Megan Merrell
A Guest Post
My name is Megan Merrell. I’ve been created good … and I am broken.
In my first coaching call with April, she asked me to take an energy profile, assessing my life engagement. As I read through each question, I experienced sadness about my answers. I knew my engagement level was low, but my final result showed I am 28% engaged in my own life. 28%. This was a low blow. Honestly, while I feel that low, it was still hard to see it in black and white. 28%. Not even half engaged in my own life.
I have a husband, two kids, friends, talents. I have a good life and I chose it, so why am I so freaking disconnected? How long has it been like this? Was it ever more than 50%? Worry set in. Sadness, a sense of loneliness, and a sting of fear that I won’t ever be different than I am right now. If you’ve experienced depression and anxiety, you know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s an every day battle. It’s a battle to get out of bed, see the good in myself (or anything else) and go forward with joy. Often I don’t know that I would recognize joy if I saw it. It’s easy to confuse outward joy with happiness and I’ll tell you that most often, a lot of perkiness really gets under my skin. Feelings other than those stemming from negativity, seem so far off. They’re in a country I’ve not traveled to before or haven’t been to in many years.
The last season of my life has been an upheaval. My family and I are about to move for the third time in 5 years. That’s 4 addresses in 5 years. That’s about 3 too many for my taste. My husband has a job that moves us around and we have no say in where we go within our state line. While I have liked each place we’ve been, it’s difficult for me to uproot my life. Beside moving in these 5 years, I have had several jobs and we lost my mother-in-law unexpectedly. She was the best woman I ever knew. She went to hell and back in her own childhood yet from her attitude and outlook, you would’ve never known. Therapists say the biggest stressors in life are: the death of a loved one, divorce, loss of a job, increased financial obligations, getting married, moving to a new home, chronic illness or injury, and emotional challenges (depression, anxiety, anger, grief, guilt, and low self-esteem). I’ve hit 5 of those 8 in the last 5 years, some multiple times. I’m spent, y’all. Anybody feel me?
Most days, I wish the choice to take my life back was not mine. I don’t want to be responsible for myself because I am purely exhausted. But I have realized that no one else can do the work. This is my work. I have survived much and the little tiny spark in me that wants more … I have to listen and respond.
Being a warrior looks like me taking my life back.
It means I’m going to come home to myself. More specifically, it means I’m reaching out – to April, to my spiritual director, to my mentor, to my friends that know my story. I believe our stories have power and therefore, need to be shared. I am believing that when we share our stories, we do not struggle alone or in vain. I need to believe it. So do you.