Am I EQuipped to enjoy myself and my life?

Dear EQuipped Leaders,

Hi! It’s May! You’re doing it!!! You’re almost there!

How are you feeling today? What’s happening within you? Can you take a moment to center your awareness within you? Can you articulate what’s happening in there?

I’m drinking too much coffee and using too many exclamation points, and I’m just gonna go with it! Because it’s May, and I love this month.

Graduations, Mother’s Day, my birthday. For me, May rules!

It also still feels like the end of the year to me because my world has been orientated around the school calendar for so long. It feels like a time for celebrating all of what we’ve accomplished. For appreciating and reflecting and enjoying the flowers.

I’m learning to stop and smell the roses for the first time in my life. And it’s amazing to me how much these small moments of being present and enjoying myself can breathe life back into me. I didn’t understand the idea of “mindfulness” before. It made me roll my eyes:

That stuff is just for super rich people with no problems. I’ve got work to do. People counting on me. I don’t have time to stop. If I let down for even a moment, everything will fall apart.

I now have a word for this: Hypervigilance.

I pictured “mindfulness” as gurus or celebrities in white linen robes meditating on a cushion in front of a perfect meadow. It felt like something for super humans, not something I could do.

I spend a lot of time thinking about how to EQuip students, teachers, myself to regulate more “negative” emotions: anger, fear, sadness.

I often forget about how hard it can be to let myself feel some of the more “positive” emotions: joy, pleasure, contentment.

I’m learning that I’m actually more comfortable being stressed. Being busy. Caring for others and bustling around. Distracting myself with other peoples’ feelings and needs, so I don’t have to face my own.

I’ve spent most of my life running around, anxiously trying to make everyone around me happy. I know how to do that. I’m comfortable in that kind of discomfort.

I remember in one of my very first therapy sessions, my therapist compared me to Randall from the show, This is Us. He said, “You’ve built this perfect life, and you can’t enjoy it.”

It landed so hard because it felt very true for me.

I had so many of the qualities to build a great life. I was incredibly hardworking and conscientious. I knew how to achieve. I just didn’t know how to be.

I also truly believed that states of satisfaction, contentment, serenity weren’t possible. That was for the fake, linen robe, perfect meadow place. That’s not real. Real people don’t feel that.

I knew only the place of “striving.” I had never felt at ease with who I was and where I was before. I didn’t know how to let myself feel that. And I didn’t know that I was capable of feeling things I had never felt before.

There was so much good in my life that I couldn’t take in and savor. It’s like I had a gorgeous meal in front of me, and instead of slowing down and enjoying it, I wolfed it down while distractedly scrolling on my phone. I was missing it.

It didn’t matter that it was a beautiful meal because I wasn’t EQuipped to appreciate the peaceful moments in my life. I hadn’t done any of my emotional work. I was still anxiously lost in the maze of my unconscious. Surviving, not living. Missing it. Distracted and asleep.

It feels so different now.

I’m still me. My life is still my life. But I experience myself and my life so differently now.

Where does this land for you?

How do you experience yourself? How do you experience your life?
Can you relate to my hypervigilance? Is it difficult for you to let yourself slow down and savor what’s already good in your life?
Could you use support? Would you dare to let yourself have needs and wants for your life?

We would love to show up for you and EQuip your campus/district. Please reach out to us via email at info@appliedEQgroup.com.

Happy (and all your feelings) May! Thank you for showing up here with me to grow and to pause and appreciate how far we’ve already come. I’m really grateful you are here.

Better EQuipped Together,

Elizabeth