Thank you for all the support and love yesterday on the website’s launch! Super excited!
That being said, I am tired today but my brain decided we should get up at 1 am and think about things. Little known fact: thinking doesn’t ever happen at 1 am. Ruminating is the only thing that happens at 1 am...just saying.
So much good stuff happening lately but the past few days I have been in a funk. I have been irritable. I have thrown a couple of temper tantrums. Not usual behavior for me.
It has had a lot to do with expectations. Mine. And others inability to meet them and the disappointment I felt and feel because of that.
One of the main culprits this week has been the DMV. Yes, I said it. You heard it correctly. They have screwed up a situation so royally and no matter what action I take, I am just further stuck in their fucking red tape. It isn’t life or death but I do not handle things well when the fairness meter is out of whack. I did what I was supposed to do, they did not and now it is a clusterfuck with a ticking deadline. Again, not life or death but I have not handled it well. Like at all.
I know that it is completely irrational to be all upset with an entity such as the DMV. I also know that it will all work out eventually and there are many, many people who have worse DMV issues than me. So I have been puzzled by my own behavior. Why has this upset me so? Why have I lost my emotional equilibrium over something that I have done everything I can do to fix it and it still remains fucked?
Expectations. Plain and simple.
I had them, they were not met and I was and am kind of pissed about it.
I will be the first to own I do not handle disappointment well.
I pretty much take care of my own needs. Learning a long time ago that the best way to not be disappointed is to not ask for things from others. Just do it yourself. And that has been effective to a degree. I am very good at knowing what I want and then taking the action needed to bring those needs/wants into fruition.
Yesterday I was mired in it. I couldn’t shake it. I couldn’t let it go. It wasn’t just the DMV...I mean, really is it ever?
No, it was me needing and wanting things from people and not getting it. Getting stuff that I didn’t want or need instead of what I wanted or needed and me being completely unable to do anything but spiral about it. I took it to the mountains but it was windy and cold, I came home feeling just as pissed off as when I left.
Upon reflection, I can see that I had some expectations. And they were not met. I didn't do a good job of communicating what I wanted or needed. And the result was that I suffered as did everyone else around me. Not the way I wanted to spend the day, but I promised to be honest here...and so there you have it.
What I can see now is that I am caught in a trauma response. I know that sounds like a cop out but I don’t mean it as an excuse for my conduct yesterday. Instead, I see that I have a lot of work to do.
Again.
Still.
It is amazing to me how much shit from the past rears its ugly head into my present without my knowledge or consent. I do my best to deal with each day as it comes but every once in awhile (yesterday to be exact) I get to see the past show up in my present and it is never pretty. Like ever.
But it is news I can use. I see why I behaved and felt the way that I did yesterday. I am not exactly sure what to do with this information but I am clear that the work is mine. Sure other people were involved but I am the problem in this situation. Me. Not the DMV. Not the other people I was upset with yesterday...me. I was upset because I just have such a hard time communicating my wishes or needs mostly because I have such a hard time acknowledging them myself. And that is some old shit right there.
But I know what to do with it. I know how to handle it. I know where to take it. And I know how to change it. And none of it has anything to do with anyone else...well, except maybe my God and sponsor. I big apology to my sponsor for what is likely coming in the next few days. I didn’t call because I haven’t done the work assigned so I believe she gets a reprieve from having me call and complain. That is how this whole spiritual journey works. I do the work and I get results. I don’t do the work and I get days that kick my ass and make me not like me very much. I am pretty sure the people around me would agree that I have not been at my best the past two days.
So what to do now...
Well, I have to take my own advice. I have to write it all out and work the process I know works every single time. And just like the people I coach, I delay, stall and do everything else first. I know what to do, and I know that it works. So why do I put it off?
Fear.
Fear of seeing that which is already apparent. I know my truth as does everyone I coach. I just don’t like the reality so I avoid it because delusion feels better until it doesn’t.
Grateful today to have this quiet time to myself to write and reflect...I have done a good job this morning not ruminating and instead applying the spiritual principles I know work every time. I have prayed and meditated and written and now I have to do the work.
I guess I am always going to be some version of the person who is super pissed that she doesn’t win the lottery while also being the person that never gets around to buying the damn ticket.
Sigh.
I exhaust me sometimes. And others. But God is always there, having my back, helping me see that which I can change and that which I cannot. Me. I am the gross material I have to work with and my relationships with others. That is where the work will always be.
Grateful today to have a new perspective and know what to do with the disappointment and unfairness I feel. I am also equally grateful to see truth where delusion existed yesterday. Life is funny like that...one day I am so in the problem I cannot see straight, the next all I can see is solution everywhere I look.
Thankful to know what to do next. And also very relieved to have spiritual principles to pull me up when I falter, fall down and fuck up this whole life thing. So I begin anew today with the knowledge that I can do better. I know the way out of this particular rabbit hole. I have been here so very many times. And I know how to get out.
Now if I could just figure out how to stop falling down it...that would be awesome!
Truth? I know that too.