I Spoke the Unthinkable Words…

And it threw me into a tailspin!

I’ve been a bit stuck on the blog lately. I’ve been having a solid case of writer’s block for a few weeks, and I can’t quite put my finger on it. I was explaining to my own coach that I feel different, disconnected in some way. A bit numb, quite honestly. It’s like I can’t connect to the pain that has been my muse for the last couple of years. I can’t find anything to be upset about, and how boring is that? I even spoke the words “I am happy.”

Well, my saboteurs – what I call “The Peanut Gallery” (aka inner critics, ego, whatever you want to call it) have jumped all over that. They’re trying to create problems, giving me suggestions of where to find fault with myself. They are more than happy to remind me that I don’t deserve it, that it will never last. They’ve even gotten creative enough that they are masquerading as themselves – trying to tell me that my “happiness” is really just my saboteurs distracting me from the struggle that is surely there. I must be ignoring some problem or issue. “See?” they say, “You’ll never really get there!”

I guess I’m not sure who I am as a happy person. Who am I without my “problems”? Will anyone be interested in a well-adjusted person or will they find me pithy and annoying? I mean, c’mon, we all love watching a good train wreck.

And why is it so damn scary to be happy? It’s the Upper Limit Problem I talked about on a recent Thirsty Thursday to the n^th degree. I guess maybe it’s a vulnerability issue, it feels like there’s more to lose. It reminds me of when my kids were babies and I was constantly terrified of something happening to them. I’ve noticed I have this fear of being blindsided, of having the rug pulled out from beneath me (based on some prior life experiences.) So it seems safer to be prepared for the worst, to not allow myself to feel too good because it will hurt more when it goes away.

Vernon Howard writes, “People don’t live the way they do because they like it. They live as they do because they don’t know what else to do.”

I’m trying to get my head around what I’m experiencing, and to recognize that it’s common for the saboteurs to get louder when they’re about to lose their jobs. That’s what I’ve learned from my coaches and what I tell my clients, anyway. It’s a bit more challenging to practice what you preach. Still, I won’t let go of my new happiness without a fight. To the Peanut Gallery I say, “back up off me!”

For a while now I have playfully used the Homeland Security Advisory System (terror threat level color codes) to alert me to when I was at risk for self-defeating thought patterns or habits. I usually raise the terror threat level when I am feeling down, fearful, have PMS or some other cocktail of negative emotions. That’s when I know I need to step it up with self-care and compassion, awareness, trust and acceptance. But I’m seeing now that I need to raise it when I feel happy as well.

On the plus side, evidently I still have plenty of angst to write about!

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