I had an interesting exchange this week. I signed up for a workshop on motivation with my career coach, Colleen DelVecchio, because motivation is a weak point for me right now. And the longer I go under pandemic restrictions and the longer I go without a job (so in a state of financial uncertainty), the deeper I have to dig for motivation to do anything beyond a state of total inertia.
The workshop featured Sarah Stites founder of the Wavelength Wavelength app, who talked about her weight loss journey, which included some chronic diagnoses, and how she developed her motivation strategies, including shaping goals into achievable pieces, focusing on what you want now (not worrying about the long term), and not feeling guilty for doing things purely for the joy they bring, such as reading fantasy or binging TV shows or taking a day off just because you can.
Now, Colleen has already introduced me to many of Sarah’s ideas, and sometimes even manage to practice them. But when Sarah started talking about how we need to acknowledge and make room for negative feelings, my thoughts solidified around a sensation I’ve been experiencing. Before then, I had felt it, but never taken the time to figure out what it was.
I’ve lived with the constant presence of my conditions for as long as I remember. That’s my monster, the manifestation of all my conditions and so important to my identity, he’s in my logo. The pandemic has added a certain level of anxiety to that, as it has for everyone. When I lost a job opportunity a few weeks ago that would have been exactly what I was looking for (I got through a third interview but wasn’t advanced to the fourth), the anxiety increased. For weeks it has been a constant hum in the back of my head as I wonder how long I will be able to give myself to look for the opportunity I want. As my anxiety level gets higher, the mental hum gets louder. It’s hard to function with the distraction of it.
When I asked about how to tone it down -- it is all in my head, after all – Sarah suggested I make friends with the hum, rather than trying to silence or compartmentalize it. She thought checking in with it and asking it what it needed, and how the hum and I could work together might be a way to modulate it. This may sound silly at first, but as soon as she said it, I recognized it for what I had already done with my monster. The difference is that learning to deal with my monster wasn’t intentional. It was more a matter of learning to deal with terrible things as they came because I had no choice, and then understanding that there was nothing I couldn’t deal with. Over time, it became . . . comfortable, in a weird sort of way.
What Sarah is suggesting is going to be difficult. Doing something intentionally is always harder than backing into it by accident. But I have to find a way to give my brain a break. It helps to be reminded that I have already done it. And if I’ve done it once, I can do it again.