Several years back, I decided to ask my husband to move out. I was tired of my life and he was the closest to me so I blamed him. If only he would change, then I would feel happy and fulfilled. I was stuck in this rut of work, work out, vacation but with little or no purpose. I knew something had to change. I was suffocating. I was bored. I was trapped.
Once he moved out, it got worse. So I dialed up the things I had been doing to cope, to feel alive. The workouts became more frequent and even more extreme, the partying did, too. My work held even higher importance and the flirting and approval seeking also intensified as did the bitch sessions about work and men and all manner of self-important drivel. Everything I was doing left me even more empty-feeling than before. I knew that something had to change. Soon, it did, for I hit rock bottom.
Oh glorious day! I am so very grateful for that occurring. Now, of course. Back then I didn’t know how I would ever get through it. I felt such intense physical, mental and emotional anguish and pain. I had no idea that one could hurt so desperately on every level. It was as if my whole world came crashing down in a manner of weeks. I started losing deals I should have gotten and deals I had gotten, I lost in contracting. That was a crushing blow because I had been so focused on work and performance. I felt more alone and isolated than I have ever felt and I had lost my best friend, my husband. I had a mammogram and they wanted to do further testing. I wanted to celebrate the clear results with my husband but he was on a date with someone else. I had asked him for a divorce, after all, but I didn’t think it through. I was alone. And I didn’t like the person whose company I was sharing. She wasn’t me. And I finally realized how much so. How had I gotten here? More importantly, how do I get out?
The long dig back out took a number of years, but oh what I have learned! At the bottom, I was a blob of naked jello, for my entire shell – my façade- painstakingly built over decades, was gone. Part of me was glad of that because I didn’t like what I had become. I had to be completely rebuilt. At first I wanted to throw out any and all of the old because of where it had gotten me. After a year or so of that I began to realize who I really am and that a lot of that “old me” was actually pretty amazing.
Integrating the better parts of old and new has taken much time and tweaking but I am finally whole. I am happy and excited like never before. I see things differently, I have energy I never had, I have focus and direction and true joy in ways and at levels I had never known before. And it is sustained because it has little or nothing to do with my current circumstances or situation. I chose this. I continue to choose this. I can show you how to choose it, too.
