Get Dark. Get Clear. Move Forward.
Have you ever suffocated? OK, not like your lungs were deprived of oxygen and the paramedics zoomed over in their ambulamps - as I like to call it – to revive you. Yeah no, my question isn’t quite that tragic.
I’m asking if you’ve ever felt like an area of your life (career, finances, relationship) carried so much weight, pressure or discord that you felt as though you were suffocating and needed someone to poke a hole into the plastic over your mouth so that you could catch your breath and get to living again?
I have.
And still do. In several different scenarios, in fact. And every time I feel suffocated or stuck or blocked, I invariably apply my go-to coping mechanism: I become the most dreadful auto-biographer in the history of storytelling. I use my highest creative intelligence to convince myself that I am not ___(blank)____ enough to manifest any outcome worthy of an exhale, much less to become upwardly mobile.
Oh, and fill in the above blank with whatever you want - smart, pretty, literate, clairvoyant - you pick the adjective and I promise I can make it fit into the most self-loathing internal dialogue you’ve ever imagined could be imagined… because I’ve written the chapter about how every divine mystic superpower that was ever believed in, has sentenced me to a lifetime of insurmountable debt, anti-climactic career choices, and rough feet.
And just when I want to add a starved Cheshire cat with neon-lime teeth and eyes into the dark cave that I've built for myself to live and die painfully in, I am nudged out of the story and back into real life... where I go ahead and earn that third college degree. Or, I ask for a raise and get it. Or I realize that, even though he didn't know what to say when I was bawling my eyes out on the bathroom floor, he sat next to me, rubbed my back, and wiped snot off my upper lip.
I finally get tired of suffocating and stop expecting my friend, boss, partner to rescue me. I remember that I can puncture the plastic from the inside, and I do. Then I take a deep breath and push my way through the saran wrap… out of the cave… beyond the barrier.
When the barrier is self-doubt, I assert myself. When the barrier is confusion, I get quiet to get clear. When the barrier is financial… well, I swipe my credit card and re-adjust my pay-off calendar to reflect the additional time it’ll take me to climb up and over that mountain. But that’s another horror story.
My point is, there’s a good chance we’ll feel as though we can’t breathe, can’t grow, can’t move forward in one area or another, every once in awhile. And that’s OK! While some folks are lucky - they experience the problem during lunch and by dinner, they’ve got it solved and hit the daily 3 – people like me will require a few days, or sometimes weeks to navigate the doubt, struggle or confusion (read: fear). Eventually though, we remember that we are ___(blank)____ enough to overcome the hardship.
So go ahead and create the worse possible story about yourself, your life, and your circumstances... and when you're finally tired of sitting in the pit of your misery, decide to get over it. Assert yourself. Get quiet and get clear about your intentions.
I mean after all, you are the storyteller. Swap the cave for an ambulamps, change the Cheshire to a paramedic, and in the most creatively intelligent way, revive yourself.*
*Disclaimer: This story is not meant to provide medical advice for suffocation.
Exhale at your own risk.
~DelinaDream