The Lost & the Restless

I don’t know where to start.

I quit my job.

It’s 2021.

I am ridiculously supported.

I have programs, courses, coaches, friends, and family on standby.

On paper… I should be ready.

Ready for what?

The next right thing.

I’m feeling lost. I’ve been here before. I recognize this place.

I know self-sabotage. I teach it. I live and breathe it.

Fear creeps in. Fear of success. Fear of what’s next. Fear of actually getting what I envision. Fear of not deserving it.

Hello root level issues. I see you. I know you. We are familiar.

Some of what I am feeling is not mine. The collective shift is ongoing and it is fierce.

I am looked after, safe, and supported in my own space, but as a sensitive little soul seeking expansion and growth…? I am super susceptible to what is going on in the world.

And I see the unsupportive habits creep in. Lack of structure… no intentions for the day… no direction… too much social media. Lots of attention to distractions.

And an overachiever, workaholic tendency that is beating myself up after only THREE WORK DAYS into 2021.

I have a strong restless saboteur. She’s on fire today. So much so that I am not following any of my own advice.

And the judge comes in to back her up. “You should be further ahead.” (If you want to know what your saboteurs are, you can take the test here.)

Ahead of what? I don’t have a plan? On paper, I have nowhere to be and nothing to do.

Aha. My nemesis.

Will I allow myself to rest? Will I allow myself to decompress? Do I dare announce my 2021 word of the year that I’m terrified of for this reason?

I left my job as pharmacist of 11.5 years only 3 weeks ago. We are barely finished the holidays.

With what time and on what planet can I have expected myself to have processed what is going on?

But no…I should be further ahead. Of something. I should have a plan. I should be on social media. I should be…

Shoulding all over myself is not resourceful.

I know what I need. I need to express. Create. Write. Share. Connect.

So here I am. I finally found something I wrote back in August of 2019 that inspired me to write what I am writing now. It still rings so true today and I’m going to share part of it.

April 2019: I'm literally getting out of bed with 10-15 minutes to spare before work. I'm coming home from work on lunch breaks unable to get my heart rate down. I can't sleep. I have a knee injury that I'm attending physiotherapy for. I actually walk out the back door of my workplace crying, in the middle of my shift, and around the block. And somehow back in the door to resume the tasks I was trying to do before I left. My only external support in that situation is my co-worker saying “Yeah, sometimes I have to stare at the wall to keep the tears from coming on.”

WHAT IS WRONG WITH US?

That thought alone is probably one of the reasons this anxiety culture is so acceptable and so perpetual.

Maybe this internal dialogue will sound familiar to some of you out there:

“What is wrong with me? Why can't I keep it together? I'm stronger than this. I have no reason to be upset about anything. If anyone worse off than me knew that I was having this kind of struggle, they would laugh in my face. Anyone better off than me would laugh in my face. Oh look at the poor pharmacist crying on her couch every night because there's no one else to answer the phone at work. Boo hoo. Get your shit together.”

And so the record plays. And the heart beats and the palms sweat and the words get stuck in my throat if they even make it that far. Most of the time I couldn't even find words. It takes a certain kind of space for the language to make it all the way out sometimes.

My former partner always wanted to know what I was thinking, and I honestly can't say to this day if it was him or me or the combination of us, but I often couldn't get the words out in that space between us. The walls I had built for myself were very high, very tall, and very impenetrable for the most part. It seems really safe back there until you realize just how alone you've made yourself.

And that's a different kind of alone than what I'm experiencing now. This end of the world zombie apocolypse, literally can't hear anything in the environment except my own technology... this is peaceful alone. This is “Hey, I'm okay and I'm not actually alone. There are people out there all struggling with the same stuff I struggle with. And struggle doesn't make us weak – it makes us stronger. And we're okay.”

The alone I was living in my head only a few short months ago is the kind of alone we can only do to ourselves. We don't even realize we're doing it. There might even be people on your team trying to help you, but they don't know how or maybe you don't know how to accept help.

I am a notorious don't ask, don't accept help kind of girl. And while I'm perfectly capable of cultivating a sense of peace within myself, it is a constant work in progress to maintain it. This is the work we have to do for ourselves though. It's hard. But it's not harder than living in the self-inflicted suffering every day.

Instead of sinking back into the grips of anxiety and “I'm not doing enough and I'm not progressing fast enough” and all of the things we can tell ourselves, it is constant reassurance and positive self talk that “I am doing enough and it's at exactly the right speed.”

Thank you, Holly from August of 2019 for the words I needed to remember today.

“I am doing enough and it’s exactly at the right speed.”

The lost and the restless of anxiety won for most of today, but now I will give myself permission to rest, relax, and recharge for the evening. There is no urgency here. There is no rush. There is only now… now… now. Chances are I still have a lifetime of nows to live and for that I am grateful. I one last time remind myself I can only be here now.