Episode 17: My Awkward Afternoon

What's one of your recent embarrassing moments?

You're listening to the Love Tidbits Podcast, where you'll discover a small, tasty, delightful, bite-sized tidbit of love. I'm your host, LeAnn Austin. 

Hey y'all, welcome to Love Tidbits, episode #17: My Awkward Afternoon 

I recently attended a Mastermind Conference in Austin, Texas. There were 1500 other life coaches there and I was all over the place anticipating this event.

Well the day finally arrived, and I woke up nice and early, went to the airport, got on the airplane in my jeans and pink sweatshirt. Knowing that once I got to the hotel, I could change in something else.  While there waiting, some very kind people from the area reached out to me and said, Hey, do you want to meet up and take an Uber over together to the hotel? I thought that sounded great. So I met up with them, made some new friends after I landed, and off we went over to the hotel. 

Well, they were all staying at the hotel where the Mastermind was held, but I was staying with another friend, just around the corner. Well, I thought it was just around the corner, but I saw the name of the hotel as we were driving in, and it said Hyatt over there, the hotel. And so I'm looking around and it's probably a good three quarters of a mile away from where we were, which is fine, cause I like to walk. So we dropped their stuff off, and they offered to leave my suitcase there with theirs, but I thought, well, I'll just take it, and then after lunch, I'll go over to my hotel and check-in.  

So we went to the hotel, excuse me, we went to the place for lunch and I'm pulling my carry-on behind us. And it's making, you know, those weird noises when the cart, the wheels are being crazy and it's so annoying, cause it keeps making that little clicking sound. It's doing that all the way to lunch. So here we hear LeAnn coming along, click, click, click clicking. 

Well, we get to lunch. We sit down and eating, and I noticed that my phone is almost dead. It's not charged and I don't know how to charge it at this point. I don't have any way to connect and I really need that to figure out how to get to my hotel. So we're eating lunch with my new friends.

I'm totally distracted thinking about how I'm the only person in jeans and a pink sweatshirt right now, as well as how I'm going to get to the hotel, the noise this suitcase is making and all the things. Well, finally, I get up, excuse myself, and I go find my hotel. Well, I'm walking over there and it's a little farther than I thought.  It's over across the bridge. It's under the viaducts, it's, you know, it's not probably the safest place for me to be traveling with my little carry on, pulling behind me and, ugh, I'm sure it was quite the sight. 

Well, I go into the hotel and find out, this was not the hotel I was staying at. There apparently is another Hyatt hotel, which is right next door to the place where I was attending. I was so embarrassed that I had done this. So I get my bag. I get more directions, cause my phone at this point is not working.  Have my little paper map, and I dragged myself over to walk back over. I'm sure anybody watching me thought this was very humorous as I'm pulling around my very noisy carry on. I get into the correct hotel and I go in the elevator and click on, I was on the 18th floor. So I jumped in the elevator and I start going up and it stops it's 16, and it won't go any higher. And I'm like, what in the world? I'm pushing all the buttons. It will not move. So I'm like, I am stuck in the elevator. I finally get here. I'm a little exasperated at this point. And finally I'm like, all right, well, I'll get off at this floor that I'm on, cause I can't go anywhere. I'm gonna go see if I can find stairs. Like can't even find the stairs in this place. And finally, when I do, they're all blocked off weird, and I find one of the people cleaning and I say, Hey, how do I get to floor 18? And she told me, you know, I don't know you're going to have to go talk to the front desk.

So I get back in thinking, all right, this can not be that hard to get to floor 18, and get back in the elevator. So again, feeling more embarrassed at this event-full afternoon that has taken me to get to my hotel. And I noticed there was a little thing in the elevator that says, put your card here or whatever it is, obviously I don't travel a ton.

And I didn't know that you have to show your key card in the elevator. So, finally figured that out, get to the 18th floor, get in my room, and I was about in tears at this point, it had been quite the afternoon. I was like, I don't know, what am I doing? I, you know, just craziness. So, I share that with you, just to help you know more about embarrassing things.  Embarrassment, Brené Brown defines it as a fleeting feeling of self-conscious discomfort in response to a minor incident that was witnessed by others.

Now she says there's three types of events that can trigger embarrassment. The first committing a faux pas or social mistake, the second being the center of attention, and the third being in a sticky social situation. The last thing Brené shares about this is; embarrassment takes years to develop and its emergence coincides with the self-conscious ability to understand what others may be thinking of us.

So if you've ever been or raised a tween or teen, you know that they often spend more time being embarrassed than not. It's a constant cringe when we start seeing ourselves through others' eyes, and it stays that way until we get to midlife and fall apart, before we realize it takes just too much energy to try to manage perception.

I think I'm getting to the midlife point where yes, all the things happened and it was totally embarrassing. But as I sat in my hotel room after almost tears, and then chuckling about the events that had just unfolded, I remembered, you know what, this really doesn't matter. And even if all the other life coaches were witnessing me do this, it's okay.

So if you want to learn more about this embarrassing, or all the feels, and stop trying to control other people's perception of you, join my Lovin Me Program, and I'll help you make that happen. I love this quote: "Embarrassing moments create the best memories." Hmmm, something to think about. 

Have a good one y'all, and here's to embarrassment, memories, and love.

If you would like to become an expert at loving yourself, check out my Lovin Me Program at leannaustin.com