Self-Awerewolves in The eye of every storm

Quitting is okay. Whether its the gym, or a relationship, sometimes things just aren’t going to go a certain way, despite setting an intention for an ideal to occur. Whether its listening to your body, or your mind, I’ve found that its often time better to just “walk away.” Going through this separation with my wife, she had mentioned, “Wait- no one is talking about divorce here.” Rather coyly and with great frustration from the situation, I replied with fingers of fury, “Well, we’re not talking AT ALL, so what am I supposed to think?”

Afterwards, I talked to my friend about it, someone I’ve known for years and someone who is also in recovery and he told me a great and simple truth that for some reason I had not thought of: You don’t have to do ANYTHING right now. That sunk in for a minute, because its true. Despite my intention of wanting to make amends and reconcile with my wife, if she is not ready, no matter what I do, it’s not going to work. Despite the effort I’m putting into attempts to talk, go get coffee, etc, if they are not met with reciprocity, then they are efforts that are nothing more than wasted energy. So, I don’t have to do anything, right now. I can “quit” my attempts at forcing the matter, and just let it develop organically, whichever outcome manifests.

All I HAVE to do is continue to keep a positive mindset, continue doing my job well, and continue to not drink. The latter, I’ve found, greatly influences the former two. That one “simple” task impacts the rest, and, if I keep that going, everything else in my life is developing organically, and is falling into place, albeit not on my timeline.

And that’s probably the greatest truth I’ve had to learn to accept on this journey: patience. There are literally a million things that I want, and I want now. After missing work for nearly two years due to surgeries and recovery, its easy for me to stand on the overlook of “I-Deserve-This-It’s-Not-Fair,” and shout it to the masses accumulated beneath. In my job, I’m the fourth most senior person in my department. In the aviation industry, seniority is, well, everything. My expectation of coming back, guns blazing, saying, “I know what I’m doing, and this is how I’m going to do things,” was met with, “Actually, you don’t, and we’re going to make you go through all four levels of promotion again.” For the last two and a half months, I’ve had to be humble, accept that I do make mistakes, that I was rusty, and I don’t know everything. My heart DEMANDS the position I left, but my mind knows that I needed to take a step back, and grow. I am as a tree, with dead branches cut off, for the intention of regrowth.

Yes, it’s been frustrating, extremely so. When people (and its nearly all of them at this point) I’ve trained are stopping me, questioning if “you okay?” and “Are you sure you got this?” my pride immediately swells up, and with righteous indignation I’m tempted to declare, “OF COURSE I FUCKING GOT THIS, I TAUGHT YOU HOW TO DO IT!” But, maybe I don’t. Sure there are times when I do understand what I’m doing, but pride leads me to anger instead of the intention of others, which is, “I want to make sure he has all the tools and abilities he needs.”

There are days where seemingly nothing goes right. Previously, I let it get to me, the smallest things. “Of course, this happened this way, because everything like that is happening today.” With patience at the helm guiding my vessel, I can now almost laugh at these events and accept them for what they are, no matter how minute and aggravating or large and overwhelming. I also know that just because that current day sucks doesn’t mean tomorrow is sentenced to repeat. Tomorrow is as good or as bad as I let it manifest.

This brings me back to what I said earlier: sometimes quitting is okay. Not only is it okay, its GOOD. When anxieties creep ever forward, it can be overwhelming, and that step backward is absolutely necessary. I MUST walk away. There’s a need for rest, for a reset, for a new method of thinking to take root prior to trudging forward through the toxic swamp of negativity. While quitting is “okay,” in certain situations, giving up is never okay. Restructuring my goals to be realistic is not quitting, its moving forward in a real and ascertainable way. It’s not giving up. It’s picking myself up, dusting myself off, and with humility saying to pride, “Well, that didn’t work, and it’s not your fault, in this case.”

I think people that are in recovery, go to group sessions, have such a life advantage. It’s not that we’ve put ourselves through the ringer more so its the ability to be as aware as we are, and also bounce ideas off of one another in a very honest and raw manner. The medical industry hemorrhages money from people with anxiety, depression, and addiction. There’s a pill for everything now, and its not cheap. People in recovery in my experience get it for free. Plus, there’s usually coffee for free, a true added bonus. We are, as I like to say, slowly evolving into SelfAwerewolves.

Through this process, I am learning to recognize when something merely isn’t going to work. I’m learning to identify pride for the negative consequences it carries. I’m learning humility in the face of adversity. I’m so grateful for this. I wrote this because I felt myself slipping into a mindset of being ungrateful, and I needed to sit down and analyze this with words, to better understand the situation I am in for the greater positives of the overall big picture situation. Yes, its hard. It’s difficult. It’s trying. However, there are people who will guide me through this, personally, professionally, and mentally. I have to know when to quit what is not working, and realign my ideals to what could work. More importantly, I have to swallow my pride, and accept their hands when I need it, and that is harder than all of the above.

Thanks, this has been my TedTalk.