Latest / SECOND CLOCK™ / SEASON 8 | BACKSLIDE

Transcript

SEASON 8 | BACKSLIDE · SECOND CLOCK™

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What if you learned that the time was always now to make a
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choice, change direction, choose you.
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But where do you start and how will you know when you got
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there? That's what the second clock is.
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It's a time to try, the chance to experience everything you
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wish you had but haven't yet. A time to re evaluate where you
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are and where you're headed while letting go of ideas of
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what you should be doing, who you think you need to be, and
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realize who you are. Now.
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Join me, click follow, like and subscribe and let's see where
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this leads. I've been thinking a lot about
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the value we put on staying the same, living a life unchanged.
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If you switch it up, maybe you get a haircut, you dye your
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hair, I don't know, you do something different.
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People have something to say as though it's their place to say
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something, as though it's their way of saying I notice that
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you're trying to change. There's a stigma around it, the
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stigma of somebody exploring being different and maybe
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changing out of necessity. I don't know why staying the
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same is so coveted, but it seems to be.
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I know recently I started to backslide, and I quickly
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realized that the changes that I had made in my life were there
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to suit me. There were guardrails to keep me
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on the right track. So how did I backslide?
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I had work deadlines, deadlines I hadn't had imposed on me in
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years. The funny thing is, I used to
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operate at, I guess, 100% all the time with these deadlines
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always looming. I saw them as challenges, ways
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to rise to the occasion when a deadline was truncated.
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I tried harder. That same situation happened to
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me over the last three weeks, but I didn't have an option.
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I didn't want to try harder. I just had to get it done.
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And that's how I backslid. Everything in my life started
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slipping, starting with my sleep.
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Then it was my peace. I was getting snippy and testy
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and short with anyone and everyone.
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Then there was the visual signs. My nails were worn down, my
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bangs, which used to run across my entire forehead were now too
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long to do that, and they were side swept, so much so that I
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thought maybe I would just grow my bangs out all together.
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But as Saturday rolled around, I saw the light.
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It was the end of these pressing deadlines and I was ready.
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Ready to say goodbye to that version of myself.
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A version that I knew too well before that person would show up
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for work. Like it was my purpose, my
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calling was to meet a deadline. We put so much emphasis on
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people finding their purpose, their true path, their calling.
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And I can't say that my calling was to meet a deadline.
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I can't say that my purpose was to show myself how little I
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could sleep, how testy I could become, how unkempt I could be
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in the process. I think that I used to want to
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take on those deadlines as a challenge, as a way to measure
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my abilities, my follow through, my give it all you got side.
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It was a way for me to be an extreme people pleaser, someone
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who could practice saying no so well that when given a task
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almost impossible, I could see it as a challenge rather than
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the cost is too great. But after these last few weeks
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and the toll it took on me, I see the change.
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I saw it manifest when I was talking to a friend of mine that
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was helping me out. We were in the final days of
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pushing through this deadline and she was so kind to show up
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at a moment's notice. Every day a new thing was going
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on and I just needed some extra hands.
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And for whatever reason, even though she showed up kind and
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accommodating, I didn't return the favor.
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I showed up sleep deprived, short tempered and rude.
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We were sitting there working, and I must have said something,
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maybe one too many things, that was snappy and short, and all of
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a sudden I saw her sit back, shoulders hunched over like she
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was trying to disappear, recede into the wall.
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It looks so familiar to me. It reminded me of so many movies
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where a child is watching her parents fight or something and
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they're scared but they can't leave so they just try to
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shrink. It was then that I realized that
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the cost was too great and the changes that I was making to
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make this deadline didn't make sense anymore.
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Not for me at least. I should have pushed back when
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this was asked of me because I knew what it was going to ask of
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me. I should have said no, but
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instead I'd found a workaround around saying no in place of no.
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I would say sure, but it's going to cost more.
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Somehow that levelled things in my mind, made things fair and
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balanced. But the amount of work and the
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amount of change that I was going to have to take on to make
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that deadline happen, that's what I realized didn't make
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sense for me anymore. And even though I found myself
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backsliding into old ways, I was able for a minute to find the
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current version of myself, to see my friend show up the way
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she did and then receive the way she did.
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I realized, no, it's not about the money.
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It's about saying no. It's about accepting that it's
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OK to change. It's OK to not want to show up
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the way you have for so long just because that's who you've
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been to many people. It's OK to want to reevaluate
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you. It's OK to say, maybe that's how
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I was before. Maybe it worked well for
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everyone around me. But now I'm not so sure I'm
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benefiting the same way that maybe I thought I used to.
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When Saturday was over, I celebrated by cutting my bangs.
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I restored order to my hair. Then I took a long bath and a
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big sigh of relief. There was some kind of
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celebratory moment of feeling like I did make those deadlines,
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and I didn't know if I was going to be able to make those kind of
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deadlines again. So at that moment, I was
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celebrating saying goodbye to that pressure, that unnecessary
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stress that I put on myself just because I couldn't say no.
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We do that so often. We'd rather take the hit than
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say no. We'd rather abandoned ourselves
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and let somebody else think that we can't show up for them.
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But in doing all that, I proved that I couldn't have it both
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ways. I was abandoning someone and
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that someone obviously was me, the current me, the person that
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has worked so hard to design her weeks, her days, so that they
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have a certain balance to them. My days start early.
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I don't know if that's a new thing, but it's my thing now and
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I've embraced it. I don't jump up and go to the
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gym at 5:00 in the morning. Instead I just chill then walk
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my dog a little bit, get my kids off to school.
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Sometimes I take a morning class at the gym.
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Other days my dog and I walk over and we sit and get a
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matcha. Well my dog eats peanut butter
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treats while I have my matcha. We both have to enjoy our
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morning and then maybe I take an afternoon workout class.
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I like having these workout class punctuate my day because
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it reminds me that this is my day, my time.
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So many of us, we put ourselves in the back burner.
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We say we don't have time for this or time for that.
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We forget to cut our bangs, do our nails, take a bath, brush
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our teeth. You know, all the things you
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should be doing to take care of yourself daily or weekly or
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monthly. And somehow we say we're too
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busy. Some of us create our own
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busyness. I was guilty of that a lot.
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My old business partner said to me one day, you love saying that
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you're busy. You say all the time, I'm so
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busy, I'm so busy. And she said, what if you just
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are busy and don't talk about it?
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And I realized, yeah, I should give that a shot.
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And I did. I took the word busy out of my
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vocabulary for a while. Even now, I don't really say it.
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I say work is really full on. And it's interesting.
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I think I used to say that I was so busy as it was like a badge
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of honor, that somehow being so busy meant that I was better at
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doing life than others. But I don't actually think so.
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Not anymore, at least after these few weeks.
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I was talking to different friends here and there and they
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were like, I haven't heard from you in a while.
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And I was like, yeah, work has been pretty full on.
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It's been taking a lot of my attention away.
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And I would hear them say kind of like in defense of them
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themselves and their days. Oh, I've been so busy too.
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It's been so busy on my end. Work, kids, just been a lot and
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it was like a competition that I had entered into unknowingly
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that I didn't really want to be a part of.
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And I would say honestly, I wish I wasn't busy.
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I like my days when they're kind of chill, kind of expected, kind
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of my own. Right now, I feel like I've
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turned the keys over to someone else and I don't like that.
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I'm sorry to hear that you're so busy.
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It was interesting when I took the word busy out of my
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vocabulary. I just had to embrace that it
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was what it was until it was different.
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And little by little, I realized that word was making things even
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more intense. It's like if I had a moment to
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breathe, I didn't want to because I didn't have that word
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propelling me forward. I couldn't use it as my excuse,
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the way I could measure my day. I think I thought that that's
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what it was to be a good business owner, to be busy.
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I think it distracted me in every way.
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I could work late, go to work early, be at home but not be
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present. I could miss dinner.
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I could work on weekends. I could be grouchy and blame it
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on work. I did all those things these
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last three weeks, and as I saw my new ways, my changed self
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slipping back into old ways, I thought change is good.
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Change should be embraced, not stigmatized.
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We should embrace somebody when they want to do something
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different for themselves, when they want to explore a new way.
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Maybe that way it's going to be so different from their old way,
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their conditioned way, that maybe they won't relate to their
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old friends or their old family or whomever the same.
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And maybe that's OK. Take children, for example.
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We watch them change. We celebrate who they are today,
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knowing that they're going to be someone totally different
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tomorrow. We watch the little girls loving
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dresses and dolls only to reject them later and only want to wear
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pants and never talk about how they like dolls in the 1st
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place. We embrace all that change and
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then at some point we just say this is who you are.
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This is who will accept you to be just like this, frozen in
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time. I've talked to so many people
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over the last few years. They've started noticing things
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about themselves that they don't understand how they got this
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way. Why they make the choices they
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make, why the people that are in their life are in their life
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still. Why they allow toxic
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relationships to consume them. Knowing that the other person in
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the relationship doesn't really care that much, isn't as
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invested, but they don't know how to let go of that side.
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How can they abandoned that version of themself?
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The person that they trusted was them.
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Well, I did and I realized that the me that I thought that I
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was, was made-up of ideas of others. made-up of ideas that I
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put on myself because of others expectations that I wanted to
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fulfill. I wanted to be loyal to others.
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I didn't want anyone to feel like I wasn't showing up for
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them. So now I show up, but for the
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person that needs it the most. That's what we have to do.
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We have to show up for ourselves.
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We have to be loyal to ourselves.
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It's important to stop and say, what do I need?
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How am I today? Is this how I want to be today?
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Because I can promise you, in the last few weeks, I didn't
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want to be that way. Not even for a minute.
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I didn't want to put making a deadline above everything else.
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I didn't want to be short tempered.
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I didn't want to be neglecting people and myself.
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I didn't want to backslide. Instead, I wanted to remain
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changed. Thanks for listening.
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These episodes are unscripted. They're my free flowing thoughts
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as I reflect back on past conversations, experiences, what
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I've learned, would like to do better, and what's next.
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Join me on Thursdays for new episodes and catch up on past
16:28
episodes. Click Follow, Like and subscribe
16:31
and let's see where this leads.