it's taking over

Waking in the mornings, sometimes I get this gut feeling in my body.

My eyes flutter open peacefully, I roll over, half awake, my mind becoming aware of its presence in my body. I take a deep breath without having to think about it, my body does the work naturally. I might stretch a little.

Waking is a beautiful process.

And then.

I'm on the verge of consciousness, coming to my senses, aware of what room I am in, of what the day holds for me, of what place I am in my life, of who I will see that day.

And that feeling starts. It seems to scream at me, muffled somehow, but obviously screaming at the top of its lungs:

"SUSANNE!!! URBALAHRUCHDGHIEOINWFUIEWNTHEDJM!!! "

Um..... pardon?

That's correct, my gut screams at me. Not literally, this is no disturbing case of tummy troubles. This is the honest feeling which I experience many days. It's right between my chest and my pelvis. It's a pang, a dull, hard-to-understand, gut feeling.

I believe that our bodies are connected to our minds in a special way. Our mind is not purely cognitive, there is something there which I don't know how to explain. Some call it the Soul, the Spirit, the third eye. There are types of psychological study just looking at these ideas, the phenomenon of being able to sense things before they happen. It explains how we can meet a person and know things about them before we actually know them (outside of appearances).

If you've ever felt something was wrong without knowing why, or known that you LIKE something or someone without an explanation of the reason, then you have probably experienced some level of this feeling which often visits me.

So, what do I do with this scream coming at me from my gut? I freak out a little bit, a mini panic attack hits me, I don't breath for about two seconds, and then, like any normal, balanced, rational woman who western society taught how to cope, I shove it.

Yep, I push it down as deep and far as it'll go. To my feet. Actually, I push it to the worms in the dirt under the floor beneath my feet. And I HOPE THE WORMS EAT IT! cause I sure don't want to deal with it.

 And then, again, just as I always have done and every person around me seems to do as well, I shower, eat my cereal, blast my music in my car and then go through my day at work trying to convince myself that I didn't feel anything at all. And I usually succeed.

After all, it's NORMAL to not want to go to work, nobody likes their job, right?

It's FINE if you're not always happy, no one can feel good all the time, right?

Gut feelings are just in my imagination, they don't mean anything, right?

Right?
RIGHT?
RIGHT?!?!?!
VALIDATE MY INSECURITIES!!!!!

Most people do:
"Everybody dislikes their jobs, you just have to do it anyways because we all need money."
"Don't worry, once you get to work it'll distract you."
"Well you like the people you work with at least!"
"Didn't you make top sales last month? Doesn't that make you happy?"

No.

No, no, NO.

Pushing that feeling down has gotten me one thing.

 Frustration.

I can try to ignore it all I like, but it stays there.

And even when I'm distracted because I'm working with a client, because I'm busy filling my already full schedule, or because I'm stuffing my face with delicious chocolate cake (hello perfect distraction!), that feeling is still inside of me.

Try as I might to get the worms to eat it and make it go away forever, I actually never succeeded in shoving it down at all.

It's right in my core. Eating at ME, just like the worms in my mind would eat it.

So, I have two options.

One, I continue to ignore it, and let it eat my soul and my guts away, nibble by gruesome nibble, until, like most of the people around me, it seems, I forget that I ever had ambitions to be happy and to contribute to the world in a fulfilling and meaningful way.

Or, two, I let myself feel the pain of it. The gnawing, yes. I face the fact that I've been letting it eat out my guts for so long, but also the actual pang itself. Try to listen and discipher those jumbled aches into actual meaning.

 You're probably saying right now: "What's that, you say? HA! Guys! come look, this chick thinks her gut it talking to her!"

You know what, yes, yes I do. I won't take it back. And if you don't get some feeling down there, I call BULL!, or else you've ignored it for so long that you forgot it's even there.

And it's taken over.

I won't let that happen to me, and I hope you don't either.

Instead, together let's stand up, face our fear straight on, and tell it it can go away. Because HERE WE ARE. We are a force to be reckoned with, and we will keep going. We have a choice: To let the pain stop us, or to use it to grow and learn. I choose to learn. What are you going to do?