Riding Out the Waves

Teacher work week started this week and it's been strange to not be a part of it except for one day. Even when I missed the first three months of school for maternity leave I was still there for teacher work week because my daughter thoughtfully decided to join the world after I had everything perfectly set for the long term sub. 

The anxiety of taking a risk and doing something new is absolutely numbing. The waves of self doubt that come are those from an angry ocean, knocking me off my feet and holding me under water so I have to fight to come up to the surface, gasping for air to breath. In between the waves varies from a sense of calm, where I can look out at the wide ocean and know I am exactly where I need to be right now, and a sense of excitement, because when the anxiety is not there I love what I am doing and could work for hours on plans for my clients. Then a wave comes and knocks me off my feet again. What am I doing? What on earth am I thinking? I had a perfectly fine job with a benefits and a steady salary that contributed to my children's college fund. 

It is just scary. I'm working on being able to better handle each crashing wave and get to my feet faster each time. I know the anxiety will come each day, and that it will also go away. At least, that is the mantra I am telling myself. 

I am fighting a constant battle of trying not to sabotage myself. This is my year at sea. My year to explore, yet waves of self-doubt come with a desperate desire to get out of the ocean and back to land. Steady land, where I'm not moving forward but I'm not under water either. I have to fight the constant pull to get back to safety. This may not work, and that is OK, but I need to give myself a full year to figure it out. A full year to find my footing, see if I can swim in the ocean, and if I even like it out there. But until then I need to keep fighting the anxiety and following through on the risk. At the end of the year I don't want to be back on land because I was too scared to swim out further. If I'm back on land, I want it to be because I either realized my plans were not sustainable, or because I truly like the security of land better than the unpredictability of the ocean. 

There will probably be many more of these anxiety posts this year as I work on handling my own emotions along with figuring out the taxes and banking of having my own business. There is so much to learn, from the practical aspects to just learning about myself.