Empty Tank to Nowhere
We as humans have had an exceptional 18 months.
High five, we’ve survived everything thrown at us so far!
Today on world gratitude day I was reflecting what is it, that I am grateful for…
About this time last year is when my breakdown started. Cumulative events led up to that straw that broke the camels back moment, but that one moment was also just the beginning.
September 9th I had an outburst during a zoom team meeting. Someone that had been stirring shit with me for months, I just said you know what fuck off and I hung up from the call.
Not my finest moment, but I don’t beat myself up over it either.
I’d allowed this treatment to go on too long and pushed myself over the threshold. And because I was in a reactive state (all of the time) I wasn’t able to respond -thus, that reactivity caused me a write up.
(I’d later learn this was me maxed out over stimulated 24/7 trying to survive in 100% dysregulated state).
October 18th I received a message from a stranger that she believed she was my half sister. No scandal, she was born before my parents met but no one knew about her, even her mom didn’t tell her who her dad was. We did DNA testing so she could know for sure who her family is, 99.999999999% I have another sister.
And with that process came the silent treatment from my mom, and avoidance from my dad. Maybe I should have prefaced all of those interactions with don’t shoot the messenger. But I shrugged it off initially, I was used to this, it’s been this way my whole life.
November 18th was my 40th birthday, but for me, the day came and went like any other. Joshua and the kids like always did make it so wonderful with decorations, a cake and such thoughtful gifts but I know looking back I just wasn’t all present.
Some days I feel like I just slept through turning 40.
Except with all preceding events and the upcoming holidays looming, my guts will forever make that day memorable to the kids as the day mom’s farts made the cake taste funny…
My mom did break the silence to text me her annual happy birthday song, and at that point I would have rather she didn’t. Not because I didn’t want it, not because I don’t love her, and not because I didn’t know and respect she was hurting but this just further sank me into a spiral of confusion.
(I’d later learn this was the internal conflict of my pseudo vs solid self).
I was hurting because I believed myself to be the cause of her hard feelings. I was in a dark place feeling responsible, for feelings that were not my own and further solidifying that I deserved the punishment of the silent treatment. So how was I even a 40 year old woman, being punished like I’m still a damn 12 year old child.
(I’d later learn this was insecure anxious mixed with insecure avoidant attachment styles that I grew up with and my own work ahead at healing the inner child).
Christmas came and we went days without phone or internet service due to a bomb in Nashville on Christmas morning. But, my son and his girlfriend had made it here safely and stayed with us for days. We enjoyed the disconnection from the world (or I for sure did).
(I’d later learn how much I value keeping to ourselves, so much of life is public with the boom of social media and at a solid state I don’t want for that).
I think it was some time in December that I said to Joshua I felt like I’d been driving drunk. That the only way I could paint a picture or describe what I was feeling was to compare it to when there had been nights in my past I had felt fine while I was out with friends, that I’d drove home but then wondered shit how did I get here -but only this was life. Here I was going through the motions, doing all the life requirements but unsure how I got here all the same.
(I’d later learn this was a real thing, living in auto pilot a state of an unconscious survival mode).
The New Year cycled through and I was still riding through such a fog with small increments of awareness creeping back in.
I’d been given a prescription to help with anxiety and depression only that medicine made me worse and also sick with beginning into serotonin syndrome. I knew I didn’t need meds, I needed to wake up and heal.
I was taken out of work, medical leave to have the time and space to heal. Work for me is now a trigger and I still have such a trauma response just existing in that position and at the time my doctor believed I needed removed from the environment and to start therapy.
Not to mention, during all of this, my kids were full time virtual students in 2nd and 9th grade while I was a full time remote employee and full time online college student which furthered my overstimulation, which was exacerbated by the no alone time or time to just process thought.
(Received my Associates degree in October and went straight into the Bachelors program).
I was in extreme burnout but I had no idea, hell I didn’t even know that burnout was an actual thing. Just hanging out being a workaholic 50 hours a week + school and CEO of family life.
While I was out on leave I just focused on reigniting my presence in the day. Existing with my kids during their school days, feeling and being whatever came up for me. Watching my kids and learning from them, learning about them teaches me so much about myself (especially the youngest and our uniquely wired brains).
(Oh yes, and I was diagnosed ADHD Combined Type. So much learning still to do there).
So much fell into my lap during this time.
I stumbled on a master class and received certification in building regulation and coping skills, learning how to support sensory regulation proactively and reactively.
(This is where I began learning about sensory regulation, filling our sensory buckets, reparenting yourself by learning where you’ve been, where you’ve come from and what attachments styles exist(ed) in that scope).
I stumbled on a life coaching intensive and during my discovery call learned it was everything in community I’d been hoping for -so I signed up for a 20 week intensive that started in March (and I completed my last class in August). And, once I submit my finalized homework journal I’ll be a JRNI Certified Life Coach and will go on to the next phase to earn my ICF Accreditation.
While I’m not behind schedule on my life coaching studies as far as JRNI is concerned, I’ve been behind schedule according to my workaholic brain and in that, am continuing to learn patience and grace.
Because… as I started the intensive cohort in March, I had to take time to sit with the loss of my best friends daughter, my niece shortly thereafter. My cohort and all of JRNI reminded me to take the time I needed and to be kind to myself through the grief. I have done just that (with a few bumps of old habits along the way). And through everything, Emma still remains to be one of my greatest teachers.
Now with that I say I stumbled on, but truly the universe handed me these opportunities.
I wasn’t searching these topics, but these topics found me.
And one pivotal moment that has replayed anytime “I stumble on something” was in my discovery call with Coach Pam at JRNI as she said in response to something I mentioned, “When the student is ready, the teacher appears.”
I’m grateful in this past 12 months for all of the teachers I’ve encountered.
Whether they be teachers via an event that happened (pandemic, bombing, death…) or teachers via other humans (bully at work, family, my children…)- this is what I’m grateful for.
I’m grateful to be a student of life, for life is our greatest teacher.
I’m grateful to be awake at the wheel, to see moments not obstacles, to navigate accordingly and to see the paths through.
Take good care and travel safe,
Sami
Much beauty to be witnessed in reflections of all capacities and mediums.
