New Beginnings

 I know I promised to get back to writing on here, and in truth, I have drafted a few blogs but not yet gotten them published. The past few weeks have been a bit mentally and emotionally hectic. I've been wading through a few things that I haven't been able to share publicly, some of which I'm now able to. 

Yesterday was my last day at the company where I've worked for the past 2.5 years. I'm super grateful for the opportunities I've had there - I have the chance to work in administrative capacities in both Borough management and L&I/Code departments, which is certainly something I hadn't done before, and I learned so much. I also feel incredibly fortunate that I've made it to Oct 2020 with a job - I know there are so many that have been dealing with job loss since the early spring. 

Today is my first day of being unemployed and it feels ... weird. Not bad weird, but weird. Partly, it's a schedule thing. I'd been back in the office since June, so it's not even like I'm transitioning from WFH to ..... not WFH. And even during quarantine when I was working from home, I had set hours (because that's when the Borough was open) so I logged on and off at set times. Now, I have no schedule. And I'm sure I'll get into a rhythm, but for this first day, it feels strange. It's not a holiday or a long weekend. I'm not off for a Dr appointment or anything. I'm just not working. 

It's funny, for years I ran my own company full time and for much of that time, worked from home or coworking facilities.  Even when I had my storefront, I created my own schedule, so the feeling of not having to get up get ready and keep a set schedule shouldn't be all that unfamiliar to me. But for the past seven years or so, not only have I worked in an office, but I've worked in jobs with set shifts. When I worked at a conference center, my was driven by the events being held, and most recently at the Boroughs, it was based on Boroughs operating hours. So it feels unusual to not have to be at a set place at a specific time. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE having autonomy over my schedule, which is one of the things I enjoyed so much about working for myself (and one of the many reasons I'm a huge advocate for companies offering flexible working arrangements where feasible). I'm just not used to it these days. 

In addition, being at home (technically I'm actually writing this from my parents' house) on my personal computer, which hasn't gotten much use since I went back to the 9-5 type job, brings me back to the days of running my travel business, of working for myself. And there's an ache, both a nostalgia but also a longing, to make this a reality again. At the same time, the timing probably is not quite right, considering that we've been looking to buy a house (we're in a one bedroom condo right now), along with other factors. Plus, there's the fact that my primary industries in terms of doing my own thing are Travel and Wellness/Yoga/Health, and both of those industries are suffering big time right now. I'm not going to book anyone on international trips during a global pandemic (I wouldn't for ethical reasons, even if countries were letting us in). I'm not in a place where I personally feel comfortable (i.e. safe) teaching yoga and wellness class live, especially without masks, and I certainly won't be planning any in person programs or retreats any time soon. My zoom classes are going well, but I'm not at the point where I feel they'd be enough full time, in and of themselves (financially speaking). I'm feeling this pull of freedom, of autonomy, of entrepreneurship which I love so much, or my path, but I don't know that I'm in a place to follow it just yet, and not quite knowing where my next step will be. In addition, since my major industries are not thriving right now, knowing where to look for a job that might fit, or what type of job I would want to find, is tricky. 

Still, I'm looking at this as a new beginning. It's a little tough because it wasn't a planned new beginning, and it's not a certain new beginning - i.e. it's not like when I left my job in Fitness to start my own travel company, where everything was a bit uncertain (and in hindsight I had little idea of what I was doing other than the actual planning of travel), but it was exhilarating, hopeful, and I had a firm direction that I was moving towards. With this, that's not the case. Still, I'm trying to stay open. I'm trying to approach this new place I'm in with curiosity and excitement at possibility. I think that it will work out. I simply don't know how it will work out, or if the next step is going to feel like it's the right path or the necessary one for the current situation, that I can later look back and realize had to be part of the journey all along.  I'm sitting with a lot of feelings. I'm allowing them all. I'm laughing. I'm tearing up. I'm anxious. I'm smiling. I'm reveling in the ability to control my day and my time, and dealing with anxiety over uncertainty. I'm feeling them all, while trying not to hold too tightly to any of them. It's a practice of yoga in everyday life. 

Stepping Out of the Box I've Been Putting Myself In

 Yesterday morning, as I was going through my morning routine - meditation, affirmations, gratitude, journaling, to name part of it - I got to thinking about some areas in my life in which I feel stuck, or don't feel like things are quite lining up. Like I'm missing a piece of the puzzle. And it occurred to me that one of the reasons I feel so constrained is that I've been more or less trying to pigeon hole myself, unintentionally of course. 

I've never been a person that easily fit any type of description - and I get that really, nobody fits neatly in to one particular category. But for me, it's been particularly apparent. Growing up, I didn't fit in with the cool kids, but I wasn't especially uncool (I don't think - maybe I was, who knows). I was an athlete, being a gymnast, but I definitely wasn't part of the "sporty" crowd. I worked hard at school, was focused on education and was in the honors and AP classes, but I wasn't part of the geeky or nerdy kids (again, I don't think?). I wasn't popular but I wasn't particular unpopular. I was a little bit of everything, but not quite enough of any one thing. Really the only group I fit in with was my gymnastics team, and even then, only my specific team, because while we were all pretty talented, we weren't hard core - we practiced a ton and worked hard, but we also took off every time it was someone's birthday to do a group trip to Great Adventure or down the shore or some other shenanigans, and our coach understood this. So all of the weigh-ins and cut throat nature and sacrificing life for gymnastics that you hear about (which honestly appalls me), that wasn't us, and it wasn't me. 

I think that to make up for never fitting in, even to the group of people who didn't fit in, I've always tried to find "my thing, my specific place." As a business(es) owner, I add to that the advice of basically everyone in business everywhere that it's all about super niche, finding your specific hook, honing in on that one thing that makes you stand out. It's easy to get sucked into the idea that if we can't streamline everything into one specific title/description/eleven second elevator pitch, we won't succeed. And, as someone with a Master's in Marketing, I get it. People who hire a professional rarely want a "jack of all trades and master of none". They want someone that's specifically trained at what they're looking for. At the same time, I think that trying to force oneself into on label/group/tagline, either in business or life, can be detrimental. 

One of the reasons I love being an entrepreneur is that I don't like being confined by a job title or position description or company red tape or anything of the like that. And I know I'm a person that has a lot of interests, experiences (life, career, educational), and passions. I'm a person who always likes to be learning, exploring, adventuring, finding something new and different. I know I'm a person whose skills involve deeply connecting with others (even as introvert with social anxiety), understanding and empathizing with others, helping others to connect with themselves. And these aren't attributes that can be neatly fit into one particular job title or position. I know I love the travel planning business. I have found deep meaning in yoga and mindfulness, and bringing this to others. I am a writer who recently published my first novel. I am passionate about mental health advocacy and suicide prevention. Yet I've been trying to pare this all down into the equivalent of a one-line "What am I? What do I do?" In my mind, it looks like one of those fan interaction games that you see on the big screen at a baseball game, where the different colored cars are racing along the track, each one pulling ahead for a time and then falling back, and everyone trying to guess which is going to win out. But human journeys aren't a car race graphics for fan entertainment. It's not "this wins, and everything else fades away". And yet that's the tactic I've been trying to apply to myself as of late. And it's why I'm feeling so stuck, so "not quite right". Because that isn't quite right, at least not for me. 

I love travel planning, I have long time clients that I love working with, and helping others to experience travel makes me come alive.  But it hasn't been my full time, storefront business for some time now (and right now it's my no-time business because I'm not booking anything due to COVID). Yoga and integrated wellness (mind, body, spirit) touches me on a deep level, and I am loving exploring where this path is taking me. But I haven't allowed myself to focus on the exploration part, because I've been so focused on trying to quantify it into something that fits nicely into the typical business school business plan. Mental health advocacy and the Spread Hope Project are deeply a part of who I am, but it's unlikely that they'll be a career path in and of their own (thought they do combine nicely with other things I do). And writing, well, I have no goals of being a NY Times Best Selling Author. I write because I love to write and, if it's on my blogs, to share with those who might get something from it. I don't have to choose one thing and eat, sleep, live, breathe it, giving up all else. Quite frankly, that's not me. Confining myself to one set path and staying within the predetermined lines/groups/classifications has never been my thing. And who knows, maybe THAT is my thing. Maybe I'll find some parallel paths, maybe I'll watch interests and passions and skills merge to create something I hadn't imagined, something I couldn't imagine when I was trying so desperately to quantify it and "figure it out right now". 

So for the next little while, I don't know how long, I'm going to allow myself the opportunity to explore. Instead of trying  figure out not only "which car is going to win the race" but exactly which path it will take and what exact time it will finish at and every single twist and turn of the race, I'm going to allow myself to be open. I'm also going to start listening to myself, my inner knowing, my intuition more. It's always been extremely strong for me, but I tend to discredit or discount myself. (Note: this NOT a "I'm not listening to facts/stats/science" statement AT ALL). It might be that I come back to an idea or path or plan that I'd previously had. It might be that I discover a different way to move forward. What I do know is that whatever I do, it will be true to me, and I think that this, more than any marketing strategy or business plan or impressive elevator pitch, is actually what I've been missing. 

Losing a Sense of Self

 It's been MONTHS since I wrote.This is actually my first post in 2020 here. I've been writing over at my other website, maya-augelli.com (you should go check it out, there's yoga stuff and more :-).  2020 has been weird and honestly, I felt there were more important messages that needed to be heard than my personal feelings about life with my mood disorder. Not only that, but I'm going to be totally honest here - I felt better under the quarantine/stay at home orders than I have in YEARS! To be clear, I don't like the reason for it. I would never wish a global pandemic, people losing their life and falling seriously ill, people losing jobs and home. But for me, personally, I felt exceptionally well. I realize how incredibly privileged I am to say that, to be perfectly clear. This is in no way a "make the best of this" type of post, because I cannot speak from the point of view of those that went through so much this year (illness, caring for ill loved one, homeschooling, job loss, being an essential worker through this all, being in the hardest hit populations to name a few). I'm also an introvert who loves working from home and got to do so for three months this spring, so I have that advantage. Those months that I was home I felt more like me than I have in ages.  So, I didn't really feel that during those months, blogging about how great I was doing when so many were struggling in so many ways, was really the best or most helpful thing to do. 

The last few months, though, have been tricky. I don't mean COVID related, though I do have extreme anxiety watching the complete disregard people have for science and their fellow humans. I've been feeling super not myself lately. By not myself, I don't mean it the way people say "I'm not sick, I just don't really feel myself". I mean that there are times it's tough to recognize myself. And honestly, when I think about it, minus the months I felt exceptionally better during quarantine, this has been building for years. I think about the woman who, at 19, spent a semester studying in Australia, traveling all over Australia and New Zealand on my own, taking 24 hour bus rides by myself, meeting new people, making new friends. I went sky diving and bungee jumping (twice on the latter). Now, I struggle to meet people's eyes to say hello. I am afraid to try a new recipe because "of course I'll mess it up!". And equally as bad, I care that I mess it up. Not like 'that's a bummer" but in a way that I make it mean something about my worth as a human. I feel frozen in making decisions, to take any chances, even the tiniest chances. I think back to the woman who graduated college a semester early, went home and immediate interviewed for and got offered two jobs in my field. The woman who, at 25 years old, was my company's head of National Employee Health and Fitness Day programs for all of the GSK sites in the US (I worked for a Fitness company that contracted there to run their health and fitness center). I think about the woman who started Chimera Travel at 26 years old, got a storefront, made it my own, jumped into running my own business. I did this shortly after graduating with my Master's Degree and simultaneously taking a 2 year correspondence course in travel while working full time. I think about the woman who sat on the board of PAMPI (now MPI PHL) for six years, working my way up to a VP position - and I think about how at my last board retreat our facilitator, who I'd never met, came up to me and said "I hear that everything you touch turns to gold." How I jumped as the President of my ASTA chapter, and immediately was nominated as the Secretary of the National President's Council (literally, at my first meeting as a president). I jumped into every one of these things whole-heartedly, with everything I had, convinced I was going to make an impact. Now, I struggle to decide which produce to pick out at the grocery store because I second guess myself about the simplest things. Now, the fear of failure makes inertia so strong that I'll sit on the couch thinking "I know I should something" (work on my business, get outside, clean the house, a mini adventure, whatever), but it's like my brain enters a cavernous space where I can't even think of what that something is let alone do it. Now, instead of boldly stating "I've decided I'd like to do this" or "I'm going to go for that", I ask permission of 10 different people 10 different ways with phrases like "Well, I mean, I was thinking, maybe if it's OK and not too much trouble, but if not, that's really OK I understand. Do you think that's a good idea?" 

I don't love this version of myself. That's an understatement, to be honest. I hate not recognizing myself. I can see the person I was, in my head. I could even write her in a story most likely. But I can't make that person come to life in actual life. I miss the fun, smiling, woman who wasn't afraid to take chances. I miss the woman who knew what she wanted, and that that she was going to succeed, or who at least had the confidence that she would. I miss the woman who believed in herself, who others believed in so strongly. I miss the woman who could be her quirky, weird, unique but hopefully lovable self, and didn't later spend hours over-analyzing everything I did, anxious that everyone thought badly of me (badly isn't actually the word I'm looking for but I can't think of a better one).  

I also don't love the anger that comes along with this loss of self. It's not always there, not pervasive. But I've noticed it lurking lately. I'm probably going to write another post about anger, because most people dislike addressing it, but I think it's extremely important. Anger masks so many other emotions and feelings, and without digging into it, we just perpetuate the anger, which eventually turns into bitterness and resentment - a place nobody wants to be. For a while, I wasn't sure what I was angry at. And don't get me wrong, there are things "out there" (in the world) that I'm angry about. But recently, I've realized that I'm dealing with a lot of anger and frustration at myself. I'm angry at myself. To be clear, I'm not angry at myself for my illness - it was certainly not something I chose, and I feel I'm trying my hardest to navigate it. I don't entirely know what I'm angry at myself for. But when I break it down, because I know anger in and of itself never last long, it's always masking, I find so much else. Frustration with myself for feeling stuck, for the apathy, for not taking steps I want to. Frustration and a bit of hopelessness at not being able to feel my own worth, at my lack of self esteem and confidence. Even though I know they're the result of a lot, including my illness, I'm frustrated. A feeling of hopelessness that I'll stay stuck in this cycle of perpetually not feeling enough and therefore not going for things or being myself and that leading me to feeling bad about myself. I'm discovering A TON of shame and blame and guilt over decisions of the past, especially regarding my business and storefront and monetary choices. I discover fear and anxiety deeper than I even realized and hurt. I'm finding so much I thought that I processed but never did fully. I know that I need to do that work. As much as I dislike feeling angry, I think it's actually a spark. I think often of the saying (paraphrasing) "Don't worry when I fight with you, it means I still care. Worry when I stop, it means there's nothing left to fight for." It's meant to be about fighting with others, but in my case, I take it about my anger with, or my fight with, myself. If I stopped caring that I wasn't myself, that's when I'd be even more concerned. As long as it bothers me, as long as I'm still willing to fight to get myself back, it means there's hope. So I'm trying to not be angry at myself for feeling angry (we have such negative emotions and stigma around anger, so this is tough), and instead using it as a sign that I need to continue to fight, to work extra hard to figure this out. I think I'm ready to do the work. I think I have to be ready. I need to keep up this fight while it's in me, to keep myself out of the hopelessness and despair that is always a threat living with depression. 

It feels good to write this all out though. I think that's an important step - acknowledging where I am. It also feels really good to be back on this blog. I didn't realize how good until I started writing. This is one of the few places I feel I can nearly fully be myself. I don't have to worry about branding or hashtags or themes or business mission or anything else (and I get that, that's what business is). I can just share how I'm feeling and what I'm experiencing. That's what a personal blog about my life with my illnesses (and my life in general) is about. Thanks for reading my hodgepodge of thoughts. I'm hoping to update this blog more often. I hope you're all doing as well as can be with all that's going on in the world right now.