After weeks of trying to figure out why I've been quite emotional without blaming it all on my 30 year old wild hormone party, I have come to the conclusion that I am restless. I am attempting to allow myself to feel this way, however uncomfortable it makes me feel, cautious to offer a remedy that doesn't fit. I look for jobs and don't apply because I know they aren't right. I spend time with new people and (try to) focus on silence and listening because I'm not really sure if I want to invest. I focus on enjoying where I'm living, running outside as much as I can, trying not to say "no" to new opportunities to explore, trying to stay in the moment when the faith is tested. I try to rely heavily on hope and past lessons that have always shown us that everything always works out. Everything is going to be okay, always. Really.
Lindsay, the only non-family member who has known me for 20+ years, said something to me years ago, how much of my unsettledness stems from "not being easily amused." I am so that person. Being on autopilot ruins me. I don't want friends, I want family. I don't want a mindless book, I want something that makes my brain hurt, stretch, grow. I don't want a "job," I want something that makes me feel excited to plug into on Mondays. Man, I want to like Mondays. I've gone from being an avid anti-Monday drone to being pretty neutral about Mondays. But it would be great to like them.
My anxiety has come back in a different, stranger form. It used to be a large group of strangers that would set me off. Now, it seems to be a smaller group of acquaintances. I saw my acupuncturist about it and she mentioned that maybe I'm creating more room in my consciousness and maybe I'm an empath that needs to guard her energy. I tend to love big and deeply and maybe I need to reel that in. I always know. Sometimes I ignore. Now is not the time to tell your gut to shut up.
In writing to my friend Brandon about how things are going, I warned him that my week recap was going to be depressing, but it was pretty eye opening.
"I feel like the world is spinning by and I'm stuck in concrete watching."
I'm feeling super disconnected lately, my own creation. Alone. Old. Stuck. Weird. All of the feelings. Anxious. Insomniac. Eternally bored.
Running has taken the edge off, but yesterday, I felt particularly unplugged from being a human. I was waking up super early to get to running in the afternoon with sun. Not really eating enough. Not hydrating enough. Being an emotional monster. So I decided to do this life audit that I've been wanting to do since Moon Highway posted it on their Twitter.
How and Why To Do a Life Audit
It starts out fairly simple: write down 100 wishes. Sounds easy, but I stalled at 30 and let the rest kind of trickle in. Reading further, I was encouraged to really dream "big," crazy big dreams from my childhood. I was shocked with how hard that was. Why wasn't I allowing myself "big" wishes? When did I shut that part off and why? (Tune in next time for "Why I Quit Adulting.")
My life audit pointed out how I spend my time, what I want to do with my time and where my priorities lie. My three biggest areas of wishes were in spiritual work, education and creativity, meaning my priorities are working on myself spiritually, learning a ton of new things and harnessing my creative power. It was slightly interesting to see how my priorities have shifted: three years ago I was really concerned about my relationship with Paul, my career and my connection to others. Although these are all on the list, they pale in comparison to the former areas, which showed me that at the heart of things, it's not my job or my connections that need an intervention right now.
Another great exercise was writing down who you spend your time with and who you want to spend more time with. I prioritized and planned more texting/phone calls/letter writing to a lot of great people that are unfortunately far away now. I used to write a lot of letters, held my same editing criteria to each word and it was a wonderful writing exercise. Multi tasking.
I also sorted out my wishes by three areas: what I can do today, what wishes are aspirations (go to the Germany/France border) and what things require a few steps of planning or preparation. This was incredible as I saw a lot of the fulfillment of certain wishes can start immediately. They don't require planning, just a bit of mindfulness. It's easy to get stuck in "waiting for the day" and I used to think that I was waiting for the universe to hand me the next thing. Maybe that's not my patience lesson. Maybe it's being patience while also being in a really good space, working on my shit.
It's really easy to blame your unhappiness on things that are out of your control. It's kind of like you're blaming the weather because you can't do anything about it. It's an external factor and it's not your fault.
But sometimes when you dig deeper, you realize it totally is your fault. You are "driving" this crazy train and a lot of things are in your control. This life audit showed me that my unsettledness isn't because I don't like my job or that I miss my friends (I do miss my friends) or that I need to figure out how to stick to a budget. What I'm searching for is internal understanding and acceptance. I long to understand myself, why I'm so empathetic, why I love so deeply, how to harness that, how to universally accept that, how to love that, what to say yes to, what to say no to, where to invest my precious free time, and what kind of activities and people are going to help me understand and unpack all of these things. It feels like there's a ton of garbage in the way of getting to the next step, and there IS, but it's not because I have the wrong job or I'm in the wrong place with the wrong people. Feeling like I want to "run away," feeling disconnected, feeling manic, anxious, depressed and completely ungrounded, is just a manifestation of being uncomfortable with this emotional digging. It's a lot of hard work. You want to deflect it and name it as something you can't control because it's hard. You have to face yourself and figure out why you're making yourself miserable: why you're so addicted to feeling that way and how to change it. It's scary and hard and so worth it.
In the meantime, and in an effort to start the process of reclaiming my happiness, I'm committing to giving up most of my TV "couch" time that I spend idly staring and spend more time writing, reading, getting outside, listening to music with Paul and creating, whether that be crocheting or playing the piano again or baking treats for my family. That doesn't mean I'm giving up the couch, just what I'm doing when I'm sitting there. Mama earned that lounge.
It almost feels like we are both on the verge of something. However, the "verge" may not be something that "happens." I'm starting to believe that it's something we discover within ourselves.
And I may just feel unsettled until I get the hang of this. Maybe I need to move into "unsettledness" and make feeling unsettled my home and see where that takes me.