The Roller Coaster of Life
The ups and downs of life- – they just freaking suck…
When you’re trying to improve or change anything in life for yourself, it’s important to remember: it’s a journey.
It’s a process. The process can be hard and it is so easy to run back to the old and what is comfortable, but the process is usually one complicated mess, full of obstacles.
The journey can at times feel like there is no true or real end. No ultimate finale. There is not a place where one can say it’s really and totally complete, despite whatever desire you have deep down inside.
It means that journeys are long, and hard; up, and down. I have been living this journey for a little over a year now. Trying to make changes in your life can be exhausting and hard. I left a 19-year teaching career that I truly didn’t choose to leave. However, it was a toxic environment and I chose my integrity and character. I have been building my life coaching business, doing work I love, “finding myself”, creating real depth and connection, and just feeling happy, secure and in love with life again is a real challenge some days.
Some days are just saddening, spirit-breaking and heart-crushing. Others are hilarious, uplifting and inspiring. The days can be slow, stuck and sometimes fast.
The thoughts of this journey can take you to “this is the worst thing you ever did.” And yet the most fun thing you ever could do. We all want the process of our journey to go as smoothly as we’d expected and hoped for. When that downward ride of the roller coaster happens, we feel frustrated, get down, lose hope…we all do at times.
As a life coach, I am human. I forget this at times and I feel like I have to place myself higher than my clients, but in reality, why? I also have faced journeys and my everyday life is a process like yours. In this process, I have been trained, I have gained tools and the education to help my clients, but I have also been in the shoes of the journey and still walk the journey, so in our work together my clients have felt more help from our sessions than years of counseling.
A client of mine, Michele, had a great day yesterday, she felt great, successful and today she is texting me feeling like a loser, lame, and a failure. In talking with her, we worked on the understanding that her process will have periods of rapid growth, small growth, and plateaus. There are periods of feeling as if you’re lost and clueless, hopeless and helpless, and times you feel as if you’re almost completely invincible. This is normal. We made some changes on the steps in her progress and she had to know it was ok to take a step backward in order to move forward.
Many people get lost in the feeling of taking a step backward. We have been conditioned to see it as a negative instead of a step back to observe, think and re-plan so they can take their next step forward.
It’s about courage and understanding fear and failure.
The pursuit of your journey either toughens you up or beats you down. Sometimes both at the same time.
Usually the path around obstacles has little to do with how smart you are or how successful your journey is. Success is about heart. It’s about those supporting you and walking your journey with you. It’s about understand you will walk in both directions and you will face those up and downs hills that want to make you throw-up on that roller coaster ride.
The quiet moments where you wonder if this will be the one time where you don’t make it makes the progress hard. Nothing can compare to what one learns from the brutality of life and what one learns when you’re on the way down that roller coaster hill.
You will be more likely to fail at your journey if you give up, not because you don’t know what to do. Many have no clue what this journey in life will bring us, who we will meet or what opportunities will come our way if we hold on during the times of these negative thoughts.
I know first-hand what it feels like to have the up and down roller coaster ride of emotions and thoughts. It isn’t fun and it can be pretty messy.
Read my last blog: https://bashaffer.wordpress.com/2016/08/22/letting-the-anchor-go/
A great read of letting go and moving forward.
Life is a journey, it’s a process and many do not have the tools to move forward. If you are stuck and looking for an inspiring person to help you plan your next steps, then set up your FREE 30-minute session today to see if we fit to work together. I work with adolescents and college students trying to find their path as well.
Much Love and Peace,
Becky Shaffer—Life Coach
bshafferliveinconfidence.com 