Are we choosing to live on auto-pilot?

Please tell me if this resonates. She wakes up in the morning, checks e-mail, hops on a work call, or starts rushing around getting the kids dressed, fed, ready for the day. She rushes around all day doing ALL THE THINGS. If she gets stuck somewhere, she scrolls through social media. Sometimes she catches her mind going off on a tangent that has absolutely nothing to do with the task at hand right now. By 6pm, she is done, fried, exhausted, craving a drink and a TV show to relax. Eventually, she falls into bed. Sometimes she sleeps, sometimes she catastrophizes. She is frustrated, feeling like a failure, too exhausted to think, too many thoughts to focus, too busy to exercise or daily self care. It is all too much, but she really doesn’t see a way out.

Isn’t life supposed to be more beautiful than this? What can we even do about it? I have some thoughts, but it will not be easy. We have to choose to break the cycle, which means some tough decisions and breaking of ingrained habits. Accountability is key. Community is key. Support is key. Outside perspective is key. The thing is, we don’t know what we don’t know. So many of our habits are ingrained so deeply, we do not even recognize them as debilitating. In fact, we see them as absolutely required coping mechanisms. Ask yourself this question, “Do I have a strong inclination to do something repeatedly?”. The answer has to be yes. Biting our nails, watching TV, having a glass of wine to unwind, losing ourselves in romance, taking pain ‘supplements’, going on ranting sessions, scrolling through social media, playing a game. Whatever it is, as humans it is our nature to go the easiest route to numb. We are zombies in a repetitive game of stress to zoned-out. This isn’t rest, or self-care. Don’t crucify me here, but if we were playing jeopardy:

What is Addiction

Merriam-Webster

I know! Trust me, I know. None of us wants to believe this. That is why we go on doing it. That is where our minds mess with us. Just pretend, play a game with me. Can you choose right now to go two months on a strict diet of vegetables. No bread, no meat, no sugar. Not easily! Why? Because bread is delicious, and yes, completely addictive. But, most of us don’t really care about that addiction, because we don’t attribute any deleterious effects from gluten on our bodies. It takes constant agonizing pain to ever really make change. Agonizing pain before we make any effort to make a change! Even then, we might say, why is my stomach killing me all the time? Why can’t I lose weight? And then sit there eating things that aren’t healthy, unwilling to stop.

I propose though, that we NOT wait until we have hit rock bottom. I propose that we are stuck, in pain, right now. Overwhelm, stress, anxiety, panic attacks, cravings, feelings of failure? That is all pain, that we are not giving enough credit to. We discount it as life, society, “being a mom”, “corporate life”, and more and more excuses.

This friends, is why we need outside perspective. We need a friend, therapist, life coach, mentor, colleague, to point out what we do not see. To help us make changes, now. We should not go on this way. Sadly, most of us will. We need to be the change we wish our loved ones would make. We need to role-model self-love, nurturing, kindness, and wake each other up to the beauty that is around us. I promise, there is a way. Let’s go together.

What is one thing we can take off our plate today? Just one thing. One meeting, one task, one call, one discussion, one activity, even if it is just ordering out instead of cooking. Pick one task today, and let’s feel good about it. Comment what you pulled off today’s list, let’s support each other.