Moxie Living: Courage and Confidence

You’ve got a name, location and the roles you play but then everything else is on a trip without you.

Feeling lost can make us feel like ships lost at sea with no navigation tools to get us safely back to shore.

What’s the cause of feeling lost? Oh, I don’t know, who knows! It could be one of a million of reasons, unique to you.

It’s a real common phrase though at Living Moxie, ‘I just feel so lost’, that one and, ‘I don’t know who the hell I am anymore’, usually followed by, ‘I want to find me again’. It’s not something you can ignore, huh? After a while,  it has to be addressed, faced down and looked at honestly.

Look, you and I aren’t in a room together. There is no way I am even going to say I have the answer to finding yourself but I can ask you some of questions I ask other people. How’s that? And hey, I’ve been there. There’s our common ground.

Let’s see, feeling lost can come from…the roles we accept in life, there’s grief, loss, bereavement (including job loss, not reaching a goal, letting go of a plan you desired where you wrapped up your identity) they may be the cause.

Sudden unexpected and unwelcome change may have you surfing along. The waking up to find that you have been: adrift, on autopilot, doing too much, or unable to locate a purpose and a meaning can be the factors. I repeat, who knows?

The good news is this: there is only so far we can drift until we are going to hit land. And maybe the truthful news is, nobody is actually lost. Empty maybe? Unfulfilled perhaps? See, I don’t know. I don’t know you.

But drifting for years doesn’t have to occur, not when there are shortcuts.

And hitting any old land, even surface belong to others because you didn’t steer your own course really isn’t the wisest option (she says from experience).

Yes, it could be the easiest (for now), saves any hard work but you may find you don’t like it there and are back at sea before you know it.

You can do this, you can stop feeling lost, the first step is owning the desire to make the decision you are no longer willing to drift.

Pull your panties up. Here we go…

#1: Don’t give the ‘feeling lost’ (or similar phrases you use) any more power than you already have.

Because after a while you may not be able to see any way out. But it’s what you feel? I’m not asking you to ignore or deny a feeling, or pretend it doesn’t exist, that’s futile, acknowledge the feeling and then claim it as your own.

Why? Well…what’s one of the most effective ways to learn? By repetition. Repeating the same phrase over and over is only going to take you further out to sea. We have to at least anchor.

Try this:

When you say/think, ‘I’m feeling lost’ (or similar), follow up the thought immediately with a way-out question. So it could become, ‘I’m feeling lost…right now…but of this I know I am certain…’ and then insert something you ARE sure about. It doesn’t matter how small it is.

Crikey, it can even be as simple as your favourite colour, food, TV program…it doesn’t matter what it is, as long as you aren’t leaving the ‘lost’ open.

Or try the 5% question:

You say ‘I’m feeling lost’, follow it up immediately with, ‘if I was 5% less lost, what would I be thinking?’

All you are doing is not stopping at lost; you’re giving yourself a way out of the repeated behaviour, interrupting it if you like, allowing yourself another option. Leaving it at ‘feeling lost’ can actually feel quite helpless.

#2: Get specific: lost, adrift, not me…what do you mean specifically?

Define it.

Get a piece of paper and write down the phrase you use most often (and then move on to the others).

Take back control by knowing exactly what you mean. Define lost for you, not what you’ve heard others say.

Is it a loss of the self you know. The self you trust and can rely on. The self that is secure, loved, and reliable. Drill down what you specifically mean.

#3: Build a new foundation

Sometimes experiences teach and train us not to think for ourselves.

• Have you ever said you liked something to please another?
• Have you ever gone along with a plan because you wanted to be liked?
• Have you ever agreed with the values and beliefs of someone else because it was easier than rocking the boat?

This can happen in our special relationships, we can give up our sense of self in order to ‘have a relationship’, putting more value on being with someone instead of entering it complete, whole and secure, ‘I’ll just go along with them, because I don’t want to lose them, be alone, feel unloved [insert reason]’.

And that can extend to all relationships: the relationship you have with your work, career, children, roles you play. You may have thought it was a requirement to give up ‘you’ (or parts of you) in order to have something else. What happens? You feel as parts of you are missing. You may forget where you end, and others begin.

Okay, stronger foundations.

It’s really simple, and it’s back to basics: get a pen and paper and write down 200 things you love.

The list doesn’t have to be elaborate and be a deep dig of the soul. Simple. Coffee brand? Favourite music? Colours? People? Words? Phrases. But for everything you write ask yourself, ‘Is this mine, or someone else’s for me?’ It has to be your own.

Next, write down your ‘Don’t Like’ list. 200 things. Yes, even those things you have pretended to like.

Start small. Know your own likes and dislikes.

Why so many? Because you’ll need them to…

#4: Stand in your own shoes: Moxie is bravery.

And it takes bravery to stand head up and say when it’s required, ‘No, I don’t want to do this (or be this, or act this way, or conform to the masses), this is not me’.

See, feeling lost, adrift, not you, no idea who you are is…separation. 

Have you ever lost your keys, phone or wallet/purse? Just at the moment you need to leave the house. Do you at first have a gentle look around the places you have left them before?

Then, when they aren’t in those bizarre places like the fridge, do you start to panic a little?

You question whether you actually had them when you last entered your house, worry that you’ve actually lost them completely, do you say, ‘They must be here somewhere!’ and in the space of five minutes you’ve went from a sane human being from ‘knowing they are here somewhere’ to an insane one screaming, shouting, getting anxious and upset in case they are gone forever.

Feeling lost is perfectly OKAY. It’s merely a temporary separation. The BEST thing you can do is not to get insanity lost keys about it. And find out what YOU are separated from.

There are plenty of signposts, tools, tips, techniques to be reunited with your real self. It seems we humans are bloody good at ‘not remembering’, so folks have been writing about it for years.

I know it can feel scary. However the journey forward can be the one that allows you a much deeper understanding of who you really are, not who others have expected you to be.

#5: Using feeling lost is an opportunity to grow.

The opportunity is:

• You get to explore.
• Your get to decide.
• You get to discover and dig.
• You get to choose.
• You get to grow.
• You get to claim.

And, yes, it may take a little time. You’ve got the time.

I would suggest though that the first decision you make is to choose you are ready, willing and available to discover who you are.

#6 Write It Out

Journal.

Before you decide it’s not for you because you, ‘I wouldn’t have a clue what to write’, ‘It’s for writers’, ‘I don’t want to gaze at my navel, writing is a great way to ask yourself better questions and have ‘head chats’ with your own editor and critic, who are pretty much around when you are telling yourself how much you’re lost anyway.

It also doesn’t include anyone else but you.

You, the paper and the pen.

From thought to type.

Nobody in between telling you that you can’t think write, or say THAT, you can take yourself anywhere you like, because it’s for you, no-one else.

To help…

I’ve made you a list of questions/prompts to download (no sign up needed just now) I’ve simple called it ‘Here’s 100+ Questions to Ponder Over When You’re Feeling a Little Lost Workybook.’

You can download it here, or click the image on the left. Psst! You’ll need Adobe Reader to view.

And finally…

Feeling lost. It’s a common human complaint. A separation of self. We’ve dropped the thread that guides us. For whatever reason. It’s our job and responsibility (if we want to) to take back control and find our way back home, no delegation.

Learn to decide. Learn to choose. Learn to say no. Learn to question. Learn to not give power away to words that others have been defining for you, define your own.

Don’t drift into someone else’s path just because it’s available and they are signalling you to come over. You may find you are adrift again…soon.

Stay close to your own loves and likes. Don’t compromise if you don’t want to. Declare. Bring people into your life that don’t ask you to ‘be this way or that’ in order for them to love or like you.

Stay by your own pilot. If it doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t. Find out what and why you drifted. Get specific. What are you separated from? Know that, then you have a point on the horizon to navigate back to.

Can I ask you, have you ever felt lost? What did you do specifically to begin the remembering and journey forward to meet yourself?