The good, the bad, the ugly... and the brave
If you are a regular reader you will know that I have been on anti-depression meds since January this year, if you are not a regular reader this probably still won't be a massive surprise. I mention this because a few weeks ago I decided it was time to see if I could start tapering off the meds, I started this on my birthday. So the last couple of weeks were going to fun anyway, but then there was so much more going on.The Good
- We moved into our gorgeous house (a culmination of about six years, three and a half planning and two and a half building) - which is proving to be better than we imagined, even at only 80% completion.
- Disruptive went very well, and people have had wonderful feedback about the event - some delusional ones have even been very complementary of my talk see the post with the YouTube here.
- I've made a wonderful new network of amazing and supportive people, to add to the one I already had.
- An outcome of Disruptive has been that I have been asked to speak to a group of teenagers about my experience doing this, and particularly about values and being true to them. This falls into one of the areas I am really passionate about, so I'm psyched about the opportunity, I just hope I do well.
- I've had some interesting tasks with my new job, and I am loving working from home (on the whole).
- I have started writing the book again and overcome one of the big problems with the structure.
- We had to move, and there is still more to go. The amount of crap we have is amazing, but we have been culling fairly well in line with 30 days of less.
- Disruptive was very draining and took a good couple of days to get over.
- I've been so busy with the local people that I have been neglecting my online network (apologies).
- Working from home can get a little lonely at times, especially when I'm on a roller coaster.
- I'm constantly distracted with competing priorities (work, unpacking, writing, cleaning, sewing etc)
And now comes the ugly...The week after Disruptive I was desperately trying to get back on top of my day job work, there was a lot to do. I'd been on half doses of my medication for a week and I was getting a little forgetful in taking them. By the end of the week I was starting to feel a little off, by the middle of last week I was downright melancholy and feeling very scattered.But that does not excuse my mindset on Thursday night. It's like someone let the nasty, insecure voice inside my head off its leash, and it was baying for blood. I went into full negative, judgmental mode - somewhere I haven't been in quite a while (well since around the time I went on the meds), and it was not pretty.Worst of all, I happened to be socialising (something I don't do often) with people from Disruptive. Now I will preface this by saying that all of this remained internal, but it does not make it any better, and it made me physically ill. I was listening to this wonderful woman talk about the opportunities she has had from Disruptive and how she feels like she is finally reaching her dreams. And my brain just went a little nuts... I'm just going to leave it at that, none of you need to know what goes in my head - trust me.On the way home I berated myself about the thoughts I had about this person (which sort of bled out to judging some other people in the room). I didn't get what it was all about. Then I analysed the jealousy, the fear, the insecurity - they were all there because this woman and I share the same sort of dream.I woke up the next morning feeling ill - my gut brain was very unhappy with me, thank you for helping me understand that Sally-Anne. I took a little time to think through it all and I realised that: the jealousy was because she was already there and further into it than me; the fear was that she was taking all the opportunities and there would be none left for me; and the insecurity was that I was not good enough to do this anyway.With a calmer brain I realised that she is further along because she's been doing this longer and has worked her arse off, taking the risks; that there are thousands of opportunities, I just need to make some for me; and I am enough to take this on and do it - and because of people like her I don't have to work out how to do this alone, I can use the wonderful network I now have.And the brave?I wrote all of this into an email for the person I had been internally nasty to. I let her know what had happened and that I was truly sorry for my reaction because she deserved my support and encouragement. And because she is a beautiful person she sent a lovely response back, forgiving and thanking me.Letting her know was completely unnecessary, but it felt like I had to do it, that she deserved an apology from me. Maybe we spent too much time talking about being vulnerable at Disruptive, but I just felt that it was the only way I could be authentic about this situation. The outcome was that I felt like I had been true to myself about the situation, and I think that we have developed an even better connection.What about you dear reader? Have you ever apologised for something that the person wasn't even aware of? How did you feel about it?