INTROSPECTION

I learned the most about life on my couch.

Remarkable, life-changing lessons from a recovering workaholic

I live in a country that celebrates exhaustion as a rite of passage.

Medals of honor are distributed for burnout.

Hustling is marketable. Rest isn’t.

Everybody brags about the weight of ambition as their bodies suffer. Their hearts fail.

Tombstones boast a dash where life stories should be. For many of us adventure and spontaneity are eventually traded in for corporate comforts.

I love America, I do.

But the dream my immigrant mother reached for when she touched down in this land of opportunity, hasn’t fully manifested yet. In her life or mine.

We’re running out of ways to justify the breaking of backs, the piling of bodies that came to this country in search of better circumstances and a respectable quality of life.

Everybody I know is tired.

I used to believe hard work reaped rewards. I have holiday bonuses and plaques placed on my mantel of insecurity to dress it up a little. To disguise the brokenness, the need for acceptance I inherited.

Everybody I know used to brainstorm about how to make a difference, how to make procedures more efficient, how to make the world more progressive.

We wanted to change the world. We never wanted to destroy it. With greed. With ambition wrapped in the plastic we throw in oceans because landfills are full. Pollution spilling into rural neighborhoods where asthmatic children play, unaware that poverty is poisoning them.

I am supposed to be my mother’s manifestation of the American dream. She left the comforts of her country. She left her mother and all the stability she’d ever known, to give me a better life. She didn’t come here so I could survive on antidepressants and binge Netflix because I’m afraid to go outside.

Scared to drive my car at night.

Scared to get stuck in a grocery store while it’s being robbed.

Scared to get snatched while I’m jogging.

Scared to take shortcuts and travel on backroads in the South.

My mom came to the states so I could be somebody.

I worked my ass off to be somebody. Had no idea I was already enough. I was born remarkable.

I didn’t need to lose my soul to chase a check. I didn’t need “things” to validate me. Didn’t need that collection of diplomas. Didn’t need the promotions.

Why didn’t they tell us that we’re born immaculate? Why didn’t they tell us that no job title will ever increase our intrinsic worth?

I spent a decade chasing self-acceptance, finding validation in “opportunities’’. Climbing an endless ladder that led to performance anxiety.

If I’d known then what I know now, I wouldn’t have put all of my faith in money and soulless, rigid work.

I remember the day my body refused to move from its place on the couch. I was drowning in grief. Mourning another failed relationship that burned to the ground while I watched, too apathetic to grab an extinguisher.

Every emotion I’d avoided for years rushed over me. Ambition couldn’t save me from my own truth.

Busyness didn’t rescue me from the hail storm of honesty that knocked at my burdened body, a shell of angst and anger. I was my own worst enemy, a robot in denial of her own emptiness, until that moment.

Self-care wasn’t a journey I approached with grace. I didn’t start prioritizing my mental health because I wanted to-I didn’t befriend stillness and embrace it immediately.

I was just trying not to die.

I used self-awareness to slowly emerge out of a dark hole of arrogance and self-neglect. I chose myself because I had no other option. It was in the lowest moments that I realized I had to dispel myths and limiting beliefs, then prioritize healing.

Here are the truths that saved my life.

I am more than the sum of my failures. What I’ve done is not who I am. One failure isn’t indicative of overall performance. I am perfectly capable of finishing what I start.

I am not a loser. I am not a disappointment. The choices I made when I knew less about life do not get to haunt me now. I loved as hard as I could, handed out the fragments of my heart like free samples at Costco. I did my best.

I am not too much. My energy demands attention, my light isn’t intended to cast shadows on anyone else. I am not here to make anyone uncomfortable. I am not here to make anyone uneasy. I am not in competition with anyone. I believe there’s enough for all of us.

My existence shouldn’t be upsetting. My talent isn’t a threat to anyone else’s success. My body isn’t too voluptuous. My intelligence isn’t “intimidating”. Being intimidated by me is optional.

I am good enough. I’m not apologizing for refusing to be a character and show up the way someone casted me in their projection. I am not an actress or marionette. This is my life. I am the executive producer, director, and writer of this script. Whoever I choose to love, wherever I decide to lay, however I want to move about this planet is my prerogative. I’m not apologizing for being my delightful, mysterious, imaginative self.

I am worthy of exclusive, intentional love. Yes, I cling to love with all of the strength that I have left. But that does not make me clingy. I deserve reciprocity. I am worthy of a love that wraps itself around my spirit and eases my anxiety.

I am deserving of the kind of love that washes away limitations and alleviates stress. I am not a burden. My petitions for quality time do not qualify as begging. My desire to know intimacy and feel safe in its wind is not “excessive” or “draining”. I am worthy.

I am worthy.