I want to write. I want to expel all of the anxiety and negative self-talk and worries and fears and stress onto the page and be done with it. Or make something of it. Something cathartic. Something lucrative? I don’t know. I want to stop procrastinating and stop comparing and stop the entitled attitude that wraps around my thoughts and monopolizes space in my brain without leaving room for any actual action. I want to stop playing the victim. I want to stop letting people walk all over me. I want to stop feeling so insecure that I don’t stand up for myself or what’s right when I know I’ve been wronged. I want to START rocking the boat.

Part 2 – It’s minutes later and my mind has gone blank. This is what I fear, or maybe fear is too strong a word, but what I pessimistically suspect will happen when I get the urge to write. I keep telling myself to just write what I’m thinking. Get it out on the page. Who cares what it is? Who cares if it’s not any good? You are doing this for YOU! Stop assuming that you’ll write some words down and they’ll go viral and all of your troubles will melt away. That’s not how any of this works. I need to heal me and figure me out and that needs to be the ultimate reward. Not some easy, lottery-like fluke. I live in a prison of constant disappointment and longing and it’s a prison of my own making. I have potential. So much potential. So many ideas. So much to offer. But no follow through. So little drive. So little determination. So little hustle. So little grit. Too many excuses. But, I’m doing it again. The negative self talk. No success story, big or small, starts with telling yourself you CAN’T do it. Sure, many start with a lack of external validation, but it’s impossible to succeed at anything without a shred of internal. I’m so tired of feeling stuck. I’m so tired of feeling scared.

I listened to a podcast today on manifestation. I always likened manifestation to the ridiculous craze around “The Secret,” in the mid-2000’s. If you believe hard enough that good things will happen to you, they will. If you believe bad things will happen, they will. According to my last therapist, the popularity of this book and subsequent belief system sparked an epidemic of people terrified of their own thoughts. So, needless to say, I wasn’t buying it. I mean, I am already afraid of my own thoughts anyway, so I guess I just skipped to the end.

Anyway, what I listened to today essentially simplified manifestation to be a combination of quieting and maybe even ceasing the negative self-talk (of which I am an expert) and slowly forming alternate habits. Essentially, you need your subconscious to believe that you can achieve things which cannot happen while in a constant cycle of self-deprecation. You also cannot go from zero to one hundred, as so many of us attempt in vain. I will lose 15 pounds the week before my vacation. I will only eat natural unprocessed foods from now until forever, despite an affinity for potato chips and fast food. I will convince my 39 year old brain, with deeply ingrained grooves of self-doubt that I actually can achieve anything and then I will go achieve it, by next month, preferably. None of that works, because it’s overwhelming and unattainable and ends up perpetuating the same narrative that you are indeed a failure who can’t achieve what you set your mind to. Instead, the theory is that, as with anything, small steps are key. Practice saying one kind thing to yourself each day. Spend 5 minutes writing reasons for gratitude. Remind yourself that the negative self-talk isn’t actually the truth. I’m not entirely convinced that I have found the magic ticket to a content and peaceful life, but I feel less cynical and more optimistic, which is a marked improvement.

Opportunity is knocking. I quit my job. My gut told me it wasn’t right. Wasn’t serving my family, my mental health, my time, even my bank account, with the cost of childcare and gas. When opportunity shows up knocking at the door of my psyche, the metaphorical devil and angel, for lack of a better analogy, are always in tow.

My angel, is ever the optimist. Filled with endless ideas, confidence and assuredness. She tries, in vain, to remind me that with a little discipline and determination, this opportunity could be wonderful. I am smart. I am capable. I can finally, finally set some of my countless plans in motion and make everyone proud. No, make myself proud, the rarest of feats.

The devil is convincing, though, and always the loudest one in the room. What have I done to my life? How could I leave a stable job with a pension? No matter how toxic. No matter how underpaid. No matter the fact that I was turning into a shell of myself; a trembling, angst filled nerve ending; a monstrous parent vacillating between screaming at my toddler to get his shoes on so I wouldn’t be late and doom scrolling my phone each evening in lieu of reading to my children. No, none of that matters because I should have just stayed. A stronger person could have stayed and read the stories. Could have gotten up earlier and stayed up later to get it all done. Could have managed the weekends better, maximizing the quality to make up for the quantity. I’m weak, she says. Weak and lazy and stupid and entitled. I know my angel has some valid points, but damn, that devil is loud, and fending her off is exhausting. So exhausting and time consuming that I don’t have time or energy for much else. When will the children’s books even get written? How am I to start my marketing business when I don’t even know where to start? And it’s so hard? And I’m so stupid?

I guess the first thing I need to do is silence the devil. No. That’s not right either. She’ll only yell louder and I’ll only grow more tired. I need to let her finish yelling at me. Patiently wait for her to finish her thoughts. Thank her for her input. Let her know that I appreciate her tough love, but maybe I’ll try the other thing this time. I know it will be hard, but it can’t be as hard as the self-loathing. It might not always be pleasant, but it might not always be unpleasant, and we’ve all been living in that place long enough. Maybe when the devil has said all she needs to say, when all the bullying is out of her system, when she realizes that she’s not getting the reaction she has come to expect, she’ll be the one who grows tired. Maybe then, the angel’s voice will grow louder and clearer and stronger. She’ll tell me I can do it and I’ll actually be able to hear her this time. She’ll remind me of all the ideas I have. Good ideas, original and clever and filled with potential and promise. They’re real. I’m real. The me who has a fire inside and wants to make something for myself, by myself and can truly succeed with a just little bit of discipline and determination, is real. Opportunity has knocked before and I have worked so desperately to drown out the devil that I’ve silenced the angel as well. I’m answering the door this time and letting them both in. Only one may be welcome, but they come as a pair and it seems I can’t have one without the other. So, enter and say your piece. I’ll listen. I’ll acknowledge. I’ll appreciate your input for what it is. Then, I’ll move forward.

My mom used to say, “we won the lottery when we were born here.” We live in Canada, in Vancouver, specifically, but she was from just outside of Toronto. What she meant by this phrase was, we are no more deserving of a safe, secure existence than anyone else who is born into this world. We have the unfathomable privilege of going to bed each night without a thought about whether or not our house will still be standing in the morning. We send our children to school believing wholeheartedly that they will be waiting for us when we pick them up. This privilege is so all encompassing that we tend to take it for granted, to take it as a given right, until a world event occurs in some faraway land that thrusts the alternative squarely in our faces. What makes us more deserving of safety and security than a baby born in Syria, or Iran, or Ethiopia, or Ukraine, or Palestine, or Israel? The answer is nothing. We didn’t earn this. We are the lucky ones. The lottery winners. The one in a million.