163. Life is forcing me to grow and I'm trying to hold onto it all.
Letting go of projects even if it hurts.
I broke my “write every week no matter what” streak, and the planet didn’t stop spinning, nor did my life fall apart. The reason I didn’t publish an essay last week is simple: I was really sick, with a fever, hibernating on the sofa, and sleeping for ten hours at a time.
I woke up in the middle of one of my delusional fever sweats, worried that I hadn’t written an essay for Monday, and realized how much pressure I was carrying. I didn’t use to be good at following through with things I’d promised myself, but something magical happened with this newsletter; once I started, I couldn’t stop. I told myself I’d publish an essay every Monday at 7:34 to learn discipline and get into the habit of writing every week, but somehow, I forgot that I myself had put in the work to accomplish it.
Last week, while I was ill and sweating out every last bit of sickness, I realized that I’d made myself believe some kind of guardian angel had cast a spell on me, and I was petrified of breaking the spell in case I never wrote again. I’d come to believe that if I took a break, I’d destroy the magical cycle of productivity and be forced to watch my newsletter crash and burn. Once I accepted that I had a lot of fear around stopping and taking a much-needed break, I forced myself not to write my weekly essay. I could say that I gave myself permission to take a week off, but it didn’t happen like that. I acted like a parent trying to teach their child a lesson: I forbade myself from writing an essay to prove to myself that life would go on as usual and to remind myself that I’m not that important.
When I say I’m not important, I mean that sometimes we think we make the world spin and that if we stop, everything will break. Older-sister syndrome, maybe? This mindset leads us to carry an unbearable weight on our shoulders, backed by thoughts that aren’t true. I could smell my own fear from a mile away and understood it was my mission to face it, go through it, and break the belief. I’ve now recovered from my fever and sickness and am back at my writing desk. The magic spell wasn’t real after all because, as usual, all I’ve been able to think about this week is writing.
On reflection, I realized this “facing my fear” event happened on the 11/11 portal. This will mean nothing to some of you, but it’s still a funny coincidence. That day, something in me clicked and caused a change, and as a result, this week has been full of strange, uncomfortable feelings that are causing me to look inside and search for answers. I feel like that decision to not write triggered a chain of events making me grow, and as you probably know, for expansion, there must first be contraction. And I’m really going through the contraction phase right now. I’ve been running on an empty tank of gas for a while, but I’ve kept pushing to please other people and a part of myself that I thought I owed it to. But the tank is now dry, and with nowhere to go, I’ve had to reassess, and it hasn’t been (and isn’t) easy.
This contraction phase feels like life is slamming all the doors closed, leaving me with nowhere to go. It feels like it’s canceling all my plans, leaving me hanging. It feels like I want to take a step forward but am disoriented and don’t know in which direction to head. It feels like I have potential energy that never passes the threshold to turn into mechanical energy. I’m kind of just lingering in an empty space without fully committing to one thing or another.
I’m waiting, asking, analyzing, observing, feeling, and especially, accepting that I’m going through change and that new things are on their way.
Andrea reminded me on our call that crises are good for us because they help us grow and expand—they force us to, really. And when we come out of it all, there are always flowers, sunny days, and butterflies on the other side. I’m certain of this because this isn’t my first rodeo and won’t be my last, but the “getting through it” part gets me every time.
Not being able to put my finger on the cause of these uncomfortable feelings, in my opinion, is the worst part of a crisis. Having to follow the breadcrumbs along the trail to find the answer is the worst part. I’m good (entiéndeme) at staring things in the face and then dealing with them, but the searching phase gets me every time.
I’m not there yet, but I’m closer. I know what this is all about, and Andrea mirrored exactly what I needed to hear. I know this because as soon as she said the words out loud, I felt a fire in my gut; that’s the sign that my intuition was speaking to me. As I write this, I can feel the same sensation in the same place, getting stronger. I find that once I connect to the sensation and locate it, I become aware of its existence and can use that to follow the breadcrumbs through the twisted dark forest.
This transformation is happening on a creative level. I’m outgrowing old spaces and need to walk out of them, which is exciting but painful. I now know I need to let go of projects I’ve poured my soul into for the last three years, and I feel both sadness and excitement. I feel pressure but see relief on the horizon. I know I have to sit with both extremes and feel all these feelings to absorb them and allow them to be heard and felt, but it’s hard.
All things come to an end, and life tells you in a clear way when it’s time to let go. However, we’re the ones that cling to things. I’ve been clinging to projects that have reached their end for a while now, and I’m slowly starting to understand that if I don’t let them go, I’ll be forced into a truly uncomfortable situation. Life has shown me this enough times for me to have learned my lesson: you’re given little signs over time, and the more you ignore them, the bigger the signs get. You may start to notice how things turn sour or start to break until you’re forced to look at the situation you’ve been avoiding. I’ve been receiving signs for a while, but I’ve chosen to ignore them, hoping they’d magically change and become something different—but life doesn’t work that way. So, all I’m trying to remember is to face it all with my heart and act from a place of love. That way, I can rest at night knowing I acted with all the love I could channel in each moment.
The word “crises” tends to divide people—some think of terrible events, while others think of growth and transformation. I belong to the second group; crises can be terrible to go through, but I believe they force us to grow and give us opportunities to become the people we truly want to be. I also believe crises aren’t meant to be navigated alone. When we’re going through events like these, we need help and need to find courage and strength in the people we love and who love us back. I’ve been relying on my friends, messaging and calling them to tell them what I’m experiencing. Instead of asking for their approval of my decisions, I’ve been telling them my decisions, and they have all responded by saying they respect and understand them. They’ve made me feel like I’m surrounded by warm blankets that will hold me when the cold bucket is poured over my head. We can’t be expected to walk through life alone and handle every curveball without help; life is too heavy and too much to handle at times. My friends and partner give me courage and fill me with strength to know that my decisions aren’t good or bad—just decisions that are taking me somewhere unknown. But I’m not alone, and that feeling makes me unstoppable.
To sum this all up, life is full of periods of expansion and contraction, and we can’t expect to live on only one side. This idea really stuck with me when, a couple of years ago (has it really been that long?),
shared the idea in one of her book club meetings. We read Wintering by together (a book that has changed my life in many ways), and for some reason, when Lee mentioned this idea, I felt like I truly understood on a core level that we can’t expect to only live life riding the highs. There will be lows and we really do need them too.That said, I’m grateful to be able to look at myself and see that things are changing around me and understand that I’m clinging to things because I’m scared of letting people down and disappointing them. I know what’s best for me—and the project—but I’m still learning how to deal with my decisions affecting other people’s lives and understanding that I can’t take full responsibility for how they feel. Seeing the fear and understanding it is the first step, acting comes next.
Nobody said it would be easy, but I guess there’s some fun after the growing pains? There must be.
