I broke through.

I’ve been stuck, frustrated and deeply annoyed with myself, until 6:47pm on Tuesday evening.

I have been reading “I COULD DO ANYTHING, If I Only Knew What it Was” by Barbara Sher. At first, I was elated, because the exercises at the beginning of the book really led me to plow through the junk piles of “what if” and “I should” and “maybe I ought to”. I began to peel away my scabby guilt-gobs, to see what was plugging up the portal of my potential. A whole lot of stuff, it turns out!

I’ve been so afraid. Afraid to commit. Afraid to plunge into the depths of my abilities. Afraid to go for what I really wanted, because it’s always been easier to stay in roles where I knew how to please, how to be the ‘good employee’, the ‘good girl’. Not surprisingly, bringing these things into my complete consciousness unleashed a torrent of anger. I was furious at myself for wasting my own time, for not figuring this out sooner. Thankfully, Barbara Sher continually reminded me to be gentle with myself, to be forgiving—you can’t get angry at a car that doesn’t go, if the problem is that it’s out of gas. And you can’t get angry at yourself for utilizing the coping mechanisms you learned as a kid. All you can do is realize that you’re a grown-up now, and it’s time to find a better way to do things. A more fruitful way.

Regardless, I was still mad. I couldn’t find myself in the second part of the book, the part of the book that breaks down the various types of blockages and tells you what to do about them. I was getting frantic, reading three chapters at once, flipping between them, hoping the next page would be the one with the mirror.

On 6:47pm on Tuesday evening I found it, I found the mirror. I was trying to gulp down the last of the three chapters before my counseling session, so if nothing else, I could at least say to Gerry “I tried to use the book, but it didn’t work for me”. But it did!

I am a ‘Frustrated Diver’. To everyone on the outside, I appear to be a ‘Scanner’ (someone who needs to do and taste and try a little bit of everything). But what I really am is someone who desperately wants to dive, to get really deep into something—but I have allowed my fears to keep me floating on the surface. My fears have turned me into “Odd Job Joe” (as my brother once so kindly put it).

I think I instinctively knew that it was my high-speed scanning that sent me into my high-speed wobble, so I forced myself to try and ‘settle down’—because from the outside, that seemed like the good, normal, sane thing to do. I don’t think I thought very much about whether or not it was what I really wanted for myself. I got the job, the basement suite, the fish tank, the fiancé. Then I sat back and waited for the happiness to come. And it didn’t.

I pushed too hard. I tried to follow rules that were never really there. I tried to be the “good girl”.

Now everything is starting to open up again. I’m starting to feel passion and hope come flooding back in. I’m making plans. I’m dreaming dreams. I realize the next bits of my life might be scary and difficult— I'll have to make some big changes. But I realize that I’ll learn so much more than I ever could sitting still. I also realize that I can make these big changes by taking small steps.

I’ll be doing a lot more for the world by being wholly myself than I ever will by trying to ‘behave’ for the make-believe ‘someone else’.