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Quarterlife Crisis Anyone?

posted 1st March 2010    Written by: Katie    CATEGORY: All Posts, Inspiration, Katie, Quarterlife Crisis, Season 2, What I've Learned

I’m the exception to every rule.

No, I’m serious. Every. Single. Rule.

As women, we are expected to be emotional, prepared, successful, happy creatures who know exactly what we want and how to get it. I don’t know who created these expectations, but I want them shot, or at least put through a super-scientific experiment where we inject their lives with the Quarterlife Crisis.

When I heard about Stratejoy, I was, I’d say, 430% skeptical. I had bought every self help book there is to buy from every bookstore on the east coast. I spent countless hours sitting in my room, reading through books that tried to tell me how to get out of the slump that I was in based on other people’s experiences.

I don’t know if it’s me, but relating to others who have nothing in common with me just doesn’t work.

Before I committed to doing the Stratejoy Joy Equation program, and long before I applied to be a guest blogger, I decided to look into it a little bit more. I wanted to find the loophole where it said that the program was not for me. Maybe it was just for professional women;  Or married women;  Or women who knew what they wanted; None of which described me at all.

So… I read a few of the blog posts by Molly and her group of  Season One bloggers.

At one point, I had to get up and walk away from my computer.  Who were these women? How did they know exactly how I was feeling? You mean, I’m not a freak of nature? It was in that moment that I was sold on the idea of giving the program a try. If nothing else, to prove Molly wrong. To prove that there was someone out there that this program wouldn’t work for.

It might sound like I was being a bit negative – and I was.

When you go through a bunch of disappointments in life,  you learn not to expect too much from anyone or anything. I didn’t want to expect a life changing experience from Stratejoy, not get it, and be eternally depressed that I am truly a freak of nature who can’t be helped.

But I did it.

Within 3 hours, I had my first e-mail from Molly. A welcoming ‘hello’ and the very first writing assignment. I buzzed right through it, and waiting patiently for the next day. It was one of the first few assignments that knocked me out of the water and changed the way I looked at things forever. I was asked to recall the last time I was truly happy, and to describe how I felt.

Easy, right? For most people, sure. But not for me, not the exception to the rule. I realized after 30 minutes of steady thought cramming that I wasn’t able to remember when I was happy. Or how I felt when I was happy. Or anything with the word happy in it. Except Happy Gilmore. Awesome movie.

It was in that moment that I made the realization that I don’t pay enough attention to the moments in which I’m happy, and I focus a lot on the negative. This was a powerful thing for me to realize, and since that revelation, I’ve focused a lot more on living in the moment and being totally open to all of my emotions, especially happiness.

And that realization came on the third or fourth day. I still had 20+ days to go.

The Stratejoy program was a month filled with laughter, tears, life decisions, and mending. All of my life questions weren’t answered at the end of the program, but I do feel like I know what I want next, and how I need to go about doing it.  I had made a new friend in Molly, who when she called me for our “Jam Session”, was easier to talk to than I had ever imagined.

The other day I was talking with a friend and we got to the game of “20 Questions”. He asked me what person inspired me most in 2010. I answered a proud, “Molly Hoyne. Because her Joy Equation helped me find myself underneath the years of pain, frustration, and fear. I now wake up and am excited to spend the day with myself. That says a lot for someone who hated her skin for years.”

He replied; “So really, your most inspiring person is yourself.”

Touche, Friend. Touche.

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