How knocking the passenger side mirror off my car showed me how much progress I’ve made
As I was backing into the garage, a little too close to the side, my passenger side mirror knocked clean off. WTF? I was pissed. This was the second time in two years this has happened. Are you kidding me? AH!
I went inside the house and started crying.
It wasn’t about the mirror.
It was the tiredness, the lack of “progress,” the end of the year. It was being so close to something yet thinking you are far away. It was not being able to see clearly.
The pressure to be in a certain place professionally, to have achieved a certain level of success, to feel a sense of accomplishment weighs heavy. And, all of this needs to be financial, professional – it all needs to “prove” you am worthy of a year gone by. You must produce, accomplish, achieve, or you don’t have value.
You can’t see when you are only looking ahead to what’s next and focusing on where you aren’t yet. It’s a recipe for beating yourself up and keeping yourself stuck.
My default in the past would have been to go down the slippery slope and convince myself nothing was working, open a bottle of wine or pour myself a stiff drink, commiserate, maybe indulge in sweets or some other distraction.
I would have swum in negativity, felt progressively worse about myself and my life to the point where I would end up wondering what the hell the point of my life was and wishing for it all to end.
Not a pretty picture.
This time, I sat and cried for a minute. I felt it, acknowledged it, and let it move through me without letting it take me down.
Then, I got up, washed off my tears, and put on water for tea.
I prepared myself some goat cheese with pecans and cranberries and a bit of chocolate.
Food, grounding food, helped. I then roasted vegetables and sauteed a chicken breast.
I made another cup of tea.
Movement, action, focusing on what you DO have control over helps – so much more than pining over the future or jumping in the pool of analysis.
This is so FAR from where I used to be, it is almost laughable. I am a completely different person.
You did what? Made tea and a healthy snack and meal? WTF is wrong with you? No spiraling into addictions, swirling in negativity, lashing out at the world?
How in the hell did you do that?
I looked BACK instead of forward and saw how much I have grown this year.
I was kind to myself, despite my tiredness and frustration.
I scoured the shadow energy out and reminded myself of the truth:
I am worthy just for being me.
I have nothing to prove.
I am right where I need to be.
No one and nothing, not any situation or circumstance, has power over me.
Period.
All I needed to do was knock the mirror off my car to remind me to look back, not forward.
From that perspective, wow. Things are much different. I hardly recognize myself.
I’d say that’s progress, my friend. HUGE progress.
How do you define progress?