Whip it. Whip it Good.
By: Suzanna Quintana
Tags: Life Lessons, Self Improvement, Overcoming Fear, Do It Yourself, Stress Management

Crack that whip

Give the past the slip

Step on a crack

Break your momma’s back

When a problem comes along

You must whip it

Before the cream sits out too long

You must whip it

When something’s going wrong

You must whip it

Leave it to me to find the solution to my present problem within the lyrics of an early 80s song. Never thought Devo would end up saving my ass, but there it is and I’m all in.

Here’s how this unfolded:

This past week I’ve struggled with too much and not enough. Too much work that I’m doing and not enough reward in the form that counts when it comes time to make the mortgage payment and pay the interest on my credit cards.

I realized a while ago that being an entrepreneur, being my own boss, and starting a new business was going to be a journey unlike any other. I knew it would come with peaks and valleys, risks and rewards. What I wasn’t prepared for, however, were those oh holy shit fire help me mama moments that tempted me to lay on the floor and snuggle next to my dogs in the middle of the afternoon and pretend I was one of them — someone else could be responsible for the mortgage.

It was in this moment of panic when the voices from the past all decided to get together in my head to remind me that I wasn’t cut out for this, that I was going to screw it all up, and the world would finally discover the failure I really was (of course all these voices had familiar faces and were drinking and clinking their glasses while laughing at my expense…and I think they were throwing confetti).

As I sat at my computer, hands holding up my face as I entered that first phase of an anxiety attack, suddenly two roads diverged in my mind and I decided to take the one I typically don’t travel in times of crisis.

There was the road of actively disengaging that I was familiar with: grab a book, lay on the couch, drift off for a couple of hours and wake up in a sweaty depression hangover that admonishes me for my negligence. Yet still that mortgage payment would need to be paid.

And there was the other road, which is where I met up with Devo.

For whatever cosmic reason, I made the active choice to not give in to my temporary hysteria and decided to try something different, my intuition leading me by the nose and promising I wouldn’t be sorry. So I stood up, drank a glass of water, packed up my computer with the intent to go to the library (which is where I wrote this piece), and got in my car, where 80s on XM blared as soon as I hit the ignition.

And then I just followed the instructions:

Now whip it

Into shape

Shape it up

Get straight

Go forward

Move ahead

Try to detect it

It’s not too late

To whip it

Whip it good

Sometimes when all else fails, it takes something this fucking simple to set ourselves straight. I had been whipping myself up into a frenzy over my current stress and business struggles, losing sight of the bigger picture, which was the fact that I was an entrepreneur, my own boss, and creating my own business out of nothing. Given that, I could sure as hell figure out how to face my current dilemma given my track record for being a badass and getting shit done all on my own.

I didn’t need to snuggle with my dogs (although I would do that later). I didn’t need to take a nap or escape in any way whatsoever. All I needed to do was focus on the problem itself, name it (which is key if you want to solve it), and then get straight, move forward, and whip it.

Whip it good.