I feel like I am in the thick of a “messy middle” right now and the only thing I can think of to help me is writing about it.
What I mean when I say the messy middle is being in limbo, not knowing what direction you’re going in, feeling stuck, feeling like things are hard.
And that’s me right now.
It’s been ages since I sat down to write a blog post and I missed sitting down to let my fingers hit the keyboard and see what comes from it.
As I am typing I already feel a little lighter than I did when I woke up the last couple mornings (which was pretty heavy).
Getting the words out of my head and onto the ‘page’ has always been a helpful experience for me. You Love and You Learn first started as a blog in addition to my Instagram.
Yet somewhere along the way there were too many things on my plate and I didn’t make writing blogs a consistent priority anymore.
I can’t promise that will change or that I am going to be back writing longer blog posts weekly again, but all I know is that I have things to share and I am hoping that writing them out will be helpful for me (and helpful for you to read).
What Inspired This Blog Post
This post was actually inspired by these Threads from Alex Hormozi that I stumbled upon earlier this week.
He is a successful entrepreneur who is definitely someone I look to as having their sh!t together.
Which I realize is a totally unfair assumption to place on ANY human, because we’re all just doing our best.
Yet before yesterday—I had not seen Alex share as much of the hard stuff of being a business owner. I had only seen him look back at hard moments as part of a bigger story to tell how he overcame them. So this was a really refreshing perspective.
Here are the Threads that I saw (and immediately screen shot to save in my favorites album):
While I may not use the word miserable right now (more like overwhelmed), something that stuck out in particular was him saying “I thought it would be more meaningful to post this while going through it, not tell a story after.”
This really gave me permission to be open about being in my own hard “messy middle” moment.
While I have been fairly open in my journey with relationship anxiety, I realize that I am not always open in the middle of the hard things.
I think the reason for that is somewhere along the way, I picked up the message “don’t talk about your problems while you’re in the thick of them—wait until you have the lesson or the coaching moment.”
This advice makes sense in many ways. If you’re in the middle of your own hard stuff and feeling stuck, you may not have the insights to help others yet. Or you may be feeling heaviness and not have the capacity to support others.
For example: before I began my journey to understand relationship anxiety and felt like I’d made some progress, I don’t know if I would have been able to offer much support to other people aside from “you are not alone.” Which, don’t get me wrong, is super important, but is just one step to navigating the anxiety.
Once I felt like I was a few steps along in my own journey, I could share what I had learned more openly (and that’s what I did). Once I felt like I had a little more insights, I could share those with others, and people began resonating.
There have been plenty of moments since I started You Love and You Learn where I have been vulnerable and shared when I am still struggling with something. But as time went on, I began giving myself less permission to do this. I gave myself less permission to be in the messy middle.
I’m not sure exactly when it happened, but there was a switch that was flipped where I felt like because I am a coach, and because I help others—I have to have my own sh!t together all the time.
Not only in my relationship, but just in general. Gah, this is such an unhelpful expectation (one that I would never place on others).
And I’ve noticed that the more eyeballs that my Instagram page had over time, the more I think this subconscious pressure to have everything figured out was added.
This has led to me waiting to tell stories about hard moments until AFTER I’ve learned the lessons, or until after I can tie things up in a nice bow in a social media post.
Only now am I realizing that this can be very isolating and separates me from connecting with others about the very things that make us most human.
And I think the weight of it is catching up to me.
In the Thick of A Messy Middle Season
It feels like right now I am in the thick of a “messy middle” season.
I’m not even sure what the mess is or if I’m in the middle of it (or just at the beginning of a challenging time - who knows), but all I do know is that it feels really messy. And all I know is it feels important for me to share about it instead of bottling it up.
This week I have been having “freeze” moments. When I say freeze I mean fight, flight, freeze mode—the way our body responds to feeling fear.
At one point earlier this week I felt like I had to lay down for 30 minutes in the dark just to focus on slow deep breathing.
My chest was tight and heavy, my thoughts were swirling, and I relied on Nate to be a safe space to vent. I felt like I needed the swirling thoughts out of my brain because it felt like there was nothing else to do in that moment.
I've been scaling back and doing only the necessary tasks this week because it feels like my brain can't take on anything else. Luckily, when I am supporting clients or doing something inside my Patreon community, I am able to shift the focus towards supporting others instead of my own inner stuff. But nonetheless, it still feels uncomfy.
This is reminding me of my big “relationship anxiety breakdown”, when I felt so overwhelmed that I told Nate I wasn’t sure I loved him the same anymore. Looking back, I remember how stuck and overwhelmed I felt before that conversation, and I am noticing similar patterns.
Except this time it feels like it’s related to my business and being a business owner.
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly where this inner mess coming from or why (which is part of what feels messy).
Part of what I’ve learned over the last five years of inner work is that I don’t have to have this all “figured out” right away (even though I wish I could).
Needing to figure things out or have certainty all the time is a big cause of anxiety. It’s the mind and body’s way of trying to get things back in control, when a lot of life is about just embracing uncertainty and trusting the process.
Even though I may not know all the answers right know, I do know that getting something out, letting my brain process and flow and explore is helpful for me.
So part of why I decided to sit down and write is to give myself a chance to unpack what feels like a spider web up in my mind.
On Monday night, Nate and I got back from a dreamy destination wedding for my best friend.
It was incredible to be in sunshine, warm weather, and surrounded by people I love.
While I would love to say that the weekend filled up my cup longer and left me feeling inspired, or nourished, or excited—it felt like as soon as we touched back down at home I came back to an inner mess.
I woke up feeling a general sense of unsettled-ness and tired-ness.
I woke up feeling like I had so much to get done (and then judged myself for not planning for my time off better).
I woke up feeling lost in my vision for You Love and You Learn. Where am I going? What are my priorities? What is the plan here?
Then, as my mind often does (even though I know it’s not a helpful pattern), I try to figure out what’s going on.
Is it because it’s cold and I am having seasonal depression?
Is it because I have too much on my plate?
Am I burnt out? Do I need to scale back my working capacity right now?
Have I outgrown certain parts of my business or certain topics that I talk about on social media?
Do I need support from a coach or mentor instead of trying to figure this out on my own?
My mind felt like it was on overdrive, and then ultimately I froze and didn’t get much done.
And I’m noticing similar freeze patterns creeping in throughout the week: feeling pressure to get things done but not knowing where to start or what to prioritize, feeling like I “should” have something to post for social media but not having something ready, knowing I have feedback to share with my new virtual team member but avoiding the task.
It’s as if I am abruptly being shaken out of the honeymoon phase of my business and I’m realizing that (like relationships) there is a lot of intentionality that goes into being a business owner. And it’s feeling intimidating.
It’s been almost 5 years since I started You Love and You Learn, and there has been so much growth that’s come from it. Having your own business is rewarding and fulfilling in many ways.
And yet…being a business owner is hard. Having a (mostly) one-woman-show can be lonely, confusing, and stressful. Being the one to call the shots and decide how to move things forward is intimidating. Being the one to manage your time and energy levels is a lot of responsibility.
“Am I really capable of this?”
“It seems like this other person is crushing it with their business and I feel so disorganized.”
“Am I doing this right?”
These are the fears that often creep in and I know are lying underneath the surface of the swirl of business thoughts popping up.
It’s a lot of self-doubt and pressure.
And just like the intense anxiety came up in my relationship and I wanted to escape (thinking I had to break up with Nate to escape)…
I am noticing similar thoughts coming up in my business... “wouldn’t things just be easier if I did something else?”
It’s a familiar pattern.
The thoughts are not new. “Am I capable of being in a relationship?” “other people seem happier than we do” “am I doing this right?” were the narrative for so long in my relationship, too.
And that’s how I know that for many people (and myself) “relationship anxiety” and “relationship OCD” are really just symptoms of deeper root stuff; fears, insecurities, old patterns, beliefs about ourselves.
Because if the anxiety and OCD aren’t focusing on the relationship, they will focus on something else: fears about health, career, family, the world around us.
And I have a feeling that just like five years ago when I was thrown into the depths of relationship anxiety and You Love and You Learn emerged on the other side...
...a deeper layer of growth and healing is upon me.
But gosh is it feeling really challenging in the meantime.
Uncertainty and Groundlessness As a Portal to Healing
If I’ve learned anything from my journey with relationship anxiety, it’s that when you’re in the thick of messiness—there is usually growth on the other side.
And if I had to guess, I think I am being called to grow in this season, but I don’t know exactly how yet.
It feels uncertain and groundless.
And my mind is trying to grasp onto certainty and grounding.
My mind is trying to figure out the lesson before the lesson has arrived.
My mind is trying to get to the end of the journey instead of trusting the process.
It’s giving me all sorts of food for thought…
Maybe this is a pull to slow down and simplify.
Maybe this is a nudge to expand outside of just focusing on anxiety and into other parts of love and relationships, or the relationship with ourselves.
Maybe this is an invitation to continue practicing more compassion for myself and for hard seasons.
I don’t know yet—but I know that something will come from this messy middle.
But I won’t lie—right now it feels really suck-y.
It’s really uncomfortable to be in the thick of uncertainty.
Especially for the anxious mind that equates safety with certainty and feeling in control.
It tells us “If we can just know exactly what’s going on, then things will be okay.”
But I can’t exactly say that right now.
I don’t know what’s going on with me or why I’m in such a freeze state.
I don’t know what switch flipped and why things are feeling so scary or intimidating.
I don’t know what steps to take yet to help me recenter (okay this part isn't entirely true...it's just about using my tools even though I don't feel like it).
All I know is that I’m feeling the pull to share this messy middle openly and vulnerably instead of trying to navigate it on my own.
And I DO feel vulnerable sharing this because of the potential loss of “credibility.”
“If she doesn’t have her shit together, why would I want to work with her or get support from her?” Is the story I am telling myself that you will tell about me.
But I have to trust that sharing my humanity will help you feel more connected to me, not less.
I’ve been so swept up in the “wait to share the lesson, not your messy middle” that I realize I have been shying away from letting myself be human.
And it’s causing me to feel less and less able to share the hard stuff (which is basically the normal parts of life) because I’m trying to maintain an image of having it all figured out.
I realize the irony of this when one of the messages I try to share widely is “you don’t have to have it all figured out.”
So it’s time to lean into my own reminders more.
It’s time to give myself space to be human and imperfect like I remind my clients of all the time.
And actually live it. Not just say it.
It’s time to trust that this uncertainty and groundlessness will be a portal to more healing, loving, and learning. Even though the road to get there is uncertain.
Thank You
Taking the time to write this was my gift to myself this week.
It was me making room for my emotions, even the hard, uncomfortable ones.
It was me validating that it’s okay to have these emotions.
It was me carving out my own little safe space.
And I am grateful if you are here reading this.
I don’t have all the answers and I’m feeling antsy that I am not tying this blog post up into a nice little bow with a “next step.”
But I will end by saying that if you’re having a hard day, hard week, hard month, or even a hard year—you are not alone.
Last time I was in a hard season, a messy middle—You Love and You Learn was born.
So as painful and uncomfortable as this feels right now, I am trusting the process and trusting that there is growth on the other side.
I feel a little rusty with my blog-writing skills, but I am grateful that I took the time to write this, and I appreciate you reading.
Thank you for being here.
