This was a rough week for me personally.
I’m not afraid to admit that I’ve been going through a bit of a mid-life crisis. I really hate that term but I don’t know what else to call it.
I think my next email might have the subject line:
“Why my midlife crisis is bullshit”
Anyway, it’s been an emotional roller coaster for me the last few weeks. This week I hit bottom. I ended up on my couch in the fetal position crying like a little girl.
So nutty.
It all started a few weeks ago.
I signed up to attend a 10-day “get your shit straight” retreat. At the retreat there’s no contact with the outside world. No phone, no internet, no email, no TV, no radio, no contact at all with anyone you know. It’s just 10 straight days of dealing with all your “shit” and getting it straight.
It’s not a silent retreat. The retreat focuses on everything negative that happened to you from birth to about 13 years old. During those formative years we are by nature very self-centered. So anything negative can affect your behavior for the rest of your life.
Usually we end up doing one of two things:
- Mimicking the bad behaviors of our parents to try to “win their love”
- Rebelling against those behaviors
The problem is that those behaviors get deeply programmed and we run on autopilot repeating them over and over.
In my prep for this retreat they had me to do an 8-hour-long assessment of any potential negative behaviors I have “inherited” from my parents. That exercise really created some emotional issues for me.
I started remembering so many crazy things from my childhood that I’d completely forgotten about or “repressed”.
It’s gotta be one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.
All seemed to be fine until the next day.
I was having a typical Internet business day when I got an email. It was from someone trying to get in on the postcard traffic call with Luke and me.
They couldn’t connect.
This has been an ongoing issue so I got pretty upset about it.
Ok let me rephrase that:
I completely LOST IT.
I mean I COMPLETELY fell apart.
I ended up in balled up a fetal position crying my guts out for several hours.
WTF? Yeah I know.
What I realize now is that exercise I did a few days ago released some pent up emotions and memories that were DECADES old. It was like a volcano blowing its top. I couldn’t stop it if I wanted to. It was an unreal sight and pretty embarrassing but real nonetheless.
The good news is that my volcano has vented and now I feel some weight lifted. I’m still walking around in a bit of a funk but much better than I was.
I’ve struggled to sit down and write an email for many days now.
All I could do was stare at the screen. So weird.
Now you know why you haven’t heard from me.
Anyway, on Thursday I leave for this retreat. I’m not sure what’s gonna happen but from what I’ve heard about it, I’ll come back a different person…sorta.
I’m scared and excited at the same time.
Not sure where I’m going for this email so I’ll stop there.
I’ll be in touch this week before I head out for 10 days.
Talk soon,
Matt “Little Girl” Trainer
P.S. Feels weird to do a promo of any sort in this email. But MANY people had an issue with connecting to the postcard traffic call so I’ll just put the replay link here.
Or here’s the bare link:
http://postcardtraffic.com/replay
Blah.
[Image source: Tumbler]
