There's no way back

Quite literally, there is no way back. But also, in my case, figuratively. Going back to my comfort zone is not an option.

To me life was never black and white, but I feel like society is always trying to make us choose one or the other but doesn’t allow us to stay neutral and just hang out in the gray zone in the middle.

When I feel like I’m being pulled away from my authentic self and decision-making process by society and its rules, I can feel torn apart.

Confused.

Chaotic.

It took me a while to figure out that this is part of the reason why I go through episodes of insanity sometimes.

Well, maybe not insanity, but it can feel like there's pure chaos going on in my head. So, maybe it is insanity.

What’s she rambling on about?

Well… I’ll start at the beginning then. Sort of.

I had a couple of pretty tough days earlier this week. I cried a lot. Talked to my mum on the phone telling her I just had a really hard time accepting the world as it is KNOWING what it needs to become more joyful but not getting a chance to make that big shift.

Yet.

Doesn’t that sound majestic? Make the world a more joyful place for everyone. It seems so simple to me, but at the same time it's so difficult to get the message across on a bigger scale.

So yes, majestic AND a big burden.

But one that I am willing to take on. Because I feel like I have no choice. It’s the reason I’m here.

There’s this thing inside of me that guides and drives me. As much as I like to have it in me sometimes to just lay in bed all day and pull the covers over my head until it all “gets better”, that’s simply not how I operate. Could also have to do with my busy and chaotic mind that just won’t allow me to do one thing and/or sit still for a whole day. Some call it ADHD I call it brain fuel.

 Anyways.

For those who have no clue what I’m talking about, I’ll give a little background about the situation I am currently in, to make it more practical and relatable:

I moved to Adelaide in October to study, live and work and waited 6 months for my visa grant letter to come through. 6 Months in which I wasn’t allowed to work. 6 months of uncertainty whether I could stay in the country and keep living the life I was building or not. 6 Months that were supposed to be 60 days tops. And before you think I’m victimizing myself here: I am fully aware of the rules and restrictions, and I could have gone home at any time during those 6 months. But I didn’t want to. Because the alternative didn’t feel like an option anymore.

But this also meant that I couldn’t work, which meant I ran through my savings and became financially dependent on my family. And for someone who had been financially independent for quite a while by then, that was a bitter pill to swallow.

“Just be patient, sit back and relax” was the most common response some of my classmates and I were getting. “Don’t worry about it, it’ll come through eventually.”

We were also aware of the fact that immigration was becoming more and more vague about the entry rules so chances were, some of our visas could have easily been denied which meant we had to pack up our bags and leave the country right in the middle of the course and most importantly: our life.

Lucky for me (and my best girlfriends in class), that didn’t happen. BUT the situation did get more interesting when I found out it’s not that easy finding a job with my qualifications in a restricted visa situation with a Dutch passport.

Anyways. A long story short: I have been living here for over 8 months now and every now and again I feel like I haven’t achieved a single thing. That coming here might have been the wrong decision and that I am failing at life.

And this is where the story continues:

Once I’m in that downward spiralling rabbit hole, I can get stuck in a victim role mode where impatience takes over and negative and sad thoughts keep circling in my head. And lately this one keeps recurring:

“Should I just give up and go home?”

Back to the Netherlands where finding a job was never a struggle, where I could become financially stable in no time, where my family and social safety net is? It's not working here anyways. No one will give me a job, I am not financially secure and I just want to crawl in a hole and feel sorry for myself.

This thought and all the anxious feelings around it will then linger in my brain for a couple of days, and the funny thing is, is that this always seems to happen anywhere between my 5th and 10th day in my cycle. They also call this the cyclical spring and summer (for me personally, the timing and feelings that come with it can be very different for anyone else). This is the time where I can deal with patience and “letting things unfold the way they should without trying to control them” the least. It’s also the time where I will feel the impulsiveness burn inside of me like a little ball of fire.

And I am not saying you shouldn’t give into impulses sometimes and/or put your head under the covers because you feel like the world is against you. Your body knows what it needs and your mind knows when it’s looking for an excuse to just be impulsive and/or lazy or if it’s coming from a genuine place.

In the past this has led to decisions I could have given a bit more thought in hindsight. Decisions like booking trips to get away, but not in the moment trips, more like trips in the future I wasn’t financially ready for or just didn’t feel like going anymore once it was time to go.

But it’s not just booking trips. This is where I would have the idea to cut my hair, buy a new outfit, come up with a new business idea, or any other idea I was never going to commit to full time.

And now that I'm aware of the power of it and the fact that it also fades away, it’s a neat trick to use for short term goals. But there's also this internal brake that now allows me to push big decisions forward for a little bit until I'm in a more stable headspace again.

Side note: Ever since I got off hormonal birth control, I started becoming more aware of my moods and thoughts throughout my cycle and I’ve been tracking this in a spreadsheet for over a year now. I usually need a few days to recover from strong emotions I experience during those days. And they can go into every direction. Pure chaos, sadness, joy, anything. It rarely just goes by without anything happening.

It’s a thin line, though. It can be tricky because it can literally trick me into thinking thoughts I don't even necessarily agree with. It's just that little impatient version of me wanting to bypass the journey.

By being aware of this, though, I haven't made the impulsive decision to fly home. Nor will I do that. Because that is not my path. That is not my purpose. It's just not.

It's not as simple as that. It's an unexaplainable feeling which can only be described as intuition. Just knowing this is where I'm supposed to be, how uncomfortable and frustrating that might be sometimes.

Either way, when you feel like you are spinning out of control, I found out that that’s the best time to just let it happen. It feels so freeing not knowing and scary too. It’s a process. And it’s great to lean into all the feelings that are coming up, to make notes and to process everything in a way that feels good for you.

For me personally that’s going on a million walks. And now also runs. And going to the beach. And talking to my mum. Because she knows best how to filter the necessary information out of my rambles.

And after that, inevitably, my natural cyclical autumn kicks in and the blanket of peace and calm comes over me and I know I am exactly where I need to be and which direction I am going in.

And the realisation that this is where I need to be.

There’s no way back.

Please don’t hold back commenting or reaching out if this resonates with you. I have been talking to a lot of people who seem to be on a similar frequency so I’m sure there are more of you out there who are dying to just talk about these things and learn more about themselves and others around them.

So, let’s do that!

Xoxo Dominique