sharing with you, and you may say, Well, great, Koren, these are your camp stories, but this is about the windows of possibility for you.

Koren (00:26:24) – Because here’s the thing. It’s not just at camp that these stories come up. These are stories I hear every day from my clients. These are stories I hear every day from my Aqua Monster parents. These are stories that I hear often from my employees. We are excellent at creating stories. Brené Brown has talked about their research of this of in the absence of data, we are story making creatures, right? That is what our brain is set to do. And we have a negativity bias, right? So we’re going to often tell ourselves really crappy stories like I’ve shared with you here. So here are some examples of stories that, you know, come to me in coaching sessions. And some of it can be I have clients that they will think that they’re not generating enough revenue, right? And so that I’m like, okay, so what is the expectation of the revenue that your team is supposed to be generating for your company? Because getting a spreadsheet with just data on there and then playing the comparing to spare doesn’t actually tell the whole story.

Koren (00:27:26) – It’s one data point. What are the expectations from the company? What are the points that they are looking for from your team? To be able to rise up to? Some of my clients will have shame and stories about not having a big enough team like, oh, if I had a huge team, 100 people, you know, when I was scaling, I’d be more worthy, right? Is that really true? What is your capacity? Do you want to be managing that many people? I ran into an old friend of mine recently and he had retired. He’d sold his company and he had retired. And then I ran into him and he was back working and he said to me, he’s like, you know, Koren, it’s great. Nobody is reporting to me. He just loved it, right? It was the fact that he could work, do stuff that really engaged his brain, help people solve these problems in this company that he was at, but not have to have to manage people was like, fantastic.

Koren (00:28:21) – But I have other clients who are starting their careers or, you know, in their 30s and 40s and building their careers. And like again, part of the cultural programming is how big is your team? Because how big is your team is how worthy you are or how good you are in your profession. Right? It’s no different than how many years have you been at camp or how much money does your family have? Right. We like to put these numbers on our worthiness when really it’s not about our worthiness. Another example of stories, right, that I deal with every day with my clients is not being good enough to have the current job title like what really, Am I? I feel like I’m an imposter. What if they realize that I don’t have the skill sets for this job? I’m like, Really? You don’t have the skill sets for this job? What are the skill sets for this job? Right? So we have these stories. The other is, you know, it can be as simple as like, oh, other women are doing an all better their mom and a professional.

Koren (00:29:16) – I mean, this went back to why I started this show to begin with, right? How was I supposed to raise four children, have a blended family, have a demanding career because I felt like everything was crashing right. But this idea of other women doing it all and doing it better. So in the absence of data and information, our brains make up stories in one of the things that we must remember, especially now in 2023, is we are surrounded by a lot of highlight reels. Here’s the thing like in 1985, I felt less than and I only had television in some mean girls either on my swim team or at school, and I didn’t feel good enough. I knew that, you know, money was something that was supposed to be make you more worthy, right? That was the cultural programming that we were fed. But it wasn’t true. Right. And now think about it. We are inundated in 2023 with all these highlight reels. We’ve got social media, right? We’ve got so many things.

Koren (00:30:17) – There’s all these different awards in the professional sphere and it can be like, Oh, see, now you’ve made it, or you know, now you’ve accomplished it. And I’ll have clients that will accomplish being a professional speaker, writing a book, you know, selling their business, making a big revenue increase in their company, building their company, right. Getting a promotion in their profession, whatever it may be, and thinking that it’s not enough because they’ll see somebody else’s highlight reel and they know they’re messy, but they won’t see somebody else’s messy. So we must stop comparing our insides to other people’s outsides, especially the social media outsides. And here’s the thing, because often these highlight reels are very edited and want to say this because I was watching I’ve loved Sex in the City. I watched it when my girls were born and I was nursing them. They were great for like nursing because they’re like 22 minutes or something. And so the other day I was watching the behind the scenes with director producer Michael Patrick King and they’re talking about the tennis scenes, you know, and they’ve given Charlotte some tennis lessons and, you know, the whole crew tennis lessons.

Koren (00:31:26) – And they had a tennis instructor and there’s all this talk and then they practiced. And Michael Patrick King was like, you know, I think we can, like, put this together. And the guy who plays the actor who plays Harry was like, oh, man, my friends who play tennis, they’re going to be like, you look ridiculous. And then he said, and to other people who don’t play tennis, I may look pretty good. Some of it’s knowledge and practice, right? Like, but Michael Patrick King said something that’s really important for us all to remember. It looks pretty good now in real life. And with the camera, it’s going to look better and editing makes it going to look even that much better. And that’s something that we must remember is that when we start to compare, whether it’s social media, the perceptions that we may get just even talking to people, right? Because think about it, at camp, I didn’t have highlight reels. We were all in blue shorts, white t shirts, mine were from Kmart, maybe other peoples were from other places, like maybe a Macy’s or something.

Koren (00:32:23) – It was really hard to tell where things were from because back then we didn’t have the labels like we do now. You know, now I’m sure kids are like in Lululemon shorts, right? So you have that much more branding. You could tell maybe somebody had a nicer trunk than my rental trunk, but it was much harder to tell. But I still have those stories that, Oh, they’re rich or I’m not rich. There was still that way of being able to create highlight reels, create a fantasy of what their life was like and not know. So here’s a question that you may be having is, okay, Koren, what do we do when we tell ourselves these stories? Well, the first thing to do is really hear the story, right? Because oftentimes this is actually a pretty high level skill. You may not even know that these stories are there. I didn’t know in 1985. I didn’t know that I had a story that I’m a loser from Loser Street. Those are things I unpacked many, many years later.

Koren (00:33:17) – But as you listen to this. I’ve been talking about this here for a long time and maybe it didn’t sink or land with you then and maybe it lands with you today is identify the stories own that story of, oh, this is the story I’m telling myself and love yourself. Don’t judge and say, oh, I’m stupid or I’m ridiculous. Own it much how I’ve shared these different stories of myself or my friends or other former campers that I shared with you about their stories. There’s no judgment. Own it. They just own the story. And it helps us get an understanding of, oh, this is why I feel like I didn’t belong. This is what I thought. And then question the stories, right? Had my 13 year old self known to ask yourself, Is it really true that all the kids at camp were rich? You know, because really, I honestly didn’t know. But I made up the story and I was believing it. And I know some of the kids had nice trunks, but not everybody did.

Koren (00:34:16) – So I didn’t really know what the story was. But I made an assumption and I guarded myself. I withdrew, I pulled away. And then the other part is. Does it really matter if some are rich and some aren’t? And the thing about it, camp is for Buck and Rosemary, it really didn’t matter when a buck’s favorite thing to do was to go to the dump and find treasures, and he liked to take campers with them.

Koren (00:34:40) – I’m not joking. We all laugh about these stories. Right? But the dump was a huge part of our camp story.

Koren (00:34:48) – So it wasn’t having the nicest, fanciest thing. That wasn’t the values of the leaders in our organization. And you may be saying that’s great Koren, but in my law firm, that is a value. I understand that. And that’s why I shared with you it wasn’t a value here. But really, check in with yourself. Is it a value of you? Is it because somebody has more money? They are more valuable.

Koren (00:35:09) – That’s something that’s really important for us to check in and unpack because there’s a lot of cultural programming, But is it really true? And it creates other ripple effects. Maybe I’ll do podcasts about it, right? Because sometimes maybe you’re in a law firm and you’ve built your life so that you can be in this law firm. But family members in your family of origin don’t have those kind of funds. And then the tension that that can create, especially if you have that belief that having more money makes you a better person. So questioning our stories, knowing what is true and what isn’t. Asking yourself, does it really matter if we’re rich? Some are rich and some aren’t. And I know now my worthiness didn’t have anything to do with my family’s financial status. Right. My ability to get to camp needed at that time. I needed funds to get there and then later to go back to camp. I found other ways, like working and being a counselor or going back as staff, right? There were other ways that I have found to go back to camp.

Koren (00:36:09) – So here’s what I know for sure now. The money, the years, the athletic achievements really don’t matter. What matters? What is the ability to be at camp for myself and to connect with others? And over the last 20 years since I’ve gone back and visited, I’m always welcomed back with lots of hugs, deep conversations, shared memories, stories of campers I’ve never met, Staff I’ve never met. Stories of what we learned and overcame. And the joy of being in. And the ability to be able to have this beautiful experience meant me letting go of the stories of I’m not belonging, I’m not wealthy enough, I’m not athletic enough. Right. Letting go of those stories so that I could fully show up and be present and be vulnerable and share. So my question for you is, what are the stories you are telling yourself? And really being able to own it, identify it. Right, get clear on what is the story, because you may not even notice it. And then once you get clear about that story, have you questioned them or just fully bought into them? Right.

Koren (00:37:27) – Like the fully buying in is everybody at camp is rich and I am not. Was it really true? And what are the obstacles to overcome or the resistance you may need to overcome to get what you want? What I really wanted was belonging, right? That’s what it was for me. Belonging at camp. Do you see me? Do I matter? Do I belong here? In. What was stopping me all those years ago was me because I was surviving. And I had these beliefs that if we didn’t have money, I wasn’t worthy. And here’s the thing is, it wasn’t about how little money my family had, as that really didn’t matter at camp. I was at camp, right. And it wasn’t about how many years I went to camp to give me status. And I also didn’t need to be the best swimmer or paddler, etcetera at camp. It was about me being there and being me, which would allow me to connect and belong with others. And this has taken me a long time to learn this and to unlearn a lot of the social programming that we’ve all gone through.

Koren (00:38:34) – So the stories we tell ourselves. Please check in with them. Question them. See what is really true and what is not. And what’s getting in the way of what it is that you want. Hey there. You know, coaching is a term you’re hearing a lot these days, but let’s be real good coaching. The kind that truly changes lives is more than a buzzword. Imagine your favorite sports team without their coach. Hard to picture, right? A coach is someone who sees their blind spots, pushes them forward to perform better and help them achieve their goals, and above all, is always there to support them.

Koren (00:39:53) – It’s about weaving your professional and personal life together in a way that each one enriches the other, allowing you to thrive in all the areas of your life. Here’s how we can kick start this transformative journey. One, Dinner Parties. Imagine an evening filled with fantastic food, thought provoking conversation, and people who are on the same journey as you will share stories, learn from each other, and of course have a lot of fun and connection. Interested? Let us know where you’d like us to host one. You can fill out the form linked in the show notes. Two, if you prefer a group environment, join one of my group coaching programs. My upcoming one is Dare to Lead starting this fall. It’s an amazing way to grow. Surrounded by folks who share similar challenges and aspirations as you while they’re pursuing to unlock their leadership potential. Three. For more tailored experience, we can dive deep with private one on one coaching. This is a chance for you to focus purely on your journey, your goals, your struggles and your growth.

Koren (00:41:07) – So three opportunities. One goal. Thriving in a life where meaningful work and personal fulfillment are interwoven seamlessly into your life. Ready to take the next step? All the details are in the show notes. And don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter for updates. Remember, growth isn’t just about work. It’s about creating a life that feels good on the inside, not one that just looks good on the outside. So let’s do this. Can’t wait to work with you.

Music (00:41:43) – She is dreaming, she is drifting. Never been so wide awake. Captured in the moment by the beauty all around her. There’s nowhere else that she would rather be.