Accepting My Work
A Work in Progress
I woke in the middle of the night, as I do, with words swirling above my head. Quietly sneaking out of bed, I reached for a notebook and soft blanket and cuddled up in the corner of the couch and caught my thoughts on the page.
The last two weeks have felt like a tornado hit my physical and emotional space, creating a bit of uncomfortable chaos in my body and spirit. I kept looking around and only saw an unusually full schedule on my calendar, a long list of to-do’s, and spaces filled with too much “stuff” that no longer fit my longing for minimalism. I felt the old sensations of judgement and shame creeping in.
It was four years ago this week that I began to see a therapist. In October of 2021, the Universe was sending me signals that it was time to start reevaluating how I was living my life. A life that was good – really good – by all external accounts. But inside, I was falling apart and deeply dysregulated emotionally. I was barely holding it together and I was exhausted. I had reached a point that I knew I needed help.
Just as the Universe took me down, they placed the right people in my path at the right time. As I began my work with Dr. K., I completed an intake survey that asked what I wanted to get out of the experience with her. I could only articulate three things:
I wanted to function at work.
I wanted to drink less.
I wanted to be happy.
After patiently listening to what I thought I wanted and needed, she gently said words that I will never forget.
Amy, this is not about work. You deserve more than to function in life. You deserve to live your life. This will be hard work, but not harder than all you have survived. You can’t keep running from yourself because when you turn around, you will still be there. You will come out of this a different person – some people will like the new you, and others might not. We need to go back to the beginning.
I took a deep, teary breath, and began the hard work of healing and becoming who I was always meant to be.
When, after a few months of working together, she asked me what my dreams were, I sighed and told her how I hated that question. I hated it because I didn’t have any dreams. Not really. I had given up on the possibility decades earlier when it became apparent that I simply needed to accept my life and make the best of it.
After a pause, she said,
In order to dream you need to hope.
In order to hope you need to trust.
What I’ve been learning ever since then is that the most sacred trust is trusting myself.
I never dreamed that to be happy, I would first need to stop overproducing, over-functioning, and striving for perfection. All I really wanted was a sense of belonging that I thought would come by doing what was necessary to be successful.
I never dreamed that while drinking less would have been fine for me, what I really needed was to stop completely. The social drinking to “fit in” was also numbing the empty spaces and was detrimental to the clarity I was seeking. I needed to experience the fears, guilt, and shame that were hovering and masked by perfectionism. I needed to feel the emptiness in order to discover how to fill it with my own light and self-compassion.
I never dreamed that in order to live my life, I would need to quit my traditional job and let go of my Ph.D. baggage.
I never dreamed how much I would need to seek and accept help – from my therapist, physicians, financial planners, life and spiritual coaches, my son, soul-sisters, and, eventually, a connection to source energy that is not part of my traditional Catholic background.
I never dreamed I could actually dream.
And dreams indeed have been whispered to the wind and now lived.
Yet something has continued to haunt me in the shadow of comparison and fear. It has taken me three years to accept that my work and my lifestyle, somewhat untraditional by other’s measures of success, are how I am meant to live. I’m still learning to put words around what I “do” for work.
My working draft goes something like this:
My work is to accept that my dreams are soft and bright yet bold in their radical simplicity.
My work is to accept that my dreams are worthy of coming true.
My work is to accept the practice of a minimalist life, with intention, grace, and gratitude for enough.
My work is to accept the gift of noticing and writing what I see.
My work is to accept the gift to choose what I want each moment of each day.
I need to remind myself every day that the only one asking for my work is me. The only person I’m accountable to is me. I can do whatever I want. Fuck the rest of it.
I’m still a work in progress.
With loving wishes to believe in dreams,
Amy
Yes to all of this! Especially "fuck everything else."
Yes! Redefining work, achievement, success. Why were we not encouraged to find self fulfillment? Or even self love? Your writing here is so helpful, Amy. Thank you for sharing your journey!