It's Me, I'm The Bottle Neck. F.
When the problem isn’t clarity, capacity, or content... it’s the quiet fear that no one will meet you when you finally show up.
THE STORY
This last week I’ve been SO sick.
Not just like, toddler coughs in my mouth and a runny nose, but something more aligned to feeling like I was on a really wretched cruise ship in the Bermuda Triangle.
I’m talking, so dizzy I had to close my eyes Wed- Thurs. to prevent vomiting from the vertigo.
And I don’t know if it’s intentional or not, but this always seems to occur right when I’m feeling organized and on point.
Last week’s Unfiltered went down a ragey road (#Yoinkers) and was meant to be my gateway into sharing my new works and moving myself out of my post-yoink funk (check out last week’s Unfiltered Drop if you’re curious). However, come Monday, and I’d slept for about 30 minutes, and my daughter woke up with a cherry tomato head.
Not even lying, her face was red and swollen, and we were off to the doctor. She’s okay, but it started the week off funky and off-kilter.
And now that we’re 7 days out from that, I still feel like I’m scrambling to breathe and resurface— “Wait, what was I so fired up about?”
Oh RIGHT, Yoinkers.
And so, here we are. Monday June 30th. Tomorrow is a national Holiday, Happy Birthday Canada, and so again, it feels like me + wrench = summer trying to figure out your shit, with a dash of soaking up every millisecond of sunshine this country gets. IY ARE CANADIAN YK.
And I recognized, this isn’t just this week, this is a pattern I find myself in, pretty often.
It’s definitely not rock bottom. I’m not sitting here crying and ruined.
It’s not quite burnout. I’m tired, but like, normal level mom tired.
It’s not the beginning. I’ve got SO much to say and do.
But it’s definitely not the breakthrough. Because it wouldn’t be a spiral if I was able to snap my way through this… funk.
So, I’m calling it the in-between.
You may recognize it for yourself. It’s the part where you’ve already created so much and rocked out a ton, been so ready, prepared, fired up…
You’re almost there.
Then one wrench from above. One kid cough straight into your lungs. One surprise illness.
And suddenly it’s a week later… and you’re nowhere.
Stuck between the version of you who made something powerful, and the one who actually HAPPILY shares it, moves it, breathes it to life.
The in-between is a sneaky, slippery snake, because it loves to make you second guess everything about yourself.
It whispers old stories in new tones.
It dares you to doubt the very things you have already proved to yourself.
Case in point… It tells you things such as:
You’re lazy. (You’re not.)
You’re ungrateful. (You’re not.)
You’re simply afraid. (Well… maybe a little truth here.)
But even that fear is layered because it’s not clear. I find the middle to be the point where you KNOW you’re not doing things, it’s no longer a blindspot someone points out and it knocks you sideways. But it’s not quite at the, laugh it off and move on with it point of your day/month/life.
And fear shows up in it with the recognition, but not exactly the knowing, of how to move past it.
Because how do you move past it if you’re not exactly sure what it IS you’re afraid of?
Is it fear of being seen fully?
Or fear of not being seen at all, even after you share it?
Is it fear of finally dropping the masks?
Or fear of being misunderstood without them?
Is it fear of judgment?
Or the ache of having to prove yourself again, even when you’ve already bled this thing you WANT to share into being?
I don’t always know.
But I do know this:
THE INVITATION
The longer I stay in the in-between, the more shame creeps in, and it’s absolutely like the thief in the Sims. I see it coming, and there’s literally nothing I can do about it.
Because, just like a Sim, I’m not usually fast enough to call the police (or in this, now twisted metaphor, take action to intercept it) before it starts wreaking havoc on my mental “home”.
And it’s not because I’m doing something wrong,but because I’m not doing anything. AND I CAN SEE IT.
The shame doesn’t come from failing. It comes from the freeze you feel yourself inside of.
So today, I took a step when I saw that damn thief sneaking up to my sanctuary.
Not a perfect step. Not a big, bold, world-stopping move.
Just a quiet, honest one.
For me, it was a real one.
And from this step, the cogs in the wheel lurched forward. There was momentum.
And from that momentum, a message came out here, for you reading Unfiltered.
This week’s Unfiltered Vault Drop is about exactly this.
What it’s like to be the bottleneck in your own becoming.
What I’ve been sitting in, and what I did today that helped me move through it, not by brute mental force anchored in shame-based reasoning, but by finally meeting myself in this messy middle.
It’s raw. It’s real. And it’s for anyone who’s been stuck in the almost.
Grab today’s FREE Unfiltered Cafe, if the messy middle feels like your always-already living quarters. We’re going deep on this one, because the in-between isn’t just a pause. It’s a place. And I’ve got a rechargeable flashlight.:
Join today’s Unfiltered Cafe’s debrief and all the previous, and those to come, for $5CAD/month. It’s cheaper than your iced mocha latte, and way more refreshing.