I’m the Problem It’s Me

It's 5:13am and I'm wide awake. After an hour of trying to get back to sleep I gave up and got out of bed. In my house, it's very quiet. Andrew still sleeps upstairs and so in an attempt to not wake him I just grabbed my robe and started my morning routine.  

Brush teeth. 

Heat up water. 

Empty dishwasher. 

Put French Press on counter. 

Grind coffee beans. 

Let it bloom. 

Ask Google to set a timer for 4 minutes. 

Yell at Google when it doesn't hear me right. 

Ask Siri instead. 

The smell of fresh coffee is beginning to waft through the living room as I open the curtains. This is a routine usually done at a later time, but this morning my mind was filled with heavy thoughts. Not heavy in a serious sense; no one was dying and there were no big life events on the horizon, it was just some overthinking after a slightly frustrating day. Looking back on it they felt so basic and inconsequential I'm embarrassed to admit they kept me up. 

I know many people have had similar thoughts before because you've told me about them. When I've written about anxiety or imposter syndrome you've sent me emails saying yesssss, me too. We've talked about how we replay the thing we said in our head over and over and over again. We spiral down a rabbit hole of thought which always begins with I'm right, they're wrong, everything would be better if they would just see it my way and then ends with why did I say that, am I in the wrong here?, why do I always think I’m right, maybe I’m not right, I'm the worst, I need to fix this, I want to fix this, how do I fix this, It's me, I'm the problem it's me…  

While the latter half of my spiral is better because it's clothed in humility and a desire to improve, healthy self-talk likely lands somewhere in-between. Unfortunately, getting to the in-between takes time and as soon as I get to maybe I'm not right I immediately want to skip past all the steps that would get me to healthy. As I woke up this morning, I was tempted to do just that. I wanted to just start working right away to fix the problem I created yesterday. I wanted to schedule a call to talk something out. I wanted to read all the documents and make a plan to learn more so I could understand the other side. I immediately wanted to leap off my negative spiral into something better but the path to healthy is never a leap. It is slow. It is thoughtful. It is patient. 

So as I emptied the dishwasher and mentally prepared myself to leap out of how I was feeling, the anti-hero loop stuck in my head was enough to give me pause. These thoughts are pretty negative… maybe I shouldn't make a plan of action while I'm still feeling them. I then remembered a post I had seen earlier this week from Glennon Doyle: 

"Everything was terrible so I drank 1 glass of water and did 12 minutes of yoga and now everything is fine-ish. Reminder: when the big feelings come, think small."  

So I thought small. I grabbed my laptop and started writing. I didn't know when I started this that it would actually result in anything worth posting, I just knew that I needed to do something to slow me down; I needed something to bring me from frantic-fix-it-now to just breath. The goal is not to get to the perfect solution, but rather to reframe my mindset; I need to be in a better place to restart that conversation because solutions devised from negative self-talk are going to be self-ish. They are not answers that will be better for all parties involved and any positive outcome may make me feel better, but the feeling will be fleeting.

It is now 6:22. I don't have a solution yet but I am ready to restart the conversation in my head. An hour of writing or 12 minutes of yoga will never solve all your problems, but it may stop the spiral.