Rachel’s Room🛋️

Happy Wednesday, Cadre crew. Hello. Hello. It is Wednesday, April. Oh, dear gosh. Is it April? Not me. Literally not knowing what month it is. Yeah. April 24. Wow. Okay. Hello, everyone. It is Wednesday, April 24. I'm in Seattle right now. It is a karate karate day, and there's a little bit of construction going on outside my apartment. So if you hear some buzzing, that's. That's what it is. So, hi, Jules. I'm gonna let folks kind of trickle in, and then we will chat. I realized, hi, Rachel. I didn't post what this topic was today, and part of that was because I forgot, and part of that was because I have therapy or had therapy right before this.

So I kind of had a feeling that something would come up in therapy that I'd want to talk about in the livestream. And I was correct. I was correct. Hi. Art cures the soul. Good afternoon, Jules. Happy Wednesday. Hello. Hello. You're home. Yes, I'm home. We're back. Wait, let's say hi to Milo. We haven't seen Milo in show or not. Come here, boo boo. Come here, boo boo. He's being a little snuggle b***. Hello, snuggle b***. Hello, snuggle b***. Milo. Say hello to everyone, Milo, say hi. Say hello.

Hello. Okay, so I just had therapy, and I currently go to therapy every other week now because I'm sort of, like, in a process of maintaining baseline. I'm not symptomatic in my eating disorder or my depression, um, to the point where I need to be at a higher level of therapy. And I know that I need kind of those bi monthly check in. So, anyways, today in therapy, we were talking about work because I feel like I'm having kind of, like, an existential crisis around my writing and around social media.

And, um. And I was telling her, like, I don't feel depressed and I'm experiencing a lot of low motivation. Like, I'm experiencing a lot of, like, I just don't care about things enough to make an effort, whether it's a piece of writing I'm working on or if I'm in a social situation. Like, I don't really care enough to go talk to new people. And that bothers me because I historically am someone that is super passionate and cares very deeply about connecting to either what I'm doing or who I'm interacting with.

And so we were kind of talking about this, like, apathy that I feel like I've been experiencing. Towards the very end of our session, she said, you know, rachel, you've lost a lot in your life and whether it was through your own doing, through self sabotage, whether it was because of life circumstances happening out of your control, or whether it was because of your mental health and having to stop things or end things, but you've lost things that you care deeply about. And so I'm wondering if you're apathetic because you're afraid that if you care about something, it might get taken away.

And if you care about something and it's taken away, it's going to hurt. So it's a lot easier not to care because then it won't hurt if it gets taken away. And I was like, oh, that's so true. Like, that's so accurate. Like, I subconsciously am so terrified of that pain. Of the grief. Yeah, Rachel, of grief. Whether for a person or for an experience or for whatever that I am, like, subconsciously being apathetic in my life to avoid that potential pain. But as a result, I'm experiencing a daily numbness, which is its own kind of pain.

And so we talked a little bit about that, and her recommendation was, you know, which is something that I obviously resonate with is this doesn't mean you suddenly care about everything all the time. So we don't need to swing the pendulum all the way and say, okay, now I have to care tenfold every single thing I do. She said, find some things to care a little more about. Not all things at a level ten, but some things at a level three. Like, instead of giving zero f**** about every. This is literally what my therapist said verbatim.

She said, instead of giving zero f****, maybe care three out of ten fox. Instead of, you know, instead of caring about nothing, care about one or two things. Like, what are some things in your life that you can reasonably care about? So this is something I'm going to be working on and thinking about. And I don't know, it just really resonated with me, and I thought it might resonate with folks here, too. So if it does, let me know, or if you've been through this, I'm so curious, like, what your experience has been, because I don't know.

I just, you know, I used to be such, like, for most of my life, I cared very, very much about everything to the point of, like, feeling almost hypersensitive to, like, the world around me because I was so empathic towards everyone around me. I cared about every single human I came into contact with. I cared about every single task I had ahead of me. And that also was. It was an extreme right. Like, that led me to burnout, that led me to resentment, that led me to relationships that actually weren't good for me because I was caring about people that weren't caring about me.

Back. Hi. Speak wonder. Welcome. So, you know, she's obviously, my therapist knows me really well, and she also knows that, like, we don't want to go to either extreme right. It's good for us to find somewhere in the middle which y'all know I love. The messy middle, where we can find a balance of caring, right? So that we can have meaningful relationships, so that we can have purpose and passion in the things that we do, whether it's work or a recreational activity. And so that we can remain detached enough to know when something isn't right for us or that we can let go when it's time to let go.

So this is something I'm gonna start working on, and I'm curious to see what direction it takes me. And I'm excited because I think it's gonna be really helpful for me in a lot of places in my life and allow me to feel a little bit more excited about things that I haven't really felt excited about, but I wanted to feel excited about. It feels good to be excited about stuff, you know? And I haven't had that feeling in a while, so I'm hopeful that that happens. Rachel says, I love your therapist. Wish you weren't so far, or I may have to look into her.

Yeah, she's amazing. So she was my therapist when I was an eating disorder treatment last year. Luckily, I was able to keep her after leaving treatment. She's phenomenal. Jewel says, love your therapist. So real and raw. Yes, totally. She is da best. Rachel says, I used to be that way. Still, I'm in a sense, and I'm having a hard time finding that balance. Yeah, me too. I'll keep you posted, because it's. I sort of feel like I swung the pendulum too far in the other direction from, like, caring about everything to caring about nothing.

And so now I'm trying to find, which is sort of true in a lot of ways for me when it comes to things I've worked on in therapy, is like, I swing the pendulum all the way to the other end, and I'm like, oh, this was an overcorrection. Like, I kind of come back a little bit, but I think that's pretty common. So I'm now kind of trying to find my way back into the middle. So I'll keep y'all posted. So, yeah, that was my little. My little therapy session today. If you are watching this as a replay, would love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

I'm gonna now go have some lunch and maybe do some journaling on this whole topic. So it was really good to see you all and chat with you. I hope that you all have a nice rest of your Wednesday and I will see you again same time, same place next week. Goodbye Milo. Do you wanna say bye Milo?