I attended a class based on neuropsychology and anxiety recently. I got a lot out of it, and I’m realizing I’m so stressed all the time that I don’t know how to relax. And I’ve realized this has been going on for a long time. I’m used to working 12 hours a day, every day. I’m used to not having days off or vacations. I’m used to having 20 minutes or so of ‘free time’ and spending it working on my website, updating social media, or bathing dogs. I literally don’t know how to ‘settle’ anymore. I talk about achieving balance, and that IS what I want. I don’t want to feel stressed anymore.
I didn’t realize all these symptoms were from lack of sleep, mental rest and lack of down time. I seem to always be tired. I’m working on eating healthier, working out more consistently, balancing house chores with work chores, and setting more strict “work hours” for when I do my pick ups, drop offs, and answer client phone calls and messages. But when I’m not working, I’m thinking about work. When there’s just ‘one more thing’ or projects that are incomplete, I can’t stop thinking I’m wasting my time just sitting and not doing anything. I forget things over and over again. And most of all, it feels like my emotions are non existent. Like, I I just don’t feel anything. It’s strange because I’ve always had an over abundance of my emotions and they are normally all over the place. Now, this lack of emotion is disturbing to me.
It feels like once I “get off work”, and try to turn off, we make dinner, and then we watch 20min or so of a show, and then go to bed. There really isn’t time for much else after dishes have been done (and sometimes, we don’t even do that!). On weekends, we catch up on gardening, house projects, cleaning, shopping, and sometimes we’ll have time to go out and do something. But it’s hard to enjoy even getting out because we try to pack so much in. Even when I go to sleep, my mind is still racing. Then, I wake up and immediately my mind is racing. It’s on overdrive all the time. It doesn’t slow down, it doesn’t stop, and when I meditate, I can stay focused for about 3 minutes, and then I lose it. For just 10 minutes, I want to focus on my breathing and thank my body for all it does for me. But I can’t stay focused that long. Apparently, that’s a symptom of stress too.
There are not enough hours in the day to do everything. I’m stretched thin. I’m functioning, and I’m not unhappy, I just don’t have anything else to give at the end of the day. Even in the middle of the day, I have to psyche myself up to do anything that’s not on my normal routine. It shouldn’t be that way. Even if I just need to google something, or return a personal phone call, or clean up a mess. I have to mentally prepare myself to get off track and hopefully I can get back on the track again. I’m just going through the motions, but not really living. That’s stress too, I found out.
Everything in my life is great, and I’m moving forward towards bigger and better things every day. I found a great love, who makes me want to do better, dream bigger, and then make it all come true. We want that for each other, and we want to help each other achieve those dreams. But we are both stressed to the max with all the recent changes in our lives that the big dreams are just overwhelming. Recently though, we’ve both been too tired to do that. Going out always seems like work. I want to go have dates, and enjoy a getaway weekend sometimes, plan vacations where it’s not the most stressful thing in the world to leave, work on chores without feeling like I’m sacrificing down time or having to pick and choose between work and house projects.
I want to hear what people say, and stop assigning negative thoughts to compliments. I always hear negativity, and part of what we are trying to work on is removing negative influence in our lives. We want a wealth of positive vibes, happiness, and love. But when we are stressed, negativity makes a nest inside us and comes out in forms of self destruction. For me, it’s negative thoughts that are tied in to compliments, and not feeling like I’m enough. I want to eliminate the stress so I don’t have to feel like this. Because I know that’s not true.
I’m taking a different approach to finding balance and I have started learning about energy healing from within, psychotherapy and reiki. We’ve started on a new spiritual journey together where we are attending these classes and learning how to better balance ourselves and work through our underlying internal issues. I’m scared, but also feel like once I know, I can begin a new path to healing. I want to be able to feel connected to my spirit once again. I want to stop missing the beauty.
At this very moment, I am sitting on an airplane, on my way to Albany, NY. I start the next step of my spiritual journey in Cambridge, at the Monks of New Skete monastery. They are teaching a seminar called ‘The Art of Living with Your Dog’. I was supposed to attend last summer, but I broke my foot and couldn’t go. So I’m going now, and it’s the perfect time. This is a big workshop, and I have been looking forward to this for a few years. I have butterflies thinking I’ll be sitting in front of the monks tomorrow, learning all they have to offer, in this very magical place. This is a big one, guys. This year is full of amazing things, and I’m drinking it all in. It’s been tough, and now I see how much it’s paid off. Not just the house part… but how much I have grown.
How many times does it actually take to get past a really hard level? Many, many times. Many deaths, many losses, many hours, and much swearing… eventually you figure it out. Or you don’t, and you quit and play another game. Well… I don’t do the quitting thing. I finish what I start. I don’t leave missions at 80%, or optional quests unconquered. So, yeah, I die a lot in games because I have to get EVERYTHING. Yes, that means getting the golden chocobo in FFVII and winning all the big matches at the Golden Saucer, killing Ruby weapon, and unlocking all ultimate weapons. That means killing all the little silly frogs in MGS Snake Eater because I can, and unlocking the grunt birthday party in Halo because it’s fucking awesome. In reality… it means I don’t quit on big projects, or stop working out. I set big challenging goals and I meet them. I fail a lot, but the only thing that can actually hold back a person from success is the fear of failing. To not try is the ultimate failure. At least the way I see it. It’s fine to take a break and get perspective, but giving up entirely is unacceptable.
Every day, I have another chance to try a different way to meet these big, challenging goals. You can learn from others’ experiences and take advice, but when it comes down to it, you have to really live it, feel it, breathe it, and go through it to understand how to overcome it. Sometimes, making the knowingly wrong choice is the right choice. Which… because I’m on a video game reference today, I have an example. I see the map, I know which way to go.. and I go the exact opposite direction. Just to see what’s down there. Treasure? A hard enemy with a rare drop? A short cut? A cut scene? Nothing? It’s not wasted time and energy if you find something. And how will you know what you’ll find unless you go down that way? So I always do. I follow this same principle in my life sometimes. Yeah, sometimes it takes some back tracking to get back to where you were to progress. But other times, the reward you find is well worth the extra trek. Right now, it feels like I started this “wrong/opposite way” to see what happened, and it’s taking me on a long, super drawn out journey like a dungeon in Torchlight. But the experiences along the way are proving to me every day this isn’t a “wrong way” after all.
People who are going through a trauma, or a change, or trying to self improve know who they want to be, but usually they don’t know HOW to do it. How do I be better? Willpower. That’s how. Set goals. Stick to them. Oh, ok. Well, that’s easy…not.
End of My Leash 