Retiring well part 4 - you re allowed to be sad re…

Transcript

Another issue you run into, or I ran into, when I retired was I couldn't allow myself to be sad. I thought, boy, it must be nice to have these kind of problems. And I would essentially illegitimize my problem. So I would say to myself, your problems and your anxiety is illegitimate. Because you're retired, you're in good health, you're not struggling to feed yourself or your family, shame on you for being sad. And then I would have guilt about being sad. And then that would create anxiety and that would make me sad and it would become this loop. And I think the toughest thing for me to come to terms with was how I feel is legitimate. I don't have to gauge my sadness, fear, worry, etc. against all the worlds. issues and make a determination on whether or not my anxiety sadness or worry is allowed or legitimate. I don't deny that there are people who are in real trouble. But that doesn't exempt me from being allowed to be sad. You know, it gets compounded by... You know, sometimes we tell ourselves this, sometimes other people tell us, but we hear things like, it must be nice if those are your problems. And I mean, frankly, it is nice in its own way. Like being anxious and sad is bad. Being anxious and sad and not being able to eat is infinitely worse. But it doesn't change the fact that you're anxious and sad. And so I had to allow myself to be anxious and sad without feeling this weird like... Someone on here called me a weirdo. I called it survivor's guilt.