Cough, cough, sneeze, sneeze, it's gotta stop
sometime, PLEASE!
Ok, I'm pretty playful at this moment, but for seven whole weeks, I'd been an utter biatch. And all because of a life-sucking cold or flu. The diagnosis doesn't matter. It freaking sucked out of me all the life and motivation to do anything productive.
I got so mad at myself. The business-savvy part of me had formed an extremely detailed goal spreadsheet, complete with mini-goals for each of my major goals with dates and details. The moment I proclaimed to the world that I wanted to learn photography, I poured much of my energy into it, gung-ho, like I always do when the flame of passion ignites. But then WHAM, my passion fizzled out, and all because of the sniffles.
But it wasn't just the sniffles. I'll spare you of the play-by-play of every ache and pain. What I really want to talk about is the life-changing realization I had, facilitated by Gay Hendricks, a self-help-type of guru.
In his book, The Big Leap, he explains that when we get really excited about something, when we feel elated, we tend to quickly squash that feeling with any number of downers. He calls this "upper-limiting". It's an awkward term, but he explains that we a have a limit on the amount of good feelings we can tolerate. Pretty bizarre sounding at first, right? But the more he explains it, the more it makes sense.
This brings me to the realization I had.
I have this pattern of feeling good and then feeling bummed. It's not manic-depressive disorder. My swings aren't dramatic, but they're noticeable. By the way, Gay Hendricks is a psychologist, and I just love his way of looking at these swings. His insight is refreshing and empowering!
Basically, if you want to stop the pattern of feeling great and then sabotaging yourself subconsciously, you have to first recognize the thing you've done to bring yourself down. For me, this was getting sick. Really sick. As soon as I recognized this, the sickness began to subside. And I couldn't be more thankful.
I feel like I am in control of my future. Really, for the first time, I am clearly aware of my self-sabotage. I don't feel like a slave to what-ifs anymore. I'm determined to stay focused and happy, and I'm going to blog about my experiences.
It feels good to be honest because I know everyone has this issue. Some more than others, and I'm definitely one of the "some". It's cliche, but I'm my own worst enemy. But I can also be my biggest ally. Here's another cliche, but it's so true....
This journey we call life is truly what
we make it. :-)
i <3
xo
jbnewcomb<3
