breakdown...

I feel as if this past week has beat me down so much that I don't even know where to begin...  I've still been sick, my work week was comprised of just shy of working 60 hours, went to the dance studio two days (was "supposed" to go three days), and even though my voice was very raspy I went to choir practice.  I know that I made the choices to go to the dance studio and to choir but I didn't want to feel as if I'm letting anyone down so I pushed myself to go; I'm sure that's one of the reasons why I'm still sick.

On Friday, my boss came down to the building to have a meeting with us.  I was told it was going to last an hour (but probably less than that) and what it was going to be about.  When the meeting began, we were all in for a rude awakening...  I'm not sure why, but she got on a tear about something and began pointing out all of the things we should have been doing for the last year and demanding reasons why they haven't been getting done.  Because I was flabbergasted and in shock, I began furiously taking notes.  When she did ask me a question or was looking for some sort of explanation, I stumbled because I wasn't prepared.  After about two hours of this, everyone else was dismissed and she wanted to meet with me.  We had one other person sitting in on the meeting and it turned to her questioning me of why I was just sitting there in the meeting, why I'm timid/walking on eggshells around my staff, why I don't believe in myself, and why I don't embrace my mistakes as learning opportunities.

That once again left me flabbergasted...  I'm a perfectionist so I don't like making mistakes and I do try to look for learning opportunities.  If I internalize mistakes and strive to get better, how does that make me a bad boss/person?  I get frustrated with myself because I still don't feel as if I'm doing the best job that I can because I don't feel as if I know the things I need to know (and I don't like knowing what I don't know).  She chastised me for not just brushing things off and moving on.  I tried reminding her that I've only been a manager for just over a year and am still learning but that didn't seem to be something she wanted to hear.

I try very hard to support my coworkers (especially my fellow office staff) and be a cheerleader for them.  My family (who is so very far away) are my strength, my support and my cheerleaders but I don't necessarily have that at work.  Someone told me that means I need to be my own cheerleader and my response was, "ugh..."  I know that some people really enjoy cheerleaders but I'm just not one of those people...  But I do know that I need to figure out something before I take an idea from one of my favorite books: hop in the car, drive to the ocean and keep on driving (she didn't actually do it but considered it during her mental/emotional breakdown).  Sounds like a viable option right now - the mental/emotional breakdown, not necessarily the drive into the ocean...

Maybe if I have a mental/emotional breakdown I'll be able to get some time off of work and have a little bit of slack my way.  I'm not looking for sympathy or anything like that - I think I'm just looking for a break and for someone to cut me some slack.  Thinking about it, maybe I'm not only looking for someone else to cut me some slack but I need to learn how to become my own advocate and cut myself some slack (any hints or tips would be greatly appreciated).

Well my dear readers, I have a very hectic/stressful week ahead of me (including a dentist appointment one day after work) so I should probably bring this to a close for this evening.  I hope each of you have opportunities for you this week and I thank you again for joining me along my quest.  =)

Something's gotta give...

Welcome to another post my dear readers.  The "weird cough thing" that started last week, ended up blowing into a huge "weird cough thing" that has lasted all week - I completely lost my voice a couple of days, I have been coughing so much that my chest/abs have hurt, and I know that I haven't been getting near enough sleep (that became evident when I didn't get out of bed yesterday until noon and then I still ended up taking an afternoon nap).  A week later, I still have the "weird cough thing" but I'm at least starting to feel more human so that's a plus...

Last week I mentioned feeling overwhelmed lately and I said I would go into more detail this week.  Things at work have felt as if they just keep piling up; each time I clear one thing off my desk, it seems as if 3 or 4 things take its place.  In one situation in particular at work I felt as if I had been making progress (dealings between a coworker and myself) and I found out that I was completely wrong in my perception.  I know that I just have to keep plugging along but I find it frustrating when I feel as if I'm making progress and I'm not making the progress that I thought...

Ugh....  I just deleted some of what I just wrote because I realized just how whiney I was coming across.  I don't like editing what I write but this was just making me sound pathetic...  I'm sure some of it is just out of frustration when it comes to certain things at work and then not feeling well on top of it doesn't help at all.  

I know that I have said it more than once but I think I really need to find a way to take some "me" time and I haven't done it yet.  I have still been working too many hours (tomorrow starts two weeks of the building being open from 7 am - 6 pm and someone has to be there to open/close the building), have been back to spending three days a week at the dance studio and two days a week with church choir (one day for rehearsal and then singing on Sunday).  I'm sure that being pulled in all of these different directions is once of the reasons why I'm sick yet again.  I had a plan in place to cut back one day a week at the dance studio in order to just feel as if I could breathe and I got word from my dance instructor today that we have big things coming up and she needs me there three days a week until mid-May.  For my own physical/mental well-being, something's gotta give and it's gotta give soon...

Well, my dear readers, I know that this isn't an overly long post tonight but I feel as if I need to bring this to a close for this evening and get to bed at a decent time so I can continue to get better and because I have a long day ahead of me tomorrow (as well as a long week...).  I hope you have opportunities to be "you" and to let your freak flags fly.  I'm going to work on that for me as well - I think I've lost that a little bit (or quite a bit...).  Thank you, once again, for joining me along this quest.  =)

Comments...

Today the troupe I dance with and I had the opportunity to dance on the main stage of the biggest belly dance festival on the west coast.  My Mom made me a wicked new costume - it's totally "me;" I love it and all of the gals from the troupe want to be adopted by my Mom so she'll make them costumes too.  After the 15 minute performance, we went to a different part of the building to have a few group photos taken.  Before going backstage to get changed, I wanted to say "hello" to someone I knew who came to watch our performance while we were on stage but also worked at one of the vending booths.  On my way back to the dressing room, I got stopped by no less than six different people who told me that they wanted to seek me out to talk to me.  Most of the things they had to say to me just left me dumbfounded:

• they asked me how long I've been dancing and couldn't believe that it's been just over 5 years
• they asked if I was the instructor of the troupe
• they told me what a fabulous dancer/performer I am
• they told me how fun I was to watch
• they told me that they tried to watch the other troupe members but their gaze kept coming back to me
• they told me that they couldn't believe how much energy/emotion they felt from me
• a conversation I had with one of the women has still left me emotional:
• she told me that she felt "compelled" to come and find me to talk to me after our performance because I inspired her; she said as a "fellow big girl dancer" (she was plus size fabulous too) she often feels out of place in her studio (something that I am all too familiar with myself) and she said that she was considering not dancing anymore... until she saw me dance; she said after watching me dance with the troupe that she's going to continue to dance and that just floored me

I've had people tell me after performances before how much they enjoy watching me but hearing it today (especially from the person who said I "inspired" her) touched me differently.  Maybe one of the reasons it touched me differently is because I feel as if I've been struggling lately in multiple aspects of my life.  I watched one of my favorite movies this weekend (All About Steve) and a quote from it struck me - "Less work.  More of everything else.  Be normal."  Now, I don't know about the normal but I do think there is some validity to the statement and it is something for me to work on.

Well my dear readers, I know that this is a short post but I had an overwhelming week (more next week on that...) and a long day today so I'm going to bring this to a close for tonight.  I've also started this weird cough thing (I'm hoping it's just from allergies since I'm sick of just being sick...) so I should probably get some good sleep tonight.  I hope you each have an opportunity for fabulousness this week!  =)

Finding my tribe...

When you find people who not only tolerate 

your quirks but celebrate them with glad cries of

"Me, too!" be sure to cherish them.  Because those

weirdos are your tribe.

I have been feeling out of sorts lately and it wasn't until I reread this quote that I understood at least part of why I was feeling this way - I've lost my tribe.  Feeling as if I've lost my tribe has made me incomplete and that has caused some inner struggle/turmoil.  Because I have often felt as if I walk/dance to the beat of my own drummer, to find individuals who move to the same drum are priceless.  On the flip side of that though, because I'm an introvert, I find it difficult at times to keep with the tribe.  Maybe that's it - I didn't lose my tribe, I was the one who wandered away without leaving a trail of breadcrumbs to find my way home...

Losing this tribe may not have been a bad thing - maybe this is my opportunity to find/join a new tribe.  I'm sure this will mean me going outside of my comfort zone but that may not be a bad thing for me.  I often try to avoid situations that make me feel overly uncomfortable but there are times the most growth happens because of those uncomfortable situations.  If nothing else, when you feel as if you've hit the bottom of the barrel, the only place you can go is up.

Wow... rereading what I've written, I've used quite a few metaphors but I think they help to sum up pretty much how I've been feeling lately.  I'm also trying hard to stop edit my posts as I write them - if that's what popped into my head as I wrote, why overthink it and then change it?  I encourage other people to recognize/embrace how they're feeling at any given time and then I edit myself.  That's something I want to get away from.

This past weekend, I taught at two different studios and I will teach class again tomorrow.  My instructor took a couple of days off so I taught for her yesterday and will teach for her again tomorrow; and I subbed again for the instructor I did last Sunday.  At the studio yesterday I had a private lesson for almost a half hour, a beginner class with 5 people for an hour and then ran choreography rehearsal with 8 people for an hour; the class today was for an hour and a half and there were 6 people in that class.  While my body is sore, I did enjoy taking the opportunity to help these dancers find their "lightbulb moments" when it came to their dancing.  I had dancers tell me that they are thinking about moves in new ways and able to figure out moves that they hadn't before so that's exciting to me.  These "lightbulb moments" are some of the things I miss about teaching...

Something that just came to me is maybe I need to find ways to create "lightbulb moments" for myself in different aspects of my life and see how that works for me.  I want to start challenging myself to not only go outside of my comfort zone but to also do things to push myself above and beyond.  One aspect I definitely want to challenge/push myself is at work.  I know that I need to do something to turn things around at work so it's not such an effort to make myself go in on a daily basis...

Well my dear readers, I have given myself some things to think about and I think the time change might also be catching up with me so it's time to bring this to a close for the evening.  Next weekend we have a huge dancer performance (one of our biggest of the year); I'm running the rehearsal tomorrow after work, Wednesday is our dress rehearsal and some of the gals have asked me if I would work with them either privately or in mini-classes in the evenings - so we'll see how all of that goes...  I hope you have opportunities this week to find your own tribes!  =)

Chewed up and spit out...

Not a very ladylike title I know but it's definitely how I've been feeling this week...  I have felt as if decisions I have made have been questioned at every turn to the point where I'm questioning myself and it has left me doubting myself in almost every aspect of my being...  Things that I thought I had a handle on I feel, because of self doubt, have slipped through my grasp and I'm left clinging to the edge of a precipice.  That may be slightly melodramatic but I feel as if my grip has been slipping...

I'm am currently writing in the middle if the night because I cannot sleep.  I'm hoping that if I get some thoughts down on paper that it may lead me to being able to at least get a few hours of sleep tonight as I do have to get up relatively early to run to a neighboring town and be a substitute dance instructor and then run back here to sing in the church choir.  While I am looking forward to teaching this class (it's a wonderful group of women and I adore the woman who has asked me to teach in her absence) I feel as if I have let the teacher (and also her class) down because I haven't had an opportunity to learn the choreography they are working on and I was asked to teach.  I sent a note to the instructor telling her I would completely understand if she wanted to try and find another substitute since I feel as if I let her down by not learning this dance but she still wants me to teach so I guess that's a plus...  Maybe I, once again, am just being to hard on myself...

I have a tendency to focus on perfection rather than progress and with how I've been feeling lately this is something I definitely need to learn how to change.  Because of feeling this way, I have felt "me" fading away behind my protective walls and allowing those around me to affect me in ways that I don't like.  I have found myself apologizing for how I've been feeling on more than one occasion, once again taking on monkeys that don't belong to me and I have even had someone at work leave me on the verge of tears.  What's happening to me?!  Whatever it is, I need to work towards figuring it out because I don't like feeling this way.

Many people have told me that if I don't like how I'm feeling or how a situation is unfolding that I should just change how I'm feeling or change the circumstances of the situation.  Neither one of those options is easy.  I don't know about you but I have never been one who can change my emotions or how I'm feeling at the drop of a hat or as if by switching on/off a light.  Maybe one of the reasons I have this internal struggle is I can be a bit of a grudge holder and in being a perfectionist maybe I'm holding a grudge against myself for "failing"..... Time out...  That thought is too deep for the middle of the night; I think I just caused my brain to implode a little bit...

At this point in my writing, I decided it was time to head to bed last night (it was almost 1:30 am when I called it quits).  I just reread what I wrote last night and for writing in the middle of the night, I didn't end up changing much because I allowed myself to write how I was feeling.  I'm actually pretty surprised at how coherent my thoughts were since I was writing that late.  There are times when I'm writing that I either get distracted and lose my train of thought or I want to find the "perfect" way to word something that I write and rewrite a sentence over and over.  When I was writing last night I didn't do that - I just wrote.  I encourage other people to express themselves and then there are times I have trouble doing so - either because I want it to be "perfect" or I don't feel as if people want to read what I have to write.

I think one of the things I need to do is give myself permission.  Permission to take some time for me.  Permission to feel how I'm feeling.  Permission to fail.  Permission to leave the headaches of work at work.  Permission to say "no."  Permission to say "yes" to something I really want to do.  Permission to go for it.  Permission to be me...  Maybe if I do some of these things, I will feel better and not feel as if I've been chewed up and spit out.

Well my dear readers, I think I'm going to bring this to a close for tonight since I was up late writing and I have a long week ahead of me.  I hope that you have a wonderful week and give yourself permission to be you.  Thank you, once again, for joining me along my quest...  =)