Those gremlins in our head ....
... can be really, really nasty sometimes. A good friend of mine told me a while ago that she calls it "the itty bitty bitchy committee" and I've used that wording ever since. Once in a while I need to call them gremlins though, because we all know the movie and how when we shine a light on our gremlins, they turn in to these fluffy little balls of cuteness that really aren't so scary. 😉
Now don't get me wrong - I'm not saying that the nasty voices in my head are cute little fluff balls. That would be absolutely ridiculous. What I am saying though is that when we shine the light on them, they aren't as scary as we think they are!
As some of you know, I recently got myself a new car - well new to me! This was a HUGE step for me as I have not had a car payment since 2004, I JUST moved, and well, let's just be completely honest here, I am a single Mama. Moving further away from work was a necessary step for my family as we are now closer to my ex, closer to my kids school, and closer to their friends. We are ALL happier for the fresh start and new space we are creating together. With this move though, I was looking at paying over $600+ per month in gas plus the maintenance on a 2004 Toyota Sienna with almost 400,000 kms on it. That's a lot of money to be putting in to a vehicle that I don't feel comfortable taking on a road trip. So I started thinking about a new-ish car.
When I started thinking about a new car, I knew it either had to be hybrid or electric as the entire point of a new car was to reduce my fuel costs. I also knew I needed a reliable, trustworthy vehicle that wasn't going to cause me grief and thus, Toyota was my make of choice. Luckily I have good people in my life who helped me get the ball rolling and I am incredibly grateful I was so well taken care of by the team at BCS. Now you're probably starting to wonder what the point of this blog is and if I am just plugging Toyota or BCS. I don't blame you and I promise I'm getting to the reason behind this writing.
Driving home with my new car I started feeling so much anxiety. What did I just do? Will I be able to afford the payments? Was this actually necessary? How on earth is a single mom supposed to make her mortgage payments AND now cover car payments too? The chaos in my head was rattling me big time.
I decided to put myself to bed early that night as I couldn't seem to get a grip on the tumultuous thoughts tornado-ing through my head. I remember telling myself, "T - this doesn't feel good right now, so just go to bed and we can revisit this tomorrow." I was a bit worried about falling asleep but lucky for me, I slept soundly that night.
When I got up the next day I started questioning where these thoughts were coming from. I know some of them are just normal responses to additional financial stress. It just felt like way more than normal though and when I start feeling that way, I like to start asking myself questions.
The first question I asked myself was "What is my biggest fear with getting this new car?"
Sitting on this for a while, I realized it is two-fold. The first part of the fear is wondering if I will truly be able to cover all of the costs of a newer car. The second part of the fear is being mortgage and car-payment poor. I want to have money to live my life PLUS be able to cover any costs that come up for me throughout the year and adding this payment on to my plate would inevitably reduce my "play" money.
Once I had figured this part of my thought process out, I asked myself "T - where is this fear really coming from? You know you are going to be totally fine with your teaching and coaching incomes, so where is this coming from?" THIS is the piece that hit me hard and had me quiet for several days.
As I have mentioned on several of my previous posts, I am in the process of learning how to calm my inner child, pay attention to her, nurture her, comfort her, and love her. So in these moments of absolute chaos in my head, I started asking if this was my inner child freaking out or if this was something different. That's when it hit me that this was THEM. This was not little me. This was not my own thoughts. This was 100% THEM and their words telling me that I would be hated and I wasn't worthy. Why would someone who is hated be successful enough in life to not only cover the costs of her home, but also be able to pay for a newer car? Why do I deserve this? In fact, I don't deserve this so why is it happening?
All of these thoughts tumbling through my head and spiralling out of control.
These aha moments FUCKING SUCK.
There is no other way to put it - they just suck and they are so incredibly draining. One thing I have noticed lately though is that they don't knock me down for as long as they used to. Nowadays when I have a major aha moment like this, I usually get quiet for a day or so to reflect, feel, and work on the things I need to say to myself. Then I'm back and quite often with a little more spunk than I had before the aha moment! This quicker "bounce back" has been such a welcome shift in my journey AND it has made the aha moments less daunting when I feel them coming on. I often feel like after the aha moment there is this fire within that says, "watch me" and "fuck you - I'll prove you wrong". Not like I actually need to prove them wrong, rather I get to prove me RIGHT!
A few months ago I shared that I was asked to contribute to a book about embracing courage. As most of you know, I absolutely LOVE writing. I have dreamed of writing a book for about 20 years now and so to be asked to contribute to a book on this topic has been so exciting for me. I finished my chapter and yesterday had a call with the organizer of the book. It was a wonderful chat. She has asked me to break my chapter into two parts in order to not minimize the huge life experiences I have shared which is incredibly awesome. She also mentioned how she absolutely loves the visuals I create with my analogies. One particular analogy she mentioned was my lawn chair analogy. In case you are wondering what I am referring to, I have often pictured the healing journey as removing an unwanted colour from one of those fabric lawn chairs. The colours are so intertwined that the removal process is tedious and takes a really long time.
After we were chatting about my chapter, I got to thinking about how the lawn chair is just a representation of me. My entire being is an interwoven fabric of colours and from now on, I want the colours within me to be colours I love and colours I choose. I am done with the greys and browns that were not put there by me and that were imposed in to who I am and have been woven there for years because of words that were said to me when I was so little. So I will continue to do the work that I need to in order to make sure the colours woven in to the fabric of me are the ones I choose to be there. Some days this is harder than others yet everyday the work is necessary and rewarding.
Today I am working on adding a beautiful blue colour where I have been removing an ugly brown and with every weave of the blue, I am reminding myself of several things:
- I am strong,
- I can do hard things,
- I am capable of all that I set my mind to,
- I deserve my beautiful home and new car,
- I deserve all of the love I have in my life,
- and I've 100% got this!
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