Newsletter #15: Crying Over Trusting the Process
At what point do we 'trust the process' and start taking the reigns away from the universe?
Quite honestly, when I sat down to write this newsletter, I didn’t know what I was going to write about this week. I had flown some topics by friends and none of them seemed to be able to be expanded in a way that I was excited about. Then I started to think about this constant journey of self-improvement that everyone has been on thanks to social media.
I would like to say that I think everyone should strive to healthy, successful, happy, and a good friend no matter what, but the facials-botox-ketamine therapy-yoga five times a week plus getting 20k steps in-clean girl aesthetic-girlboss has ruined what we see healthy, successful, happy, and a good friend as today.
Being ‘well’ today is a particularly fickle ballgame. It changes all the time and it is increasingly more strict and aesthetic-focused. Before you were supposed to hit up your pilates studio then the local coffee shop, but now we’re making banana bread lattes at home. You were supposed to go to the sauna then come home, get ready, and get cocktails with friends. Now you’re supposed to host a super elaborate ‘tomato girl summer’ themed cocktail party at your house using low-ABV spirits and serving high-protein appetizers.
To be a good friend, you were supposed to check in and periodically go to lunch. Now you have to shell out thousands of dollars for a girls’ wellness retreat and write letters in the mail. If you’re not sending 100 TikToks and making personalized thrift hauls for birthdays, it’s like you’re not even friend enough.
While most of my friends are working—even though I’d never define them by what they do for a career—it seems as though now that I don’t have a career (at the moment) I now have time to be the most optimized version of myself. When in reality, being laid off has given me as much freedom as it has taken away from me.
While being laid off has become a conversation piece for me lately, it has also completely warped the woman I thought I was. First college did that to me, then the pandemic, then my parents dying, and now being laid off. I took a lot of pride in my job because it was a company I had strived to work for since I was a college freshman. I had pivoted from the world of higher education to the world of media and was truly proud of being able to successfully make that pivot so strategically. I had the benefit of having two career backgrounds in under 30 years. Now, I feel like I have nothing to show for my hard work besides failed interviews and over 50 job rejection emails (compared to the 350+ jobs I have applied for.)
A summary of the unsolicited advice I’ve gotten is to take this time to ‘trust the process’ and ‘invest in myself’ but that would require not being scared shitless by the idea of not making rent or being able to pay my cell phone bill. Even though those fears exist in my brain, I have been trying to care for myself the best I can by going on walks, taking an occasional pilates class, spending time in the sun at the pool, and not denying myself an iced coffee. However, the guilt of not working all day and being able to provide for myself looms over me. It’s like the internal girlboss and wellness influencer in my head takes over and tells me I should be getting more protein and starting my own business instead of waiting on someone to hire me, and I should be waking up at 7am and doing pilates in the sun then hitting 10k steps before noon.
Questions that circulate my mind every day:
Am I doing my Duolingo enough?
Why haven’t I journaled today?
I should make a recipe out of that cookbook.
I need to get that dent in my car fixed.
I haven’t done a barre3 video in a while.
I hope that place I don’t even want to work for hires me.
How much money is in my bank account?
Am I walking enough?
Do people like me?
While I’m letting myself enjoy not being tied to a 9-5 at the moment, trusting the process of finding a new job that pays the bills and allows me to enjoy life looms like a dark cloud over my head even on the sunniest days. Perhaps trusting the process isn’t a full-time gig. It’s just a reminder that even when things get scary, you have to tell the inner girlboss/wellness influencer to STFU and enjoy the sun.
Final Thoughts
If chaos follows you, then maybe you’re helping to create it.
We should all deinfluence each other from the idea that we should show up perfect.
And as Casey Lewis says, “All typos are intentional to make sure you’re paying attention.”