Over-Achiever

Completely unbeknownst to me, I grew up being affected by family members suffering with a variety of addictions including drugs, alcohol, and love. As a result, I suffered trauma that could otherwise have been avoided. Part of that trauma was feeling neglected and unloved in my family. Perfectionism and overachieving were the primary coping mechanisms I developed. Both allowed me to try to earn the love of my family and simultaneously prove to myself that I was completely unworthy of love. Never feeling good enough has permeated my life and my self-image, which in turn, drove me to strive harder. 

In my adult years, this turned into my own addiction. I became a workaholic. While I was working on my BA and MA degrees, I took double course loads. Once I secured adjunct teaching work, I would stay up until 2 or 3 in the morning grading, over-preparing for classes, and doing extra work I wasn't getting paid for in hopes that it would lead to a full-time, tenure track position. I was so stressed out all the time, that I eventually developed an allergy to stress and started experiencing all kinds of skin problems and compromising my immune system. I knew I was risking my health, and even worse neglecting my daughter, but I couldn't stop working and taking on more and more work.

I don't know exactly how I was able to hit the brakes on this toxic cycle, but after realizing what I was doing to myself and having met someone who inspired me to want to work less and spend more time with him and actually build a family together, I was able to cut out all the extra projects, streamline my teaching and grading load, and cut way back on my work altogether. That person is no longer in my life, but the lessons I learned from him remain in tact. I still have days, even weeks, where I feel overworked and overstressed, but overall I am in a much better place than I was 5-7 years ago. 

Today, I am preparing for a job interview for a position I have wanted and been working toward my whole life. I have been rejected for this position at least half a dozen times before, but each time I get closer to achieving my dream.  My feelings are complicated because being offered and accepting this position would mean more work and more responsibility, but it would also mean more autonomy, more authority, and more opportunity. When I think about why I want the job--why I have always wanted this job--it mostly boils down to the achievement and the love I think it will win me. I'm a professor, mommy. Will you love me now? I'm a professor, brother. Will you protect me now? I'm a professor, daddy. Will you come home now? I'm a professor, grandmother. Will you respect me now? I'm a professor, family. Am I good enough now? 

But for the first time in my life, I am starting to see that I am worthy of love outside any accomplishment. I am worthy of love just because I exist. I have been able to reach this understanding as a result of a lot of hard psychological and spiritual work. To my family's credit, several of them have been doing this kind of hard work too and been succeeding in showing me their love. I hope I am doing the same. 

I don't know if I'll be offered this job. There is still a part of me that longs for this validation from my colleagues and my employer. Overall, though, I know without doubt that I am great at what I do regardless of whether I get this position. Truthfully, a part of me does not want the job. I feel generally exhausted, defeated, and quite demoralized by my work. However, I also feel bored, stifled, and passionless, and I think this position could be the trigger I need to reignite my creativity and passion. 

One thing I do know now, though: I am worthy of love. Whatever others may think or feel, I love myself, and I don't need to achieve anything to earn my love or the love of others. 

On Love...

I keep seeing a post that says “Wait for the love you deserve.” I can’t find it, or I’d reshare it with this post. Let’s talk about DESERVE for a minute. Humans are wretched, repugnant creatures, every last one of us (yes me, and yes you). Don’t get me wrong: there’s a lot of beauty and wonder in people too. But none of use DESERVE anything, much less love. You all know I am not a religious person, but I was raised in the Christian faith, and I think all religions teach some very positive spiritual lessons (albeit some really misguided and terrible ones too, but that’s another post), and religious parables can be incredibly effective instructional tools. In the story of Jesus, god sent his son to teach humans about god’s love—not so you know how much god loves you, but so you know HOW god loves and how god wants you to love. (Yeah, yeah, we all know I don’t believe in god, but the metaphor is still valid.) The whole point of Jesus is that people don’t deserve god’s love but he gave it anyway, and none of us deserve the love of other humans either, but we’re supposed to give it anyway…not because any of us deserve it but because we all NEED it and need it equally. So how about we all stop focusing on the love we deserve and start focusing on the quality of the love we’re giving to our imperfect, wretched, repugnant, and wholly undeserving (albeit beautiful and wondrous whether you see it or not) fellow man (or woman or whatever you identify as). I don’t know about you, but I really want unconditional love, and while there’s absolutely nothing I can do to make anyone love me that way, I can choose to love others that way. It really sucks. It hurts—quite a lot sometimes—but only because my ego cares 1000x more about the love I get than the love I give. The universe has been trying to teach me unconditional love for awhile now. I admit, I have been obstinate in my resistance. I give up. I give in. The only way this love can exist in this world is we choose to be it—regardless of whether or not we get it. Love is how we change the world, and if you don’t believe me, watch these videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZl6UjCxfsk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7fh5J_mo5E

https://www.facebook.com/buzzfeedfyi/videos/633308847052790/

On Giving 20%

Earlier today, a former student of mine apologized for not giving 110% in my class. Every time I hear this expression, I cringe. It's become a mantra in our culture for giving one's all, and we're all expected to give 110% to every task we take on. I can't actually recall any specific person ever telling me that I needed to give 110%, but somewhere along the line, this belief was instilled in me so deeply that I didn't need anyone to tell me because I held myself to this impossible standard. 

Who sold us all on this toxic belief?

At this point, it doesn't really matter who's to blame. What matters is that we free ourselves from incredibly damaging cultural values. Hard work is a positive value. Being productive and producing quality are positive values. Giving our all to every task is not.

First of all, giving 110% is quite literally impossible. To give 100% is to give everything you have. No one can give more than they have. If you have 24 hours in a day, you can't give 26.4 hours in a day. If you acknowledge that you can only give 100%, you can certainly choose to devote that 100% as you deem most appropriate, but it is equally impossible to give 100% to any one task. In order to not pass out or fall down dead, you must devote a certain percentage of your time and energy to sleeping and eating. If you sleep the recommended 8 hours per night, you are giving approximately 33% to essential recovery time for your mind and body. With the remaining 2/3 of our time, most of don't want to devote every minute to one single task. There are people we want to spend time with, hobbies that we want to devote time too, and let's not forget about the jobs we have to go to. If I give my job 66%, I leave no time or energy for the people, places, and activities that bring joy into my life.

I propose giving a maximum of 20% to any one area of life. When I'm at work, I can give 20% and make the most of that 20% by working hard and producing quality work. The rest of my 100%, though, needs to be devoted to self-care, investing in relationships with people who matter to me, and participating in activities that bring peace and joy into my life.

The world can take its 110% somewhere else. I value myself too much to give my all.

What Game of Thrones Is Teaching Me about the Kind of Woman I Want to Be

I’ve been thinking about femininity and Game of Thrones. Lol. 

I think in trying not to be a Gilly, many women accidentally turn into a Cersei or Yara. Gilly is weak and pathetic. She is (or was at least) a very real but still quite stereotypical victim in need of saving and being taken care of. Yara is badass but just grossly masculine and crude (and I don’t even mean her language), and while Brienne and Arya are more masculine too, they aren’t trying to be masculine; they’re just being who they are: badass warriors. I wouldn’t want to be them, but they are women worthy of respect, especially Brienne. I still need to see where Arya’s character ends up. I think she is young enough that her character is still somewhat malleable. Cersei and Ellaria are so hell bent on not being controlled by men or anyone for that matter that they just turn into evil, controlling, power hungry cunts. 

I want to be a Daenerys. She is strong, wise, and powerful but also soft and beautiful and feminine. Her strength comes from her wisdom, and much of her wisdom comes from surrounding herself with wise people who aren’t afraid to challenge her and being able to listen to their council and weigh their advice logically. She doesn’t always follow their suggestions, and sometimes she makes the wrong decision (like telling the Lannister army to bend the knee or die and calling that a choice), but she always tries to do what her gut tells her is the right and just thing to do. She slaughters the enemy and does right by good people, and she is capable of giving people opportunities for change. She is ruthless when necessary but forgiving when warranted. 

Weakness: Let Me Kill That for You

I've been thinking about weakness. It is difficult for me to accept weakness in others, especially the people closest to me, most especially anyone I depend on or feel I should be able to depend on. In a recent conversation with my friend and tattoo artist about the challenge of loving strong women, I admitted my attitude about weakness in a romantic partner: "Hey, I see a little weakness there. Let me kill that for you." To me, this has always seemed completely logical. Why would anyone want to be weak? Of course, they would be grateful for my (unrequested) "help" in irradiating any weaknesses they might have.

Wrong.

Today, my ex and I were discussing the time he got a splinter, and I called him a pussy. I claim I was joking. He claims my words were a lot more sinister than that. In hindsight, I don't think I was joking at all. I think I was spewing my resenting and hiding it in sarcasm because I was incapable of identifying and communicating my feelings with others.

I resented anything I saw in him resembling weakness because I depended on him. I had come to view him as strong and reliable and someone I could depend on. If he had weakness, how could I depend on him? Other people in my life who were supposed to protect me failed because they were weak. I had even failed myself at times because of my own weaknesses. Because of these experiences, I had come to view weakness as intolerable and something to be eradicated at any cost.

But the truth is that I am human and flawed. I am incredibly strong, but not all the time. I have weaknesses and flaws and failings. And that is okay. And if it is okay for me to be weak sometimes; then, it must also be okay for others to be weak sometimes as well. Even the people I depend on.

I reject weakness out of fear--fear that I might not survive whatever storms such weaknesses leave me vulnerable to, but I can and will survive them. And even if I don't, I wasn't put on this Earth to live forever anyway. One day, I will die, precisely because I am a weak human. I was not born to be invincible and neither was anyone else.

What I need to kill are not my weaknesses, but my fear of them. I will learn to accept and love my weaknesses and the weaknesses of others.

Searching for My Truth

I was reading about intuition tonight. Part of the reading cautioned against relying on others' opinions and beliefs as guides to personal truths. I think this has been the greatest cause of my indecisiveness about relationships over the last year and a half. I know what is true for me. It hasn't changed since July 4, 2012. But other people's opinions and beliefs sometimes distract me from that truth. I second guess myself: "What of they're right?" Their wisdom is logical and ubiquitous, but it's still their wisdom. What is true for others is not necessarily true for me. My second guessing and constant questioning of what I want and what I should do is the result of not listening for the answer the Universe has for me. Instead, I've been trying to force solutions that don't fit my needs. I think I've been doing all of this out of fear. I don't like where I am right now in my romantic life, and I fear that things won't turn out the way I want them to. Ultimately, though, I have to accept that I can't control the outcome. All I can do is listen to my heart and do what I believe is right for me. The question all this time has simply been whether I trust myself enough to do that. I see now that the answer has been no. Moving forward, I want to learn to listen and to trust myself enough to feel confident and secure in my choices in this area of my life. There is no room (nor reason) for doubt on Wonder Woman's path. There is only the goal and the way to goal. If I focus on my goal, the results will unfold the way they are meant to.

(Un)Comfortably Numb

Yesterday after my a text conversation with my ex, I started to feel the numbness of my love avoidance take its familiar place around my heart. Between work stress, financial stress, car troubles, furnace troubles, and a new relationship, hearing from the man I believe to be my soul mate was just too much. I shut down. The brick walls went up. And I don't know how to take them back down. Truth be told, I am rather enjoying not feeling right now. Disconnecting my emotions from people and events is helping me regain some much needed sanity in the midst of all this chaos. 

So what's the problem?

Erecting my walls usually destroys anyone standing near me. I don't do it on purpose. It happens independent of my conscious will. I become overwhelmed, and it just happens. To save me. To keep me from losing myself. Others don't understand. The just see the wall and don't understand why I am so suddenly unreachable. 

If I'm being completely honest with myself, I'm trying to hold on to him just as hard as I'm trying to let him go. Obviously, that isn't working out very well. I am terrified that whatever choice I make will be the wrong choice. What if I let go only to find out that I could have had everything I ever wanted if only I'd held out just a little longer? What if I hold on and end up spending the rest of my life waiting for someone who will never choose me? 

I've always wanted a love that burned like the sun, a love that if destroyed would take down the whole world with it. But I don't think I have the energy for that kind of love again. The other part of me just wants something calm and dependable. But then I get bored. Maybe I just wasn't made for relationships after all.