“What problem do you want?”1
On the one hand, you can embrace all life has to offer and then find yourself crashing and burning: Too much to do, too little energy to do it.
You’re intelligent and capable; life handed you a few lemons, and you crushed it. You asked for it, and you got it – in spades. So I’m mixing metaphors. Isn’t your mind already doing that as you file through everything you thought you knew to fix “it?” Everything you learned to get “it” done and be over it?
On the other hand, you can chuck it all: ditch the grind, hike the Pacific Crest Trail, and explore ayahuasca with a shaman in the Amazon basin (this doesn’t always go so well). You can blow the kids’ college fund on every indulgence, reify that amazing human who signed on with you into the stony object you imagined them to be, and blaze a new path in mating strategies.
Voila! Enter the dragon and a life of tactics without strategy, focus, and purpose. Phew! Exhausting! Where was I going with this?
Ah, that’s it!
Whatever you choose, that dynamic duo seems to dog your trail.
Dynamic duo? I’m not talking about Batman, Robin, Scooby, Shaggy, or even peanut butter and jelly. No, it’s Anxiety and Depression.
They should make a movie entitled On the Road with Sturm und Drang. This duo hounds your brain and nips at your heels – you can’t have one without the other. However, one can wrestle the other into submission to make life a genuinely miserable mass of inner jello or almost entirely pull-the-covers-over-your-head unlivable.
I say almost because you’re here now – thinking about it. There must be a way forward.
That fear of missing out is the hidden prankster in your life.
But your distress is no joke.
What is your most important asset? How do you care for it? You know who. Are you missing out on that person?
The shifting shapes of anxiety and depression paint illusions that draw you in with the cosmic pull of a black hole. But you can retire your inner Edvard Munch. I’m here to help you do it. Turn down the volume. See straight. Clarify.
You’re missing out on the inner hero in your life. And that person doesn’t have to wear tights and a cape. Feint and parry, block with a shield, unleash the power of a magic belt – what are you fighting? Why are you fighting?
The superpower in that inner hero remains nestled in your core – protected in all the ways you learned and knew how.
Action alone does not solve problems.
No elite performer in sports, entertainment, science, design, government – you name the profession – has achieved their success without encountering the dynamic duo – and relocating them. Each one has dealt with or is dealing with inner doubts, regrets, and in many cases, trauma and grief.
Every one of those people who sustained their life’s work prepared. They prepared for a future self – a past and future self, Kings Arthur all, who, with solid preparation, learned the secret of pulling the sword from the stone.
You’re here now, stepping up to the task. I’m here to help you recognize, to start; you are not wasting effort but are embracing a strange, yes, frightening new journey. I’m here to help you step into the future and learn how to welcome that person as they show up, minty fresh, to the world and self.
“What one does when faced with the truth is more difficult than you’d think.”2
But so exciting! Don’t go it alone. I’m prepared to help you reach your goals.
Call, e-mail, or text now and let me know when we can meet by phone for a 20-minute complimentary consultation.
1 Essentialism by Greg McKeown
2 Diana Prince, Wonder Woman movie