It’s 5:15a. Hawaii time. I’ve been awake and out of bed since 4:00. And if you know me, you know that ain’t right! I am NOT a morning person, by any stretch. But this morning, I opened my eyes, saw that it was still dark, and looked at my phone for the time. You know the ritual, is it worth it to roll over and try to sleep a bit more or is it the “might as well get up” hour. Well, 3:55 is absolutely the “go back to sleep” time. It’s the middle of the damn night, for me. So as I tried to go back to sleep, the brain engaged and the swirling thoughts began. So, I got up. No point trying.

Writing is not a choice most of the time. It’s a demand that my head and my heart require me to satisfy. Sure, I may be able to defer but I will always return to the compulsion. It’s days like this when writing just has to happen. It’s difficult to describe this “download” state of mind. It’s trance-like, really. I’m never sure where my fingers will take me. I never put a title to my writing when I begin. It’s the reverse. I put on music, get a cup of tea, start typing and stop judging. (mas o menos).

Who knew when I uprooted my entire life and moved to Hawaii that this chapter of my life would be so much about learning? (Honestly, probably everyone BUT me.) Putting those words on paper, it seems silly to even say that. How could it NOT be? When you’ve lived in basically the same zip code your entire life, surrounded by friends and family and you move across the ocean by yourself, how could anything possibly be the same? I guess that’s one aspect of this adventure that was never on my radar. I knew I’d come to this new land and explore Hawaii, get some sun and sea, but it never occurred to me that what would really happen was a journey of self discovery and exploration. I figured it would be yet another experience of no matter where you go, there you are. And, while that’s certainly been true, the status quo is no longer tolerable in terms of self limiting beliefs and residual trauma impacting the variety of choices available to me in my life. 

The stats of my time in Hawaii are not at all what I planned when I bought a one way ticket and got on a plane that rainy, February 1, 2021. I thought I was coming for a job, would stay for a few years, love being in Hawaii, and return to the familiarity of PDX. Well, for those that know, that is not at ALL how it went down. I got to the job and three months in was told everything would change and the ultimate result of that conversation was my health being impacted very negatively, going out on disability, and ultimately leaving that job. I had three good months then the universe said “plot twist!” Since I got off the plane in Kona in 2021, I’ve had 5 jobs and two islands, sorta. I had the one job then that place was bought out so I worked for a different organization at the same site. Then, I got another job on Maui only to have the offer withdrawn three days before I was to begin. After that, I got a job because I needed a job knowing it wasn’t a good fit and would be temporary. Well, temporary turned into four very long, toxic months. And now, I have my fifth job. This is gonna look awesome on a resume, don’t you think? Ugh. “So tell us, Susanne – why are you a job hopper?” Somehow “because they were all crazy” doesn’t seem like a winning response. Lol But, it is what it is. There have been lots of times when I’ve looked at my history and resume with disgust and disappointment because I’ve moved so many times (within the same five mile radius) and changed jobs a bunch but isn’t perspective an interesting thing? I look at that and think failure, loser, inconsistent, unsuccessful etc. But someone outside of my skin said “I don’t see it that way at ALL. Look how resilient you are. Look at how many times you’ve been hired. Look at how many times you’ve picked up, started over and gotten shit done.” We all are poisoned or nourished by our own filter and my filter needs cleansing – which is why I’m doing the work. I’m so done with my default state being that of unworthiness, less than, not deserving, and wanting to be invisible. Sure, I handle my business and I don’t expose the messiness inside to many people but it’s still there and it’s time to unearth these deeply held beliefs and do things differently.

So now I have two, count em TWO, therapists. I see each of them once a week. One is a gentleman that I’ve been seeing for over a year, Bob. His modality is core belief restructuring and stimulus/belief/response. It’s scary, difficult, and much of the first few months, I didn’t like at all. But at the same time, it’s empowering and life changing so I persevere. The other is a woman I’ve been seeing for about a month, D. She specializes in EMDR and trauma recovery. I’ve done EMDR before and it changed everything. This too is next level hard – super scary – but as I said, I’ve reached the tipping point that my inability to tolerate my self limiting beliefs has eclipsed my fear of facing these experiences that shaped my beliefs and ultimately my life choices.

So there’s good news and bad news with this work. The bad news is – I am the master of my own misery. One of the questions Bob always asks is “why are you creating *fill in the blank emotion.*” That seemed like such a ridiculous question in the beginning, especially when my emotions are big. “I’M NOT CREATING SADNESS, BOB!!! I’M BATHED IN IT!! I’M OVERCOME BY IT, BOB!!!!” As though I would choose to be miserable? Come on. When I had a man that I was deeply in love with move away and leave my life, I was damn near in the fetal position with endless crying. Bob asked me why I was creating sadness as though I had a choice in the matter. He invited me to reframe the experience by suggesting I *could* look at the experience with joy and gratitude that I got to have that experience for the time that I did. I could look back and smile. Well THAT seemed like an absolutely looney tunes concept. That wasn’t possible. My emotions control me. I have no control over them. Turns out, I was wrong about that. I GET it now. A thing happens, we refer to our database of previous experiences or our filter, and decide that when X happens, we feel Y. But at any point, we can disrupt that equation and say nope, not this time. I’m choosing to experience this differently. Taking the example of the lost love, I was stuck in but, but but….I WANT him, I want the future I had envisioned. To which Bob said you can want, and you can choose sadness about that, if you want. Or, you could look at it like you’d prefer to have him and the future I’d wanted but I’m Ok either way. That one word – prefer – is very powerful for me in terms of allowing me to let go. I would rather have this man in my life but since that’s not going to happen, can I be Ok? Do I have to be sad? Nope, I sure don’t. I can be Ok, and I am. 

And therein lies to good news. I am still the master of my own misery but I am also the architect of my own authenticity and that’s really the goal here. I wanted to use a word like joy or happiness or something but that’s not it. I read something the other day – a quote about finding ourselves. It’s not that. I’ve always been here. But having the life I’ve had, I’ve abandoned myself time and time again, for decades. I didn’t understand the difference between belonging and fitting in. Belonging is about BEING yourself and fitting in is about changing yourself which is a losing game, always. It’s this idea that this group or relationship or job or whatever is somehow better than me and if I could only be more like them, then I’d be Ok. But here’s the deal. That’s not how it works. “They” never really accept you as one of their own because it’s disingenuous and everyone knows it and you abandon who you are because you think you’re not enough just as you are. I’ve come to realize that if I don’t fit, I’ve dodged a bullet. I didn’t belong there anyway – in both definitions of that word. I saw a meme recently that talked about the difference in the cost of a bottle of water. It’s $1.00 at the store, $3.00 at the gym, and $5.00 on an airplane because it’s never about the worth of the contents of the bottle. It’s about the location of the bottle. So if you’re questioning your worth, change your location. And the other thing I thought was – how much are you willing to PAY to be the water in the store or gym or airplane? Because there’s a huge price to pay for fitting in. So for me, this isn’t about finding myself, it’s about returning to myself. Here’s a visual that I’ve been carrying lately. Maybe it’s because I live near the ocean, who knows. But it’s like in Pirates of the Caribbean when they turn into fish people. The longer they are in Davy Jones’ locker, the more barnacles attach themselves to the pirates. For me, I feel like throughout my life, I’ve acquired lots of barnacles and little but little, I’m prying those suckers off so I can be seen, all of me. They serve a purpose in that they do become a bit of armor, but they are blood suckers too. And, I’m convinced they feed on joy. So this period of my life is about discarding the attachments that no longer serve me and tossing them back into the ocean where they belong.

One final thought, I think, then I gotta get ready for work. In my EMDR work, one of the first things we did was figure out resources that we could draw from when things get hard. I won’t explain the whole concept of container building but essentially it’s a place to put hard things – to compartmentalize – so you can return to a regulated nervous system between sessions. So when D asked me to imagine a container, even in that I did it differently than most. Oftentimes a container concept is just that – some sort of box. For me, it was the ocean. D thought it was interesting and was a bit unsure how that would work but when I further explained, it made perfect sense. For me, the salt water is always healing. And, the ocean is vast. Any problem or feeling or experience that I toss in there is like a tiny grain of sand. It just disappears. It’s symbolic for how small my issues are in the grand scheme of things and not in a judgemental way because I’m comfortable with that concept too – like – stop your crying or I’ll give you something to cry about. Like, my feelings aren’t welcome here. That’s the old pattern. The script is being rewritten. Another thing that came up in our last session as we begin to tap into very old and scary trauma is my resistance even though it’s my desire to tackle this. And it’s my resistance to fully cry. Sure, tears leak from my eyes but I told her I feel like there’s this enormous reservoir of tears and I cannot release the dam. It’s too big. I’ll never stop crying. But then I thought about the ocean again. I’ve always said that salt water cures everything for me – sweat, tears, and sea. In the interest of returning to myself, I can return my tears to the mother of all salt water, the beautiful ocean. And I can chuck these bullshit, freeloading barnacles in there too, while I’m at it. In fact, that might be a really good thing to literally do – go to the ocean, throw rocks back into the ocean, and cry. Might do a body good.