What a weekend!

Friday I was face first into a pizza and a pitcher of pina coladas. Today I am trying to stand tall and remember who I am.

As horrible as it was last week to realize that my work is like my mother, today it feels like a freedom. I started my routing problems to the source big time today and goodness it’s fun! You have shown me you don’t want me doing things to better our department, so it’s simple. I won’t! I seriously feel giddy to be implementing what they started! No guilt and absolutely no concern if the problems get solved. Even if everything implodes and I have to fix it eventually, it’s just a job!

I wasn’t vocal about just how bad I was feeling mentally. I was avoiding NoBS and I had an idea in my head about giving up my in-person ticket to the September camp. I was very deep into “the world is a rotten place, I am worthless, and it’s not worth the effort to save me.” Friday night I really felt like I had all the proof I needed to prove that I’m not worth it. (It being a broad, encompassing term!) My texts with my bestie are filled with me saying I see no point in doing any more work on myself and her trying to knock it into my head how wrong I was. It was a tennis game of her lobbing me hope and me using a cannon to blow the balls apart.

Eventually it came out how betrayed I feel by work. For many years, I felt like my job was truly just a job. In the last few years, the old guards retired, new fresh faces took over, and for the first time I felt appreciated. I didn’t trust it for a long time. It took me over a year to say “yep, this is good, I like it.” It was also the time frame that I stopped seeing this a job, but as my career. Last week I felt like I got spun in the opposite direction. Appreciated? Nope. Part of the team? Nope. Important? Only when it was convenient. All that negativity hit me like a freaking tidal wave. Yes, I’ve done a lot of healing from all of this with my mother, but damn this hit hard. Instantly I went in my mind to “I am to blame.” 

Same thoughts as with mom. I let them. I am not good enough. If I was only. It was an endless loop and every time around the world seemed darker and darker.

Poor Bestie! She reminded me how much she loves and needs me. (cannon boom!)

She reminded me how I’m valued in NoBS. (multiple cannon booms!)

My siblings! (boom!)

The figurative gun powder cloud was all I saw.

I have to admit, she did finally stop the loop, but I wasn’t in a place to say anything positive about myself.

Next thing I know, I’m getting an email from Coach Julie reaching out to ask if I’m ok. Poor woman, what a question to ask! I purged my soul and told her everything. I even mentioned how I’d taken Jane Pilger’s class earlier in the week and she’d talked about how your emotional well being is like lights on a dashboard. When they go off, you check under the hood. I told Julie the hood was popped, and I was totaled.

Among the many things she said was that I saw myself as totaled, but if you brought 5 appraisers in, they’d give different opinions, maybe totaled, maybe completely salvageable. Damn her!!!

I felt a little lighter after that.

Saturday I woke up a little more peaceful. Still not in a good place, but willing to take some steps to show myself I am still taking steps.

Text conversation back and forth with Bestie, tell her how I at least had some hope. She asks me if I’d be mad if she tells me a secret. No. (well, at least I didn’t think so!)

She went to the NoBS website, emailed support and asked them to help me because she didn’t feel like she was making much progress. She thought maybe someone in NoBS could help her get to me. Yeah, I hear you, that’s a true bestie! It was also during this exchange that I get another email from Coach Julie checking in on me and musing further on my laments about feeling loved and accepting love.

Sunday morning the text exchange was about how I know I’m loved, but I don’t really embrace it. I didn’t pull out the cannon then, but I was definitely shooting things down with a BB gun. Eventually what she and I discussed became something I decided to take to coaching. Corinne specifically.

Dear sweet baby Jesus, that was the most nervous I’ve ever been going into a coaching! My stomach was flip flopping and I kept having to pee while wondering if I was going to be called on. By this time I had worked on breaking it all down to my thoughts and what I wasn’t willing to take the leap to believe.

Then she called me up. I swear, I thought I’d be a shade of green on the video! I don’t know if anyone has ever puked on a zoom call, but I didn’t want to be the first and I didn’t want the editing team to deal with that!

I think I was scared because I had my facts and I knew she was going to counterpoint them all and my cannon wasn’t a match for her. I’m not stupid, I see what people write to and about me. I have the messages, the letters, so many things that are “legal” proof that people like me. Correction, love me (as I’ve been told!) My battle armor was two-fold. Everyone who loves me sets a low bar for who they love and appreciate and if I believe what anyone says my head will swell so big it won’t fit through a doorway, then the people who did love me will hate me because I’ve become a conceited, uppity, too big for her britches bitch.

Now I send apologies for the low bar comment, but really, when you’ve spent your life being told how worthless you are, you kind of wonder about the people who say the opposite. It can go from the basics: oh, you’re just being nice! To the complex: dear lord what have these people gone through that they think I’m inspiring, good and helpful???? Did they just crawl out of the pit they’ve been held in and I’m the first non-evil face they see?

To quote many … “it’s not you, it’s me!”

The other part of my nerves was that what a fucking topic to take to Corinne. Wah wah wah, people like me! Look at Karen, fishing for even more compliments! Isn’t what she gets enough? Why can’t she appreciate what she has? Some people would kill to have the reaction she has!

Here’s the thing, I know how blessed I am. Don’t always understand why, but I know it. Knowing I deserve this blessing is a whole different story! Plus, I really am tired of being so negatively reactionary in my head. A simple “thanks, your post helped me today!” doesn’t deserve an internal reaction of “shit, how bad do you have it if I’m a help?”

How rotten is it that when kind things are said about others, I think “well yes, they deserve them!” but me? Nah, people are just being kind to a wounded soul.

I’m looking forward to the replay tomorrow, because I can’t remember my homework for the life of me. I know it was daily steps to help me own who I am. That’s about all I remember! So much information and thinking on the spot, it overloads your brain! One of the things I remember quite clearly is her saying that it’s not in my DNA to be who mom says I’ll be if I am proud and believe these things about myself. I guess it’s kind of funny in a way that I thought the simple act of saying “I inspire people and give them hope” was going to be like stepping on a land mine and everything would change. I don’t know who proud Karen was going to be, but she wasn’t going to be good! Corinne pushing me to explain what it would look like to be that egomaniac made me realize that’s not something I can turn into.

I’d discussed it with Coach Julie, but I’m learning it’s even more true than I thought. You don’t need to understand why all the time. In the big cosmic world its’ “why me?” but in the world around me I can see why me. Now I fully give credit to a higher power for making me, because there are things that are just part of me. Caring. Compassion. Helpfulness. I don’t know how it happened that I became relatable. I know from the beginning I have been told I say the things that others want to say, but either can’t or won’t. Wasn’t planned. Just me.

My first fb posts were short and timid. Seriously, maybe a couple sentences. Stop laughing. It’s true. Will I fit in? Will I make an ass of myself? Will I offend the masses? Am I wasting people’s time?

As time passed, thought work and direction changed me. I went from all the “will I …” to “fuck, I’m throwing it out there. Maybe I’m not alone!” I’ve said it before, I write for me. It’s a bonus that anyone else relates. I’ve never written a post thinking about how many likes or comments it will get. While I’m thankful there isn’t a “you suck” reaction, if one person steps away with a better thought, that’s enough. I sincerely don’t care if 999 others are saying I’m a dumb fuck. 

For right now, while I’m still working on accepting I am who people see, I can at least embrace that I’m a good example of perseverance, willingness to change, and what doing the thought work can do for you. It meant a lot yesterday when Corinne pointed out how far I’ve come in my thinking. I realize I have changed, I’m proud of the work I’ve done, and I’m ready for the work there is to be done.  That’s one thing I sometimes forget. I have put the work in. I’ve devoted more time into my NoBS work and therapy than I did with my BA. Huh, I guess I have loved myself even when I didn’t know I was doing it. Damn. Good to know I have my own back!