Unraveling, with Brooke Baldwin

Dearest Unravelers and Unravelers-to-be – 

Greetings from one of my favorite places — 35k feet in the air, spending time with my OG boyfriend, Delta Airlines, sitting next to my actual boyfriend, Peter. (They get along great, by the way; I had to convert the human BF but he’s in now.) We’re on our way home. Blue sky and Bob Ross-worthy white fluffy clouds just out the window. I’ll get to my thank you’s from last week’s writing on butterflies and goo in just a moment. But first, I have to tell you about the newest addition to our growing mug collection. This is so random, but stay with me because it’s important. I bought us a rainbow-colored unicorn mug on a recent trip to Boulder (nothing says Colorado like a horse with a golden horn sticking out of its head, am-I-right?!). You know Peter and I, I imagine much like you, cherish our morning coffee ritual. It’s a sacred half hour of connection and presence before each of us runs off in different directions for the day. But lately (humble brag) we’ve upped our game. We now decide each morning who gets bequeathed the unicorn mug. This is getting very serious. Each morning, we collectively decide who is most worthy of celebration / who has done a brave thing (or is about to) / who just got his second kid into college (Peter) / who is taking major career swings (both) / who can sing every word to Salt n’ Peppa’s “Shoop” (oh wait, that’s just me). Like, I said very serious criteria. What Peter doesn’t know yet is I’m going to dub him unicorn-worthy first thing tomorrow because of how he’s been taking care of his 92 year old parents who are newly moved into assisted living and, might I add, loathing it. As anyone with elderly parents can attest — it’s hard and so f*cking complicated. (In Peter’s words — as he’s sitting next to me on the plane: “It’s the worst possible version of a nightmare.”) Like I said, the man is getting the mug.

☕️ 🦄 🌈

As I type, we’re somewhere in the air between Tampa and Atlanta before we connect and head home. I just wanted to take a moment to thank you for getting the goo in last week’s newsletter, especially for appreciating my “Professor Baldwin” video tutorial. If you missed it, watch it here. I found myself at Peter’s niece’s wedding in Clearwater Beach this weekend rocking my butterfly-patterned ensemble (here’s the link as many of you asked where I bought it)… quietly smiling to myself on what it all really means.

As you might have imagined… I was still talking about imaginal cells and caterpillar-to-butterfly transformation (yep that’s BB wedding talk — not just “ohhhh, beautiful dress, where’s your honeymoon?” but also: “No but do you actually know the magic that happens in a chrysalis?!”🤓) In one of my many conversations over the weekend, my magical friend Patricia said: “Brooke, it’s not like we’re only goo once. If you think you’re about to become a butterfly… just wait because you’re going to be goo again!”

Wait WHAT?!

Patricia would know — she’s a massive Martha Beck fan like me. She’s even gone through all Beck’s Wayfinder life coach training. Patricia pointed me to this mind-blowing Martha Beck teaching also using the caterpillar-chrysalis-goo-butterfly metamorphosis as a metaphor. Martha breaks this down into four very specific human life phases. After our lunch on the beach (and her insistence I up my SPF game in that Florida ☀️, thank you girrrrl), I immediately found the descriptions of the four phases here. What phase are you in? I’m definitely stage 3. Here’s a peek:

PHASE 3: RE-FORMING (AKA THE HERO’S SAGA)

HERE’S THE DEAL

As your dreams become schemes, you’ll begin itching to make them come true. This signals Phase 3, the implementation stage of the change process. Phase 3 is when you stop fantasizing about selling your art and start submitting work to galleries, or go beyond ogling a friend’s brother to having her set you up on a date. You’ll feel motivated to do real, physical things to build a new life. And then…(drum roll, please)…you’ll fail. Repeatedly.

I’ve gone through Phase 3 many times and watched hundreds of clients do the same. I’ve never seen a significant scheme succeed on the first try. Re-forming your life, like anything new, complex, and important, inevitably brings up problems you didn’t expect. That’s why, in contrast to the starry eyes that are so useful in Phase 2, Phase 3 demands the ingenuity of Thomas Edison and the tenacity of a pit bull.

Her line: “You’ll fail. Repeatedly.” Yep.

According to Martha, here’s the mantra for us Phase 3’ers: “This is much worse than I expected… and that’s okay.”

**she closes her eyes on the plane and repeats**

This is much worse than I expected… and that’s okay.

This is much worse than I expected… and that’s okay.

To those of you waiting for the phone to ring, for that email that brings the news you’re waiting for — here’s what I’m constantly reminding myself: “All it takes is one.” One right opportunity. One right meeting. One YES. And then our success unfurls from there.

Quick story on this very point to bring a heaping dose of inspiration here: many of you know after I left CNN, I got this insanely fun, seemingly-out-of-left-field professional opportunity to host a show for Netflix. If you haven’t binged it and need a little escapism from, well, the insanity that is the world… click here. You wanna know how I got the job? I don’t think I’ve ever shared this story publicly before. This is WILD.