The things I don’t do.
Working from the negative first.
I don’t experience a lot of stress and for this I am happy. Fortunately , really. I engage at a level obtuse to many and obscene to a few. Feel good. Keep going, Ask for more, So on. So forth.
What the above propensity does not teach, however, is very good stress management.
Before going into the weeds on that – I wish to throw my husband as an example (my favorite metaphorical punching bag returns!)
Robert loses everything. Forgets more. And nonetheless survives quite well.
Just this morning he lost his cell phone no less than six times. Thrice in the apartment and thrice more on the street. Each time came cursing almost as quickly as the phone was recovered. Shoes, keys, wallet, a given notebook or credit card, writing utensil, kitchen item, sock, toothbrush – you get it.
With a heavy forgetfulness resume, what Robert is also adept in is item recovery. Legit he should be a detective.
Did you drop your contact in the shower? An earring back in bed? Needle in a haystack? Robert is your guy.
Adversely I can’t locate shit. Why? Because I NEVER misplace a damn thing. Knowing the futility of looking I’ll toss the lone sock or air pod (no joke!) in the bin. ‘Why bother. It is gone and thus the losing lets me flex one of my fave muscles – moving on. I am GREAT at moving on. Putting a thing behind me? That is my jam.
Ok so the same me who is shitty at locating a missing whatnot, is equally terrible at managing any - ANY - level of stress. Tiredness, aversion, nagging – any of those triggers and a few more will have me in a spiral of either deep shut down or hyperactive overcorrecting. Neither result of use at all nor make any headway in stress resolution.
Add to the lack of coping skills is the, quite boring, complexity that is the work/business place stressors are always – ALWAYS – the same.
The day I am writing this I am meeting with a kind of anxiety that is ancient, nearly Lovecraftian, like a demon- god before gods in the milky waters of my underneath. Have you ever revisited your elementary school or childhood house? Beloved stuffed animal? Visit your ‘rents and see someone you invited, happily, into your pants working at the Cinnabon mall kiosk? In comes a wave of elder emotions, sounds and scents, familiar and most certainly HELLISH. Thus, was this specific flavor of anxiety. The cause is not, as the before phrases could infer, losing my glasses or another sort of necessary accessory. Rather, it is a stress by-product of what the above title states: “things I don’t do”.
Rather than do a manifesto as to the why and wherefores of my reasons for either choosing or simply being skill- set enabled to properly produce content for TikTok, group coaching programs, inspo vids, intention setting roadmaps and the like – I will go bigger. Wider and broader than giving a list of complaints and ask you to trust me on this fact: I have a pretty solid idea of my flexibility and curiosity, and the limits therein. Same goes to you, no? You know well where your limits lie. And that is good news.
There are two kinds of limits: wise goalposts and chains. The difference can be hard as heck to debunk. Fear likes to look like inclination, and we, too, are less than encouraged – in a global sense – to be keen to high vibe reasoning. How to sniff out the difference is highly individual. What I can say in a general-ish sense is this: it is NOT about results – per se .
Choosing to do or NOT do something out of route habit alone FEELS like a win, at first at least. If you are wondering about this – think of your complaints. If you conventionally do not do a given thing, i.e. me with group coaching programs and have strong, fiery even, reasons as to why this is, I ask you – are you complaining about things swirling around a similar issue?
More personal, for instances: reach or funds. Ask yourself if your bad attitude might be the thing inhibiting a resolution?
Next, get specific: Is the complaint a habit in itself – oh shit! Are your funds really that low? Community that tiny, and too, what other outlets have you attempted (are attempting) ASIDE from the one you are loathed to? That is, if not the dreaded group coaching option, in my mono coach vein, what then ? Hungry and don’t want leftovers? Well, don’t be pickle and stand arms crossed and tummy growling. You can’t eat your pride and hope to live very long.
Wisdom is more about vetting than it is about concluding. A guide vs an argument.
Now, back to my bad day and what we have NOT addressed as such: doing a thing that is neither wise nor familiar. This fool hardy tributary one is inclined to sail down for reasons much more dangerous than either principle or habit: desperation.
Thinking about everyone else and how they are doing? How is that? Well?! Tell me more…. Oh I hear you – better than you are. Yeah, looks like it. Well I guess the break down is simple: You are dumb and they are super.
Oh, who is that client who contacts you beyond business hours with questions beyond project scope – what do they want you to look at/do/take on? Oh well I guess you best do that, huh? I mean, you ARE a professional, aren’t you? I mean come on ... money talks, does it not?
That is where the black sun arose on my bad day – in a time under the light of an acceptance eclipse where I was sweat covered and shaking on an email chain, fingers typing off an agreement to do something I DO NOT DO AS PART OF MY BUSINESS all from the idiotic commitment to agree. The propensity to accommodate is old. I don’t want to infer that childhood alone is an internment to emotional abuse, and yet – isn’t it? Let us presume, as it is fun , that mine was and yours was, too. In my murky youth a survival technique was, and is in their circles from whence I came, agreement. In my lesser moments I can, too, offer authority up to a good deal of folx who aren’t worthy. Don’t even SMELL like being worthy. I like to be liked, you see. That is a good thing, being liked is a pleasant and relevant way to make one's way in a social world of chatty creatures. What gets weird is when being liked gets mixed with ‘doing well’ an assumption that affection is the same as saying ‘sure’.
I, yes, me the “expert'' got mixed and the sweat on my pits proved that a mistake had been made and I was deep in doing something antagonistic to my vocation. How to hand off? Completely and quickly, backout, and run? No, baby, I need to confront and know that I am wise. The returns as to the specificity of my expertise. Linear? Maybe. Beloved? For sure.
We can look to meditating at another time – today the choice is to say, “whoops and no”. Call it and step out of that box that I was tempted to climb into.
Should you now or ever find yourself midday/ midweek and panicking like the plane is going down, think about what good news that perspiration is. It is a wet and fragrant flag that you are doing the WRONG thing. We cannot risk a U-turn if we don't know we have erred as to our exit. The freak out is a friend. Mine sure was. I pen this only moments before composing a compassionate stop-work email. Long needed. Today happening all by me, and maybe you on your end, deodorant applied in 1…2…3.
