Here are a few steps I am currently taking in order to do some serious soul searching. Though I am not an expert or a trained professional by any means, maybe my journey will speak to a few others and bring on inspiration. Defining soul searching is important. I am not a very religious person in the terms of someone who follows one god or a religious group. This said, I do believe in forces in the universe, that almost nothing is coincidence and signs are placed before us more often than we recognize. Faith and fate go hand in hand. When someone says they will pray for me I am truly honored that someone would take time to talk to their god about me. I tell others I will pray for them because I believe praying sends good messages into the universe which in return can provide positive outcomes.
I define the term soul searching to describe a process of looking within ourselves for answers and healing. Personally I have tried to do some soul searching on and off for years and years without much success, only to be deposited back to the same maze. It’s a quest and a real commitment I have come to realize. Once you start you really should see it through with dedication and heart. It’s all right there inside waiting to find a way out. Some of my quest has allowed important information to wiggle its way out of me. As I peal back the layers I am finding peace, sadness, joy and straight up frustration. It’s not always this feeling of relief, actually on the contrary it’s been hard to swallow somethings that are coming to surface.
Why did I need to go on this journey? Struggling with some anxiety and pounds upon pounds of stress I realized my life was completely out of balance. I felt as if I was bouncing from one routine to another with nothing in between. Hitting autopilot was the norm for me. Get up, get myself ready for work, get my kids ready for day care, pack lunches, feed the dog, try to look like I know what I’m doing, rinse and repeat. The ride was the same every day and I found most of the day unpleasant. My marriage was way off track including our lack of intimacy, my health wasn’t the best and I was pregnant, I couldn’t sleep, I was yelling at my other two kids all the time, I hated the cute puppy we adopted and I avoided my friends and especially new people.
How do you get off that crazy ride? I was scared to take a step to do something about it. Very unhappy at the job I had for the past several years I also feared leaving. The amount of confusion and fear that towered over me was very ominous. As a Human Resource Manager I had to lay off about 70 people and my heart cried for every one of them. Then it happened. I was also let go. The company was kind enough to keep me on board until the baby came and provide a very generous severance. But I was scared, alone, anxious and barley surviving the day to day. I wasn’t present for myself or my family. To say this was a dark time for me would be the TRUTH.
I am going to glaze over how we decided that I would be a stay home mom, it involved a lot of fighting, self-doubt, number crunching and fear. To put it simply, it was the hardest decision I have ever made. Never did I think being home with my children was a good move for me, but it would allow me a second chance at finding peace so I stepped in. Making a promise to myself that I would never return to a job that I didn’t connect with. For now, I would do my best at being a mom, wife and I was going to start a real soul searching mission so I could be a better me. The soul searching mission started before the baby came but didn’t really take off. My body and mind were focused on taking care of other things, like the human growing inside of me. It took a few months after she was here when postpartum really hit me on top of the anxiety and stress and self-doubt I already had. Like a switch being turned on I realized NOW IS THE TIME. Being a list maker and someone that likes to write out things I devised a plan for myself to get healthy both mind and body. Next entry will be the first step I took.
Melisa Peterson Lewis 