Was talking to my friend who is leaving gov service, letting him know some things to look out for that I wish someone had told me when I left, and think they are applicable to just stress in general and after 2020, maybe it will help others so here are the highlights

First, it doesn’t really matter the level of stress you’ve been going through, it isn’t a competiton, everyone has different things that hurt them and amounts they can take just recognize it and realize it’s ok to not be ok

There are different phases, at first you are thrilled you are done, relief washes over you, and life is good

But the brain is a funny thing, when it isn’t stressed anymore, all the things it didn’t have time to think about at the time it likes to go back and open boxes

After the relief phase you hit the numb phase

Things can get weird here, you start doing things which can be self-destructive since your brain got used to stress being life and now without stress you don’t feel alive so you do dumb things here just to feel again

Next you hit the questioning phase

This is where everything can change, you thought you wanted to buy a ranch and a pickup truck?

Nope, you watched a macroeconomic video and now investing is your only passion

Be ready for a total 180 as you really think hard what you want

New Identity Phase

Things start to solidify again, you feel like you have a handle on life again and are going in the right direction

You can feel the momentum building and you’re having fun again, circling 8’s most days on the 1-10 smiley face scale

Forgiveness Phase

First it happens for yourself, you realize you were way to hard on yourself as you worked through all that

After you forgive yourself you realize if you couldn’t get it right, no one else can, you start forgiving others and just wanting to be a better person

Told him it was a roller coaster, there’s no straight lines here, no maps, no telling what boxes his mind is going to open once the stress is gone or what direction his life will go, told him to look at it as the next adventure and be kind to himself

Wouldn’t plan on making any major decisions for a year, give him time, and be patient with himself, told him I found myself getting frustrated and then reminded myself so what if it took 1/10 the time to work out the stress, just roll with it, may want different things in a year

Made me think of 2020

8 billion people with stress to work out and can seen the relief phase of oh good 2021 is here, but doubt we all just go back to normal

Be kind to each other, people all had a different year, with different stress, and will be on a different timeline

Just recognize it for what it is, stress

Entire world just had to confront the fact they could die, then not go anywhere, some lost family, a lot lost jobs

That’s a lot to work through, with big changes personally that will be amplified across society and continents