I was fuming. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but it looked like people weren’t willing to listen, or rather they had ears for only some people; in this case, my (self-created) nemesis. It did not seem fair. The disappointment was apparent on my face. I was on a video call.
I could not sleep. I kept fuming. I came to bed and my wife woke up. She knew that it was going to be a tough meeting and she knew I would need her; she’s my rock. She spoke to me for 30 minutes and I calmed down a little. I wasn’t able to sleep peacefully though. I was playing the events in my mind again and again. I could not pull myself out of bed until 7.30 AM, and I only got up then because I had to; I had to get my kids ready for school.
As the day started, I kept pulling myself up from my lows, only to sink back into wallowing. Some time in the evening, I was sitting in the backseat of my car, on my way to the gym. I was having a full blown conversation with the concerned people at work, I had connected with people outside my organisation, I had found a new job, I had spoken to my HR about why I was leaving; and I was jolted out of my day dream when my driver floored the brakes.
I was shocked at the depth of the dream. This was not the first time I was doing this, but the enormity of how I was digging a hole for myself hit me hard only today. In one of my earlier therapy sessions, my therapist and I had spoken about growth. I told him I wanted to grow faster. He smiled and said- ‘then examine every thought that comes to your mind. Every belief that you have. Examine if it is true or false objectively. Most will be false, and just that awareness will free you from it. Do this everyday, every hour, as much as possible. You will become free’.
I realised that it applied to my current situation as well. I was going about this the wrong way. Whenever I caught myself feeding my agony by day dreaming, I would tell myself- ‘nonsense; stop these thoughts. Don’t be foolish’. I would slip back into it at the next opportunity. I had to look at the source. I replayed the discussions we had in the meeting and thought about the aspects that stressed me out. I examined what I’d heard and how I interpreted it. While the outcome wasn’t going to change, I realised that there was no way I could for sure say my interpretation was right. It could have been right, but there was no way of being sure. If I took the discussion purely on face value, all the aspects that stressed me out were just my own concoctions.
This understanding helped me break the hellish loop I was going through since the meeting. The challenge however is going be whether I remember and have the intent to examine the source, the next time this happens. Sometimes I worry that I’ve become comfortable with wallowing and staying low. I’m determined to beat it though, and I’m sure I’ll get there; slow and steady.