Remember when I mentioned in last week's H54F post that staying at my friend's apartment with her cat was rough... Well, it certainly wasn't because of the cat! :) It was because my glass case of emotion runneth over.
You see, I love a routine. It's kind of what gets me out of bed in the morning: the familiarity, the comfort, the lack of surprise. It's all so wonderful! Familiar 4 lyfe. But while I was staying at my friend's, I had to leave at a different time in the morning. I had to go to a different el stop and rely on different buses. I had to feed the cat. These are not part of my beloved routine.
Plus, with no one else around, I could cry, hyperventilate, FEEL. It was terrifying. I didn't realize quite how numb I was. It was also a wake-up call as to how much I use busyness just to get through the day. (Hello, four hour commute!) If I stop moving, if I get out of the familiar routine, then I start feeling. BLEH. Who wants that?!
But here's the problem with the routine I love so much: it makes no sense! Like, comically so. I should be making like six figures if I'm commuting four hours a day. (Spoiler: I'm no Scrooge McDuck.) AND such a long commute encourages me to do bad things, like miss meals, and be in a constant state of sleep deprivation, and never unwind. It's a constant cycle: my unhealthy commute causes me to keep up my unhealthy habits which numb me out so that my unhealthy commute is nbd. The routine makes me feel like everything is neat and predictable--less scary. But it's not good for me!
The problem with numbing out on routine is that I'm not actually LIVING. Instead, I'm just going through the motions, rather than changing or growing. In therapy last week, we talked about how I love to retreat into my mind--and its irrationalities--rather than live life. I'd prefer to contemplate something endlessly than make an actual decision. I'd rather watch TV than interact with real people. As a kid, I went inward to avoid pain, and I never really stopped. So my challenge now is to question behaviors and beliefs that just don't make sense anymore. (Luckily, I just embarked on a six-month healing course with my favorite yoga teacher, which will address a lot of these fears and unhealthy behaviors!) I have to find some balance (how novel!) between routine and real living.
So, how do you, wise reader, find balance? (Or do you...) How do you cope with feelings of depression and apathy? When do you catch yourself numbing out? And do you also now have "Comfortably Numb" stuck in your head? ;)