What If It All Makes Sense? | Episode 29

Hey friends. I have been missing for a, for about a month now, I think. And I'm really happy to be back. I have, I have not been missing because of a lack of material, but because of a lack of energy, I just did the the reclaiming female sexuality retreats. Last month and it went beautifully. It went so well, but after it was over, I just was so burned out.

I, even though I have things prerecorded, the energy of just adding the intros and outros and getting them up online was, was just too much for me apparently. I just simply do not have the energy anymore to do anything. I don't feel like doing. And so that's what has been up. And that's actually kind of what I want to talk about today.

So I I've been giving myself a really hard time about. Not being productive this last month. Right? Not doing my podcasts, not feeling like planning another retreat, even though my podcast I find fulfilling. And I know that people enjoy it. I, I just haven't been doing it. And then I've been beating myself up a bit for not, not keeping up with it.

And I I've been asking myself like, what is wrong with me? Why can't I just be consistent, et cetera. And then struggling with a little bit of depression, which those of you who've been listening for a while, or follow me on Instagram, know this about me. And I finally decided to, because of some things that have happened recently, I finally decided to go to a psychiatrist and just talk about.

What has been going on in my life, see if I could get a little bit of help. And I ended up getting a diagnosis for ADHD along with, with depression and anxiety, which man, this is the first time I think I've been like officially diagnosed with anything. And. Getting a diagnosis is a huge relief in and of itself because it gives you a name for what you're going through.

And it gives you community of other people who have gone through similar things and it gives you solutions. And anyway, after I got this diagnosis a few weeks, I've started going down the rabbit hole of what it means to have ADHD. What does that look like? I've, I've read up on the internet. I followed a bunch of ADHD, Instagram accounts.

I've talked to some friends and family members who've also been diagnosed and I also listened to podcasts. And on one particular podcasts called hacking your ADHD, the host talks about how easy it is. To beat yourself up when you are struggling to accomplish a task that feels impossible. People with ADHD, struggle with something called executive function, which in a nutshell means that we have a hard time prioritizing tasks.

And self-regulating because of this self-regulation struggle. It's very common for simple tasks like washing the dishes, for example, to. Less like washing the dishes and more like climbing Mount Everest. And this feeling isn't isolated to people with ADHD. I would guess that pretty much everyone listening to this podcast right now has experienced this at some point in their lives.

Where, where a simple task, like washing the dishes, you know, isn't. Skill-wise washing the dishes. Isn't that hard. And that's something we tell ourselves, right? Like washing the dishes. Isn't that hard, just do it. But, but sometimes finding the motivation and the ability to actually get started on a task like this can be really difficult and, and feel, feel impossible.

And in this hacking your brain ADHD, or sorry, hacking your ADHD podcasts, the host explained that there's usually a reason that whatever task is feeling impossible is feeling that. And, and finding that reason is much more helpful than just beating ourselves up and label labeling ourselves lazy. Maybe we didn't get enough sleep the night before. Maybe we haven't eaten yet today. Maybe we need to move our body to get some endorphins for. The idea is to be cause and solution focused instead of turning to self-loathing tactics, which really doesn't help anybody.

It just makes us feel even worse and probably less motivated to do anything. And again, This, this applies to everybody. I'm sure if you're listening to this right now, you can relate with beating yourself up for not feeling like doing something that you feel like you should be able to do, or it should be easy.

Last week I started getting some coaching from Matea marae. They were, they were on a recent podcast episode. I did called. I think it's called taking off our non-buyers nonbinary classes and they have a lot of experience helping and working with neurodivergent people they're neurodivergent themselves.

They, they also have ADHD and are on the autism spectrum. And so I've, I've listened to their podcast episodes. I've seen a lot of what they post on social media, and I really felt like they had some. Some skills that could help with what I'm going through. And so I started coaching with them last week and I cannot tell you.

What a relief. It was to meet with them and to feel like so much of what I was going through was totally normal and that they had ways to help me. They didn't question my experience. They didn't act like I just hadn't tried hard enough or that I'd been doing anything wrong at all. They simply listened to what I have been struggling with and said, yes, I know where you're coming from.

You're not alone. And I can help you. And it was such a. To not feel like I was trying to, I guess, mask or pretend that I was, I didn't feel like I had to get gold stars from Matea. I felt like I could just be honest and that they could take me there. That there was nothing wrong with the way I was and it was such a relief.

And so this is not an episode about ADHD, but the reason I talked to you about these experiences and what I've been, what I've been going through this last month is because it's led me to some questions and thoughts that I think could be so profound for everybody. If we could remember to ask them to ourselves before getting caught in these self hatred, depressing thoughtless, First of all, I, I want to list off some of the thoughts that I commonly have when I'm struggling with something when I'm kind of in a depressive state or when I'm not happy or, or unmotivated.

So some of the thoughts I have are. Why can't I just be happy that people around me are happy or there they seem to be okay. And thriving in this scenario. So I should be too. I should be grateful for my blessings instead of focusing on the things that I don't have, this shouldn't be so hard. Why am I so selfish?

What is wrong with me? Do any of those questions or thoughts sound familiar to you sometimes? Thoughts like this become so habitual. We almost don't notice when we're thinking them. We just feel the general sense of depression or anxiety, or even physical pain in our body. And, and I want to say, I want to insert this here, which is.

I have not, I am not used to this feeling of brokenness. I remember as a kid or a teenager or a young adult hearing about people who struggled with self hatred and would talk mean to themselves. And I remember thinking like, Hmm, why? Like, I don't struggle with that. I really like myself. And and so this honestly is the first time that I.

Really been struggling, hardcore with some of these feelings that I think a lot of you may, may have struggled with your whole life and it is not fun. And I, and I think the reason that I am struggling now is because before this time in my life I had a very specific mold that I knew I was supposed to fit into and I fit into it successfully.

I would say that I very successfully fit into the mold that was handed to me. It was a very good LDS. Virginal did my homework. This is where the perfectionism is. Right. This, this desire to fit this mold perfectly. As well as a human being could succeed in fitting into a mold. I did. And I think because I was so successful in, in feeding into this mold, I got a lot of validation from other people and I felt successful.

Like I did it. I figured out how to meet other people's expectations. And because of that, I can feel good about myself. And I don't hate myself because. Yeah, I fit this mold, at least on a general sense. There were some things I, I struggled with body image as most women do, but, but also even that, not on the level that some people have, have had to struggle with.

So, so this, these feelings of. It's just, you know, what is wrong with me? Am I broken? Why do I feel sad all the time? Why is my energy level all the time? Why can't I just do this? Are very new to me like within the last few years. And I think it's because I don't have that molded. I left, I left my religion.

I'm an adult now. So my parents aren't always, you know, telling me you have to meet this expectation. I'm not even, I'm not even working in a typical job right now.

It's up to me to decide. What to do, and that's scary because I'm used to meeting other people's expectations and getting that validation. And I don't know how to just decide this is what I want. So that's okay. I'm used to a mold and it feels very. Scary like being in that open expanse. You know, I, I think I've talked about in previous episodes when I, when I left the church and decided that wasn't, for me, it felt like falling off a cliff, right.

This huge expense and it's same, same idea with this mold. Like that mold felt safe, it was safe and snug and I fit into it. And now I'm in this open, big wide world where I have all these choices and I don't know what to do, and I don't have. Safety blanket of a mold to fit in. So I don't get that validation from people cause I'm not meeting their expectations.

I haven't decided really what I want in a lot of ways. So I'm not getting that self validation. And I think that's where a lot of this is coming from. For me, everyone listening probably has had a different experience and different reasons why they may think these thoughts. I just wanted to give you a background.

Why? I think I'm struggling with this right now. All right. So Lola, these questions, right? Why can't it be happy? What is wrong with me, et cetera, et cetera. I talk about how we get, we get habitual in these, in this thinking. We almost don't notice when we're thinking then, but we can feel it in our body.

I think this is where a lot of this sense of depression, anxiety even physical pain in our body can come from. Obviously there's chemical things and genetic things going on there that can accentuate that. But I think sometimes these thought loops. Can be a source of, of these more chronic issues that we struggle with as well.

So I was laying in bed the other night and just feeling this general depression and anxiety, thinking these thoughts about my gosh, I haven't done my podcast in a month. People are asking you about this next retreat and I don't have the energy to even think about that. I am not being a good enough mom to my kids.

You know, all these not good enough thoughts that we struggle with that. I talk about a lot on this podcast. And as I was thinking, these thoughts, all of a sudden, this thought popped in my head. What if, what if this makes sense? What if the way I am makes sense? What if my feelings in this moment make sense?

What if, what I want makes sense? What if it, what if it's all okay. What if here's a crazy one? What if the way I am right now is good and beautiful. I'm going to let you sit with those thoughts. I've been sitting with them for a few days and I intend to sit with them for a lot longer. And I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you a couple stories while you think about these questions.

The first one, I think I've told in a previous episode, which is. I remember as a high school student being more developed than other young women, my age, and going shopping clothes, shopping with my mom, shopping in the junior section and feeling just bad about myself because those clothes did not fit me and all the clothes that I was seeing my friends wear and the, and the popular girls at school were the things that were in style when I was in high school, which was.

I don't know, 2000, I graduated 2007. So early two thousands, that style of clothing just didn't fit me. It didn't look good on me. And I thought that that that's because something was wrong with my body. And I remember my mom bless her for her insight telling me Kimbra, there's nothing wrong with your body.

These clothes. Aren't for you. We need to find clothes that fit your body. You don't need to make your body fit the clothes. We need to find clothes that fit your body. And I was in high school and I don't think I could really hear her. And I continued to just feel bad that I didn't fit into the fashionable clothes.

But I've thought a lot about that the last few months, this idea of maybe there's nothing wrong with you. Or your body or whatever, maybe it's the clothes you're trying to fit in. Maybe it's the, the job you're trying to work in. Maybe it's the sexual orientation you're trying to conform to. And maybe it's not that something's wrong with you.

Maybe you're just trying to fit in clothes that weren't meant for you. So, so that's story. Number one, story. Number two. Is that just this year, I am friends with a couple who also decided to leave the LDS church. And I won't go into their whole story, but essentially. The husband and the relationship had always struggled with some things in the church and the wife hadn't and, and they always, both of them, both the husband and the wife had felt that there was something wrong with the husband that he was struggling in this area.

And, and then. Things happened. They, I, it's hard for me not to go in the whole story, but anyways, things happen. They ended up both leaving the church and not that this is what this is about, but that was the right decision for them. Well, we'll leave it at that. And I think it was for his birthday. My friend, the wife wrote her husband a letter for his birthday.

And in the letter she said something about, isn't it interesting that this thing that we thought was wrong with you ended up being our guiding light and it's, it's leading us to where we want go. And I only heard the story a couple months ago, but I have pondered on that idea a lot since, but what if, what if the things that we're ashamed of?

The things that we think make us broken are actually guiding light. Is it, is it possible that what I like and don't like to do is in a flaw, but a guiding light. Is it possible that when our feelings feel off, when we feel things like depression and anxiety, it's not because something is wrong with us, but that something is right with us that we're not broken at all that in fact, our guidance system is working perfectly and it's telling us that we have needs that aren't being.

Or maybe we've taken a path that wasn't meant for us. Maybe we're already perfect, but the environment we're in is not the right fit for us. And instead of finding a better fit, we try to cut off pieces of ourselves to fit into something that isn't for us. Maybe I had this vision come into my head. Yes.

Of this horse, walking through a desert, just skin and bones dying because it, it was dying of hunger and thirst. And in this desert was surrounded by all of these lizards and cactuses, CAC die, who are thriving. And I imagine. Now lizard's telling the horse, like, what is wrong with you or there, or the horse telling itself what's wrong with me?

Why has everyone else thriving in this desert? And I'm not something must be wrong with me. I must be broken. And I think that's how we are. Sometimes we might be in our own personal deserts asking ourselves what's wrong with us. When all these lizards around us are thriving. But the answer is nothing is wrong with you.

You weren't meant to live in a desert. You weren't made for the desert. You won't survive in the desert. You will die in the desert. You will starve and you will die. And wouldn't it be awesome. If instead of dying in the desert, thinking that we're broken, we can find, we can go search out water and grass and fields full of wildflowers to run it.

And a situation that makes us feel alive and happy instead of just telling ourselves that we're broken. So that's my thought for this week. This is going to be a little rough around the edges because I'm just going to put this one out messy so that I can get hopefully back in the habit of doing this podcast again, because it does matter to me.

I really care about it. And I want to keep going with it. So I wanted to do kind of a messy one to tell you where I'm at to give you some of these thoughts. And then, and then hopefully I'll get back to releasing some of the recordings that I have previously done, but before I go, I want you to know the way you are, make sense. The way you feel makes sense, what you want, make sense, even if other people don't understand it. And even if you don't understand it, there's a reason you are the way you are.

And that reason makes sense. You're not broken. So stop trying to break yourself into pieces in order to fit someone else's mold, you don't need them all. You are already whole, you are already beautiful. So go find the people and the places who can help you see that. And I'm going to be on this journey or right along with you figuring this out.