Earthquakes

I've come up with a little analogy...  I'm like house that was built on a fault line in California.  The house has a beautiful view and lots of room, but it wasn't built to withstand the "earthquakes" that come from my job.  For many years, I kept telling myself that I just needed to build a stronger house.  But Albert Einstein said, 

"Everyone is a genius.  But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."  

After braving too many earthquakes and letting my inner critic run free (making me feel bad for not being able to climb a tree), I decided it was time to MOVE house!  It was so freeing to realize that I didn't need to change myself to fit this job, instead I needed to find the perfect job to fit me!  As a fish, I'm much more suited to SWIM than to climb trees!!  :-)

I had so much confidence in my path, that I forgot to plan for the possibility that an earthquake would hit before I could move out of the house!  And guess what, this week has turned into a MAJOR earthquake at work.  And I am sad and frustrated.

One of the difficult lessons to learn in life is to just let yourself be sad or frustrated.  No one likes to feel sad.  We feel uncomfortable encouraging the anger that accompanies frustration.  We think life should always be smiles and happiness.

When I feel sad or frustrated, my first reaction is to try and fix it.  And sometimes, there is a solution.  But in this situation, there is nothing to fix.  I am not ready to quit, so I need to stay put.  This answer doesn't make me "feel better"...

So my second reaction is to beat myself up for getting into this situation.  I am so STUPID for not being good at climbing trees.  Everyone else can climb trees, why can't I?!?  And on top of being stupid, I can't even execute my "escape" plan.  The inner critic loves to rant and rave.

And sometimes the people around us aren't much help either.  Friends want to "help" by giving advice, telling us how they would handle the situation.  But their misguided wisdom, while well meaning, just reiterates the fact that we aren't handling the situation very well.  Or it keeps us searching for a solution that might not exist.

It would be so easy to find a way to numb these feelings.  Eat a cookie.  Go online and shop.  Have a glass of wine.  Just make the feelings disappear.  Shove them into a dark corner and ignore them.

But in these situations, there is no easy fix.  You can't wave a magic wand and make the bad feelings go away.  And it is fruitless to spend time ignoring the feelings or trying to make them disappear.  They'll still be there, waiting to be felt, no matter how long you try to ignore them.

In these situations, there are three things that help me:

1. Breathing.  Taking in a few deep breaths helps to calm me down and bring me back to the present moment.  It's simple and effective.
2. Positive self talk.  I say to myself is...  It's OK.  I believe in you.  You can do this.
3. Gratitude.  Finding a few things to be thankful for helps me to focus on the positive, instead of freaking out about the negative.

Well, I'm headed back to the earthquake.  I'm not happy about it, but I know it won't ruin me.  Breathe in peace, breathe out peace.  I can do this.  I am grateful for you readers out there, for being there to "listen".  :-)