I’ve had enough, I can’t do this anymore!

I don’t know about you, but I had a few of these moments in my life.

It happened in my personal life but also in my career. Every time I had this feeling, it was followed by big changes, breaking up with my boyfriend of 4 years, moving countries, changing jobs…

These days we like to call these kind of things breakdowns, but in reality, it’s not a breakdown it’s a breakthrough. It is a breakthrough as a result of erosion and growth.

It like they say, a diamond is polished under pressure. And we are also being polished with pressure.

Over time we put up with things, we supress our emotions, we deny ourselves things, we hide who we are. Some of us go to the extreme that we forget who we were in the first place and we adopt a new identity.  

For example, in my relationship, over the course of 4 years I changed a lot. I went from a fearless young woman to a scared little mouse. Because my partner was jealous and controlling and so over time my behaviour changed so to pre-empt any kind of “risk” of upsetting him.

Until one day, I had enough. It was a thought that creeped in and started growing and growing and I was feeding it. I started imagining life without him, I started seeing the possibilities and opportunities. I spent some time with these thoughts without telling anyone, and one day I opened up to my sister, and we talked it through. She had the patience, care and compassion to listen to me vent for a week, and after that I broke up with him and never looked back.

The preparation to break up with him was intense, but once the decision was taken the actions that followed were easy. When I met him to tell him about my decision to leave him, he wanted to debate, discuss, convince me etc.

I looked at him and I said “this is not a debate; I am informing you of my decision”.

He looked at me shocked and he understood it was the end. This might sound cold, but we had other attempts of breaking up and every time he found a way to manipulate me back into the relationship. Even though all my friends and family told me to leave him for a very long time, I was not ready to hear it. It had to come from me.

I had to reach that point of “I can’t do this anymore”.

In my career it was not that straightforward because not many people understood my job so nobody ever encouraged me to leave my job. I just suffered in silence. And those that understood, were in the same boat as I was. So, it was like the blind were leading the blind.

The challenge in the career, similarly to a bad relationship, is that when you are in it, you can’t think clearly, you can see the trees from the forest. So even though I was suffering I thought that’s how it is supposed to be. Everyone was working long hours, and taking crap from hierarchy so that was the price I had to pay to be an international corporate lawyer. I even took pride in my resilience to hardship. Instead of realising that I am suffering, I considered that as being resilient.

But thankfully our bodies and psych are more intelligent than our minds, and they forced me to stop with 3 stomach ulcers, 2 ovarian cysts and panic attacks. That is when I had that “I can’t do this anymore” moment. From that moment onwards I spent my time recovering, resting and slowly building an exit plan.

Long sustainable change does not happen overnight. It takes time to sink in, to integrate in our being, to become one with who we are. So we when step out into the world with this new version of ourselves we don’t get lost and crumble at the slightest challenge.

Have you had enough? You are not alone; this is more common than you might realise.

I know you might feel lost, helpless, angry, tired, frustrated, ashamed at the moment, but those too shall pass. And if you need support on your journey I am here to help.

If you relate to this post let’s connect on IG @mindful_connecting or reach out for a chat.

With loving presence,

Florina

Mindful Connecting