Bloom where you’re planted
Recently, my boss tasked me with something that, I’ll be honest, threw me for a loop when she first said it. You see, every week we have a check-in where we talk about work, sure, but also just check in on life. Because I have so many medical things going on at the moment, most of our check-ins are about that. The last few weeks at work, however, have been pretty hectic so when we sat down this past week and she said, “How are you feeling?” my response was, “Physically or mentally?”
Of course she cares about my physical health, but at this particular moment she was asking about my mental health. In the last few weeks, I have taken on a significant amount of responsibility due to some people resigning and leaving us in a bit of a tough spot. We went from a team of 7 to a team of 4 almost overnight and basically had to scramble to figure out what wasn’t done, what wasn’t done correctly, and how to manage things moving forward. Me being me, I took on a lot of it. I was finding myself getting very burnt out, stressing over small tasks, and crying in my office. I was getting extremely overwhelmed and the other 3 could see it. We made it through and things are getting better, but there’s still a long way to go.
Which brings me to the task that my boss gave me.
She asked me to come up with a list of things I’ve accomplished over the last few weeks as well as a list of things I’ve learned. My first thought was, “Accomplished?! I haven’t accomplished anything!” But the more I’ve sat with it, the more I realized that I absolutely have. The exact list doesn’t matter right now, but the point of the matter is that I immediately doubted myself when tasked with this. Why? Why am I so quick to dim my shine?
I feel like the answer to that is simple: because I’ve never been in an environment that has allowed me to shine. Most of my working life, I’ve been places where my mistakes were put under a microscope but my wins were never celebrated. It’s why after 3 months at my new job I started having panic attacks every day because I was so sure they were going to turn around and realize they made a mistake hiring me. It’s why I put so much pressure on myself to step up during these weeks of transition because working hard shows that you care and are valuable. It’s why at the end of 2 weeks I was so burnt out that I slept for an entire weekend and couldn’t get out of bed.
None of these are good things and it wasn’t until I started this job that I realized how unhealthy all of my previous jobs were. At this new job I am valued for what I bring to the table. I am valued for my compassion. I am valued for being me. I don’t have to dim my shine nor do I have to try to push down those pesky emotions when I’m beginning to feel burnt out. I am encouraged to speak about it. I’ve come a long way from being fired for having a panic attack.
That, in and of itself, is an accomplishment. I always feel like I haven’t accomplished anything - that I’ve been stuck for years while everyone else grows around me. But when I actually stop to think about it, I can see so much that just isn’t true. I am not the person who ran away to New York 6 years ago nor am I the person who stumbled into a relationship that turned abusive 15 years ago. Healing isn’t linear and I am constantly changing and evolving. My life may not look like what I thought it was “supposed” to be, but I doubt there are many people who can say their lives turned out exactly as they thought it would.
Even as I write this, I am going through a bad medical flare and up later than I usually am because I simply can’t get comfortable. The shirt I’m wearing says:
Growth: grow through what you go through.
Truer words have never been spoken.
