Once again, words from a therapist got my wheels turning toward my keyboard. In conversation with Dr. KB my psychotherapist I was forced to face the reality of the battle I’ve been fighting without really acknowledging the gravity of the situation. I’ve referred to trying to discover a life worth living now that I find myself without a vocation or job per se. How does one keep going in the face of so many empty hours waiting to be filled? I had been focusing on this question as a practical challenge – a problem to be solved on a very straight-forward level. But it’s so much more than that.
Dr. KB put it to me this way. “You’ve been in a battle of rediscovery. You see, you can be alive but your spirit has died and that’s where I believe you’ve been of late.” And just like that my mind was blown again. I’ve been floating around trying to get through each day not really realizing what the gravity of this journey truly is. I’m trying to rediscover Beth, as Dr. KB put it. And she’s exactly right.
For some reason, I’ve always believed I was destined to be something more than average. In my heyday at my old job, my career in advertising, I excelled on the daily. I found myself in a leadership role that seemed to fit me like a glove. I led people and teams focused on accounts from prestigious brands that entrusted our company with growing their sales, building their brands – developing creative work to pursue these goals. My voice seemed to carry weight both with internal teams and with leadership from external companies and I never questioned the reasons why. I just believed I could so I did.
Internal team members trusted me to help them pursue individual career paths, helping them navigate the complex paths of the corporate maze of one of the largest advertising holding companies in the world. My job was to provide inspiration and guidance based on my many years of experience navigating the same maze myself. I took to this job like a fish takes to water. I seemed to excel without trying – the role came to me naturally as if it was meant for me. I put my heart and soul into my role, some might say more than I should have but in my life as a middle-aged widow I had the time and energy so I put it to work toward building a career that not only supported me financially but intellectually as well. I felt I was where I was supposed to be. I was of use in the very best way.
It lasted more than 30 years before I was forced to retire for medical reasons and leave my life in advertising behind in 2022. To say I felt lost would be an understatement. All of the sudden my leadership skills that made me such a strong mentor for so many had no where to go. The time that I devoted to my career building brands for clients had no place to be focused. The teams I led and mentored moved on without me. It all felt very empty. Like I’d devoted myself to something that so easily left me behind it made me question the wisdom of my life-long dedication to building such a career. Where do I place this time now? Of what use can I be?
I’m forced to stop myself from questioning the wisdom of my choices because there simply is no going backward. Those choices were right for me in that time. They made sense because they fit with my skills and my desire to build something for myself that mattered. It mattered to me and it mattered to those folks I had the opportunity to work with. Now my time is for me. My lifelong desire to be a writer can be my focus. This site, this space, provides me with an outlet for sharing my words regardless of whether or not those words feel relevant or important. I share them because these words bounce around my head and they need a place to live beyond the confines of my brain.
Developing one’s spirit is a lofty pursuit. I find myself often struggling to find the tools necessary to make it happen. I want to write but I have a left hand that often turns into a claw making typing with two hands on my keyboard almost impossible. I have constant pain in my neck, arms and shoulders that becomes heightened with using my hands to type. But I have to force myself to keep trying because typing is the way for me to achieve my personal goals now, in this new life where time is so abundant and jobs are less about what I can do for others but what I can do for myself – to keep my mind engaged. To keep my clawed fingers typing.
Dr. KB left me gobsmacked again when our session ended yesterday. I spoke about how I have always believed I would become something more than average – how my life felt destined for the remarkable even beyond the scope of my career in advertising. I loved my job and I do feel like my success was remarkable but that time is over now. Finding the remarkable feels more elusive to me now. I struggle to put my arms around the whole idea. That’s when Dr. KB said, “What if we reframe the idea. What if we consider the idea that you already are something remarkable? How does that idea sit with you?”
Whoah. There we have it again. Mind blown by mental health professional. I am grateful I have these people in my life that help me reframe my daily thinking in such amazing ways. How fortunate I am to have the health care support that enables me to be supported by the mental health professionals I have in my life. I have to acknowledge that not everyone has this kind of foundation of health care to rely on. I hope to have other topics to write about sometime in the future beyond my mental health and my pursuit of rediscovering Beth. It might get kinda boring eventually but I’m hoping you’ll hang in there with me, dear readers, as I try figuring it all out. I’m also fortunate to have you.
Source: bethybrightanddark.com