Open the door

Lately, I’ve noticed incredible stress in my life.  In fact, I’ve been allowing stress to overtake my life for the past 6 months.  I’m probably a slow learner. I kept thinking that it would get better, and sometimes it did.  There were times that I felt a bit better, a little lighter.  And brief moments when I felt a lot better.  But, it didn’t last.  I would be back in that uncomfortable place with stress where I was a home, but not.  I have created a structure that allowed the stress to move in and take up a comfortable, or not so comfortable, residence.

The signs have been here, I just didn’t see them.

• Very restless nights with not more than 3 hours of consecutive sleep
• Carrying a heavy case to and from work – every day (taking my papers and computer for drives)
• Back-to-back meetings and tasks with lunch at my desk
• Eating junk food for energy or to keep me focused
• Rationalizing away exercise because, “I don’t deserve it until the work gets done”
• One item on the to-do list replaced by two
• Staring into space because it’s the only moments of relief I get
• Heaviness around my eyes

I should have realized that colleagues were starting to look at me like they were wondering if they need to hold me back from the nearest bridge. I was getting advice like, “take some time off.”  translation – “please go away and come back when you’re in a better place”.  I’m sure they don’t want to be around me any more than I want to be around myself.

What is the quote?

“You will remain the same until the pain of remaining the same is greater than the pain to change.”

That’s pretty powerful and yet if you have never been in that place, its hard to understand.  I have been through periods where the pain of changing was so bad, that I welcomed the old negative patterns back into my life.  I didn’t have the tools to deal with the discomfort of facing the unknown. Not so sure that I’m much more equipped now, but I think it’s worth taking the time to open the door to something different.

I have found that no one can fix this for me.  In fact, they want me to fix it while still being all that I can be, for them.  I guess that I’m going to have to disappoint some people.  I’m opening the door to something different.  The pain of staying in this place is too much.  No, I’m not headed for a bridge.  I mean the pain of knowing I’m miserable and staying this way.

I don’t have the luxury of going through mass change…of becoming a barista or heading to an island to sell ice cream or clean fish, but today, I stop taking my work for a ride.  It’s going to have to get used to being in my office or at home.  It’s a baby step, but I’m ok with that.  As long as its forward!

Do you want to take a step today?  What would you like to leave behind?