I have self awareness now at 53. It’s about freaking time, and I have earned every single second of those coming to Jesus moments after the maelstrom of complete oblivion about my truth in which I lived the first fifty years. Let me revise that statement - at eight I had good self awareness, but I couldn’t find one other grown adult, or kid at that matter, to commiserate with. So I dumbed it down and just went with the group think of keep quiet. Come on, think back to when you were eight. You knew shit deep inside, right? And the adults around you in general were such dumb asses, you figured, why bother. Some of you had that special auntie or grandma who you would whisper your truths to, and they are the ones from the heavens now who support the vision in mid life when you finally say, I’m not supporting the collective group think anymore. I am trusting me. Then you have that day, that sad day, when you think, do I know?
Even with a great sense of inner Buddha, we can’t always know why we feel down or sad. It’s not obvious, like we just read about another oil spill killing thousands of innocent sea life, or we got rejected from a dream we wanted. When I felt super tired on Monday, and I posted on Facebook about it, people were concerned about me. Are you depressed? Are you sure you are okay? I knew this sadness didn’t need a diagnosis, and I also wanted people to know it’s okay to be tired and not know why but be pretty sure it would reveal itself. The waiting is really painful, though, and lonely so I have learned to communicate when I go into an emotional malaise. I find it speeds up the process being seen and heard.
So I made a batch of chocolate chip cookies and watched Gary Oldman be despicably perfect in the show Slow Horses Tuesday night, and let the emotional state of being come to the surface when it was ready. My fatigue is not something I fear anymore. I don’t push it down with tons of coffee or steam roll it anymore. I understand it is a messenger of an emotion or situation I am grappling with. The exhaustion is preceded by tons of dreams which is the subconscious vetting the information before I get to have a go at it. And in menopause, any reason to lose sleep, including active dreaming, is enough for me to leave pots boiling on the stove and my phone plugged into my car in the parking garage for the umpteenth time.
I finally woke up this morning and said, okay come on, God, show me where I am not seeing my worth. Help me to understand this heaviness… and then the words I heard were so perfect and sweet, pinging me in the heart. You are going to miss your daughter when she goes to college. Ouch. There it went. The key unlocked the door and the tears flowed down my face. Of course, THAT reality was coming. My first born would be soon leaving the nest.
I wish I could say this feeling was pure in just missing her in advance, but also what tried to creep in was the voice that said “And what the hell do YOU have to show for the last 17 years? You baked a kid, but what else did you do?” Then I got to argue with the voice for a little bit, saying “I got sober, and I started a company and…” Then it kind of trails off because there is no sense arguing with that voice. It only wants to slay you and will cling to the one area that didn't turn out so good which is dating and relationships with men. So I bat it away and return to the gooey feeling of my daughter leaving for college in a few months, and I am thankful that is all it is, because I can now love those feelings. They mean I care and I am not some confused exhausted ice brick.
In my 21 week series No Longer Abused - Session 4 - Your New Voice - I talk about the different voices that speak to us. There are the good and bad voices. The more we practice trusting the good voices that speak to us in kind ways, the less fearful we can be of emotions like sadness or anger. The bad voice wants us to believe we feel unrest or tiredness because we are unloveable losers no one wants to know. So we retreat deeper into the same sweatshirt for three days, and don’t wash our hair, and stop calling our friends. That is what the bad voice wants us to do… isolate us. If you have these thoughts, Dr. Wayne Dyer has some great tips I just read this morning, but my favorite one is to say “I love me” in the mirror as many times a day as you can until you believe it.
Give it a try.
At some point in life we have to face the reality that the manner in which we have lived it may not lead to the best outcome we imagined or hoped for earlier on. Did we learn from our mistakes, failures, setbacks, etc. or do they still haunt us? If so, what are we going to do about it now or do we care enough to bother? Soon or later we have to reckon that timing is important in daily life, not only to meet deadlines, but also to achieve success on multiple levels. Do we work smarter, not harder, to take the missing step that will bridge the gap? To figure all that out requires us to undergo a rather candid and stark self-evaluation and plugging into emotional intimacy where we fear to tread at times. Are we willing to open that personal Pandora's Box and come to terms with the contents therein. It can be a life-altering experience if we are truthful and willing to deal with the fallout to right past wrongs.