Mountains of Failure, Mole Hills of Disappointment

There comes a point when the things that aren't easy to admit morph into the things that aren't easy to hide.

They take up too much emotional space, and eventually it's just easier to confess them (first to yourself, and then to those you trust, and then publicly online if that's your thing in this Internet age). 

So here it is, my confession... My confidence is shot.

Call it a slump. Call it insecurity, depression, self-doubt. Call it making a mountain of failure from a few mole hills of disappointment. Call it setting unreasonable standards of personal expectations. Call it perfectionism. Call it death by comparison. Call it hysteria. Call it being an artist. Hell, call it being human.

Sometimes you need other people to believe in you until you can believe in yourself.

This has been one of those times for me. It came on fast and hard a few days ago, like some vicious emotional flu. But I can see now that it's been brewing for months and months, like an annoying case of the sniffles that won't go away and then one day blooms into a eye-popping sinus infection.

And similar to having a sinus infection, I've felt like I can't breathe for all the pressure in my head. I've been clogged up with thoughts like this: I'm falling behind or failing in nearly every aspect of my life, from physical fitness to financial management; from the laundry to the landscaping; from the house work to the freelance work; from the writing life to the domestic life.

People give me this good advice: Don't compare yourself to others. It really is good advice, and a point of view for which I advocate. I've been trying to gauge myself by my own progress. But that's its own problem: I'm not living up to my own expectations. My husband says I'm too hard on myself. I say that I know my potential and that I'm falling short of it. He points out that my standards are impossibly high. I scoff at this. He gives me a look. I give him a look right back. And then, I may, for a moment, concede that my expectations are a wee bit lofty, but it's usually just a matter of minutes or hours (days, if I'm lucky) before I'm looking up again at those expectations and noticing how damn short I am in comparison.

So I've spent a few days crying, making to-do lists, and cleaning my kitchen. I've distracted myself by playing endless rounds of Candy Crush and watching back-to-back episodes of Downton Abbey on DVD. And finally, the other night at 3:00am, while my husband was rightfully sound asleep and I was sitting up sad and lonely and horrified by my own lack of "success," I asked Facebook for a pep talk. And some lovely people on the West Coast and a friend in India responded. Then the next morning some lovely people in my own East Coast time zone responded. My husband spent the better part of the afternoon holding the space for me to wail and then gently helped me to see that the mountains of doubt were not insurmountable, that I had the power to scale the mole hills. I let them believe in me. I let their kindness in, and I began to feel better, even though my confidence was still in the red.

I'm not telling you this as a way to solicit your sympathy or to garner more pep talks. I'm telling you this because I bet you that you, too, have your own mountains and mole hills to climb.

My friend Liz says that we share our stories so others can nod their heads, feel less alone, and say, "Me, too. Me, too." I agree. It's all about connection. That's the reason I write: to connect with the world around me, to connect with the deepest, truest parts of myself, and to connect with others.

So that, if your experience resonates with my experience, you can nod your head and whisper, "Me, too. Me, too."

I've spent the last few days purging this slumping sickness from my system. I'm starting to feel lighter and clearer. Some ideas I've had for a long time are starting to coalesce, and I can see that I'm on the verge of creating and launching a several creative projects that I hold dear.

When I'm in the throes of woeful self-doubt and the labyrinthine path of indecision, nothing feels possible. And no matter how many times I go through this process, I never believe that those things almost always precede a significant shift and end up being the stepping stones to something new and good.

But just because I don't believe it, doesn't mean it might not be true.

Comments

[Brandee]

*me, too! me, too!"

[liz]

gosh your writing takes my breath away. yes.
me too. honey. me too.
xoxoxo

[Ariel Snapp]

Me too. Hi Jenna (also my sister's name!). So happy that twitter connected me to you and I read this today. I have been fighting internally lately to let go of reasonable and rational and just believe, unwaveringly to believe in magic. I find if I just allow myself to chose that, that gets me through times of doubt and feelings of never going to get there.