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So, if I can fast forward a little bit, I, this was a few years ago, I had built up my
business coaching women around emotional eating, my business was going well, I felt really
fulfilled by the work that I was doing, but in my personal life, so I was married, I'm
now divorced, so you can tell where this is going, but you know we were really struggling
in our marriage. And anybody who's on the brink of divorce will say 90% of your mental,
emotional bandwidth is totally taken up all the time, maybe even in your sleep by
"Do I stay, do I go, what do I do, what's wrong with me, what's wrong with you?" I mean it
was just, it was a really intense time, and really painful time. And one day we were in
the middle of an argument and I sort of felt myself, it was almost like I was there and
I was also watching myself from the outside, and I felt myself shut down and then I went
"I don't have time for this, I have work to do." And I turned around, it was like no emotion,
turned around, got behind my laptop, and as I sat down I realized, and I think actually
now as I'm thinking it through, maybe I got on Facebook and realized, I'm not even working,
what am I even, I'm not. And I realized in that moment that I was using work the same
way I used food. I always had ton of work to do, there was always a fire to put out
in my business, there was always like "Oh, no" you know, I thought the money was gonna
come and it didn't come, like there was always a drama, yeah, a problem, a drama that needed
my attention in my business like all the time. And if I wasn't working I felt guilty because
I had problems and dramas to fix. And that realization that I was in the same pattern
of avoidance that I had been in, and I was using work just as I had used food, had me
realized "Okay, now I know that it's not about the work, it's about the whole," the empty
love tank as you would say. And I could do what most people would do in that position,
which is obsess about how to make myself more productive and how to just make more money
so I can get to the next milestone, because then I could. But I realized, that's not what
this is about. What this is about is, I'm hurting, I'm feeling lonely again, I don't
know what to do, I'm confused about my relationship. So, instead, I vowed to get support around
that. And I got a relationship coach, I started taking more time for my self-care, I started
telling my friends what was actually going on and not. You know we get, we make stock answers
for things. Like ask anybody how they're doing, and 9 times out of 10 they'll be like
"Oh you know" or "Oh, I'm fine" or, you know, "Better than yesterday." Like we have these
little, what does that even mean? And I realized, you know, my stock answer was "You know, we're
doing okay, we're, it's been challenging, but we're you know, we're still in it." It
was just very vague, and it was my way of like keeping my friends at an arm's length,
and not actually dealing with what was really going on. And so I just knew... Not being
vulnerable. Totally, totally, and I knew that the only way I was gonna end this cycle of
addiction or avoidance in my life, and not only that, actually have the kind of life
that I wouldn't be trying to avoid, was to deal with this thing in me. And so, I got
a lot of support, and it was really hard.