"It's Okay" Has Become My New Mantra

Earlier this week, I had a meltdown.

Meltdowns aren't uncommon for me. But now that I'm no longer two years old, I generally have to manage them for myself.

As usual, the thought and accompanying emotion that triggered the meltdown called friends to join the party. As the vortex began to suck me in, I noticed the formation of the unhelpful thoughts as they began to scroll on by. I could feel them drop into the waiting, familiar hole. A familiar hole that beckoned. Oh, how it beckoned.

But instead of falling face first into the hole of emotional despair, I said to myself "It's okay. I don't have to spiral about this."

I wandered around the kitchen organizing my morning and repeating "It's okay, I don't have to spiral about this."

Just the act of saying it out loud, in repetition, was very helpful. It halted the scrolling negative thoughts and filled up the hole.

Something about the phrase "It's okay" has felt very reassuring lately. It doesn't promise magic or solutions. It's nothing so over-the-top as great. It just reminds me that...things are going to be okay.

Since you’re reading this, you’ve probably already read this story, but over Christmas I learned that the phrase "That's okay, I'm going to win" can in fact lead you to back-to-back wins.

At the time, I thought "I'm going to win" was the key, but now I'm wondering if it was the beginning of the phrase. Maybe the "it's okay" reassurance helped my emotion remain neutral enough to allow what I wanted.

Neutrality seems to be a big lesson for me. There are very few things in this world that I'm neutral on, aside from vegetables and the color beige. My opinions tend to be stronger.

But often it's the neutrality of emotion, the release of attachment, that allows things to actually work out. Super annoying, right? Not being neutral is so much more fun. I tend towards the melodramatic and I find that wildly enjoyable. Why live a beige life when you can make it all turquoise velvet with a peacock or two?

Or maybe I only need neutrality in the case of negative circumstances or emotion.

In these cases, "It's okay" seems to work surprisingly well.

So please excuse me while I head home from this coffee shop while muttering "It's okay, I don't have to spiral about this" over and over again to myself.

Sleep-Deprived Woman, Reporting for Duty

One of the reasons I didn’t have children is because I knew I couldn’t handle the sleep deprivation. Joke’s on me, because I’m not sleeping any way.

Did you know that the sleep studies saying humans need eight hours of sleep were done on men? Women actually need ten hours of sleep. A NIGHT. Do you know how often I get ten hours of sleep in one single night? About once a year. Most nights I’m thrilled to crack seven. Four nights in the past week, I’ve been struggling along, haggard and bumping into things, with three or four hours.

Humans don’t operate well like this. It’s 3:28 a.m. and I’ve been awake for four hours already. That’s right, I went to bed around 8:30, woke up around 11:30 after a bad dream and haven’t slept since. I’m now on the couch anger blogging in hopes of convincing my brain to shut up and my body to rest.

Hopefully this peanut butter toast and expensive but thus far useless sleep drink will help.

You know what I really want? An app that takes your favorite comedy specials and mutes the applause, especially the applause at the end. Ooh, I hate that applause at the end. I’ve finally fallen asleep in the last ten minutes after hours of insomnia before turning on Son of Patricia for the 97th time and let Trevor Noah’s dulcet tones lure my cranky, neuro-deficient brain back to sleep. AND THEN THE GODDAMN UPROARIOUS APPLAUSE WAKES ME UP AGAIN. I mean, I’m sure that kind of applause is life blood for comedians, it sure would be for me, but can we at least develop an app that slowly lowers the volume on comedy shows so that once you’ve finally fallen asleep, you stay asleep? And by “you” I mean “me.” I just need some sleep, man.

It’s really my brain. I suspect my body would fall back asleep if my anxious brain didn’t take this quiet time opportunity to torture me. I’ve become a mental master during the daylight hours. Heading down the anxious rabbit hole? I switch courses within a minute or two. Intrusive thought? I flick it away. Old pattern reappearing in hopes of catching me in a weak moment? NOT IN THE SWEET SUNLIGHT OF MIDMORNING, SATAN. But at night, when all I want to do is sleep, and I’m afraid the tools I use during the day when my anxiety brain starts hopping will just wake me up, I really need some help.

Like pills, honestly. I’ve never been a pill person. The way I was raised, taking a Tylenol in college was an act of rebellion, forget all the fun drugs. When I was in my early twenties, I went to see someone about depression and his only solution was anti-depressants and I heard a really clear voice within say “this is not for you” and so I walked away. He basically chased me down the hall with his prescription pad. I’ve never regretted that decision. But it does not escape me that literally every time I go to the doctor, they try to give me pills with no mention of getting to the root of the issue, but the one time I go to the doctor because I actually want some sleeping pills for when the insomnia gets really bad, he tries to get me to go to a sleep study first, a sleep study which is impossible to schedule.

So I’m still here, rage blogging on my couch at 3:33 am because I had a bad dream, woke up after three hours of sleep, and that might just be it for me tonight.

My reason for writing here is to write myself to a new perspective, but I have no new perspective here. I just know how I feel the days after getting ten hours of sleep - like a superhero - and how I feel the days (far more common) when I get three or four hours of sleep - like an addled slug.

So if you see me trying to do things tomorrow, an addled slug, know that it's a triumph of the will.

Throwing a Tantrum as an Adult

As a youngster, I was famous for my tantrums. If life didn’t look the way I thought it should - if my socks were wrinkled, if a brother who wanted to play with my toys suddenly appeared, if I got a guinea pig instead of a dog - I lost my ever-loving mind.

I thought I’d grown out of that, but even as a 46-year-old, if I get triggered hard enough, I am capable of absolutely losing it.

We could chalk this unfortunate tendency up to a few things:

Neurodivergence:

While I haven’t gotten a formal diagnosis, I seem to be one of those people who need a great deal of freedom but also structure, who feel things very deeply without always knowing how to express it, who gets wildly overwhelmed in social situations to the point of fleeing if enough tricky things happen in a loud space.

Interestingly, a lot of tendencies can also be explained by my…

Human design:

Who else out there has an open emotional (solar plexus) center? As someone who has been surrounded by suppressed angry people my whole life, this one is a real treat. Most of my rage has been absorbed from someone else and learning how to not do that - so far, my best plan is literally to flee so I can get as far away from their rage volcano as possible, thereby not feeling it as if it were my rage volcano any more. Fight / flight is a big thing for people with open emotional centers, and I’ve spent my forties reaping the rewards of lifelong adrenal taxation. As with anything named “tax”, it’s not at all fun.

ASTROLOGY:

Apparently, Cancers are in their villain era right now and I. Am. Feeling. That.

All this to say, I have had a couple of emotional meltdowns already this year. I did not have “losing my shit twice in one week” on my 2025 bingo card.

When I’m in a deeply triggered state, there’s not a whole lot I can do except breathe. Square breathing is a lifesaver in those moments: breathe in for 4, hold for 4, breathe out for 4, hold for 4. It helps regulate me somewhat, and is much healthier than breaking things. I will genuinely think that I’m over this kind of reaction, because it won’t happen for months or years, and then hello, my old friend.

So the best thing I can do is 1) give my body what it needs (food, shower, rest, comfort TV), 2) not make any major decisions from this state, 3) work on healing and practicing better coping habits when I feel better.

If you also find yourself in a rage from time to time, I feel you. It’s okay. We aren’t terrible people. This world is just a lot, especially if you have a - shall we say - finely tuned nervous system.

Lots of love,

Amber

The Energy of Shame

Nothing kills the taste of a nice brie like shame coating your tongue. 

Shame is one of the lowest frequencies on the emotional scale. Spending time there - especially a lot of time - really, really blows. Because you know what doesn’t work when you’re hanging out in the energy of shame? 

Anything. Anything at all. 

If you’re telling yourself you’re bad and wrong because you haven’t achieved what you wanted to achieve or things haven’t worked out, you’re just anchoring yourself into future disappointment. Ask me how I know. Actually don’t. It’s embarrassing. 

Let me tell you about yesterday’s epiphany: 

I didn’t realize how much time I -hadn’t- been spending in shame until a fresh shame spiral hit. I remembered that feeling. I had spent so long in it for a few recent years that it was normal. It was life. It took finally lifting out of it to fully see how detrimental it is. 

So I dropped into shame. There are reasons (my brain does love a good reason), including more alcohol over the weekend than I’m used to. (Alcohol can tank my brain chemistry.) I wasn’t even sure what was wrong, I just knew I hadn’t felt this way in awhile and I didn’t like it. 

It wasn’t until Brandon said, “You’re in shame” that it clicked. (I am historically terrible at labeling feelings and emotional states.) 

THAT’S what this feeling is. The feeling that I’m bad and I’ve been doing things wrong and I’m a failure - a feeling that can lampoon any other thing that might be happening in my brain or emotions. 

The amount of shame I was in for a few years really explains a lot about why things weren’t going well for me. It’s impossible for things to go well when you’re locked in the lowest of low emotional frequencies. 

When you try to work in shame, it’s a disaster. Mostly you don’t get anything done, which just racks up more reasons to feel shame. Sometimes I would get something done but only with epic amounts of frustration. Then I’d just have to redo it later. If I did manage to finish something on my to-do list, it’s would be so marinated in the energy of shame that it wouldn’t go anywhere. If it was a piece of writing, crickets. If it was something to do with my business, it drops into the void. And rightfully so. The world doesn’t need anything else steeped in shame. 

So yesterday, I finally realized that trying to work in a shame spiral was pointless. So I decided to do some errands. Errands should be safe, right? WRONG.

Here’s how I learned not to do ANYTHING in a shame pit except do my best to feel better: 

The store I needed - and went all the way downtown for - was closed. I forgot my library card. Here’s the kicker: To make myself feel better, I got some nice cheese and crackers. 

BUT THE CHEESE DIDN’T TASTE GOOD. 

It was from Whole Foods! I love cheese! Even terrible cheese is good cheese! But it didn’t taste good at all. Shame had blunted my tastebuds. I know this for sure, because I’m eating the same cheese now, when I feel pretty good, and it’s delicious. 

Yesterday’s big lesson and the moral of my story: Do nothing in the energy of shame. 

Just do whatever it takes to feel better. Do whatever it takes to shift your energy, your frequency, the way you’re thinking about yourself. Even if it means pressing reset on the day and watching a movie until bed time. 

How To Feel Your Feelings

I still don’t know what to do with feelings. I can admit it.

At 45 years old, I still don’t entirely know what to do with feelings, even though “knowing what to do with feelings” is part of my actual job description.

We all contain multitudes.

The problem with feelings - especially if you are the brand of human who has big ones - is that they can be inconvenient. It’s hard to tackle your to-do list in the midst of quivering rage.

This is an actual response I got to a newsletter workshop I did last month: “Your superpower is noticing the feelings around things, working with them, and clearing them.”

AND YET I DO NOT KNOW WHAT TO WITH MY OWN ANGER AND DISAPPOINTMENT.

Aside from write a blog post and yell about it in all caps, I mean.

Also, this isn’t entirely true.

I spend a lot of time working with my own guidance and intuition - you kinda have to, when the way other people do things never seems to work for you (being a trailblazer is all fun and games until you realize you literally have to carve your own path out of the wilderness because WTF is everyone else doing?) - and this morning’s message from my intuition was to feel my anger and disappointment.

Cue: getting nothing else done. Thanks, intuition. My to-do list is mad at you.

How To Feel Your Feelings

According to me and the way I feel my feelings. Please comment with better ideas.

1. Admit that you have a feeling and should probably acknowledge it, before it crawls into your spleen, gets a mortgage, and never leaves.

2. Notice where that feeling is in your body and breathing with it.

3. Tell your partner you have The Feelings. Demand several hugs.

4. Sharpen a pencil and write three pages about your feelings, even though you start scribbling and making a mess at half a page in.

5. Shake it out like a kid having a tantrum when it starts feeling like too much.

6. Ask the ether for help and support.

7. Cry a little.

8. Get back to your to-do list.

We could sit here and pathologize my difficulty with feelings until the proverbial cows come home. Of note, the cows are not actually proverbial, because I live in Sonoma County, California (known for happy cows and also lots of chickens), and I can see cows on the hillside from my office window.

Or I could just accept that something about my nervous system, genetic makeup, and life has made feelings a bit of challenge for me, and continue doing the best I can.

It’s all any of us can do.

I will conclude by saying, Let yourself feel your feelings. Talking to the feelings, letting them out, breathing through them, asking them for messages will help you feel lighter and happier. The more you let your feelings breathe, the better you feel.

xo - Amber

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I made a thing to help you tap into your sensitive superpowers and feel better!