Overachieving

Sadly, we live in a transactional world. I wish we didn’t, but we do.

I don’t know how you grew up like, but for me, it was also very transactional. If I wanted to go to a friend’s party or get some new clothes, I had to clean the backyard, wash the car or sweep the rooftop. That on top of my already assigned chores which we got since we were around 6 years old.  I am not against that, I think it is good we all had to contribute in the house we all lived. But for any extra “allowance”, you had to come up with a currency to pay it back. As soon as I started working and making money, the currency became money as well, and I had to pay rent and do the groceries once a month. However I didn’t get to have the privacy or respect I would’ve had if I lived on my own. So after a few months I decided to get my own place. I was 25. I know it sounds like I was already quite old to go live on my own, but in Mexico and many other places, it was not “normal” to go live on your own if you did not get married or got a job elsewhere. I was the only one of all my friends who did that at 25. It was challenging but powerful.

However, in a world where we are praised by how much we produce, where resting is seen as weakness, and where we only rest to be able to restore to keep on producing… it is hard to remember that our worth is not based on how much you can produce. I have struggled with this my whole life. At home, this idea of worth was reinforced. My dad was almost never around, and my mom was always busy raising two kids, working, and saving stray animals (I will tell you that story some other day). But since my mom grew up with very little love (as we saw in my previous post “Family”), she did not know how to dispense love. At least not the kind of love I wanted from her. So what did I do? I became an overachiever. Always perfect, top of the class every single year, I danced, did gymnastics, singed, painted, acted, directed the school festivals, was class representative. I guess it came from the early rationalisation that if I was the perfect kid, and still didn’t get the recognition and love I craved, then it clearly was not my fault. Being perfect was a way to gain that recognition, but if it didn’t arrive, then it was a proof to myself, that I was not the problem, everyone else was.

The problem with this is that I never drew any limits. I got used to be the top at everything, and if I failed, my world would crash because it would prove me wrong, maybe I was not worth of that love and praise after all. I failed my first exam ever during my first semester of master’s in the Netherlands (at 28) and I cried for almost two days. I worked hard to remove my humanity from myself. I needed to be perfect. 

On the bright side, this obsession made me get a full scholarship in a fancy private university because of my grades, and the government sponsored me to come study my masters and PhD in Europe, where I got to travel the world, meet so many beautiful people, and land in Prague, I found the roots that hold me strong today. On the not so bright side, it has taken me a life long process of constantly reminding myself I am worth because of me, not because of what I can achieve.

If you know me, you know I am always in 1000 things at the same time. I am quite sure I have ADHD, but I have never been diagnosed because that was not a thing when I grew up. At home I always leave a trail of  unfinished tasks because I get distracted and move to another thing. My husband recently told me that almost every day I start a phrase and mid-sentence I stop talking and start doing something haha. Although I feel proud of all that I have achieved having such a disperse mind (I am a f*cking doctor who speaks almost 6 languages!), I look back and I realise that what was stronger than my ADHD, was my fear of not being enough. And sadly, after all these years and all the internal work… I still stretch myself too thin VERY often.

It took me a long time to decide to be a mom. I didn’t want to “ruin” my body (as I though about it back in that time), but mostly I was scared to have to slow down. To have to stop and take care of someone else and leave all my plans and achievements aside. What was going to reinforce my worth if I could not be productive? After Dani was born I realised that this is what I needed all along. To slow down, to smell the flowers, to get marveled at the beauty of the simple things in life. My life is so much busier since Dani arrived, I am always tired and sleep deprived, but ironically the moments I am with Dani, the world quiets down and I get to enjoy the privilege of witnessing how she becomes herself, more and more. I often wish the world would just stop so I could stay in this sensation forever, without worrying about work, chores, bills, etc.

As you might now, I came back to work after 1.5 years of maternity gap. During this time I also put on hold all my yoga plans, this blog, more teaching. I love being Dani’s mom and I want to be with her all the possible time I can. But being with her means 100% of my attention to her, and my battery starts running on dopamine fumes after a while. Since she started going to daycare, I feel like I should be doing the most I can during the time she is there, because when she comes back I need to be super mom (and super mom is super present). So, lately is work, 6 yoga classes a week, maintaining my blog, website and instagram, being a Thermomix representative (again, I will expand on this some other time), taking 3 Czech classes a week, keeping myself healthy with healthy food and movement, being super mom, having the house running, and trying to sleep more than 6 hours a day. 

Guess who crashed hard last weekend? Yes, this overachiever!

I cried my eyes out from what I identified as frustration and exhaustion, but on a deeper dissection of emotions I have realised it is anger. Anger at myself for not respecting my worth. For getting lost again in this illusion that I will only be valuable if I do everything and excel at everything. I am so impatient that maybe I felt that now that I came back to this “productive-working” world, I had to recover all the “lost time” from pregnancy and maternity leave. Which is bull sh*t. I know it, but amidst confusion and life changes, the hurt girl inside me who needed to proof herself over and over, takes the steering wheel and tries to prove herself one more time. Look at me! I am doing all these things at the same time! I am definitely worthy! Right?

No, Vero, just no. You are worthy in every stage, you are worthy of a calm life, you are worthy of pleasure and joy. You don’t have to solve everybody’s life. Yo don’t have to prove yourself to anyone, because those who request proof are not worth having around. And those who love you for who you are, they don’t require more than your presence in their lives. You want to achieve things? You want to fulfil your plans? Good! Keep going, there is time! As long as you are breathing, there will be time. You don’t have to do everything right now. Stop. Breathe. Exist. Allow yourself to only exist for a bit. That is enough.

I have actively calmed down, selected times to focus on one thing at the time to hamper my poor brain from frying, and when I finish those times I feel better. I have decided to cut down my share on Czech classes (yes I need to learn but I also need to exist), leave a couple of things on hold for a while, and mostly make sure I am in touch with myself. Making sure adult Vero is at the front of my life and is not bottling emotions that make hurt little Vero take control. It’s hard. My mind is constantly running to all the things I should get done. But this is where I come in to whisper on my own ear: “it is OK, the world is not going to end right now, take your time”.

If you feel somehow like this, I hug you. It’s a full time job to recognise that this -emotional- wound is swelling, and take a good look at it, clean it, and put on a bandage. But you got this. The race is only against yourself.

In yoga this reminds me at the time I wanted to practice every day to do a handstand. I was so committed to it that I bought an online course for handstands, I had to record my trainings every day and submit it. Only to feel guilty when I was busy and could not do it on time. And why? nobody cared if I could do a handstand or not. It was just me proving myself I was worthy of being a yogi. Which funny enough is exactly the opposite of what yoga means. And in the middle of the course I found out I was pregnant and stopped altogether. The universe aligning to make my overachiever self chill a bit.

Once again, breathe! You are showing up, you are seen, you are valuable. you are worth it. And yes! you are enough, just as you are.

I hug you, I hug little Vero and I hug adult Vero. We are all together in this crazy ride.

Have a beautiful weekend… and let the ship sink for a bit. The world can wait.

Vero

P.S. If you are enjoying this blog, please share it with friends ad family, or just post about it on your social media and please tag @caminoyoga.cz     Thank you <3