Mollie Birney
Clinical Coach and Recovery Consultant
@mbclinicalcoaching
www.molliebirney.com
Where were you raised? Has the landscape of that place influenced your work in any way?
I was raised in LA in the heartbeat of Hollywood chaos, the perfectionism demanded by the industry, and the power struggle between successful women and the men who were threatened by them. I learned a lot about what would be required of me as a woman and how to retain credibility despite my gender (it’s a delicately-balanced and formula of being attractive but not vain, being tough but not bitchy, and being ambitious without being off-putting). So much of my work is coaching women who under-value themselves, women who dismiss their hunger (both metaphorically and literally), women who over-think as a defensive strategy, and I think the environment in which I was raised absolutely armed me with the tools necessary to deconstruct the identities we learn to build for ourselves in order to survive.
How do you re-charge your creative battery?
I wish I could say I had some romantic ritual of yoga and tea and meditation that allowed me to be creative, but in truth I’ve learned that the more I try to intentionally re-charge my creative battery, the more I’m just re-affirming the fact that it’s out of juice as though that’s a problem. It’s so easy for me to associate writer’s block with the feeling of worthlessness, so I’ve had to re-train myself to meet an empty creative battery with compassion, rather than feeling like I need to DO something so I can MAKE something and then be WORTH something. If I’m not feeling creative I don’t make myself write. If I’m not feeling inspired, I don’t demand I produce. I spent enough time kicking my own ass in front of the blinking curser that I’m clear nothing but compassion allows inspiration to return. So when my creative battery is empty, I kick it. I bake some cookies. I snuggle with my son. I wrestle with my husband. I read some Mary Oliver poems. I get a little stoned and go lift weights. I listen to a Ram Dass lecture. I do the shit I love to do that enchants my senses and fills my spirits and gets me curious about the larger spiritual conversation at hand. I don’t try to write, I wait until I can’t NOT write.
What book are you reading?
I’m currently reading Anatomy of the Spirit by Caroline Myss. Yes, it’s about chakras, the academic in me is embarrassed to admit that! The yoga teacher with whom I’ve been studying for six years is this old, no-nonsense crank of a guy whom I deeply respect, and he’s absolutely blown my mind with his understanding of the practice. I hang on his every word, but it dawned on me recently that I have a habit of tuning out whenever he references chakras (I am, after all, a good Waspy cynic). So given how much I respect him and value everything else he’s taught me, I figured I should probably be suspicious of my instinct to dismiss this one particular topic despite knowing nothing about them. So I’m trying to learn about chakras as opposed to allowing my cynical brain to write them off as a myth.
What was the last thing that you fell in love with?
Technically, a vegetarian chili recipe, but I suppose a more substantive answer would be my son, Wesley. He’s my six month old and my personal guru. We call him The Cashew around our house because he kind of looks like one, and he’s a total delight, even in his tough moments. I’m blown away on a daily basis at how he’s gone to work on my karma. It’s a damn miracle that someone with my selfish tendencies is suddenly so willing to be inconvenienced this little being. It’s quite a trip. Having a baby has broken my heart in the best possible way - it’s like it’s somehow expanded my surface area, so although I’m now capable of ten times the love I was before, I’m also ten times more vulnerable.
What do you love most about yourself?
I love that I’ve had the balls to make some pretty big leaps with limited certainty of where I’d land. Between a career pivot years ago, my stint in amateur boxing, launching my private practice, getting married and having a kid, I feel confident in saying that I practice what I preach when it comes to the throwing my hat over the wall.
What do you think is the most important quality in a human?
The willingness to not know and be wrong. When we’re willing to be wrong we get access to compassion, to tenderness, to curiosity, to humility, to courage…it irrigates everything.
Do you have a spiritual practice?
I do, though beyond a daily meditation practice it’s not ritualized (and even then, I’ve been known to drop the ball for a few weeks). Sometimes it’s a metta practice (lovingkindness meditation) for folks I love, followed by metta for some folks I don’t love (I have a particularly challenging time with political leaders…), sometimes it’s just sitting in silence listening to the space between my thoughts, if there is any. I’m pretty sold on the idea that the spiritual practice is in the process of seeking and discovering, so I’m always in the middle of a few lectures or dharma talks by teachers I love and respect, and usually at least one or two by teachers who rub me the wrong way, just so I can take a good look at my aversion and resistance.
Who are your role models?
Elizabeth Gilbert, Ram Dass, Harpo Marx, Pema Chodron and Obama are probably the five humans I most admire. All people of principle, wit and humility, who lead with their humanity, and who believe personal evolution has the capacity to better the whole human race. Funny how people you’ve never met can impact you so deeply.
If you could change one thing about our world, what would it be? Is there a individual or an organization doing work in this area that you want us to know about?
I have a working theory that our perfectionism and sharp self-criticism is a direct result of a capitalist society in which our value as humans is determined exclusively by performance. Too often our worthiness is reduced to our cash or cache, and failing either of those, our ability to operate at maximum effort and minimum self-care for as long as possible. A culture in which people brag about how little sleep they can run on or how hard they can grind has no room for mental health and isn’t sustainable. I really like the work The Nap Ministry is doing to promote awareness around this issue (@thenapministry). They endorse the idea that rest is an act of resistance as well as a medium for grief and healing. This is a concept that 25 year old me would have confused for laziness, but at 36 I have a much more nuanced understanding of liberation, and am beginning to understand rest as a spiritual issue that in our Western culture is actually a heroic act.
Before I die I want to…
Have a spiritual experience. I want the oneness, the euphoria, I want those few sacred seconds of rock-solid unquestionable connection with the source of it all. Is that too much to ask?
All photos courtesy of Mollie Birney
