Ep. 174: Life Didn’t Go Back to Normal… Here’s What I Did Instead

What happens when life gets thrown off… and it doesn’t go back to normal?

In this episode, I’m talking about what it really looks like when you’re not fully “back on track”—and how to stay connected to yourself anyway.

Because the truth is, sometimes the hardest part isn’t the interruption.
 It’s accepting that life keeps moving, even when things feel different.

I share:

•  Why we crave going back to our old routines (and why that can keep us stuck) 
•  How to stop waiting for things to feel “normal” again 
•  What it actually means to stay connected to yourself in a new season 
•  And how to move forward without needing everything to feel perfect 

If you’ve been feeling off, out of rhythm, or like you’re not quite yourself lately… this episode is for you.

You don’t need to be fully back on track.
 You just need to stay connected to what matters.

Maybe… you can 💛

Transcript

Welcome And The Pressure To Normalize

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome back to the Maybe I Can Podcast. I'm your host, Debbie Weiss, and thank you as always for joining me today. So today I want to talk to you about what it means to not be fully back on track and how to still stay connected with yourself. And what matters even when life does not return to the normal or the normal way you hoped it would. And when I think about this idea of not being fully back on track, it actually makes me think about something I don't want to say minor, but relatively minor, all the way up to something very major happening in your life. So last week I shared with you that I have gotten sidetracked from my exercise routine because of a neck. I don't want to say injury because it's not really an injury, I don't think. I don't know what you'd call it, but whatever, it doesn't matter. Just a situation with my neck that has completely thrown me off kilter, interrupted everything. I was feeling sorry for myself. And this week I want to talk about what comes after that. The hard part is realizing that maybe you won't be back to quote unquote normal anytime soon. And maybe when it's something life-altering, you will never get back to that old normal. There is no pressure to return so quickly, even though we feel like there should be. And this episode is about releasing that pressure. Sometimes the hardest part isn't actually the interruption, it's realizing that you have to keep living, even though things now need to adjust. So, why do we want to get back to where we were so badly? Regardless of what interrupts us. Well, routines make us feel grounded, right? That old version of normal feels safe. And when we're taken out of the normal by something that is outside of our control, well, it's scary. I don't know about you, but I also would be looking or am looking for proof that this is just temporary. With my neck injury, I'm embarrassed to tell you how many times I've gone back to AI after putting in my MRI results and asking AI a thousand different questions, a thousand different ways, hoping for some kind of different answer or different guidance or some kind of just not so arbitrary. Well, first you'll try this, and then if that doesn't work, this. And I just want to go right to the solution, right? Because I want the solution so I can get back to where I was. I just don't want healing. I want my life to go back to that routine. And I want that assurance that this is temporary. And when I say temporary, I mean, well, a couple weeks would be great, but even a month or two. I just want things to go back to the way they were, right? We don't just want things to improve, we want them to feel familiar again. Now, of course, I'm talking about exercise, and hopefully I will eventually get back into my old routine. But what happens when it's not as simple as just a routine? It could be a divorce, right? Life just doesn't pause and then go back to the way it was. Your whole identity changes. It's the same thing when I became a widow, and I still, you know what? If someone says, Are you single? And I don't know what this is. If you're a widow, I'd love for you to DM me or email me with your thoughts on this. I never say I'm single. Someone says, Are you single? I say, I'm a widow. And I don't know what that is. I think it's an identity problem. I don't want to say problem. That's probably not the right word. Choice. It's a choice that I think if I say I'm single in my own mind, that means what's that? What is that phrase? I'm single and looking to mingle. I think that's what I think. If I say single, people will think I'm looking to meet someone. And I'm not actively in that space. Whereas if I say I'm a widow, people typically don't bring that up unless they know me well, they know how long it is that I've been a widow, and all the things. Maybe it's becoming an empty nester. I remember when, even though I never really fully became an empty nester because my older son Sam has he didn't go away to college and he's lived with me and still lives with me. But when my youngest went away to college, everything felt different. And of course, missing him terribly. But, you know, he played sports in high school. I spent a lot of time going to see him at his games, at his matches, all the things. It kind of, you know, it was a little bit of an adjustment and an identity shift. And the rhythm of my days and my weeks just really shifted, even though I wasn't a complete empty nester. Then looking back on my caregiving journey, my decades of caregiving. So shout out to you if you're a caregiver. Your time is no longer your own, right? It's different. Your priorities shift. Maybe that's also just thinking about shifting priorities. That's also I see so many of my nieces and nephews having babies. And when they're first pregnant, I'm thinking to myself, oh boy, you people have no idea how your life is going to change in absolutely amazing ways. But they don't realize how much they'll miss the times where you could just get in your car and go without ever thinking twice about it, or go out to dinner, or get a full night's sleep, any of those things. Sometimes it looks like the pandemic. Oh my goodness, how did we feel then? All of our op or our routines just disappeared overnight. Things that we were used to doing were no longer. Or they shifted, right? Whoever heard of Zoom prior to 2020? Not that many people. Then it became a household word. We had to develop new routines. It was very awkward, right? But eventually we did. And then the funny thing is that I think when the pandemic ended and we started to slowly transition back to the way it was, we had gotten now used to our new ways. And so again, it felt like we were getting thrown off our routine. Oh my goodness, even going back further than that, I remember when I first moved from Long Island to New Jersey to become an insurance agent. Every single thing about my life was interrupted. It was thrown off. I had no routine, everything just felt out of control. And this actually is where we need to start doing the real work. When this happens, when we get thrown off our routine. Sometimes we're like a deer in the headlights, and we're just stuck and stunned and can't move. And we tell ourselves, well, I'm gonna wait until I feel ready. Or I'll restart or retry something once things settle down. Or we treat this season of life like it doesn't even count, like we're in some kind of holding period, and whatever is happening now isn't really real, or what we're doing doesn't matter, or what we're not doing doesn't matter until we go back to the life we knew. We basically put our lives on pause, waiting for that old version of ourselves to return. We tell ourselves, I'll start again when things calm down, or when I feel better, or when life feels less messy, when I'm more myself again. But I know that you've been there and I have too. Sometimes that version of life never comes back. Or if it does, it comes back differently. When we keep waiting for that old version of life, we stop building the one that we're actually in. So on track does not have to mean getting back to the old routine. It could mean just staying connected to what matters to us in a different way. And maybe initially it's smaller, it's slower than before, right? Because it's new. Different seasons of our lives require different definitions of progress. For someone going through a divorce, being back on track means creating a new routine instead of trying to recreate the old life. The same for someone who has lost a spouse. It means learning how to live in a new version of life. Not one that you chose, but really you have no choice but to learn how to move forward. For an emptied nester, it could be rediscovering who you are in this next chapter. And as far as a caregiver is concerned, it may look like adjusting your expectations while you're in this period of caregiving. And right now, for me, look, like I said, this is a much smaller scale that I'm dealing with now. It's getting back on track for me right now, could be going to physical therapy, resting more, working with my body, figuring out what I can and can't do. On track is not necessarily that fixed vision or picture that we have in our minds. It changes as we change, as things, circumstances change in our lives. That on track, it varies. Some seasons in life don't return to who we were. They ask you to become someone new. And that can be very scary, but it can also be exciting. So the first thing is it's okay. You can grieve that old version of yourself. And I think that you should. I think you definitely should, because if you don't, then you aren't fully processing. Next, we need to stop using that old routine as the only definition of success. Okay, that might have been your definition yesterday, but now today, things are different. And ask yourself, what is still possible now? There are always things that are still possible. It just might look different than what was possible yesterday. Stay connected in a smaller way to yourself, to your work, to your health, to your family, whatever it is. Stay connected. Find a smaller way to stay connected instead of disappearing completely. And let the season of your life count, even if it looks different than you wanted. The event happened. Now it's up to you to decide what to do next. You've grieved? Give yourself some. I find it helpful. I've gone down this road so many different times where I've had a pity party for myself, and I say, okay, I'm feeling sorry for myself. I want to sit on the couch, eat my pint of ice cream, and be left alone watching mindless TV. And I'm going to give myself permission to do that. And then I set a time. Now, obviously, different situations require different things and all, you know, there's nothing set in stone. You do what works for you. But okay, I'm going to do that for 24 hours. Now, I didn't give myself 24 hours after my husband died, after I moved to New Jersey, after I don't know what else, different things that happened in my life, but but with this neck issue, 24 hours. You can feel sorry for yourself for 24 hours, have at it. And after that, now it becomes about the story that I'm making of this. The story is what you start making it mean. So stop telling yourself this story. Well, I can't do what I was doing before, or my life will never look the same again, or now I'm single, or now I'm a widow, so my life is over. Is that the story you want to tell yourself? I don't think so. What would be a better story for you? Look, this adjustment is frustrating. I mean, we're pretty much talking about things that are unexpected, right? These aren't things that you're choosing. That's a whole different set of circumstances. This is something unexpected that happened. And so it's frustrating. It can feel completely unfair. It can feel like you're losing momentum. You're impatient. You want the old version back. None of this means that you're failing. It means you're in a transition that you just did not choose. And this is the definition of life, right? Because life throws us, what is it? If when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. You can dislike this season? That's okay. But you still have to learn how to live with it. You can miss your old life absolutely, but you still begin to build a new one. Right? Two things can be happening simultaneously. You could be disliking or really hating this season, and still at the same time, learn how to live with it. It's a process. If I think about life, and for me, this is something that it took me a long time to realize when I had these unexpected circumstances happen to me. Becoming a caregiver at such a young age, dealing with infertility, dealing with weight issues, dealing with oh gosh, so many different things. Every single thing that would happen, I would honestly feel sorry for myself. Why is this happening to me? I want my old life back, nothing will ever be the same. And these things just ruminated over and over again in my head. And what did I do? I really was. Even though on the outside I wasn't appearing that way. And I didn't even know how miserable I really was. When I realized finally, yeah, these things happened in my life. Yeah, I wouldn't have chosen them. But when I'm honest and I start looking around, and I see what other people are dealing with. Look at the people that you know. Look at the older people that you know and think about their lives and think about the challenges that they faced in their lives. Nobody. It doesn't matter how wealthy someone is, how successful, how I don't know, famous. It none of those things matter. Every single one of us deals with unexpected challenges. And so this is a skill that we're gonna practice, unfortunately, over and over again. And when I realize that, look, I'm not alone with this challenge. I just have to change the way that I'm approaching it, that I'm thinking about it. And that doesn't mean it's easy, and it doesn't mean that I like it, and it doesn't mean that I feel that it's quote unquote fair. But as my parents told me time and time again, life is not fair. Life does not return us back to that version who we were before. And you know, sometimes that might be a positive thing. Sometimes life asks us to create a new version of ourselves. The work is not always getting back to who we were, the work is learning how to stay connected to ourselves and moving forward in a different way. If something in your life has changed and the old version of normal is not available right now, maybe the question is not how do I get all the way back? Maybe the better question is, what does staying connected to myself look like here? Remember, you do not need to be fully back on track. You just need to stay connected to what matters in the season you're in. Okay, that's my message for this week. If it resonated with you, make sure to DM me on Instagram at Debbie.r.wiss, send me an email at Debbie at DebbieRwiss.com. Thank you so much for listening. Make it a great week, and I'll see you again soon.