The 2am Spiral

Anyone else find their minds doing a sprint race at 2am? (The peri-menopausal wake ups don’t help me either.)

That’s the time when I find life the most overwhelming. When I have nothing to distract me from staring into the future and wondering how the heck I’m going to make it.

The mountain in my thoughts gets bigger and bigger as I stack up my goals, to-do lists and the expectations I have of myself in order to get my life back on my track. My stomach turns into knots and I feel sick with worry.

Fear thrives in stillness and overthinking. It multiplies in your mind when you’re standing still. But the moment you move, even a small step, fear loses some of its grip.

Trauma makes us want to plan ahead for every single eventuality – just in case. The irony being that the outcome is rarely like any of the options we were fretting about. But this keeps us stuck, circling the same anxious thoughts, too afraid to move forward, yet knowing that we cannot stay where we are.

Your next step won’t eliminate fear, but it will disarm it. Forward motion is the antidote to paralysis.

You don’t need to have a ten-step strategy. You don’t need a perfectly curated vision board or a three-year recovery plan. You just need to identify and decide on the next step that feels doable.

And then take it.

That’s it.

It might be as simple as sending an email you’ve been avoiding or getting properly dressed to face the day.

It may not feel like enough. But it is.

Because each step taken - no matter how wobbly - moves you forward to the next step. It’s a declaration that you’re not giving up on yourself. 

So, the next time 2 a.m. rolls around and your mind starts racing, gently remind yourself:
I don’t need to have it all figured out.
I just need to say yes to the next step.

And I’ll be doing it with you.