Actively Deciding, Not Habitually Reacting

On choosing a feeling I couldn't explain over a decision I'd already made

“when the body speaks” | Created on Midjourney by @pixiemedley

I fall in love so readily, so easily.

I find one special and unique quality to throw my ever-loving being into it, head first. I imagine a future - how my life will change because of this cosmic connection. I envision my world as a saturated photograph, from this day forward, because of this meeting.

This adoration of newness consumes me, be it a person, place, or thing. My curiosity consumes me and I commit to it, becoming mesmerized and enchanted -- like a spell, or a drug.

I used to think my curiosity was a superpower. Now, I realize it can also be my kryptonite.

The reality check of habits vs. decisions

I am leaving for Portugal in a week. The outlook on my trip is very different today as compared to a week ago. A week ago, I had been planning a two month European adventure through several countries to celebrate my 50th birthday and ride a bike over miles and mountains that I adore so much. Today, I’m mourning this plan, as I’ve made the decision to abandon it. I’m devastated, even though I know I’ve made the right choice for me.

I won’t dwell on the many factors that contributed to my decision to drop this plan - most of them are beside the point. But there is one factor, which is exactly to the point:

The excitement of this trip morphed into feelings of dread and white-knuckling that were excruciatingly familiar, reminding me of the ickiness that consumed me in the months leading up to quitting my job. I woke up with a headache every morning. I felt chronically detached, irritable, and foggy. My emotions were constantly rumbling, like a torrential downpour completely consuming me or distant thunder, warning of its impending doom.

Rationally, these feelings did not make any sense. The plan included many of my favorite things - travel, biking, mountains - and I was under the impression that the plans developed out of decision-making with my own best interest in mind. But all of this - even my favorite things - started feeling wrong. When I stopped forcing myself to execute the plan and instead paused to figure out why my body was revolting, I saw clearly that the “decisions” I had been making were not decisions at all - they were habitual actions. I had been performing them in service of my pre-sabbatical self, not for my current self or my current life. I was reverting to old habits in order to create a familiar - and therefore, comforting - environment in this crazy, uncertain new post-sabbatical life that is unfolding.

Taking responsibility means deciding

There are a few things that hit hard last week -

The burnout from my job is deep inside my psyche and my body. Four months of travel did not heal my burnout, nor did I manage to free it in the ocean in the Philippines, shake it off in the mountains in Vietnam, or drop it in the rice paddies in Bali. My recent situation unintentionally tested the waters of ‘falling in love with work’ again and showed me that the wounds are still raw.

I need to change my psyche + body foundation in order to get different results. I don’t mean to state this as a simple “step 2” of a recovery plan. I understand this is a lifetime of continuous work. But for now, my goal is to choose my work and my loves - not just carefully, but differently.

Not only do I need to change the foundation, I can change it. This is where I am now.

I had a poignant lesson of “taking responsibility” in Da Nang earlier this year. After a challenging bike trip in Northern Vietnam, I decided to visit Da Nang to take a few down days. I envisioned basking in beach time, but it rained the entire time I was there. I failed to do research on Da Nang, or the hotel I stayed at and neither were doing it for me in those conditions. I was cold and uncomfortable and generally bummed out by my predicament.

After explaining the lack of enthusiasm for my current situation to a friend, I concluded with, “Oh well, it’s all my fault - I didn’t really research any of this before I came here.”

To which he said, “Well, yeah. Who else’s fault would it be?”

Touché.

a very stormy My Khe beach in Da Nang, Vietnam

How exactly does one change their psyche and body foundation? That sounds hard.

Changing the Psychosomatics

I learned recently that psyche + body is the origin of the term “psychosomatic.” Pretty cool. I always associated this term with someone who thinks they are perpetually sick. But now the word has a whole new meaning for me - of agency, rather than lack of agency.

In learning how to lean into my intuition - as I talked about in this post), I’m doing psychosomatic work. I’m learning to listen to my body’s language - how it communicates a “yes” or a “no” to me.

To help me with this, a friend recently rapid-fired yes/no questions at me, so that I could feel and learn my instinctive responses -- Where do it feel it? Was it in my gut, my arms, my chest? I felt it in my solar plexus - that weirdly named area deep in my core between my heart and my stomach. What did it feel like? Was it a dull lull, or striking pricklies, or an energetic hum? I felt something like an electric shock shoot up to my neck - subtle, but present.

For some of the questions she asked me, there was a clear answer, but for most of her questions, I felt nothing. Paralyzed. I attribute this numbness to the years of habitual reacting I’ve been treading through, and the burnout that is still inside me.

What fills/drains my cup?

In order to dig new neural pathways, I need to create a clear intention to hear and understand my body’s yes/no signals. So, I found a way to use a spreadsheet as a tool, rather than a bible, for decision-making. I started tracking three things at the end of each day:

1. Was my day more draining than filling, or more filling than draining?

2. What specific people, things, activities, and places filled my cup?

3. What specific people, things, activities, and places drained my cup?

By the end of the week, I had created two very satisfying lists:

1. What filled my cup? → Do more of this!

2. What drained my cup? → Do less of this!

I even made a Lovable app for this. Check it out here.¹ The purpose is to help me recognize personal habits and patterns so that I can do more of them - if they fill me - and less of them - if they don’t.

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My current freedom from attachment to a job, career, partner, home, etc. is not the same thing as having freedom from responsibility for my life. And if taking responsibility for my life can bring me into a dark place, it can also take me to a place of great relief.

Live with Love. Be Unexpected. 😘

1. This is not a fancy managed app, but feel free to login and create an account. I built it so that all data is anonymized, which means that if you choose to use it, I will only see that you created an account - I won’t have access to any of your personal tags. I built it this way because I wanted to note the nuances - specific foods I eat, specific TV shows I watch, specific people I interact with - but recognize that this information can be highly personal.