My eyes are wide with fear and I can feel the panic rising as the pounding in my chest gets louder. I'm squinting but it doesn't help. I don't know what to do. I can't even pull over because I don't know where the shoulder is. It is pitch black and the road is completely covered in snow. I can't see where the yellow line is and I have no idea if I'm on the road. I'm just completely dead stopped, terrified of putting my car in the ditch. My breathing is quiet and shallow and I pray another car is not going to come up behind me. Fear is consuming me as I edge, inch by inch, forward.
Just get me home.
Just get me home.
Please God, just get me home.
I'm in a semi conscious state now and I'm caught between my dream and reality. I'm trying to force my eyes open to stop the dream but it's like they are glued shut and I can't open them. I just keep seeing the snow covered road, a white blanket with no direction of where to go. My heart is pounding and I can't get out of the dream and I can't see.
I just need to see the road.
I just need to be able to SEE it.
My eyes finally open and it's 2am.
I drift back off.
I pick up the phone. I've been expecting the call but there is still disbelief as the phone rings. I'm blank. There are no words coming out. The world is closing in as I can hear the voice on the other end of the phone but I can't speak. I'm mouthing what I want to say but the volume is off. I'm tongue tied. Nothing is forming in complete sentences. I'm screaming inside. Can't you hear me? Can't you hear what I'm trying to say?? Please no... don't give up on me! Just let me speak. I won't let you down, I promise!!
It's 4:37. My heart is racing and I hear a sound.
What was that?
I'm certain I heard something.
I wait, holding my breath.
Yes, what IS that?
I get up and walk downstairs.
The ritual begins.
Check every door.
Turn on and off all the lights.
There is nothing here Sarah.
These are normal sounds.
Go back to bed.
My senses are in heightened awareness as I listen.
Start Hail Mary's.
Repeat until you fall asleep.
There is nothing here Sarah.
It's all in your head.
****
I need to get it together.
I am in limbo and my inability to let go is starting to overflow and leak into my subconscious. My dreams are vivid and they all are indicating fear of the unknown and failure to trust myself and what comes next. I know better, logically, but uncertainty is lingering below the surface and crying out to me in my sleep.
That is the thing about the human nervous system that is absolutely fascinating.
It is this complex arrangement of nerves and cells that transmits signals throughout our entire body and, in essence, represents our body's command center. If it is not in order, if one of those circuit breakers is tripped, then it can manifest into a whole host of other issues and result in anxiety, fear, panic and domino into physical and mental health issues.
Our emotions are our energy that moves through our nervous system and allows us to experience the intoxicating high of new love, the crushing grief of a tragic loss and the adoration towards the innocence and wonder of a newborn child.
Yet, isn't it ironic that the one element we possess that differs us from all other life on this planet is the one thing we try to suppress? We try to find numbing agents to minimize our thoughts, our feelings and our emotions.
What if it is true that we have eternal life?
What if this is one stop along the way and in this stop, we are each gifted with a physical body to house our emotions and energy and experience life through the wonder of our senses.
Wouldn't that mean the whole point of our existence in life is to feel? To learn, to change, to grow and to love as we go through the various peaks and valleys of our time here in this physical dimension we call earth.
When will I stop resisting change and surrender to the reality that there is a purpose to this hiccup in my life and believe I am being shifted for the better?
***
I've finally received the notice that I will be unemployed August 1.
And oh - did I ever try to hang on until the bitter end. Extending what started as a June 30th deadline to July 31st, completely hostage to my paycheck, not knowing what I wanted to do next and not wanting to let go until I found something new. I wasn't ready to break ties with relationships that I had built over the past 5 years and I kept hoping all the stars would align and I would find what I was looking for before my work VISA permit ended.
I allowed the fear of living without a paycheck to consume me. I just kept working more. 7am at my computer. Jumping at every call. Completely a slave to the situation I had created over the past two years.
Dreams of panic and unknown taking over my subconscious every time I turned the lights out.
And no matter how hard I worked, no matter how much I hung on, the inevitable still occurred.
And so.
Here I am.
Behind the wheel on the snow covered road.
Now this post isn't at all about looking for empathy for being unemployed.
It's actually completely the opposite.
It's sharing the lesson behind understanding anxiety and embracing the unknown - trusting that the shift is needed, even if in the short term the ground is a little wobbly.
There are two things that have dramatically adjusted my attitude since those dreams in the past 45 days. Well, 3 if you include yoga, but I think I want to write about that another day.
The first is playing the game "And then what?"
It goes like this.
What is the fear?
I'm afraid I'm going to lose my job.
And then what?
And then what if I can't get another one right away?
I have never taken a summer off. I could spend August by the water and be a cottage hobo and search for jobs with better scenery.
I could take a course. I could study things I love because I have the time to. I could take a yoga and meditation instructors course. (see, can't help it - new obsession is sneaking in here)
I could see my sisters and my nephew and nieces.
I could write more posts and work on my book.
I could start every morning with a 90 minute walk by the waterfront and meditate by the lake.
I could golf with my Mom or with Lisa. (maybe)...
I could work on furnishing the outside of the house and on the gardens.
I could sail with my Dad every week without worrying about what time I had to leave work.
I could stay up every night and watch every Jays game. (ha, just seeing if you were paying attention. We know this is unlikely until at least September).
I could visit my family in England.
I could actually go anywhere in the entire world.
There are no limits at all about what I could do with unlimited time and nowhere to have to go to.
Mind you the reality is I do not have a red cent of income past July 31st.
What if I run out of money?
I could apply for unemployment insurance. I've paid into it for 25 years - perhaps I will actually use it.
What if I'm not eligible? (Btw, very strong possibility here based on my current research).
Then I pull the US 401k funds I set aside in the past 5 years.
And then what?
Well, what if no one hires me?
Then I take a year off.
What if I can't pay the mortgage?
Then we sell the house and I have less to clean and look after.
And then what?
As I start playing this game, I realize there is only GOOD things that can come of anything past July 31st. It's all in the attitude I take towards it.
I can do this.
"And then what" is a brilliant game.
Things never seem quite as scary if I follow this through as far as I can take it with whatever is on my mind.
The second thing that has totally changed my attitude is meditation. I am ALL IN and I cannot say enough about how this has helped me adjust my outlook in the past few months. I can't even imagine how much it would have changed my mindset and overall wellbeing if I had embraced it earlier during some of my other tougher times in life.
It is, by far, one of my coolest discoveries in this process. There are literally thousands of videos on YouTube that support many of the challenges we face. Embracing fear, releasing stress and anxiety, setting intentions of goals, trusting intuition, attracting abundance in life, weight loss, addiction and increasing energy. There are 5 minute segments and hour to two hour videos to rest your mind to fall asleep. It has become the first thing I do every single morning is to find the meditation I feel suits me best for that day, depending on what I need.
One of the sessions I listened to last week really struck me as I experience such uncertainty currently in my life. It is from Jason Stephenson (who also has a lovely Australian accent - just saying...) and it is about trusting the events in our life are unfolding as they should. This one paragraph is truly the entire reason for this post.
He states:
There is old celtic legend that says just before each person is born, they are allowed to choose all the hardships they will experience during their lifetime. In this tradition, everyone selects the challenges that they will be able to overcome, the situations and conditions that will push them to learn and grow, but that will not defeat them.
Imagine for a minute that this is actually fact.
How much of anxiety is linked to control or fear?
How much differently would your perspective shift knowing there is no question you will conquer adversity and prevail or that you are on the path you chose?
What if the highest order of souls are those who have volunteered to be taken from us before their time to teach lessons in grief and love or those who are homeless and have managed to survive in the streets, enduring the conditions of the elements and lack of nourishment and shelter, to teach us gratitude?
How much could that change our attitude and help better understand and cope with difficulty?
Knowing that our bodies are gifted to us for a reason, to 'house' our experience and bring us through life but that we 'sign up' for what we experience.
Does that help put answers to unexplained grief or unimaginable physical limitations or illness?
Yes, probably my deepest thoughts put to paper yet but ever since I heard that, I've mentally tested it on all the people I know and the hardships they have endured and it actually helps me bring peace to every situation.
Including my own recent challenge.
Accept that there might be a small possibility that we signed up for the part, didn't write the script and not every experience is within our control.
***
I have a plaque that I bought years ago, that every now and then I need to make the time to re-read because underneath my uncertainty, I really do believe this.
"When you come to the edge of all the light you have ever known and are about to step into the darkness, faith is knowing one of two things will happen - there will be something to stand on or you will be taught how to fly."
Trust that I'm on the road.
Trust that whatever is meant for me is on its way.
Trust in the timing of everything.
Just trust.
