Nowhere to poop
It was always exactly the same dream. I had to poop SO badly. I would search and search for a toilet. I would find a locker room with tons of stalls. but none of them had doors. just open toilets in the middle of a giant room with people around. I had to poop on the toilet exposed in front of strangers. Then I would wake up.
At first I thought it was strange. vivid. weird. funny.
But after having this same dream over and over and over again, (like literally 40+ times maybe?!) I wondered, “what the hell does this MEAN?!”
It is hilarious how obvious something can be in hindsight.
Because the dream stopped the day I had a breakdown at 4 am about my (then) business and my partnership with my business partner. The emotional “load” I was carrying for months and months trying to convince myself it wasn’t that bad, or that I could strategize myself out of feeling SO burnt-out and over it.
I pushed through the daily burnout with too much coffee in the morning coupled with too much wine at night. I kept SO busy that I didn’t give myself to realize how unsustainable it all was. I didn’t want to admit to myself that I didn’t want to do any of if anymore. I wasn’t keeping it from anyone on purpose. I literally shoved it down so far that even I didn’t know I felt that way.
Until it slapped me in the face with such clarity I couldn’t unsee it. And I couldn’t go back.
So after having that first existential crisis, I dove in with both feet to see if it was salvageable or what I truly wanted. Here are the hard things I did that I am SO grateful for.
quit coffee. my nervous system was so fucked up that quitting all together was crucial for me to actually feel my feelings for once in my adult life.
quit drinking. I numbed my stress and overwhelm with alcohol to convince myself it was all gonna be ok. But underneath that there were some really hard truths I needed to see.
I started meditating every day. (I used the Headspace app with headphones right in the middle of my 5000 sqft warehouse with 15 employees bustling around me. It was non negotiable. I needed to learn to hear my own thoughts and not what I “should” be feeling or thinking, or what other people wanted from me.
I dove deep into tarot. I have always loved tarot since I was a teenager, but it is amazing how using a neutral tool like tarot can help you see how YOU truly feel about a situation.
I prioritized MYSELF. I was such a people pleaser and and empath that anytime I would get a glimpse into how I was truly feeling I would get flooded with the needs of my partner, my incredible team, the public. “What would they think?” But I had to quiet all of that to feel deep down what I truly wanted.
We got a mediator. The tricky thing about partnerships is that it is always the two same people with the same points of view having the same conversations. So getting a neutral mediator to manage us and to help us talk in a new way was crucial. I felt like I finally said dynamics that needed to be exposed for years finally came out and we could see the truth.
Doing ALL of these things helped me see the situation clearly and helped me be brave into stepping into what I truly wanted. to leave. to leave the company I had worked my ASS off for. My identity. I was “Rosemary from Portland Garment Factory”, who would I be after that?!
It was the hardest decision of my life! My ego was so afraid that walking away would mean that I would be erased from the success story and how much I brought to the company. (spoiler alert I was) But - NO ONE can erase everything I learned growing a company from scratch and 23Xing it in 7 years with millions of dollars having gone through my hands into the lives of the amazing team of women we built. No one can take away the experiences, the wisdom, the travel and the amazing experience that was.
And that was the end of the dream that became a nightmare.
