\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sometimes I\u00a0get a bad case of the \u201cI don\u2019t wannas.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Yesterday
morning, I was getting ready to go to a doctor\u2019s appointment for a routine\u00a0yearly checkup and I was dragging my feet. I wasn\u2019t afraid of what they might\u00a0find. I\u2019m healthy and the chances of a problem were low. I just didn\u2019t want to leave\u00a0the house right then. It was my writing time. And I didn\u2019t know exactly where I\u00a0was going. They had moved their office recently and my sense of direction is\u00a0shockingly bad. I downloaded the address into my Waze app, I followed what it\u00a0said, but I still got lost. It was inevitable.<\/p>\n
This\u00a0is nothing new. When I was about six, I was in my family\u2019s summer boarding\u00a0house. My father and sister were in the bedroom, he was saying good-night to\u00a0us, and I had to go the bathroom that was down the hall. I turned right and headed\u00a0for the bathroom. When I headed back to our bedroom, I walked straight past it\u00a0and I heard my sister and my father laughing at me. I felt foolish and
unfortunately, that hasn\u2019t changed.<\/p>\n
On my way to the doctor\u2019s appointment yesterday, I was filled anxiety, when\u00a0Waze announced, \u201cYou\u2019ve arrived at your destination.\u201d I was obviously there but\u00a0there were two high rise buildings next to each other and I couldn\u2019t find the street\u00a0numbers. This kind of thing happens with me pretty often and I have to drive\u00a0round and round, the reason I leave ridiculously early for my appointments. I\u00a0considered turning around and heading back home when by some sort of miracle, I\u00a0found the parking entrance. I took a picture of the letter and number on the\u00a0wall where I parked so I wouldn\u2019t forget where I left my car. My anxiety was\u00a0dissipating as I went up in the elevator and headed to the office. The \u201cI don\u2019t\u00a0wanna\u201d was changing to, \u201cIt\u2019ll be over soon.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u00a0have a friend who can find anything anywhere, but that isn\u2019t me. I know I\u2019m not\u00a0the only person who faces this particular obstacle. I\u2019m sure plenty of people join\u00a0me in not wanting to do things they have to do. Maybe it\u2019s about a workout.\u00a0When I was a twelve-year old girl, I rode for an hour each way from Worcester\u00a0to Boston four times a week to take classes at my ballet school. I was\u00a0dedicated, I always went to class, but on the way there, I often felt dread\u00a0about the energy I was about to put out. I judged myself for having those
feelings and I never told anyone how I felt. I thought I was always supposed to\u00a0look forward to my training. I figured all the other dancers felt that way, but\u00a0later, I found out that wasn\u2019t true.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0\u201cI don\u2019t wannas\u201d show up everywhere in life. Not wanting to go to a family\u00a0dinner because Uncle Arthur always gets drunk, swears and falls asleep on the\u00a0couch, snoring. Not wanting to dance at a crowded club because you\u2019re so bad at\u00a0it. Not wanting to write when you\u2019ve vowed to do it every day. Not wanting to\u00a0prepare your taxes. Being stuck on hold when you\u2019re trying to reach the\u00a0Department of Water and Power.<\/p>\n
When\u00a0this happens, I don\u2019t try to trick myself into thinking I want to do something,\u00a0when I don\u2019t. That doesn\u2019t work. Ignoring feelings doesn\u2019t make them go away. Instead,\u00a0I acknowledge how I feel and I might distract myself by thinking about\u00a0something in the future that I\u2019m looking forward to. Sometimes I pretend I\u2019m\u00a0someone else watching me and I find the humor in it. Or I might stop swearing
in my head and start treating myself with compassion. I try to change my\u00a0perspective and give myself a chance to rise above the situation.<\/p>\n
I\u00a0can find several meanings for \u201cI don\u2019t wanna.\u201d First, there is the resistance\u00a0that I\u2019m talking about above.<\/p>\n
Secondly,\u00a0there is the act of doing something that we\u2019re afraid of. In this case, it\u2019s\u00a0wise to evaluate the action and see if our natural instinct of protection is\u00a0warning us about something. Then we can decide if it\u2019s in our best interest to\u00a0push through the challenge or not.<\/p>\n
Finally,\u00a0we might be forced to do something that hurts us. On a huge scale,\u00a0concentration camp survivor, Viktor Frankl, wrote, \u201cWhen we are no longer able\u00a0to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. If we can find\u00a0meaning in the things we don\u2019t like or don\u2019t want to do, we can find a reason
to keep going and get through it.\u201d<\/p>\n
You\u00a0don\u2019t have to like doing something difficult. If you pressure yourself too\u00a0much, you\u2019ll be unhappy about being unhappy. It\u2019s a double whammy and you have\u00a0choices. You can be angry and resistant, or you can gentle yourself into action\u00a0even if you feel fear. This is how you change the \u201cI don\u2019t wannas\u201d into \u201cLookwhat I just did.\u201d<\/p>\n
Acclaimed\u00a0Swiss author, Hermann Hesse, said, \u201cI have always believed, and I still believe\u00a0that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way, we can always give it\u00a0meaning and transform it into something of value.\u201d<\/p>\n
In\u00a0the spirit of his belief system, we can try to adopt a good attitude about\u00a0what\u2019s in front of us and attempt to make our way through it. If we can find\u00a0meaning in it, it will be much easier to accept and carry out.<\/p>\n
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\u00a0 Sometimes I\u00a0get a bad case of the \u201cI don\u2019t wannas.\u201d\u00a0 Yesterdaymorning, I was getting ready to go to a doctor\u2019s appointment for a routine\u00a0yearly checkup and I was dragging my feet. I wasn\u2019t afraid of what they might\u00a0find. I\u2019m healthy and the chances of a problem were low. I just didn\u2019t want to leave\u00a0the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2483,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2484"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2485,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2484\/revisions\/2485"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}