Chapter 1: Time to stop running, and get real

As I drift off into space daydreaming again it is the perfect time to start writing. It isn't easy to work out what triggered my daydreaming, but I find myself scrambling for something to keep my mind mindlessly drifting. Some people call daydreaming a reaction to feeling overwhelmed but for me, it is my form of avoidance. A well-learned habit of mine is to distance myself from four or five big feelings I encounter.

Fear, anger, loss, helplessness, and shame. These feelings love to take me out of myself, and it is one of these that is propelling me to continue writing.

Avoidance is nothing new. If you read my last series, you will have read my learnt experiences as a child and my coping mechanisms. And if you were reading them, you would have seen that I simply stopped writing for six months. What happened? Life caught up with me.

Trolling through social media, daydreaming, and binging were at an all-time high. I was encountering big feelings but rather than turn and face them, I kept running. Avoidance is easy when you know how. Staring at my phone is one of them but there are others. Overloading on responsibilities, blaming things around me, emotional distancing, and my personal favourite, projecting perfection.

In my avoidance of life, I suddenly started to become an expert to others on how to live life. I stopped being true to myself. Suddenly I found myself elevating my opinion and became fixated on everyone else’s needs telling all who would hear it, how they should live their life, and where they were going wrong.

Although my intentions were genuine, the problem with perfection is that it is not real, and people see right through it. And let’s face it, we all grow to loathe the person who appears to do no wrong and deals out advice and judgment like a deck of cards. So why use perfection in the first place?

Perfection for me meant that I could show up for others and still hold value. It meant that my childhood fear of not being good enough, and not feeling the shame I frequently experience would not be seen. Perfecting and all my other avoidant tactics were signs of my childhood fear returning. So, if I am of adult age but engaging in childhood fears and behaviours, what is being an adult?

If Compassion For the Child was about giving ourselves compassion for the childhood experiences of us and others, Being the Adult is the series answering the question 'how'.

• How do we live with our childhood experiences?
  

• How do we form adult relationships with others?
  

• How do we choose to show up?
  

• How do we remain real and true to ourselves?

One of the things to being the adult is learning to be real. Not to run from, minimize or project what we don’t want to feel onto others. Learning that no matter what position we are in, no matter what role or responsibility we have, we are never above learning. It is not about appearing perfect but being good enough.

I'm not here to appear perfect or live out subhuman expectations anymore. It is exhausting and I'm over it. I'm just figuring out life just like you are. Mistakes will happen. Does this mean I won’t give advice anymore? Of course I will!

I’m going to offer my support where I can as we figure it out. It is who I am! But there will be times when I will need to heal, seek support, or face up to challenges that may come my way. In those moments I need to retain being a good enough adult and will be showing up for me. And I invite you to do the same.

So, this is my honest introduction to my new series: Being the Adult.

As we learn together, the aim of it is to live life being the good enough adult, rather than spend it reliving childhood.

Further writing will be on setting boundaries, communicating authentically, trust & commitment, digging deep, and coming back against all odds. Look out for these and more.

Please write in the comments your views of perfectionism, avoidance, or anything else that comes up as I’d love to hear from you. In the meantime – as always, look after yourself!

Jonathan