ego's kind of a b*tch, out of your control/out of your mind, & other musings
a round up of my thoughts
I have so much on my mind at all times… which I suppose is good considering my entire first trimester was me sitting on the couch, drool running down my cheek, no energy, no sign of intelligence. My brain was still running, but it was just working through the simple things like, you know, keeping myself from spraining my neck while hovering over the toilet with such force, trying to decide if this was really happening, and battling the grief of losing myself to become more myself than ever.
So, to say I have welcomed the energy of my second trimester with open arms would be an understatement. My brain is working faster than ever, though sometimes it skips over tiny details like what time my eye doctor appointment actually starts and the name of that “thing” at the boardwalk that spins (“Ferris wheel”).
I figured I could make a lil roundup of the things on my mind that I don’t feel like writing a giant post about. I think you guys might like something concise every so often, yea?
So… here we go.
Ego’s kind of a b*tch…
Is it not?
I’m not talking about someone having a big “ego” - I mean, I am, but I’m not? I’m really just trying to talk about the root of it.
The ego is the part of you that essentially creates you. It is behind every “I” statement, belief, and thought. Its mission is to protect the “you” you’ve built up throughout your life. It develops early from how we perceive and interpret the world around us and works by reason. We literally all have an ego - even the most enlightened have an ego, albeit one that has greatly transformed.
Ego can be a good thing! The ego is responsible for our confidence, emotional intelligence, curiosity, and sense of self. However, ego can be a big f*cking b*tch. Why? Although it is responsible for many of our positive human traits, it is also responsible for many of our negative ones. Feelings of judgment, inferiority or superiority, hopelessness, anxiety, and resentment… all come from the ego. Whenever we feel like we need to rush something or are out of time, ego can be found behind these thoughts holding the timer.
It’s actually kind of annoying how much ego can stand in our way.
I spent so much time letting my ego take over. I was anxious, constantly on edge, self-conscious, judgy, and honestly pretty miserable. I felt like I needed to be this blunt, overly confident on the outside person to avoid getting hurt. It sucked the joy out of things; I fell into patterns of self-sabotage. My ego created a desperation for validation and success. I began to crave the timelines other people had set up for themselves. My ego then became a manifestation of negative thought patterns.
The day I told myself I wasn’t that person anymore was when I started to chip away at a huge chunk of my ego and create a more fulfilling life.
When ego starts to talk its sh*t, I want you to remember who the heck you are and do the following:
Remind yourself you have time and that you are on your own timeline!
Acknowledge that you are allowed to make mistakes!
Shower yourself in affirmations and compliments about your strengths! You have SO many!
Don’t place weight on others' opinions—seriously, don’t give them any thought to whether they are good or bad. Validate yourself.
Laugh off what is not in your control.
Believe in your light so deeply that no one can blow it out, not even yourself.
Not in my control, not on my mind
This is gonna seem so silly, but last Monday, our power went out for 27 consecutive hours during the hottest week of the summer. Pittsburgh had a massive outage due to record-breaking heat storms, and for some reason, our neck of the woods took a pretty great hit. In fact, some folks were still out going into the weekend.
It went out while I was finishing up my work day with this giant to-do list for the week. As someone who gets paid for hourly work, my budget (which is meticulously planned out from now until right before my November due date) relies heavily on me meeting the time I allot to get the work done. And so the power went out around 5 p.m. while I was working on something I get paid to do, and it was still out Tuesday morning when I left for a 10 a.m. therapy appointment.
On my way to the appointment, my phone died, and the charger I kept in the car decided it no longer wanted to work (I feel ya). I was immediately hit with anxiety:
“What if my therapist is trying to reach me to tell me she needs to cancel due to the power outage?”
“What if I go get breakfast and I’m late to my appointment because I don’t know what time it is?”
“What if work is blowing up my phone about something that needs to be sent out right this second?!”
“I just spent a good chunk of my budget on groceries that will all go bad in the fridge!”
“What if the power doesn’t come back on today?! Where will we go?”
So many thoughts were piling up in my brain in such a small amount of time. I knew that focusing on them would dictate the rest of my day, so you know what I did? I changed my thought process right then and there.
I just started laughing as I drove in my car with the “dead battery” logo flashing at me on my phone. I literally said aloud, “How funny that we don’t have power at home, and now I have this dead-ass phone! Ok, Universe - I see you! I surrender. I’m just gonna focus on what I can control.”
Like, legit, I didn’t cause the power outage? Nature did. I do take responsibility for not getting off my phone the night before when Joe said, “You know if that thing dies, you can’t charge it,” but it kept me entertained throughout the night while I was tossing, turning, and overheating in bed.
If my therapist was trying to reach me, I’d find out when I got to the appointment, and she wasn’t there. If someone from work needs me, it’s literally not my fault that I’m unreachable right now; they’ll have to wait and make do without me. I’ll ask my therapist if she has a charger I can use when I get in there, though just in case. The food in the fridge can be packed up in coolers for the night, or I can ask a friend for fridge space.
What if the power doesn’t come back on? Well, thank you, Universe, and thank you, God, that I have money in the bank to get us a hotel room for the night, just in case.
After I shifted my thought process and arrived at the parking lot, I’m not sure why, but I plugged my phone in one more time and closed my eyes. I planned to meditate in the AC for the next 9 minutes before going to her office.
A few minutes into my silent retreat, I heard my phone buzz next to me.
The phone charger that didn’t work or connect the entire 15-minute drive there was working perfectly, and my phone was turning back on. I let it juice up a bit more, noticed I hadn’t received any calls, texts, or emails from my therapist or work, and said again, “Okay, Universe. I see you.”
I ended up having a really great day! I had a good therapy appointment, and I ended up going to a friend's for a bit to charge my phone and drink an iced coffee. He helped me look up local dog-friendly hotels with availability that night if Joe and I needed it.
We ended up getting a room not far from home. We could sit in the AC (which the dogs fully loved), charge all our devices, answer some emails, and eat takeout in bed. I was taking full advantage of the hotel’s indoor/outdoor pool and having a staring contest with a beautiful cardinal bird when I received a notification at 8 p.m. on Tuesday night that our power at home was back on.
I had almost forgotten that’s why we were on a tiny staycation. I was having so much fun with my day that I lost sense of everything that had stressed me out earlier that morning.
Everything resolved itself regardless of whether I was anxious or relaxed.
All this to say, if it is out of your hands, it deserves freedom from your mind, too.
I realized that the things that are not in our control should bring us more joy. Obviously, when these things happen, you feel unprepared for a bit! How could you have prepared for something you didn’t know would happen? Why self-sabotage when you literally did not do a single thing wrong? You were just existing as one does.
Remind yourself that nothing you did could’ve prevented it from happening! But it’s happened! So now what? What is your next move?
Because life is gonna keep on doing its thing whether you’re curled up in a ball catastrophizing or sitting in your car’s AC laughing at the “of course that would happen” of it all!
When things happen, take at least 90 seconds to consider what opportunities opened up for you.
I promise you, your perspective is going to shift so fast that you'll be like, “Wait, what was I crying over?”