Feeling a little lost? Three steps to find your way back to yourself.

“Sometimes the only way to find yourself is to get completely lost.”

Kellie Ellmore

Feeling that existential crisis lately? You are not alone, especially if you are in the 35–55 years of age category — Generation X.

Also known as the “sandwich generation” where we are in our 40’s with young children and aging parents. A big difference from our Boomer parents that had us in their early twenties with their parents still active, healthy, and involved.

And for some reason on top of that, we also added full-time careers to our plate. Then we still hold ourselves to this insane standard of child-raising, housekeeping, volunteering, and socializing. Seriously what the hell is wrong with us?

More people today report feeling dissatisfied with their achievements in life. Women especially think that if they only have a family or only have a career but aren’t baking bread and pursuing passion projects that they are failing at life.

They told us we could do anything, but we heard we have to be everything and be everything to everybody. Exhausting!

The one upside to a busy life is that it can keep us distracted enough from our lack of fulfillment by limiting the time allowed to think about it, but *boom* pandemic, now we had time to analyze…well shit.

In reality, being over-busy — think taking to kids to multiple sports, activities, volunteering, working at least one full-time job and maybe a side job (or three) plus that home side hustle you are trying out, keeping the perfect house, training the dog, exercising, cooking — that level of busy can attribute to 90% of mental anguish.

It’s no wonder we all of a sudden stop and think wait for a second, who am I? What is the purpose of this life I am living? It’s because you are being dominated by busy tasks, like a machine, does it make sense now why you don’t feel human or connected anymore?

Recently over a coffee with a friend who studied philosophy, I asked the question “do you think there is a chance we aren’t supposed to be here that long ago something travelled from the stars and mated with an animal and now we have humans, we just don’t feel natural.”

He said, “Well it’s no coincidence we feel like aliens, look how literally alienated we are from each other and the Earth. We have created a society of disconnect the pursuit of achievement before being.”

It is no coincidence we think we have to do it and we have to do it alone, most of us were the first generation of children with either two working parents or divorced parents. We were often left on our own because our parents were trying to survive and provide. We did what we could to make their lives easier by being helpful, independent, and taking on what we could.

Now as adults we continue this pattern of holding ourselves to multiple priorities, constantly in stress, allowing all the pressures and ideals to dominate us we start to dance to society’s song rather than our own.

We stuff our dreams in a dark closet in our minds because it hurts to think how far we are from where we thought we would be at this point in our life.

“I don’t know who I am anymore…”, “I am lost…”, “what happened to me?”

And then if we dare to remember, to try to recapture our identity we halt ourselves because the only thing scarier than dusting off our dreams is the idea that if we show up as truly ourselves, unapologetically and bravely exactly who we are — that we will end up abandoned and alone.

Fear is a natural human emotion, do not be ashamed or reject the thoughts and feelings of fear. Learn to sit with them and understand them. Why do you feel this way, what happened in past to bring you to the point of putting yourself and your needs in the background?

Gain the clarity because once you see the fear for what it is it slowly starts to lose its power. You get to the root of your anxieties, and this can alleviate a good amount of personal pain and grief.

There are no “good” or “bad” feelings, those labels are constructs. They are just feelings — some feel better than others, are easier than others, but that doesn’t mean there is something wrong with you for having challenging feelings. It’s part of being human.

Here are three key steps to get back to being you:

1.

Face your fears because they are part of you, embrace them, learn from them. To be fully authentic in your own skin you need to love all your sides and facets, positive or negative. The person that needs to be the most in love with you is you.

Honoring and respecting yourself is the best example to show others how to be close to you.

2.

Make a list of the things that make you (or have made you in past) happy! Big or small it really doesn’t matter. And incorporate some of those things into your daily routine. Happiness is not a feeling that comes and goes on its own if you are lucky. Happiness is an action that you engage in over and over again that makes you happy.

One thing I have done while having a meltdown is drive to the gas station and pick up a pack of bubble gum. I then sit in my car crying, listening to music and blowing bubbles. I love bubble gum, it’s a small thing that makes me happy…does it solve all my problems?

NO, but do I breathe and ground myself so I can cope better? YES!

3.

Engage with yourself, check-in. Take deep breaths and scan your body for tension, fear, stress, irritation, or other feelings of unease. Make it a practice to find the issues before they become large problems and you suffer.

One practice I began is evening Yin Yoga, a very gentle stretching and meditative yoga that you can easily find on YouTube. It helps me find the tension in my body before my brain consciously makes the connection to my anxiety or stress. Then I sit with that tension and allow my thoughts to wander to the possible causes.

Once I shared with a therapist a worst-case scenario I had created in my head and they said “Sure, let’s say that did happen, then what?”

When I walked through the scenario in my head as if it actually happened it took the power away from my fear. Because at the end of that worst-case scenario I had more choices to make, there will always be the next step if you can face your fear and move forward anyway.

Remember, the only person in charge of your happiness and fulfillment in life is you.

It’s not about having the most stuff, being the smartest, having every person agree with you or adore you, having the best job, or any “thing”.

Happiness is knowing you are showing up every day as yourself and knowing who you are inside is who you really are. And it’s more than enough I promise. Please do not feel like you have to do everything all by yourself.

If you need help figuring out where to start and what to focus on first, then you might need a coach. If you have experienced significant trauma and have healing that requires professional therapy, then please look for a qualified psychologist or counselor in your area — often there are free resources in each city

Two articles I enjoyed this week: