The Discomfort You’re Feeling Is Awareness

Alternate title: HERE ARE SOME REASONS WHY WE ARE THISCLOSE TO HAVING A MELTDOWN.

Let’s just get it all out there- what’s got you thisfuckingclose to having a meltdown these days?

A non-exhaustive list of the potential things that 2020 has made you aware of:

  • You were overbooked and over extending yourself before Covid forced you to pause. 
  • Racist & awful people are everywhere. Your local community might be crawling with them. It’s gross. You feel duped. You’re heartbroken and disappointed when realizing this while also simultaneously relieved to find corners/communities/people/spaces that are full of actively anti-racist people who understand and share your sadness and rage. This dichotomy alone is exhausting. It feels good and awful to bond over shared heartache and frustrations. You wish none of this was the case across the board.
  • Your people/your community may reside mostly on the internet & not in your local vicinity. This can feel isolating, and also great, but mostly weird. People in your “real life” don’t understand what you mean when you say your closest friends or your favorite community isn’t necessarily local or tangible.

  • You realize you don’t miss a lot of people that you used to spend time with. The Pandemic forced you to pause and disrupted the autopilot. You’re realizing who you may have spent time/energy with out of convenience & default instead of alignment and intention.

  • You realize you miss a lot of people & actually want to make more time and space for them. You’re weighing your options between safety and responsibility given the current circumstances while also looking for connection.
  • You were 100% sleepwalking before, relying on muscle memory & autopilot to go through the motions of the day-to-day. You’re acutely aware and totally resistant to falling back into that trap. You’re also aware that this non-autopilot way of living is simultaneously liberating and absolutely exhausting. You realize you get to choose between two equally exhausting ways of being.

  • Most of the ways you avoided yourself and your reality before were taken away from you. You’ve been forced to find new ways to run, hide, and cope. You either have a new distraction or you’ve plopped yourself down with yourself and are inundated with awareness, which almost always feels like a gut punch. You miss the bliss of ignorance and also know there’s something profound about sitting with yourself and leaning into the discomfort that awareness brings.