Part 2 of 3
It’s an illusion to succeed inside a system that is about to collapse.
A broken mirror held by a hand reflects a building behind the photographer, calling perspective to the viewer’s attention in contrast to the river landscape and opposite shoreline’s town in the background courtesy of Pexels.com
How long will that feeling of success last when you take away the things that gave it to you?
Have you thought about that?
Does it terrify you? Probably.
It’s a pretty intense exercise, and not one most want to do, but it’s very much the predicament we are facing societally.
It does not have to terrify, though it may test you.
It’s the quandary posed to most superheroes at some point:
“Who are you without the mask?”
What happens when your “powers” are stripped away?
Who are you when your mask is removed?
Will you lose faith in yourself, your partner, your future, the world if this thing all actually goes to hell?
Because it kind of is already…
Will you respond by running through the streets screaming about the end of the world, creating more chaos around you?
Because I’ve totally done that version, and it’s exhausting.
This isn’t that story.
This is a story about what I did right when everything was going wrong.
Rather than simply judge the failures, I ask you to be a witness to my successes
Because most of them are internal, and dammit, they deserved to be recognized!
As you know from my last post, the last year of my life has been difficult, in a shaken-to-my-core, and I wasn’t sure if I was gonna be okay kind of way.
A mirrored house reflecting lush landscapes and surrounded by blue skies (again courtesy of Pexel.com) reminds me of wisdom:
“Those who live in glass houses should not throw the first stone.”
Following My Heart
I want you to know something about me.
I am not full of shit.
I practice what I preach.
I walk my walk, and I work hard to do it with integrity.
My effort to follow my own heart, and start a business in 2023 - is based on the wisdom I have gained in my lifetime, but effectively the last decade of my life, when I finally got the practical application aspect functioning more completely.
I started implementing changes in my world that were more about me, my life, my happiness, my contentment, and my desires.
I had to spend time clearing people out of my life (or letting them be cleared) because I had a long history of unhealthy codependent relationships, and I needed to rebalance those with reciprocal relationships that give to me in all seasons and support me even (especially?) in chaos.
I started to explore my life, the stories of my family, my history, and I started pulling things apart. I started remembering things I buried in my memory long ago. I started to understand why I was confused for so long in my world, who and what contributed to it. I started to recognize that I knew more than I gave myself credit for - I had been asking questions for a long time.
I had forgotten the unanswered ones were just lying dormant in the background. I uncovered them like old treasures in my grandmother’s home:
“Oh yeah, I do remember what I was told about this” or “I do remember how I was told not to discuss this.”
I had breakthroughs. I got information from family. I closed gaps.
One after the next after the next for years I was progressing, including a HUGE ah-ha in 2024 that I call my “Alice through the looking glass” moment.
It was the moment I stepped out of the illusions and found truth.
My nerves quieted. The anxiety decreased. The jitters settled.
Peace settled in - not because I found something delightful.
Rather the contrary if you want to be honest.
I found one thing after the next that horrified me.
Over and over, and I found fewer and fewer family members who could engage with it honestly.
I found myself alone with grief.
And also, with peace.
Wait, what?
How did that happen?
Even if it is ugly or difficult, it ultimately soothes us to simply recognize truth.
I did not know that until I experienced it.
Slowly, anxiety decreased over time, peace crept in quietly - she did not enter loudly through the front door.
As that started to happen, I really began to gain momentum my own confidence. I was doing something right.
Like REALLY RIGHT.
The irony is that nobody can tell from outside.
You can’t feel my calm - well, maybe if we hang out you notice my energy - but you can’t see what I’ve done, you’ll never know my real triumph. Living a life of stress for decades because of gaslighting that was so prolific that people thought I was “weird” for not being okay.
I mean, I was weird. I still am.
But now I’m a good weird, not a confused weird.
My body and I have become friends
I tend her better than ever before (with plenty to improve upon, sure) but we’re good now. Not hostile. She and I trust each other, and that is a gift I never even hoped to find, and am so grateful to experience.
I can trust myself. Completely.
Yay! Right? No?
Wait, there’s more to learn?
Sunrise on a dock courtesy of Pexels.com
Hard Lessons
How much did I trust myself?
So much that my husband and I both jumped into entrepreneurship with a limited plan, no partners, and no experience and….? It only went okay.
See below.
Pexels.com gets me, and I appreciate their help in this image of someone drowning with a beautiful sunset in the background.
A lot went wrong, actually.
A long year, then a tense year that ended with us leaving.
If only the eviction was the hardest part.
Oh no. The hard part was yet to come.
Solutions were needed and waiting is the hardest part.
We had to find a place to go - and we learned a lot about our circle. Who was willing to help, who was not, how much, how they felt about it. Several relationships fell apart under the pressure of it - it was too much for our friends to bear our experience and their own struggles.
That was hard, but this is part of an untethering - we have to let go of the old to embrace the new - and give space for it’s arrival.
We lived with my cousin, my husband, and our cats in the smallest place in the world, and for 8 months, we all lived there together while he and I looked for solutions to dig our way out.
I am still processing everything I learned from those 8 months.
Much ended, whether I was ready or not.
Let it go
It never occurred to me that this could be harder on other people than it would be on us, emotionally.
But those who were not us, who had to witness up close?
So many of them cracked under the pressure. So much broke under the pressure of the experience, leaving us feeling so much more isolated and alone than when we began.
People who called us family disappeared.
It went so much longer than expected. Husband interviewed over and over - and landed gigs - only to have them withdrawn again, or delayed. The role we thought my husband would get at month 2 took 6 more months to secure.
The man’s resume is beautiful: consistent, no gaps, long term employers all his life. Not like my adventurous career. He is steady like a metronome and he still could not get traction.
It was grueling.
I did not know it was going to be that hard on us, we’ve never experienced anything like that - in this lifetime.
Once he was hired, it took a few months to get our own apartment, and that felt like an eternity, even with optimism. It’s always hardest right before you reach a big goal.
Early summer we were in our own place.
Relationships with my family changed while I was here.
Not the way I had hoped.
But we made it through our crazy ordeal.
We recently took a trip to Boston to bring the last of our things from storage to our place in Michigan, and it feels like the transition is finally complete.
I am so grateful. One year ago, we were homeless.
Today, we have a place, we are safe, we can re-create our own peace, and we are doing that right now.
We made it.
This story is not about shiny new success.
This is about internal, soul-based hard earned rewards.
So that’s what I mean when I say, I never felt more successful in all my life.
Sirius Black on a meditation pillow in my ritual corner in our new home. The first place that has felt right since last October.
If you have pets, you know that their relaxing in your environment is a measure of your success, so Sirius’s peace is more evidence of the inner peace I hold, even through this transition.
I am grateful for his reflecting it back to me, too.
Part 3 next week.
