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When Things Are Hard: Quit Quitting and Show Up Fully

Arms Open

“Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it.” ~Eckhart Tolle

I have spent the bulk of my life committing to what’s “easy,” things I am naturally “good” at, and avoiding challenge.

In eighth grade, I tried out for the school musical and discovered that I am not actually a very good singer. I got a small part, but I quit to join the softball team. The thing is, I wasn’t very good at softball either. So I quit that too.

In high school I got straight A’s until senior year AP English. My teacher treated the class as a college seminar and expected the same from us. I thought she sucked and dropped the class.

After college, I took a job at the company I worked for during summers off from school. It was easy, it was comfortable, and though it was so boring it sometimes made me cry, I liked it because I was good at it.

It took seven years of “easy” for me to realize that I had stopped growing. In what would prove to be a milestone event in my life, I chose to leave my comfortable position and try something more challenging. For the first time, ever.

I moved on to work at a law firm. My bosses were very smart, very demanding, and very, very hard working. I lasted thirty days before I emailed them to say I would never be coming into the office again.

A few weeks after quitting the law firm I saw one of my bosses swimming laps on his lunch break. As I ducked behind a diving block to avoid being spotted, I considered the fact that swimming laps for an hour was my entire plan for the day. What he accomplished in his lunch break was an entire day’s work for me.

After the law firm fiasco, I took an entry-level position in hospitality. I could almost do the job in my sleep and though it felt like a leap backwards in my personal and professional development, I made okay money and had plenty of free time. Then I was laid off.

When receiving the news of my firing, I held my head high all the way to my car, and then I sat down and cried. Like really, really cried. I had just moved to a new state, bought a car, spent my savings.

I felt like that one little pig that built his house out of hay, and I longed for bricks. But bricks are hard.

Through the kindness and care of my supervisor, I made it through the crisis and found a new job. It had a better title and was just as easy as anything else I’d done, so for a while I liked it.

But something had changed. I had been through a lot, it seemed. Experienced so many experiences, felt so many feelings. All of a sudden the easy way out seemed like cheating.

This annoying voice started asking me to consider what I really love, what I really want to do. It reminded me how very short this life is, and how moments spent idling are lost forever.

My focus shifted from the quickest way to make a buck to the thing that had kept me sane during lost jobs, break ups, fights with friends, new cities, bad days, even good days: yoga.

“I love yoga,” I said. I was no yogi, but I knew without a doubt that I loved yoga. I secretly began looking into yoga teacher trainings. Secretly, because the truth is, I did not think I was very “good” at yoga.

I found a teacher training that seemed like a good fit: one weekend a month for nine months. Day one of weekend one was an evening session and I left glowing.

“I do love yoga!” I said. I left the session and met up with some friends for a beer, which turned into a lot of beers, which turned into a hangover the next day.

I showed up sick to day two of weekend one of my nine-month training. The second day was longer, and harder. It would have been that way sober, but with a hangover it was impossible. “Yoga is hard,” I said.

The second weekend of the immersion conflicted with a party I wanted to attend, and I chose the party.

Just before the third weekend, my teachers told us that they were moving the training to a new location, and I had the option to quit without losing all my money. I took the out and blamed my teachers.

The year that followed is what I like to call my “Rumspringa.” I had a lot of fun and made a lot of friends. I kept sort of doing yoga and sort of showing up to my job and was in a happy, blurry bubble and then I started to panic. Literally, I started having panic attacks that kept me in bed for entire days.

My anxiety was bad enough that I sought professional help and began seeing a cognitive behavioral therapist.

I started to make connections between my thoughts, feelings, and actions; I began to realize that if I think I’m no good, I am no good, and quitting every challenge makes me think I’m no good.

During my time with her, I found another yoga teacher training and made a very sincere commitment to show up this time.

The first part of the training was a two-week immersion in Mexico, during which students are asked to surrender their passports to inhibit us from attempting to leave without telling anyone.

To some this seemed a little weird, but to me it was genius! I couldn’t easily quit, so I might as well show up.

I am happy to report that the immersion was the most challenging thing I have ever done in my life, and that I completed it. At the end of our two weeks together, my teacher thanked me “for showing up fully.”

If we only show up when things are easy, we are not showing up fully.

Yoga has begun to teach me how to be present and how to commit to every moment, even the challenging ones.

For some, this seems to come easily. For everyone else, my advice is to see the present like this: a jungle in Mexico, and your passport is in a safe somewhere. And you’re already here, so you might as well show up.

Photo by Patricia Russano Cuyumjian

About Amy Early

Amy Early is an aspiring yoga teacher, writer, and present-dweller. When she is not working in hospitality, she is travelling, practicing yoga, enjoying the outdoors, or reading.

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Jade

This is such a timely post! I could have written it myself, I’m the sort of person who gravitates towards things that are easy, things that I am naturally good at, and I avoid anything difficult or challenging. As a kid/teen, I was sort of naturally good at everything, so challenges
really freak me out and make me feel like a stupid failure. Trying hard to fix that!

Valerie

Thank you for this. I really think this is the root of my depression.

Amna

Amazing post. I’ve been sort of ‘showing up’ to a number of things too and now it’s making me unhappy. I needed this.

Nicole/TheMadlabPost

I’ve never thought of life’s challenges or the “hard things” as a Mexican Jungle, but your description sounds so much more fun that one might as well show up fully….just to see what all the fuss is about.

Michael Scott Dembesky

Loved your story… appreciated your honesty & humbleness. Inspiring also… thanks for sharing & hope all is well. I think most of us gravitate towards easy & pass on the difficult for another day also…

Fiona

Thank you so much for this great post — it really resonated with me. I have recently started challenging myself so that, like you, I can stop feeling like I’m no good. Your story felt like a friendly nudge to stay on the path. Namaste.

Paco

This is the one that did it for me.

What he accomplished in his lunch break was
an entire day’s work for me

Anders Hasselstrøm

Hello Amy,

Lovely reading for a monday evening. Honest story about a central issue of life. I’m happy to hear that you finally found something you enjoy and completed it. Great achievement. I started a business a few years ago where I do motivational speaking for high-school students in Denmark. I feel inspired to do the presentations because I get to influence and shape the students I teach. I think a lot of the readers in here would benefit from reading an article I made a few weeks ago. The article is about finding happiness in what we do because that is what it all comes down to: being happy about what we are doing. Being happy increases our chances of success. You can read it here: http://andershasselstrom.com/happiness/

Best,
Anders Hasselstrøm

Louise Watson

Thank you for this post. I was on the verge of giving up on a project last night after a few years of just doing something that was easy for me so this has come at the best time.

growthguided

I love it Amy!

“This annoying voice started asking me to consider what I really love”

Be careful for those truths that want to make their way through to your consciousness!

Thank you for this great post!

Silvia

I love this post. Your experience with quitting is similar to mine. Thanks for sharing with us. I feel that yoga has taught me so much, too.

Dominica Applegate

wow. 2 weeks in Mexico would certainly be challenging, but what a way to begin a new pattern! i love it. this makes me want to finally get out there to try yoga. 🙂 thanks for sharing!

WanderingWee

Not proud to admit that I am sort of the queen of quitting, and this post made me observing my quitting pattern. It wasn’t because things are hard but because I was easily bored. When creativity hits, I can have several ideas coming simultaneously but then I will have trouble translating it into reality. These are the simple ideas like posting a blog post or trying out a recipe, but yet somehow couldn’t manage my self to focus on it. Why? Because it’s not grand enough, I won’t get high acknowledgement from others so why bother spending my energy on it.
I was so focused on external factors and forgetting that it was internal ones that matters. If I can feel my self being happy doing it then it is worth the try. I know one day the future me will thank me for showing up fully.

Tabitha

As I sit here, glaze-eyed, at my admin job that I hate but continue to work at because it’s steady money and it’s easy, what I REALLY want to do is push yogic meditation more fully into my local community. I continue to file papers because the proposals feel so damned scary to write. Hm….maybe I need to surrender that passport. 😉 Thanks for this. I really needed it.

Manoj Sethi

Perfect timing for the Perfect Post
http://www.theinternallight.com

Vincentas

Thank you

wilna

Reading your post is like having a dissection of my life. Unlike you though, I didn’t quit physically but mentally. Challenges frightens me, I will take it on but will perform so badly that I’ll hate myself for it.the biggest fear of all though, is the dread that anxiety and fear will be too much for me to handle that I’ll quit or run away from any challenges that come my way and I won’t be able pick myself up again.

Amy Early

Thank you so much for this. I think boredom definitely can lead to anxiety or at least not living wholeheartedly. Really appreciate this perspective!

Gatorade Star

I liked reading this text.
I hope I am able to show up fully in my life and be proud of myself.

Talya Price

I used to quit. When I did I regretted it . I am not quitting on my dreams. They are all I have. Great read.

Matt Brinkmann

This is awesome Amy. Hope all is well.

Ian

Quitting is all I’ve ever known and to quit quitting to me is in comparison to a smoker quitting a cigarette. It’s really helpful to hear your story and identify some parts of it with my life as sometimes this issue can feel like an isolating issue. I’m currently in university. All through my entire life of education I’ve always put things till the last minute as I would run away from all the hard stuff with starting early or putting and I would settle with just getting by this made me seem like a unintelligent person. It’s got so point now in the present that I even quit the things that I enjoy just because it’s too difficult. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve cried and thought the worst of myself. However I got to point now where I want to change for the better, for my future to work hard for the first time in my life and the thought of it makes me want to quit as it seems overwhelming but I can’t. This compulsive habit needs to go.