Lately, I’ve been sitting with this concept: range. The range of emotions. The range of human experience. The range of reactions we receive and the ones we give. It’s a question that keeps circling back to me, “What is your range?” And perhaps more interestingly, “How comfortable are you living within it?”
In my younger years I felt I experienced quite a range. We moved a lot, I had a lot of responsibilities and so I got a lot of range – of experence, of emotion, of relationships. As I got into my 20s/30s/early 40s, I had to work harder at building that range of experience. But, I found myself in a relationship, in a career, with kids, with one or two bigger responsibilities, and I felt myself expand within each of these undertakings and roles. I messed up. I miscommunicated. I got tired. I learned. I evolved. Recently I have been working on feeling a range of emotion. Now, I feel things deeply and broadly. One moment I’m buzzing with energy and excitement, and the next I’m sitting quietly with anxiety or exhaustion. I can be happy and sad. Confident and unsure. Joyful and grieving. It’s not always easy to hold all of it, but over time, I’ve learned to trust that it’s all part of the human experience.
This idea of range shows up in how I interact with the world, too. I can go from a heart-filled collaboration with someone who sees and values my work, to, quite literally, scrolling Facebook Moms Groups, and seeing someone write that “consultants” are unnecessary. That we’re just…a waste of time. Ugh. In one hour I’ve felt valuable and then not.
Once upon a time, I would have recoiled. Taken it personally. Questioned everything. Because I would have lacked the range. The range to move back over to the part of my day where I provided a family with an option for their child that didn’t exist already.
Even Now, just a few days after then, I see it differently, my range has expanded even more. I recognize people’s interactions and feelings about my work as part of the range of how people see the world. For that person, what I offer may very well have no value. For someone else, it may be life-changing. Both truths can exist — at the same time. My job isn’t to change that person’s mind. Instead, I can feel the range of experience. The notion that my work is not valuable can also prople me to work creatively on it. Maybe, just maybe, my work can become so impactful, so undeniably useful, that even someone skeptical might see a flicker of possibility.
What I’ve come to realize is this: the wider my range, the more grounded I feel. Not because everything is good, or comfortable, or easy — but because I’m learning to hold the complexity. To feel the love and the disdain. To sit with the compliments and the dismissals. To show up anyway.
I feel this in my writing right now, too , one moment I’m writing about executive functioning or admissions timelines, and the next I’m diving deep into philosophical reflections like this one. I’m writing in different tones, to different audiences, with different purposes — and it all feels meaningful.
So I’ll leave you with the question I’ve been asking myself:
What is your range?
Can you expand it — just a little?
Can you feel more, tolerate more, create more, trust more?
It’s a fascinating place to explore.
Let me know what comes up for you. I’d love to hear.
