I try to be as transparent as possible when I share. Have since I began sharing when this page was only a few hundred ppl.
Writing this is therapy for me. I actually look fwd to getting my thoughts down & sharing w others. Maybe this surprises some – I don’t really journal privately for myself. Instead sharing the highs/lows I go thru, keeps me accountable, now that we have built a community…& it’s cathartic to put it out there (for myself) & hopefully to help others.
I’ve been going thru a rough MH stretch recently. Who knows why? Situationally, yes I lost my grandmother not long ago. But then all these other things w the org & giving talks, & seeing friends, & getting to the gym have been GREAT. Could this be the grief coming to me all at once? Maybe…but it’s not a sadness I feel. It’s more of a lull, a shut down, what Polyvagal fans call Dorsal Vagal…a freeze mode of my nervous system for energy conservation. In simple words, it sucks.
When I told the story of my 2.5 yrs (happened 2015 -2017) of hell to one of our Board members, Dr John Rosa, his response shook me (first in a negative way, but more recently in an enlightening way).
He responded w: “What a beautiful thing your nervous system did to protect you.” What? 2.5 yrs of dysfunction? Misery. Not leaving my house. Not seeing friends/watching tv or caring abt sports?
But it did do it FOR me. My body was exhausted from childhood trauma & needed to shut down. To recharge. The dopamine hits from accomplishments weren’t enough to keep me afloat. The heaviness of the other stuff I hadnt dealt w, was too much.
From that understanding, I could see light, even from the dark.
OK lesson learned. So why do I go thru these periods still? I’ve learned that lesson. But the shift I’ve had to accept is…each time, it’s teaching me something new. I’m back in some old patterns of work/work/work. I don’t know if that’s the exact/only reason I’m feeling this way…but my way of not crashing is to do what Wayne Dyer wrote on this 1st slide: believe in the opportunities & consider what this is teaching me.
I believe that’s the best/only way to survive these downs.