Caroline C. Barney - PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER: How to Connect to a Life You Love

PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER: How to Connect to a Life You Love

By Caroline C. Barney

Published by TouchPoint Press

Brookland, AR 72417

www.touchpointpress.com

Copyright 2022 Caroline C. Barney

All rights reserved.

eBook Edition

Softcover ISBN: 978-1-956851-16-8

Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-956851-17-5

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Executive Editor: Sheri Williams

Cover Design: Mike Aldinger

Visit the authors website https://caarolinecbarney.com

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Pull Yourself Together

Journal:

PullYourselfTogetherbook.com/journal

While one may encounter many defeats,

one must not be defeated.

-Maya Angelou

Pull yourself together, I muttered to myself. I felt the heavy weight of my emotions rise and sit on my chest. I swallowed hard to keep all that was threatening to spill out down deep, out of sight. The allusion of having it all pulled together while waiting in my car in the never-ending school pick-up line would not work if tears made my mascara run all over my face. I knew better than to turn on the music in the car. It was like Russian roulette. You never knew which song would hit the low note that would trigger all the feelings I was working so hard to keep in check. But I still turned it on because the line was soooo slow. And now here I amabout to lose it. Deep breath. Wave to the other moms. Smile. Turn off the music. Its okay. Ive got this.

Except I didnt.

I really, truly couldnt wrestle to the ground the waves of emotions that caught me off-guard not just that day, but day after day. I knew they were always lingering nearby. A constant companion ready to leap into action. As much as I wanted to believe I had all the things under control. I did not. The truth was that I couldnt pull myself together because I was too disconnected. I was overwhelmed, exhausted, and lonely. I didnt have the tools I needed to step out of the groundhog day of surviving the mundane and slogging along the rocky road that had been the past many years of my life. I felt lost and stuck. I knew there was more for me. I could sense that a life waited for me that could connect me to so much more. Where I felt like myself again. Where I was whole and fulfilled and thriving. But it felt out of reach.

I recently bumped into a friend at our local Stop and Shop. Her cart was packed with every organic snack food available in aisle 2, and four different types of milks (can we please stop with the whole creating of a new milk every few years... how are any of us supposed to keep track!?). We made small talk for a few minutes about the strange new robot thing that goes up and down the aisles scanning the boxes and cans, and then I asked her how her day was going. Her eyes welled up and she put her chin to her chest. She didnt want to talk about it. But like me, she was only a small step away from losing it while standing amongst the cereal boxes.

To be honest, she said. Im totally overwhelmed.

She went on to tell me about the crazy schedule she was managing for her three kids and their eight million sports and activities. She loved that they were active. But the driving around in circles, endless trips to the grocery store, nonstop emptying of the dishwasher, and fifty loads of laundry a day were wearing on her.

Im so grateful for my family, but somethings missing. Is it wrong to want more? She asked.

This conversation wasnt an isolated thing. I started to see a pattern among the women in my life.

How is it that the biggest thing I accomplished today was dropping off a package at FedEx? Amy asked.

I laughed because I had the same feeling a few days earlier when I managed to wrangle some Amazon order back into the box, print out the return label, find tape to tape it to said box and drop it at the local FedEx. I legitimately felt good about myself and looked forward to crossing this task off my list with big, loopy, crisscrossed marks. I have at times written things on my list that Ive already done, just for the high of the crossing it off the list (please tell me you do this too!). Anyway, this comment was loaded with much more than the words said. I felt the sadness in her recognition. Even though we were laughing about it. I knew what she was saying. Shes a lawyer who put her career on hold to raise her children, but there is something more shes looking for in her life, and the day-to-day schlep through her tasks was stopping her from reaching for it.

I dont think I can keep going with this job, Jen whispered. Im exhausted all the time, at work, at home, everywhere. I need something to change.

Jen is a successful marketing executive and a mom of three. From the outside, it seems she was killing it on all levels. But on the inside, she too felt stuck.

I have so many more stories like these, and Im sure you have stories of your own that you could share with me here as well. Somehow, somewhere along the way so many of us have become exhausted, overly busy, lonely, unbalanced, worn-out, and stuck. What happened to us? How did we get to this point in our lives? Why do we think this is as good as it gets when our hearts are telling us there is more? And for the love of all things... why arent we reaching for more?

I believe it all starts with the connections in our lives. Or in our case our DISconnections and how we need to fix them. Thats what we are going to talk about in this book. We tend to think of connections as business contacts, PTA co-volunteers, old college friends, the number of Instagram followers we have. But actually, whether we realize it or not, connections are everywhere and in everything. Life is full of them and they are at work all day every day. They drive our lives. And heres the thing, we get to choose what we do about it.

In the past, leaders have talked about the law of connection being how we interact with others in business settings. Basically, it starts with knowing yourself well enough so that you can lead others effectively by connecting with their emotions; logic only takes you so far. Not wrong. Im fully on board with this concept. But I find it to be limiting. I have come to learn that the connections in our lives go beyond the exchange between two people and into the core of who we are. Our connection to ourselves, to others, to what we believe, and to our purposes are all part of an intricate scaffolding in our lives. You cant pull out one piece. You need to care about all of them if you are going to build a life you love. Our lives are brimming with connections and instead of letting them control us, its up to us to make them work for us.

Its like Lincoln Logs. You knowthose wood logs with the notches in them designed to link them together so you can build log cabins. My brother and I had Lincoln Logs growing up. I can still remember throwing one at him when he knocked down my cabin (sorry Mom). In fact, not long after I had my girls my parents showed up with a box of my old toys and the Lincoln Logs were among them. It actually was the kick-off to a steady stream of boxes from their attic to my house (thanks MomI dont know how I could have lived without my 8th grade diploma and elementary school track ribbons). But anyway, back to the Lincoln Logs, I dumped them all over the floor and watched my toddlers try and figure out what to do with them. My girls are teenagers now (gasp!), but boy do I miss those toddlers with their hands that looked like they were clipped on because of the rolls of squish that made wrists invisible. They were all clip-on hands grabbing the logs and attempting to stack them up and create something special.