Full Disclosure: Confessions of My Addiction & My Transformation

It's time for full disclosure:  I am a recovering addict.  My substance of choice was non-stop DOING.  Somehow, along the line, I had swallowed the idea that if I was not striving at full throttle, then I was wasting time.  If I was not pushing, fully dedicated to success and the climb to the top, then I was going to fall behind.  I had come to believe that relaxation was a hindrance--if I sat on the bench even for a moment, there would be a thousand other people who would be getting ahead of me.  I adhered to the philosophy that from morning to night I must dedicate my whole self to ACTION, running to and fro at total intensity to reach my peak.

Slowly, over a period of years, I've woken up from my frantic, frenetic stressed "high."  The adrenalin-junky in me had caused many of my physical and emotional systems to blow.  At age 31, I had become an expert at living the non-stop, success-enthusiast lifestyle.   But my body started to "yell" at me:  chest pains, intense ones, were some of the first signals letting me know that my addiction to work and pushing for progress were backfiring on my well-being.

After the doctor put me on the treadmill to check my heart, he delivered the bad news:  your heart is physically fine.  You are too stressed.  Stress is causing this sharp pain in your chest.  You need a lifestyle change.

Me?  A high-performing former professional basketball player was being told to slow down?  Me?  A corporate-ladder climbing expert was being advised to back off my game?  I was panic stricken--"If I don't keep up the effort, I am not going to be successful in life.  If I don't give 1000% every day, I won't be as sharp, smart, high-achieving.  People will beat me to the mark if I back off."

But I had to choose:  continue the addict lifestyle that got me to this point of physical pain and risk eventual heart attack OR find a new way.

To top it off, I became pregnant with my first child and when she arrived and I was told by doctors, "She may not walk, talk or live a normal life." My emotional world took me to the edge of the inner cliff.  Either I was going to fall down into the cavern of despair or I had to find a way to process my palpable, pain-stricken mind and spirit.

I've changed.  It's taken awhile and, quite honestly, there are many a moment when I'm tempted to go back to my old ways of thinking, doing and being.   What I've learned is that this highly-esteemed way of non-stop striving and doing is OVER-rated.  Is that a path to external success?  Yes, it can be and I reaped many benefits for a time of having chosen that path as a teen and young adult.  I ended up as an academic Princetonian.  I became a top basketball player at Princeton and then played overseas in Brazil, England and Sweden.  I launched a fast-tracked corporate career that had me headed toward "VP status by my early 30s."  To outside observers, I had it going on.  I had it "all".

But, inside, I was in a constant state of anxiety.  My inner-being was constantly pushing me, beating me up like a task master that was never satisfied with any achievement.  "More, Trish, you can achieve more.  Work harder, longer.  Push yourself.  You can do better.  You can be more.  You haven't done enough."  At the time I thought that was normal.  That's all I had known.

When Life delivered a drastic turn and I crashed on the side of the road, I stopped and re-evaluated everything.  I studied my thinking and discovered that beneath my striving was fear:  fear of not being good enough, fear of not being accepted by others, fear of not reaching my potential, fear of my marriage failing, fear of my body not being perfect...

Though my outer achievements demonstrated success, my inner world was one of discordant energy, moments of despair and a general malaise of sadness.  Of course, nobody would have ever noticed my inner state because I had learned to put on my positive "can-do" cheerleader attitude all day, every day.  I was even blind to the fact that I had this much unrest within my spirit because I never stepped back to listen to all of the messages my mind, body and spirit.

I'm grateful I crashed.  I'm so thankful now that I chose to sit with myself and pay attention to the wise messages my inner Being offered me.  Since 2002, I've gone through a massive transformation--from the inner thought world....to how I choose to be and live my outer world.  It's taken practicing awareness of my thoughts and choices.  It's taken experimentation of new ways of being and living.  It's taken a willingness to go against the American-non-stop-schedule norm.  It's taken courage to try new approaches that seem to those around me a radical departure of my old-path of "success."

The result:  I experience deeper levels of peace and wellness than I ever thought possible.  I now value health, relaxation, rest, down-time, calm in myself and in my relationships.  As I've slowed down and quieted my mind, I've connected to a deeper level of Divine wisdom that has guided me through every step of this personal transformation.

I am a recovering "Stress-Non-Stop-Doing-Addict."  But I've come along way from where I was 13 years ago.  And, I'm grateful.

Why bother sharing this with the World at large?  Simply to share that if you find your current lifestyle isn't working for you---you aren't alone.  There are MANY other ways to live life.  There are many different options for your Inner and Outer Being.  So, if this over-committed, over-worked, over-stressed, over-indulgent way of life isn't working, you do NOT have to continue to live that way.

Perhaps it's time to step back and withdraw a bit.  Maybe some time for discovering the messages your inner-world has been whispering, even shouting, at you, will inform new choices with your time and energy.

Just because our culture has normalized "Stress-Non-Stop-Doing" as a badge of "Success," doesn't mean it's a sustainable way to be in the world.  If you take a closer look you may realize that the hard core addicts of stress are numbing themselves with glasses of beer and wine each night and starting there day taking an anti-depressant or a cocktail of other chemical aids for their physical body to keep their routines going.

I encourage you to determine what way of being and doing will work for you.  There isn't a right or wrong.  It's time for self-discovery and exploration--of charting new territory for ourselves, our families and humanity at large.  Caution:  people will criticize you if you step back, if you slow down, if you consider doing things different than the norm.  Don't let that hinder your choice of re-evaluation.  Forge ahead into new inner territories with courage.  Just like Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492 to find new worlds, now it's time to do the same pioneering in the vast, unexplored Inner Worlds.

In no way have I perfected my new way of Being...I'm still exploring, fine-tuning and experimenting on a daily basis.  The biggest mental breakthrough that fuels me is:  I really don't care how others do it.  I know now that I must fearlessly pay attention to my voice of inner guidance and live in accordance with what I value regardless of how the other 99% of the world chooses to conduct their lives.  At the end of the day, the only person that looks in the mirror back at me is ME.  At the end of my life, the only being I carry to the other side is MY Spirit that will then have a conversation with the Divine and answer for the choices I made in my lifetime.

I didn't plan on writing all this today, but it flowed through my fingers onto this blog.  I hope it got you thinking, perhaps questioning the status quo.

Let's chart a new, better course for humanity together...Let's do so by BEING the change we want to see and LIVING the change we want to see.

Let me what you think ;)

Much love,
Patricia Omoqui, The Thought Dr.
www.patriciaomoqui.com