There are certain times in my life that I've had to stop and wonder what it is that I'm doing, where I'm going, and what has gotten me here. I've not kept quiet about the fact the the past few weeks have been difficult. The most difficult that I've been through in a long time, but during this time I've thought about what I'm being told. I don't believe that we go through any unnecessary pain in this life. There's a lesson in every hardship.
What's the lesson here?
I've been asking myself that question repeatedly. I think about it all the time. I process it constantly. I want to know what God is trying to do with what I'm going through, and why He trusts me so much.
I'm finding that this lesson, these trials, are showing me so much more than the easy times ever do. I don't learn from the good, or so I've found. When things are easy for me, I'm grateful, but I don't let the important parts of myself grow. I don't reflect on the parts of myself that need work. I skate along. I let myself get by without really working at growing. I think that's why I have internal crises. It's annoying, but it's how I know that I'm about to be stronger, smarter, and more capable.
Lately, I feel like I'm going through what I've been through before. It's a sort of deja vu.
I'm not going to get into what's going on in this particular situation, but I've been here before. I've gone through it. I thought I had come out of it stronger and smarter, but I was wrong. I was dealing with the symptoms of the problem, but not the problem itself.
The problem is that I don't feel like I'm good enough. I talked about this in my last blog. I'm still dealing with it. I will always be dealing with it, because I can't be perfect, I will always be less than good enough.
I shared an article earlier today about perfection. My mom has always thought that it was ridiculous that I considered myself a perfectionist, but, in a lot of ways, I am.
The article I shared talked about the guilt that perfectionists walk around with. I've dealt with this for a while now, and it never really gets any better. I feel all consuming, painful guilt with every mistake I make. I let it control my mind. I let it eat at me.
I've recently made a lot of mistakes at work. I mean a lot. Clients have been falling through the cracks. I'm failing these people.
There are so many of them, though. I work and work and work. I try as hard as I can, and my hardest, my best, isn't good enough. Sometimes, I'm learning, you can give it absolutely 100% of yourself and it's just not enough.
This is the hardest lesson that I'm having to learn. The hardest lesson that I've ever learned so far. You can't do everything, and you can't do anything perfectly. There will always be a mistake. There
is no way we can do it all.
It has been painful learning to accept the mistakes that I make that can hurt other people because the mistakes I make in my work have a direct impact on the clients that I serve. I'm hurting the people that I serve.
That hurts. It feels a little like a knife in my chest. I carry it with me all the time.
It's overwhelming and scary.
I'm having to come to terms with the fact that I will make these mistakes. It sucks. It hurts. I don't know how to deal with it.
I wish I could say that there's always room for improvement. There's always next time. I can always do better.
Is that healthy?
Is it healthy to look at what we believed was our best, our top effort, all we could do, and say, "I need to be better."
How is it possible that this is our norm?
We always tell kids to do better next time, to please people, to be the best that they can be.
Who determines what's the best that someone else can do? Why do we care so much about the standards of others? Why does someone else get to decide what my personal best is? I haven't realized that these were things that I needed to ask myself.
I didn't really notice how much of myself I was investing into my work until I broke down in front of my housemates and my site coordinator today.
They raised genuine concerns. They pointed things out that I hadn't even noticed.
I've taken a very unhealthy turn in my life. I drink too much, I sleep too much, I don't eat any sort of balanced meal, and, most importantly, I'm miserable. I'm not at my best.
I'm failing at work because I'm failing myself.
Isn't it funny that we're told that sacrificing ourselves is what's best for everyone?
I'm not saying that my parents directly told me that I had to sacrifice myself. No one has ever told me that, actually. I see that in my everyday life. I was raised by parents that would literally give the shirts off of their backs to anyone. They would give their last dollar to someone that was hungry. They have the most amazing capacity to love others that I have ever seen first hand. They're able to balance that, though. They have learned that they're not at their best unless they first practice self care.
I haven't gotten that down yet.
I call it self care when I come home at 5:15 and am in bed and ready to go to sleep at 6:30.
I call it self care when I go to Starbucks to keep myself awake before work, even though I went to bed early the night before.
I call it self care to binge watch Charmed on Netflix so I can try to copy the behavior of those really badass women.
I call a lot of things "self care" when, in reality, they're self destruction.
I'm realizing, though, that if I'm not at my best, I will continue to mess up. I'll feel like I'm investing everything I have into work. I maintain that I am, but I do not think that's anything to be proud of, happy about, or at all positive. My personal life is falling apart because I have nothing left to give. My work is falling apart because I'm miserable in my personal life.
It's a sick and painful cycle.
There's nothing that I can do about all of the pain from work until I reach into myself and find what it is that makes me happy, that keeps my going. What keeps me whole? What keeps me healthy?
I wanted to share this because I know I'm not the only person that struggles in this particular way. I know I'm not the only person that's depressed, struggling to realize that failure is okay, unable to see the ways that we're failing ourselves, and blinded to the fact that, in failing ourselves, we are effectively failing the people we work to help as well.
What's the lesson here?
I've been asking myself that question repeatedly. I think about it all the time. I process it constantly. I want to know what God is trying to do with what I'm going through, and why He trusts me so much.
I'm finding that this lesson, these trials, are showing me so much more than the easy times ever do. I don't learn from the good, or so I've found. When things are easy for me, I'm grateful, but I don't let the important parts of myself grow. I don't reflect on the parts of myself that need work. I skate along. I let myself get by without really working at growing. I think that's why I have internal crises. It's annoying, but it's how I know that I'm about to be stronger, smarter, and more capable.
Lately, I feel like I'm going through what I've been through before. It's a sort of deja vu.
I'm not going to get into what's going on in this particular situation, but I've been here before. I've gone through it. I thought I had come out of it stronger and smarter, but I was wrong. I was dealing with the symptoms of the problem, but not the problem itself.
The problem is that I don't feel like I'm good enough. I talked about this in my last blog. I'm still dealing with it. I will always be dealing with it, because I can't be perfect, I will always be less than good enough.
I shared an article earlier today about perfection. My mom has always thought that it was ridiculous that I considered myself a perfectionist, but, in a lot of ways, I am.
The article I shared talked about the guilt that perfectionists walk around with. I've dealt with this for a while now, and it never really gets any better. I feel all consuming, painful guilt with every mistake I make. I let it control my mind. I let it eat at me.
I've recently made a lot of mistakes at work. I mean a lot. Clients have been falling through the cracks. I'm failing these people.
There are so many of them, though. I work and work and work. I try as hard as I can, and my hardest, my best, isn't good enough. Sometimes, I'm learning, you can give it absolutely 100% of yourself and it's just not enough.
This is the hardest lesson that I'm having to learn. The hardest lesson that I've ever learned so far. You can't do everything, and you can't do anything perfectly. There will always be a mistake. There
is no way we can do it all.
It has been painful learning to accept the mistakes that I make that can hurt other people because the mistakes I make in my work have a direct impact on the clients that I serve. I'm hurting the people that I serve.
That hurts. It feels a little like a knife in my chest. I carry it with me all the time.
It's overwhelming and scary.
I'm having to come to terms with the fact that I will make these mistakes. It sucks. It hurts. I don't know how to deal with it.
I wish I could say that there's always room for improvement. There's always next time. I can always do better.
Is that healthy?
Is it healthy to look at what we believed was our best, our top effort, all we could do, and say, "I need to be better."
How is it possible that this is our norm?
We always tell kids to do better next time, to please people, to be the best that they can be.
Who determines what's the best that someone else can do? Why do we care so much about the standards of others? Why does someone else get to decide what my personal best is? I haven't realized that these were things that I needed to ask myself.
I didn't really notice how much of myself I was investing into my work until I broke down in front of my housemates and my site coordinator today.
They raised genuine concerns. They pointed things out that I hadn't even noticed.
I've taken a very unhealthy turn in my life. I drink too much, I sleep too much, I don't eat any sort of balanced meal, and, most importantly, I'm miserable. I'm not at my best.
I'm failing at work because I'm failing myself.
Isn't it funny that we're told that sacrificing ourselves is what's best for everyone?
I'm not saying that my parents directly told me that I had to sacrifice myself. No one has ever told me that, actually. I see that in my everyday life. I was raised by parents that would literally give the shirts off of their backs to anyone. They would give their last dollar to someone that was hungry. They have the most amazing capacity to love others that I have ever seen first hand. They're able to balance that, though. They have learned that they're not at their best unless they first practice self care.
I haven't gotten that down yet.
I call it self care when I come home at 5:15 and am in bed and ready to go to sleep at 6:30.
I call it self care when I go to Starbucks to keep myself awake before work, even though I went to bed early the night before.
I call it self care to binge watch Charmed on Netflix so I can try to copy the behavior of those really badass women.
I call a lot of things "self care" when, in reality, they're self destruction.
I'm realizing, though, that if I'm not at my best, I will continue to mess up. I'll feel like I'm investing everything I have into work. I maintain that I am, but I do not think that's anything to be proud of, happy about, or at all positive. My personal life is falling apart because I have nothing left to give. My work is falling apart because I'm miserable in my personal life.
It's a sick and painful cycle.
There's nothing that I can do about all of the pain from work until I reach into myself and find what it is that makes me happy, that keeps my going. What keeps me whole? What keeps me healthy?
I wanted to share this because I know I'm not the only person that struggles in this particular way. I know I'm not the only person that's depressed, struggling to realize that failure is okay, unable to see the ways that we're failing ourselves, and blinded to the fact that, in failing ourselves, we are effectively failing the people we work to help as well.
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