Seven Deadly Sins, Well, Just One Really...

During the last few weeks, I have suffered a period of pity-parties. In the past, I’d just don a white bathrobe and sit around moping until I got restless or until I got my confidence back, then it was out with the white robe and in with the fabulous renewal and the “get off my sac” attitude. Pretty potent stuff. It got to a point where I almost looked forward to my next pity-party because I knew what was coming afterward.

Part of this—lets call it a stage—part of this stage is due to the difficulty I had letting go. Just as I knew it would, there are prickles of guilt… passing whispers reminding me that when the going got tough, I ran for the hills, echoes in my mind saying I can’t do this, I can’t possibly continue and asking what I have now, to offer. Also very potent.

I recognize this as the aftershocks of lingering too long in places I shouldn’t have. There comes a point in every relationship, be it work, friendship, love or otherwise where you are influenced by what others see. You begin to accept what they know to be true in spite of what YOU know to be true. All of a sudden, ‘you can’t, you’re not capable, you aren’t able to, you need help, you’re not ready’. All of a sudden, there are limitations, boundaries and you discover, rather forcefully, that you are boxed in – enclosed in parameters that you did not set.

There’s no shame involved, because really, it happens to even the most vigilant of us, even those of us who are most protective of our personalities, who never stray far from their own true source. You move forward encased by these new limits in the belief that this is who you are. In the mirror, you see through the filtered walls of that box and begin to accept your NEW limitations one by one.

I did it or rather, it happened to me and I let it. I woke up every morning looking in the mirror and knowing and feeling powerless, trapped by circumstance, overwhelmed.

I’d like to say it was an ephiphany, a moment of crystalline thought pure as untouched snow that saved me, or that I mustered the energy and determination to break out on my own, but that would be false. It was anger; good old fashioned rage and later resentment that turned my insides cold as ice and my outsides vengeful and (figuratively) bloodthirsty. When I made my decision and finally walked away I felt calm(er) and I knew I’d made the right choice.

Now, how do I explain what happened next? I tried to move on too soon and opportunity poured through the holes in my confidence like water through a sieve and it didn’t help matters. I moved too soon. I tried to keep going but it was hard and I was tired, so I simply stopped. I shut down for weeks.

Sloth is addictive in an insidious way. I never actually saw it coming. Shut down, go out as little as possible, talk as little as possible, eat, sleep, wake up, do nothing. Its like a tunnel with no beginning and no end, just a numb abyss and for those few weeks, it was divine. I realized I was tired of feeling, doubting, still operating in those parameters put around me, existing like a caged wild animal that doesn’t know it’s free.

Yesterday, somewhere within my haze, there was a shadow of a thought, a sentiment that once I focused on it seemed to grow increasingly louder, stronger. And then doubt again, fear of failure again. The sentiment that grew into a thought became smaller, more distant and it went like that for a full 24 hours, I even dreamt of it – crashing on the beach of my consciousness like a wave upon the shore and slipping away again before I could scoop up even a cup full.

I woke up this morning and took a drive. Deji was still sleeping, curled up like child who’s been allowed to slumber on his parents bed 'just-this-once' after a week of sleeping on his own; innocent and untroubled by waking thoughts or the worries of tomorrow.

The drive did little to clear my head but I did return with one solid idea amidst the fuzz. Enough is enough, if it requires drastic measures, be unafraid to take them – and so, from today, I am. I’m curious to see how this pans out.

Most often, we believe that what happens to us is who we are, what we're worth. I'm betting my life on the belief that this isn't true.

Stay tuned.