By Deborah Blackwell

I’m like a catcher for the Boston Red Sox: I grab it midair and throw it back fixed. Doesn’t matter what it is. I even run out of my way to catch the flies. In fact, it’s like running a marathon my whole life. But now the bottom line is, trying to fix everything has caught up with me. Can I fix that?

I’ve been at it since I was 5, so the answer is a resolute maybe not. I felt bad lamenting this to a good friend during a recent, two-hour long phone conversation, and she said, “Don’t worry. When I’m having a long, dark night of the soul, everybody hears about it.”

“YES! Exactly!” I yelled, orating my dispirited thoughts that I also have no meaning, purpose, or even financial self-sufficiency right now. So, she tried to talk me through it.

“First,” she said, “money is just money.” She reminded me that long ago, when my former husband “lost” (for lack of a better word) all of our money but never replaced it, was not my fault. And I couldn’t fix that. Nor could I completely fix my now four-year run with long COVID, despite all that I’ve tried.

Next, “Meaning and purpose? Are you kidding me?” She adamantly pointed out the reality of my happy, healthy adult children, and happy, healthy, loving husband in a way I couldn’t deny. I didn’t fail there, despite not being able to fix the chasm in my husband caused by his former wife creating a tornado of parental alienation that for years, left their children fatherless.

But while impactful things are normal, sometimes they linger. Trauma and drama have swung in and out of my life for as long as I can remember, and with my survival instincts activated, I’ve tried to fix it all. I seesaw from “I have to fix this,” to “It must be my fault I haven’t fixed it,” or worse, “I can’t fix it. Yet.”

What can I say. I’m results-oriented. And not only results-oriented, but results with a purpose: to provide a tangible, meaningful, life-enhancing, soul-evolving outcome for others (and myself). You, the world, me, I’m going to make it all better. Yep, that’s my handiwork. In woo-woo world they call people like me lightworkers. Our meaning, our purpose, our longing, our joy, comes from helping others transmute their pain, raise their vibration, illuminate hope, and bring peace. It doesn’t always work.

This “catch-it-got-it-fixed-it” (or “didn’t-so-keep-going”) MO is great unless it becomes a marathon. It’s exhausting, I told my good friend. Then she blew my mind:

“You don’t have to fix anything.”

Whaaaaaaaat?

“Nope. You’re good.” She said that I’ve been working so hard for so long trying to fix so many things, that “fixing” has become my way of life. Not living. Fixing.

She’s right. Trying not to fall into the abyss of a fix-it-all fail, is indeed tricky. I know everybody has their dark night moments, including my friend, who from here, looks terribly content, self-sufficient, and successful. But how?

I’ve spent a lot of time, energy, and money enlisting my team of fixers: healers, shamans, Chinese medicine masters, naturopaths, gurus, coaches, intuitive experts … my husband … my kids … my BFFs … because sometimes it takes a village. I keep hoping someone can help move me toward the endgame: an optimal quality of life for all, yet I still follow my playbook, I have to fix this.

But I don’t, says my friend. All I have to do is be. Life, with a capital L, is for me, not against me. Even though it doesn’t always feel like it in this sometimes-terrifying, disruptive, unpredictable world. I just have to get out of my own way. Put all the what-ifs, the buts, the worries, the thought-consuming concerns aside, and just be. No fixing, no freaking out … and subsequently, no failing.

Be finished with fixing? Is that all? Game over.

I got this.