We are Literally Living on a Floating Rock. Why are you not doing that thing you’ve always wanted to do?
I have made the executive decision to cognitively dismantle the beliefs that cause me to limit my earthly experience. Hmmmmm you may ask, what does that even mean Kendra?
Well, it means that I have completely lost interest in conforming to societal norms and I am leading with my heart AND my mind. It means that I do not have to choose one or the other. I can have both, if that is what I want. It means that I have established my own expectations to live by and I do just that.
Starting in June of 2021 I began to experience “something” til this day, it is hard for me to give that “something” a name. It was a combination of a spiritual awakening, happiness, depression, fun, and sadness. It felt like all of those emotions were happening simultaneously and I struggled to understand why I was experiencing this. After some therapy for the therapist, long periods of self reflection, journaling, crying spells, and contentment, I learned that the experience I was having was, in fact, an awakening. The sadness and depression came from me not living on my own terms. It stemmed from me trying to categorize or make myself fit into realm that I was not meant to fit into.
After reaching what felt like my dream career position, I started saying to myself, “well now it’s time for family, marriage, kids, settling down, ya know” but that didn’t quite feel right to me. My inner most higher self was not satisfied. She kept saying, “Girl we got more exploring to do. Let’s go see the world.” The idea of NOT settling felt more and more appealing. I thought to myself again, “ If everything goes right, I got about 95 years on this floating rock that sits in the middle of nowhere. Why am I in such a rush to do one thing, and live in one place for the rest of my life.” “Why am I in such a rush to dedicate 75% of my life to a company and have to wait around for the things I want.” “Especially, when companies get what they want sooner, rather than later from me.”
So from there, I decided that I will and deserve to live my life on my own terms. I mean… why TF not? Again, we literally went through a global pandemic, only enter a war, and I have the nerve to be sitting here not living MY dreams… On a FLOATING ROCK at that? That felt crazy to me. So in turn, I left my day job and pursued Travel Social Work. Thereby, contracting myself out to hospitals and agencies for a short period of time, earning more money, being in charge of myself, to fund the type of therapy practice that I want and the lifestyle I want.
Now, when I say lifestyle, I do mean luxury. I love nice materialistic things and I should be able to have them when I want them. However, more than anything, when I mention lifestyle I mean freedom. The freedom to take a break from work for a month and go sit on a beach without a time limit or pressure. I should have the mental capacity to write and inspire freely instead of pulling all-nighters during the work week just to push content out. I cannot and I refuse to operate in that manner. Being a therapist is my first love, it is literally my passion, but the manner in which I was working simply did not align with my spirit and something had to change.
So I decided that I will take MY life into my own hands. I will make up my own rules and expectations. I am the governor, the president, and CEO of my life. While I am here, on this floating rock, I choose to make my experience as fulfilling and worthwhile as possible.
Not to be misinterpreted, I am not running away from hardship, responsibilities, or any of my adultlike duties. This is to simply say that, I am in charge of me. I know what I deserve and I am not settling for anything less than that. Way too often I see social workers or other people in the helping field adopt this, “well that’s just how it is” or “I’ll never be able to live that way” mindset and I just find that unsettling. It simply does not sit right with my spirit to belief that I have to settle for less while working in a field that requires us to give so much naturally. I cannot and I will not.
To end, I said all of this in hopes of encouraging someone. It is imperative that you make your existence and experience on this earth worthwhile to your standards. Ask yourself, “How satisfied am I right now with my life?” If your response feels unsettling, then it may be time to sit down and figure out what can you do to make yourself happy. Not to minimize life or our human experience, but as we spin about on this floating rock in the middle of the solar system, why not make our experience here the best experience possible? You deserve that….right?
