We are doing the 30 day journaling + meditation invitation for the month of August. An explanation of this project is here. I'll be posting an update here every day (M-F) for the month of August and I'm also doing short videos on Instagram to share things I am learning along the way.
For this challenge, I designed mugs, notebooks, magnets and stickers with the "Slow the fuck down. BE as creative, powerful and magnetic as you ARE" on them - they are here.
After yesterday’s meditation I had a realization:
Last month I had decided to put away my business goals for this year. Working on them felt too daunting but also I felt like I didn’t actually want them anymore, and I wanted to figure out what I DO want.
The realization was: I very much DO want those goals. But I also very much DO NOT want to go about them in the ways I have been.
And thinking back over the last 12 years - I have been so happy about HOW I have created and grown this business - all of the ways I have figured out how to stay true to myself and my values AND make money.
But as happy and free as I have felt about HOW I do things these last 12 years, it no longer feels happy and free.
I am now super aware of all of the places where I feel….. I don’t quite have the right words yet. Oppressed and impacted by capitalism and this toxic culture is the closest I can come, though I am aware that is not a feeling. I mean, are we ever truly free of it, when we live in it? This idea that you can make enough money to be free of capitalism is complete nonsense. Capitalism isn’t just about money.
But back to my realization:
I do still want what I want, and I know I want to go about it in a whole new way and I know some of the QUALITIES of this new way (creative, free, playful, expansive, healing, aligned)...
but I have no clue what this actually looks like.
ARGH. So many times I have had clients some to me with this exact same problem. And I always say “Excellent. You have a vague sense of how you want it to be, that’s more than enough to start with.”
But being on the other side, just having a vague sense of it, actually feels painful.
To know what I want only vaguely, and not know how to get there! It’s a space that invites in self doubt very easily.
Yesterday I felt optimistic about being able to figure out a whole new way to do things, and I saw what my next steps are: to create a new set of Alchemy Wheels for my goals.
Alchemy Wheels are one of the best tools we use in Dream Book that help you map out the inner and outer paths to do what you want to do, by focusing on the practices that support you in doing the work AND staying completely non-linear and following your own feelings/inspiration/energy in any given moment.
This morning I was riding my bike to the park for coffee + journaling and thinking about the new alchemy wheels I would create and then….. it happened.
As I said, this space of wanting to do something new and not seeing the way yet, is very vulnerable to inner critic attacks.
My inner critic attacked.
All of the “Why bother? What is the point? You’ll never pull this off” voices started to go off. I started to feel defeated.
And then I started to feel angry. How do I STILL have this much self doubt and anxiety about my dreams?
So that’s where I am focusing today.
I am using the Un-Sticking Station (another favourite Dream Book tool) to meet with my feelings that I won’t be able to figure this out.
While using the meditation, I had something surprising happen - instead of my working with my “stuck self” I had three different selves show up:
- Anxiety, self doubt + fear (one self, all tangled up in this stuff)
- Anger + frustration about being stuck
- I just want to give up on all of this
These are a lot of feelings to hold at once. I mean - no wonder I can’t figure out my next steps with all of this happening.
Drawing them out helped me see that these are all valid responses. Of course I feel self doubt and fear and anxiety and then of course I feel frustrated and angry about that and then of course I just want to give up.
So, starting with the me who wants to give up:
Can you tell me what, exactly, you want to give up on here?
All of it actually. Isn’t there a simpler way to live? Everything feels so complicated.
We are living on a planet in a culture that is actively killing the planet. And that's just the tip of the iceberg! This IS complicated.
But it’s not! It shouldn’t be! Your life is a miracle. YOU are a miracle. Can’t you just feel that way all the time?
I sure would like to. So when you say you want to give up on everything - you mean all of the complicated parts of life? You still want to enjoy life?
I want to sew and make art and write and make guided journals. I want to wake up and appreciate the sun shine and the opportunity for a new day. I want to feel energized and enthusiastic about my life and what I am doing.
Yeah, I want all of that too.
Let me guess, you’re going say “but we live in reality”
Well we actually do live in reality.
[We just sit with this a minute]
I have to think about the hard things. You cannot do ANY of those things you mentioned if I am not paying the bills!
Oh shit. That’s right.
But I hear you, and I love you, and I don’t think your needs should be steamrolled by practicalities. What if we make this need to enthusiastically enjoy life be equal to the need to pay bills and take care of all of the practical stuff that we’d rather ignore?
[Then I realise - this has been a week of a LOT of dumb errands. I do feel like my energy gets sucked into these things I’d rather not do. This part of me being all sulky is such a valid response to this AND there just are times when I have a lot of dumb errands to do.]
OK back to my drawing. Seems like anger + frustration is the next one to talk to.
Hello, anger + frustration.
ARRRGGGRRROOOWWWWLLLL
Yeah, I feel that.
It is SO unfair that I/you/we STILL have all of this self doubt about doing new things! This is complete bullshit!
Yeah, not just that but we also have all new levels of anxiety thanks to peri-menopause.
[Anger + frustration is kind of bowled over by me just noticing and stating how this has been hard]
Hey, I am not here to admonish you or tell you to feel differently. That’s not the point of the Un-Sticking process. It’s just that you, and the others, are all feeling so much, so intensely, it leaves me no clear way forward. I want to work with you, not obliterate you.
I always forget that part. When I am SO angry I just end up being angry at everything.
That makes sense. So do you want to tell me more about what you’re really angry and frustrated about?
I’ve just been doing this for so long. So why do I STILL doubt myself? Why is it STILL scary to start something new?
I would also ask - where does the assumption come from, that it should get easier?
Oh! Shit.
Yeah.
[This reminds me, I have been wanting to write a thing about white supremacy, the holistic wellness movement and eugenics - about where our notion that “things should be easy” and also "things are easy for GOOD people and if you struggle that means you're doing something wrong" actually comes from]
But it’s totally valid to feel angry and frustrated that this feels hard. AND it’s totally valid that this IS hard. Both are true. How does this feel for you?
I think my anger wants to protect you/me/us from how hard it is sometimes. But - it actually can’t.
Well, what it does is get in the way of me FEELING all of that self doubt. So it is protective in that way. But that means I can’t process or work through it, so I just get stuck in it.
So I am not actually helping.
But isn’t that life though? We do our best, we try to help, but we can still unintentionally cause harm.
That is life. And of course I’ll get angry about it sometimes.
How does this feel now?
I feel settled. I’m proud that I tried to protect you, and I get that how I was doing it wasn’t helping.
OK then, on to self doubt, anxiety + fear.
How are you feeling?
I’ve been listening to these other conversations. I appreciate how much these other parts of me/you/us want what is best for me. I think I was in a very reactive and immature place - I go there VERY easily. But this space to validate and process feelings, this listening to you talk with the others, helped me come back to myself.
Self doubt is a reactionary pattern, it’s not the truth of who I am. The anxiety and fear get triggered by the self doubt. (And parts of the anxiety are triggered by other things and then it all gets confused)
Do you need anything from me?
I need you to not give up. One of the easiest ways to soothe self doubt is to look at the life I/you/we have created. How could I doubt that I can do this next thing, when I look at all we’ve already done?
Yeah, I feel that.
