Polytunnel

It’s been a week or so since I rediscovered some sunshine, but I’ve noticed some old feelings, possibly habits, creeping back.

The extra thinking space in my head has led me to realise that I’m not really happy with what I’m doing in my life and I’ve started to feel anxious again.

Rather than being out in the sunshine, I feel as if I’m in a polytunnel, so I can see and feel the sun, but need to choose which short dark tunnel ahead of me to go through, to truly be free.

I’d started my work project 6 years ago. It’s not been successful money-wise (so far), but it gave me focus and despite some major hiccups along the way, has undoubtedly helped me by giving me hope for the future and something to pour all of my effort into.

Now, I’ve launched my service, so technically anything from now on is a bonus as far as I’m concerned. It’s served its initial purpose, but now I can have fun trying to see if I can make a go of it and to push my boundaries, technically with nothing (major) to lose.

But I’m feeling anxious about this, mainly because I’m out of my comfort zone. I feel stupid, my confidence has gone. This is because I have very high standards and compare myself to myself, which is never going to be any good. I had confidence in the past, but that confidence came from seeing mediocre work and realising I could do better. Being home alone for too long has taken that away from me.

Not only that, I realised that I missed people. I love being around people. As much as I like spending time alone, I bounce off others and love to help people. In fact, motivating and helping others motivates me. And this is when I realised that in the past, I’d always helped people, wanted to help, in fact loved to help.

So here’s my dilemma. I realised that I have no passionate interest in the service that I’m offering at the moment. However, I’d like to see what I can do and learn and if anything, see what I can achieve seeing as I’ve poured my heart and soul into it for 6 years.

On the other hand, I do have a passion about helping others. Whether animals or people. I’d like to advise, talk to people, teach people (not as a teacher though). I have an outline of something that I’d love to do, but it’ll take a lot of hard work. I’ve already had feedback from doing something similar and people have been overwhelmingly impressed, inspired and surprised, which in turn boosted my confidence.

So which polytunnel path to take? Or can I do half and half and see what works? Either way, the inability to decide is causing anxiety at the moment. I feel stuck.

So far so good…

Without wishing to jinx this, I’ve actually been feeling quite happy since Saturday morning. 3 days of having energy and being even slightly happy is something of a rarity, so I’m enjoying it! It’s been so long since I’ve managed to string a few days together, it feels alien, if not slightly uneasy. If you know what I mean?

Part of it has to do with helping other people. I love helping people, so any opportunity that I get to listen to other people’s problems, use my “wisdom” or to pass my opinion on something is always a bonus to me. It makes me feel wanted and that I’m important enough that someone wants me to help them. Some people find this hard to understand, as they feel like they shouldn’t be burdening me. I see it like this: someone actually values me enough to ask for my help and it takes my mind off my issues. This sense of worth goes a long way with me. Who doesn’t like being asked their opinion and giving it, right?

I’ve also found that a couple of songs have been important in the past few days. One in particular has been stuck in my head and has given me so much “Raaar” that it prompted me to write a post about my top motivational tunes. Watching the music video to it increased its power too, so I’ll share my findings shortly.

Having said that, it could just be the weather… hello sunshine!