A Life Worth More
Hello friends,
Welcome to my first blog post on this new website - I really appreciate you being here. I feel as though I’m passing on old Jen’s truths to new Jen’s wisdom. (Don’t ask me to elaborate on that further, I have no idea what I mean.)
When I was a child, I was an avid reader. This was mostly encouraged by my Mom, as my sister and I grew up on a diet rich in fantasy, wild tales, and adventures. Whenever we finished a book, Mom would sit and listen to our account details of the plot she couldn’t possibly follow. For all I know, her eyes would glass over in boredom, but she still let us talk. She still does this now. Except I haven’t really had any stories to tell her recently. Well, ‘recently’ being since the start of the pandemic. Stories, fiction, other worlds, were my foundation for learning to cope with life as a child and well into my twenties, but when COVID-19 hit, I found my mind was and continues to be filled with the horrors of the world. It’s as if my brain is cycling news stories in my head like a picture-changing billboard on a never-ending loop.
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It was like everything hit me at once. The seemingly singular issue of this deadly virus has grown into an awareness of all of the seemingly insurmountable flaws and injustices of our world. The result is that my head is full. I have reached capacity. I am too full of reality that I have no space for stories. It’s been eighteen months and I have found a substitute in non-fiction self-help books, finding that if I balm my sore soul with the theory of self-improvement, I regain an imaginary semblance of control.
Over the past few months, in particular, I have found myself drawn time and time again to one particular theme.
Worthiness.
I can imagine that if you read this, you might consider a discussion on worthiness to be rather wishy-washy or abstract and vague. I disagree, as I believe our own beliefs about worthiness are responsible for the very bedrock of how our lives thrive and simultaneously fail to serve us. It is my belief that there is no human instinct more powerful than love. It is also my belief that love’s greatest rival is fear. At the end of the day, all life choices can be summarised as being a choice between love and fear. Love-based decisions and fear-based decisions.
Do we stand up for ourselves in the workplace and state, frankly, how a colleague is belittling us? Do we express to our parents how their trauma compounds our own and set boundaries for our adulthood? Or do you take a single step and be the first in any situation to express vulnerability?
None of those quandaries are without both fear and love, it’s all about a dominant action, I realised. This led to one question; how can it be any different in the decisions we make about ourselves and our internal worlds, hidden from view from others? After all, don’t our thoughts contribute, if not entirely create, the mosaic of our individual lives, right down to every joy and every anguish?
I enjoyed a blissful free period during summer where my Master’s degree in Life and Personal Coaching took a break before resuming in September. This entire course has been a tremendous source of joy for me as I learn to lead others back to their true potential. These words are important: back to their true potential. I do not believe our innate strength, joy, and sense of fun are never truly lost. Yet our belief in our own lack of potential is just as damaging as a true absence. The thing about this course, though, is that you cannot ask others to confront what you have not addressed within yourself. How can you preach of limitless potential and curse your own capabilities as a life coach in the same breath?
So, I’ve spent the better part of a year examining my own internal dialogue and seeing it for what it is; embarrassingly hypocritical. Even now I wonder if I should describe it as ‘embarrassing’ as that connotates a level of shame toward myself. That’s how used to assessing my internal monologue I am. As usual, I thought I would demonstrate this thought with an anecdote and hopefully, you too can make a choice that will serve your goals, between love and fear.
Several weeks ago, I sat in a room I have become overly familiar with. This was the day of my fifth ADHD check-in appointment with my psychiatrist. We’ve been meeting every six or eight weeks to see how my new medication has been impacting me. The rooms have been emptied due to COVID-19, I am told. Less stuff, less cleaning. I nod, I’m used to sitting well over two metres from my psychiatrist and being told to speak up every other sentence.
“So, how have things been, Jen?” She asks and. I watch her eyes flicker over my report as she tries to remember details about my life that make me unique. I can see the moment she remembers that I have a new job, and I’ve moved. It’s almost as if her eyes widen at any potential triggers for ADHD chaos.
I shrug. I’m having an off-day and being here for this appointment is the most I can make myself do.
“Things have been good. Busy, I guess. My restlessness is better,” I say, launching into all of the relevant life details, hoping to cut the meeting short. She purses her lips and I know that I’m not going to get out of here without having to explain myself. After a little bit, of untangling, I tell her the truth.
“Life has been easier than before medication, but still hard.” I begin fidgeting and she takes note.
“Hard how?” She asks.
“Not hard, really. Just like a climb. But I think that maybe this is my best. My best is still a little rusty, you know?”
She looks at me for a long moment and I wonder if she is about to ask why I wasn’t going to ask for my medication to be increased or why I felt I couldn’t advocate for myself.
Instead, she asked me an entirely different question.
“Do you believe yourself to be unworthy of a joy-filled life, without hiccups?”
I open and close my mouth, doing the whole fish thing. I can’t get words out, but it doesn’t matter. She’s not done.
“I am going to invite you to let go of your fear of a life that is no longer cumbersome. I am going to invite you to love a new life, a new you.”
My fifteen-minute appointment was an hour as eventually, I did make that choice. I did choose to love myself, to reject fear. And it is my most sincere wish that you can too.
For now,
Jens x