I feel I need something to anchor myself to, something that
will remain a constant while I am going through this process. I am hoping this blog will become that anchor because writing has kept me sane through many other
challenging periods in my life and it is something I can do regardless of how I
am feeling in the moment that I start to write. This is what I am struggling with
most at the moment – feeling I can’t hold a thought or make any solid decisions.
My mind is floaty and confused, I have become absent minded, forgetful and at
times totally incapable of dealing with any external stress. My feelings are extreme
and seem to change every five minutes so it has become impossible to centre
myself internally or ground into any sort of reality.
I have been feeling increasingly like this for a couple of
months now and have been finding it incredibly frustrating and anxiety
producing. Even as I write I am not completely sure this fog is part of my menopause
– I have been racking my brains try to figure out ‘what is wrong with me’ while hoping
that it would soon pass so that I could ‘get back to normal’.
But somehow it feels as though my life is slipping through my fingers and
there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. They say ‘if you can’t beat them join them’, so I have turned on some lovely floaty music with water and bird sounds in the background as I write my way along a gentle river. In this moment I have decided to go with the flow of my current experience and see where my thoughts and feelings lead me...
The only problem is, I know that surrendering to this floaty reality requires me to disengage with life ‘out there’, to relinquish all structure, routine and focus and this leaves me feeling very anxious, especially because I recently started working for myself. In January, after my 6 month employment contract came to an end, I planned the new business and started to get the ball rolling. By February I already had some paid freelance work - everything seemed to be unfolding perfectly and moving in the right direction. My partner was still abroad dealing with some family matters and I knew that after 7 months apart, it was going to be a big adjustment for us both when he got home. But what I was not banking on was this sudden and extremely unexpected twist in my menopausal process coinciding with everything else that is going on; the return of my partner, us BOTH setting up new businesses (he left his job to go and care for his dying mother last summer) and us planning our wedding.
But somehow it feels as though my life is slipping through my fingers and
there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. They say ‘if you can’t beat them join them’, so I have turned on some lovely floaty music with water and bird sounds in the background as I write my way along a gentle river. In this moment I have decided to go with the flow of my current experience and see where my thoughts and feelings lead me...The only problem is, I know that surrendering to this floaty reality requires me to disengage with life ‘out there’, to relinquish all structure, routine and focus and this leaves me feeling very anxious, especially because I recently started working for myself. In January, after my 6 month employment contract came to an end, I planned the new business and started to get the ball rolling. By February I already had some paid freelance work - everything seemed to be unfolding perfectly and moving in the right direction. My partner was still abroad dealing with some family matters and I knew that after 7 months apart, it was going to be a big adjustment for us both when he got home. But what I was not banking on was this sudden and extremely unexpected twist in my menopausal process coinciding with everything else that is going on; the return of my partner, us BOTH setting up new businesses (he left his job to go and care for his dying mother last summer) and us planning our wedding.
At first I thought it was the adjustment process on my partner's return that was making me feel so strange, and I am sure that has played a big part
in it, but somewhere along the line I feel I have lost my way and I can’t seem to find the way back. All the things I normally do to centre / ground myself seemed to have
stopped working. I have tried to get into some routine but it feels impossible
because the inner motivation, focus and determination just aren’t there for me
to draw upon. At first I thought it was to do with suddenly being around my
partner 24/7 but now he is getting his life together, I am just left sitting
there feeling confused and incapable of making or keeping any decisions. How
the hell am I supposed to run my own business feeling like this?
The option of getting another job is even less
appealing. I feel overwhelmed, confused, anxious, absent minded and at times, extremely
anti-social – hardly a good position to apply for or start a new job. The
self-employment was supposed to involve working from home with minimal client contact
but the work I have got so far involves going to my client’s
offices. If I was already in a well-established job that I could just get on
with I might feel a little less anxious, but the truth is, my life has never
been like that and my usual ‘go getter’ resilience is no longer there carrying
me through all the changes and uncertainty of my working life.
So, how do I navigate this conflict between what I need to
be doing to ‘earn a living’ and what I feel capable of doing in this woozy-changeable-anxious
menopausal state? Right now I mostly don’t feel capable of doing anything, and at times I feel like a
mental patient on day release walking around in a daze. In some ways it feels
like a blessing that so far I only have committed to 1 – 2 day’s work a week, but then
I feel I should be working on drumming
up more business on the other days. The guilt, anxiety and frustration soon kick
in on my ‘days off’ but without some external commitment keeping me on track,
and with lots of things currently distracting me, I just don’t ever seem to be
able to get it together.
In addition to this extremely uncharacteristic
procrastination, I have also started to feel overwhelmed by one of the
freelance jobs which is much more pressured and stressful than I feel
comfortable with, even under normal circumstances. Now, with my resistance to stress currently set at ZERO, especially during my recent 'phantom period', I find myself continually contemplating jacking
it in.
Right now it feels impossible to find the balance between taking
responsibility for meeting my financial and personal well-being needs - it seems
I am being forced to choose one over the other. If I decide to focus on work,
to try and ‘push through’ this mental fog, I know that I am going to get
stressed and emotionally overwhelmed and will almost certainly have to give up at
some point anyway. (And this will then make me feel like a failure as well as
guilty for letting my client/s down.) If I decide to surrender to this process and
only do what I feel capable of doing – which right now is to only deal with
very low stress conditions – then I fear I will end up running out of money and
/ or looking ‘unprofessional’ by turning work down.
It seems to me that there is little room for emotional processes in the world of work and that we are also continually expected to be able to deal with high stress so that we can put food on the table and roofs over our heads. As a highly sensitive person, I have always struggled with this apparent ‘fact of life’ but now my sensitivity has become massively amplified through the menopause, I fear it has rendered me completely unemployable. What I really want is a way to make decent money that does not require me to abandon myself or to have to take medication to become able to tolerate unnecessary stress. I want to be able to work in a way that does not prevent me from taking care of my emotional, spiritual and physical well-being. I want to live my life in a state of balance that enables me to contribute to society without having to relinquish, bury or sacrifice my personal needs...
As a menopausal woman, it seems this deep inner desire has become something I can no longer over-ride or ignore.
It seems to me that there is little room for emotional processes in the world of work and that we are also continually expected to be able to deal with high stress so that we can put food on the table and roofs over our heads. As a highly sensitive person, I have always struggled with this apparent ‘fact of life’ but now my sensitivity has become massively amplified through the menopause, I fear it has rendered me completely unemployable. What I really want is a way to make decent money that does not require me to abandon myself or to have to take medication to become able to tolerate unnecessary stress. I want to be able to work in a way that does not prevent me from taking care of my emotional, spiritual and physical well-being. I want to live my life in a state of balance that enables me to contribute to society without having to relinquish, bury or sacrifice my personal needs...
As a menopausal woman, it seems this deep inner desire has become something I can no longer over-ride or ignore.
Blessings ♥
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