How Did We Get Here? How Do We Get Out?

This thing we've been doin' ain't workin' out.

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I’ve been in — what feels like — a really long season of things falling away.

Over the past (just over) two years, I have said goodbye to homes, cities, states and people. It’s been the most unsettling time of my life. Uprooted. In flux. In between. All at sea. Waiting to land. The kind of circumstances that make it very hard to feel safe in the most basic sense of the word.

For much longer than that, I’ve watched myself move through evolution after evolution, transformation after transformation, change after change; with old skins shed and old versions of myself discarded, littering the path behind me like the last leaves of autumn. Or rusty suits of armour.

And most recently, I have said goodbye to (most of) the structure and format and way of showing up in and running my business that I have known intimately for the past six years. Which, for me, felt like a really big deal because it has felt like the death of an identity, of a way of believing and being and behaving. One that I thought was leading me to where I wanted to go, but in reality was leading me away from myself. And one that has had its own soundtrack of grief playing out in the background of my days since making that decision.

It feels like a really long season of falling away, I suspect, because — upon reflection — much of it has felt hard and heavy. Just like armour.

My husband and I spoke about this the other day and he literally stole the words out of my heart — he said that there have been brief segments of time over the past 10 years that he could think of where we have been relaxed and at ease in our life. Where we haven’t been efforting or labouring for big life things (renovating and house hunting seem to be our themes du jour), but rather where we have been settled in our life and really, truly enjoying our life.

I was so grateful to hear him speak these words and yet also really fucking sad for us, because: we chose this. All. Of. This.

It has been so wild to stop and recognise the choices and decisions we’ve made for ourselves over the course of our lifetime together. (We’ve been together over 18 years, married for 10 years.) Always striving for more, bigger, better. Hustling. Working hard. Constantly thrashing ourselves to keep up with — or, more accurately, get ahead of — the rushing current; very rarely laying back and gliding with it or pausing on the banks to rest and take in the view.

And I realise these are all very ‘first world problems’ to have, but I am so sick of the narrative that we have to downplay what we’re going through because of comparison to someone else whose circumstances are different. Hard is hard. Tough is tough. Of course there are varying shades and tones to it all and every human is unique in how it feels to them, but I only know the reality of my own life and how it makes me feel, so that’s all I can speak about. And that’s the theme around here: my lived experiences. I can’t believe I’ve even written this disclaimer because I trust your emotional intelligence to know it to be true and to read with that inner knowing. But it’s been said now (just in case), so let’s continue…

I don’t condemn ambition or working hard for what you want. Or even wanting more or different than what you have now. But I have to start to wonder if we’ve been doing it wrong when I look at myself in the mirror.

These past several weeks have felt exceptionally stressful.

Shit has hit the fan in so many ways. The constant noise and mess and action and outpouring of money for our renovation has felt relentless, viscerally amplified by the fact that we are in the messy middle and there is literally no turning back; our only option is to continue onwards, forwards. And pray for miracles. Because of this, home has not felt like a haven lately. Which really fucking sucks because we live in a part of Australia many call ‘God’s Country’. It’s beautiful. A place where the trees meet the sea. Heaven on earth. And also, we worked really hard for two years to even get here. Oh the sad, sad irony. Because if you know me well, you’ll know that home hasn’t felt like a haven and I haven’t felt truly settled for a very long time. So this stings extra hard right now.

Added to this, I haven’t been sleeping. Streaks of insomnia have punctuated my nights for hours at a time, days in a row, week after week. I’ve been awoken by the stress and the heaviness of everything. And rather than lay there in the stillness letting the dark silent swirling thoughts consume me like they do during the daylight, I’ve taken to watching familiar favourite shows to soothe me back to (eventual) sleep. It’s actually sparked a deeper appreciation for the writers of these shows and ignited something in me that I’m not quite sure what it is yet, so I’m certain that will be another story for another day.

I also haven’t been eating properly. Which is wild to me because, up until a few months ago, I was a total comfort eater. I used to eat my feelings (mostly carbs) and envy those who lost their appetite when things got tough. Oh the sad, sad, irony x2. Because now here I am: one of ‘those’ people. Riding inconsistent waves of hunger and doing my best to nourish my body when I actually feel like eating. God help me if I totally lose the joy for food and it just becomes fuel to me. No way, now how, will I let that happen, thank you very much.

And as I was getting ready this morning, thinking about this piece and all that’s happening in my life right now, I was magnetised to my love of music and drawn to that song from Daisy Jones & The Six — ‘Look At Us Now (Honeycomb)’:

How did we get here?
How do we get out?
This thing we've been doin' ain't workin' out.
Oh, how did we get here?
How do we get out?
We used to be something to see.
Oh, baby, look at us now.

(Side Note: if you haven’t watched Daisy Jones & The Six yet, do yourself a favour. Read the book too, because that’s a slightly different experience that deserves to be enjoyed too.)

Listening to those lyrics as I was applying my mascara, I was also reminded of something I always say to my mentoring clients when they are in the thick of a transformation — the first step to change is awareness.

We can’t do anything about anything until we’re aware that something has to change.

Noticing is the first signal and the first signpost along the new path of change.

So now we’ve noticed.

And in these recent weeks, I’ve been asking myself a series of questions to bring clarity to what I should do next. Scratch that. What I can do next.

These are the questions:

• What’s important to me right now?

• What options are available to me?

• How can I choose the path of least resistance to support what’s important?

• And how can I stay open to receiving new possibilities and options and miracles that I can’t even see (or imagine) yet?

I’ve been repeating these questions almost daily and they are helping to identify my next right step to take. Step. After step. After step. After step.

From this place, I have found the courage to make decisions and take action on things that are right for me, right now. Some things have been easy, other things have felt harder. And all of it, to borrow a phrase from my darling friend Jody, has been “really fucking humbling”. Because the decisions I am making are coming from a place of what I need most right now, in this moment. Which of course is a very zoomed in place to be making decisions from in the grand scheme of a lifetime, but jeez mate, life is happening right now and needs need to be met right now, so this is where it’s at… right fucking now.

And to help put things into context even more crudely for myself and to make peace with my current situation(s), I’ve been reminding myself that I’m not dead so there is still time for the bigger vision of my life — the dreams I have for myself, and for us — to happen. This was made even more evident to me today when I woke to a text message from a friend letting me know that someone we both knew had passed away during the night. After a long and brutal battle with cancer, she left this earth in her early 40s with two young children left behind. As a woman who turns 40 next year this hit home extra hard for me and offered up a big dose of perspective that can only hit us with its truth when something as real as death takes place in life.

And so, if I have to do some stuff right now that doesn’t fit the grand vision I had for myself six years, three years, or even a year ago… who fucking cares? I’ve adjusted my lens of perspective and I’m doing what’s important, what’s right, and realigning my priorities to the circumstances of my life as it looks like in this very real season that I’m currently in. And I know those things can shift and change as my life shifts and changes — which of course it will — in time and with the changing of my seasons.

I’ve also recently really learned who the people are in my life that truly love me: the ones who have checked in regularly and who I have had countless chats and voice note exchanges with, the ones who are walking similar life paths to me and actually get it, and the ones who have told me they couldn’t give a shit what I do for work or if I’m popular on Instagram — that they love me for who I am… which is literally making me cry as I type those words.

Because, as I (and my darling friend Jody) have said: it’s been really fucking humbling.

And if there’s still more falling away to occur, OK let it happen. Clear my path, Universe. Because I am sure as shit ready to feel safe and settled and at ease and happy in my life, the majority of the time rather than just the minority. And I recognise that this is (yet another) choice I can make to feel it now and feel it always, but… no. Sorry. Fuck that. It’s just not how being a human being works. We oscillate through an ever-evolving spectrum of emotions on a daily basis. And it’s just plain unhealthy (not to mention, inauthentic) to be a saccharine version of high vibe all of the time. And with all of my circumstances considered — and considering that I am only giving you the condensed and high level version of it all here — I can tell you with raw unfiltered honesty that I need to feel safe and settled and at ease and happy in my life in a full and deep and lasting way that I just haven’t truly experienced yet.

I need it and I want it and I desire it.

I think we all do.

So, as the background soundtrack of drills and the saws and the nail guns pierce the peace and tranquility of our home I long to be my haven, I take a really deep fucking breath and remind myself:

How did we get here? By the choices we made.

How do we get out? By the choices we make.

And if we wake to see another day, if there’s breath in our lungs and a heartbeat in our chest, that means we get to choose again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

(…to be continued…)

— Sonia. x

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