Friends, do you find it hard to quit things?
Even when you must? I do. I can help.
Dear Friends,
Sometimes we have to quit things to survive and to thrive. But quitting things can feel like losing parts of ourselves.
It isn’t. Letting go can lead to freedom, and joy. Let me explain.
Last November, my mental health was as bad as it could possibly be. I was on the very edge of a very dire cliff.
I was as hypomanic as I can get, and my regular medication just couldn’t cut through it. I couldn’t think, work, sleep, parent. I couldn’t do any of the things that mattered most. I couldn’t be there for the people who matter most to me.
I was losing myself.
My therapist insisted that I make some serious changes to my life. I had too much on my plate. Everything, everything, that wasn’t essential to my life had to go.
My therapist had me make a list of all the things in my life that were not essential. All of them. And then she told me to start quitting.
So I made my list, and I knocked a few things off. I quit the easy things. But when I say easy, what I mean is this: “I don’t feel like I’m going to die if I don’t do this thing. I’ll only spin into an anxiety spiral for six months.”
I quit lots of things.
But despite all of this quitting, it wasn’t enough. I wasn’t getting better. I knew what was coming next, and I was afraid.
I had to quit the hard things. The impossible things.
Despite my terror (not an understatement), I started quitting the impossible things, one by one. Each one caused so much turmoil it felt like my life flipped upside down.
Letting each on go one felt like losing a part of myself.
But here’s what I learned during the process: letting go, in the end, was actually the opposite of losing myself. With each thing I let go, I found a part of myself. Until, once I was done, underneath everything I let go, there I was.
Looking back now, I see that all of these impossible choices came down to survival, at first. And now, as I write this, I hope that they can lead to thriving: for me. For my kids and my husband whom I can be present for. For my friends and colleagues whom I can support more fully in their own endeavors.
When we are strung out, on fire, in a pit, pick your metaphor, we are no good for ourselves or anyone else.
Here’s my advice.
Don’t wait.
If you are the person who wakes up and starts running, you have to take care of yourself, not only for yourself, but for those who depend on you, whoever those people are. You have to scale back.
Start by making the list of all that you do, the list my therapist made me write.
Then, strike the easy things off the list. Just politely decline to participate, even in things you already agreed to. Book clubs. Wine clubs. Clubs, period. (LOL) My friend Camille says, “Saying no is hard. Saying no after you’ve already said yes is REALLY hard.” But you have to do it. Back out of things, politely.
Then things get harder. Because you have to quit the impossible things. You will cry. You will grieve. You will do it anyway.
Because the choice is between quitting those impossible things and survival—perhaps not literally, like it was for me. But the stakes are still high: between the the survival of your marriage/partnership, or your relationships with your parents or children, or your relationship with yourself.
When you are done quitting the impossible things, you will find yourself underneath everything you let go. You will be able to breathe again. Thrive again.
I wish you the very best.
Katie