Pushing Through

Quote of the day: “Encouragement is the oxygen of the soul.” —George M. Adams; US Representative from Kentucky

I am a walking pamphlet of anxiety. All the signs and symptoms are evident in my waking life. If you put me on the cover of the brochure, you wouldn’t need to write anything. All people would have to do is look at me and they would be educated.

It’s very uncomfortable. I don’t think it’s odd or uncommon to feel such anxiety when making a big life change, as I’m doing beginning on Friday, but it doesn’t mean that the knowing of this makes me feel any less anxious. It just gives me one word to express the 10,000 emotions I am feeling. In a nutshell, I’m feeling anxious.

The foundation to this anxiety isn’t the life change, though. It’s me not feeling grounded and centered in myself. I’ve been through enough changes, risks and adventures in life to know that it’s not so much the agent of change that is causing these feelings, but instead the place I am at, or not at, within myself. When I’m feeling grounded and in touch with my spirit, I would feel excited, alive and inspired, not this intense feeling of dread, fear and disconnect. Thankfully later today I have my last meeting with the counselor I’ve been able to see on a temporary basis since I have been working at the university. This has been one of the many great benefits to being employed by the university – free short-term counseling!

When I was on one of my soul-searching cross-country trips some years back, I had an overwhelming urge to get a tattoo on the inside of my left forearm of something that symbolized balance of the mind, body and spirit. At that stage of my life it became evident to me the importance of this balance. I recognized then how, for me, this balance was the essential truth I needed to understand in life. And, for some innate reason, I felt the need to tattoo it on my body, which I did in Black Hills, South Dakota. Right near Mount Rushmore.

The reason why I am expressing this is because for the last few entries I have been inclined to write about this need for balance, as it is the most pressing issue of all for me at this moment. And yet I haven’t been able to settle into myself as I would hope over the last few weeks. I’m not exactly sure where the resistance to do so lies, though I trust and pray that I will be able to do so once I physically, emotionally and spiritually get through this time and space of “leaving the job.”

Maybe I’m passing through the birth canal, if you will, and that can’t be comfortable for any parties involved. Hopefully in the end, everyone will be smiling and it will have been worth it.