On waking, everything in the room felt heavy and muffled—the air, our dog Bodhi snoring on the pillow above my head, the metallic-y press in my throat and chest. I laid in bed fighting—no, refusing—the release of any emotion. The very act of crying is an admission of something shameful, and I do not allow it. Instead, I blinked away the sharpness and willed my mind on the problem, cycling manically through strategies and plans to diagnose it, make it better, fix what’s broken.

A couple months ago, I made a decision that feels final—to stop doing what I do not like (lawyering) and dedicate myself to what I love (writing & teaching). Kind of a big deal. And also not. I’m not the person I was 20 years ago when I started practicing law, or 10 years ago when the job was killing me, or 6 years ago when I got sober. I’m not even the same person I was a year ago when I decided to leave corporate BigLaw and do my own thing—still a lawyer, just on my own terms.

Then last month, I decided to quit everything and turn toward something that’s been tugging at me for a good long while. But I don’t even feel like the same person I was last month when the decision felt so clear and clean and doable. Because right now, things aren’t going well. In fact, I feel like I’m failing. And this makes me want to cry hopeless, detestable, good-for-nothing tears.

As I laid in bed this morning—not feeling—desperate to fix the problem, a thousand ideas came and went; an hour or more went by; I fixed nothing. The press of emotion sharpened into something that felt physically harmful. I wanted to scream for help, for someone to make it stop.

“This really fucking hurts,” I thought, “And I’m not supposed to hurt.”

I’m not supposed to hurt.

. . .

I don’t know why it continues to surprise me that I have feelings. I also don’t know why it continues to surprise me that feelings are required to be an actual, real human. I guess I honestly thought I could shed all the toxic parts of an old identity—formed over 20 hard, unforgiving years as an attorney—without vulnerability. Like I would only shed the toxicity and not the armor I needed to survive it. Like I would only become a stronger version of myself, not a sudden softy—susceptible to injury and fear and loss.

But I also know I spent the majority of the last 20 years teaching myself to not feel, and I got really good at it. I spent most of my time alone with my own thoughts to minimize the potential for pain. I then medicated the remainders with alcohol, which was the quickest and most effective way to give myself a good feeling or at least a feeling of something. And, of course, I eventually relied on alcohol as the only way to feel nothing.

I also remember thinking things like: I don’t understand women who allow their feelings to be dictated by outside forces. A statement that sounds kind of healthy, maybe balanced, except what I was really saying was: I don’t understand women who feel.

I can see how awful that last statement looks as I read it. But I don’t really blame myself. I was trying to survive in a high-performance world that requires continuous, intense precision and robotic, high-volume output. We were all probably on the verge of a nervous breakdown, but we conditioned ourselves to admit nothing, feel nothing, anesthetize, and absorb the loss.

Our ridiculous egos helped out a lot here too. We told ourselves vulnerability was weak, unnecessary, and counterproductive. We told ourselves we were superior, exceptional, and no one else could do what we do. We told ourselves it was worth it, somehow, or would be at some future point in time. We told ourselves as many lies as necessary to go from not feeling during the day (work hard) to a faux feeling at night (play hard), over and over, on and on, year after year. We were very smart hard-working robots. We were AI before AI.  

Some of us believed the lies, and still do. I believed some of them, until I couldn’t. And when I got sober, well, that was the end of it, because sobriety is recovery and recovery is discovering what’s real and discovering what’s real is learning how to human and learning how to human is learning how to feel.

. . .

It’s now 3:30 in the afternoon of the same day. Bodhi is snoring again on the couch above my head, and the heavy metallic press descends again on my throat and behind my ears. I press my chin to my chest and will the emotion to stand down, move on, shove off. And just like I did at 4:30 this morning, my mind searches frenetically for an outlet other than emotion—problem-solving, logical explanations, ideas, pivots, blame.

But there is nothing. There is no explanation available; only time will tell. There is no one to blame, not even myself. Things aren’t going well, and it’s no one’s fault and no one’s failure. No one hurt my feelings. The feelings just . . . hurt.

The long-view visionary in me also knows there’s not even a real problem. It’s just a beginning. I am detoxing from easy wins, quick fixes, and immediate validation. I am cutting a path of my own where none existed. I am learning how to refine & evolve instead of cut & run. I am in my trial & error era, and everything right now feels like error. I am learning how to fail.

There is also a part of me that understands—both logically and intuitively—that the path I’ve chosen requires me to become a real human person. Not polished, edited corporate, Beth. Not high-vibes-only, endlessly energetic, Beth. Not always steady, clear-minded, emotions-in-check, Beth. Not “look at me I’m a successful entrepreneur,” Beth. It requires the genuine, both ends of the spectrum, powerful and vulnerable, Beth.

Now, as I write, a few simple things are clear:

Beginnings hurt, and that is okay.

Failure (real or perceived) hurts, and that is okay.

Floundering hurts, and that is okay.

Feeling lost hurts, and that is okay.

Embarrassment over launching 100 things before finding the real thing hurts, and that is okay.

Starting over (again!) hurts, and that is okay.

Feeling hurts, and that is okay.

It’s all okay.

For the first time in my adult life, I am doing something I care about deeply. And I am learning that caring deeply comes with the consequence of feeling deeply. Which means, it’s supposed to hurt.

It’s supposed to hurt.