Don't Quit Until The Job Is Done

I was raised with a good-old fashioned work ethic. You do your best, consider a job completed ONLY when the outcome is satisfactory and don't stop or give in when it gets tough. So that is how I lived my life. Powering through whatever obstacles were in my way and not stopping until I could present a job well done. I pushed my way up a career ladder I did not want, but did it anyway, because that's what was expected of me. I worked 12 hours a day running up and down the state of California, making sure enough lipstick and eyeshadow had been sold in order to keep my bosses happy. It was stressful and consumed my life. But I did it because that is what I was taught to do, achieve what is expected of me. Life is tough and only the tough make anything of themselves, so get goin' girl!

That attitude is the single most detrimental contributor to my CFS/Fibromyalgia story. Oh how I wish I had acknowledged that lifestyle was dynamite lit on both ends, how overwhelmingly unbalanced  it was and paid attention to my body when I started developing health problems. Instead I just ignored them, anxious to return to life and that oh-so-important job of mine. Unwilling to skip a beat, lose momentum, get behind in this race of a game called life. Slowly but surely I just got too darn sick to ignore it anymore and I had to make some adjustments. I have been slowly adjusting ever since. Reducing my workload, stress, household cleanliness standards, you name it, I have conceded! But I have been re-building other things in its place. I was forced to shut out the world and get very quiet with myself. Sit around and do nothing, literally, for months on end. I had to look within and try to figure out what I was racing around trying to avoid. What was I running from?

Well I found it! Through lots of therapy and self-reflection and good old fashioned God, I found it. I was living life offensive to my true nature. The generational patterns I was raised to continue on with were detrimental to who I was fundamentally. Slowly but surely, brick by brick, I have found a way to exist with inner peace and harmony because the garbage I had filled my life with was not me. Am I glad it took CFS and Fibromyalgia to get me to pay attention to my choices, my reality? No. But I do know the person sitting here on the other end of your computer screen would not exist today without it.

Thanks for joining,

Leah

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