When You’re “On It”: The Practice I Forgot I Needed

When I was nineteen and worked at Landmark Education, it was literally in our job description to have a great life. I’m not kidding. It was part of our performance reviews.

Cynics will find a way for this to sound like an awful and impossible measuring tool but I can tell you first hand that working somewhere where part of your job is to have a great life and support people in having the same is… well… it’s pretty rad.

The Practice

Another part of our protocol was that if we were ever disempowered, grumbly, mentally stuck, distracted, or emotionally off in a way we couldn’t shake, we were supposed to stop what we were doing, get someone to cover our desk, and go talk to our supervisor.

We called the negativity “being On It.”

Talking to someone was “getting in communication.”

The resolution was “getting off it.”

The point wasn’t to analyze yourself into oblivion. It wasn’t therapy. It wasn’t venting for the sake of venting. It was a beautifully simple, non-over-engineered, practice for identifying whatever was running you, saying the thing honestly, and clearing enough mental and emotional space to return to what really matters.

Why It Worked

The beauty of the routine was that you started to learn the difference between ordinary mind chatter and the thoughts that were actually hijacking you.

Some thoughts pass through. Others troll your entire psyche. They bounce from head to chest to stomach, running laps around your nervous system, launching kickspins in your gut (or is that one just me), and demanding your attention until you finally deal with them.

I would love to go more into the weeds about how all of this really works, so you can use the practice too, but I’ll over simplify it by saying that you need:

A committed listener (who will stand for the bigger picture of what you say you want), with no judgment (truly, even if they have a negative thought about your stuff it won’t cloud their listening of you), and a willingness to say the thing you do not want to say (yes, that means being authentically open and honest).

Sometimes getting off it required an action: making a phone call, apologizing, scheduling something, writing something down, taking a breath, or simply telling the truth out loud.

How I Forgot

So why did I stop using such a simple and effective tool?

It’s embarrassingly simple… I merely forgot.

For years, I was married to someone with the same training, so the language and practice were built into my daily life. But this one tool alone isn’t a magic marriage saver, so after seven rough years together we agreed to an amicable divorce. After that I moved, and hit the reset button, having to make new friends and find myself all over again..

The people I became close to were lovely, brilliant, good-hearted people. But they didn’t have the same tools. They could comfort me, encourage me, and relate to me, but they couldn’t always help me get off it.

For a while, I thought that was enough.

The Cost of Not Being in Communication

Then one of my closest friendships fell apart.

The issues between us had been building for a long time, but without a shared practice of being in communication, neither of us really addressed them. It all erupted at once and cost us both our primary emotional support structure and first line of defense against negativity. We repaired things on the surface, but the underlying foundation of trust was still in ruins, and so from there we grew apart.

Losing that friendship also meant that without realizing it, I became more isolated inside my own head.

The Realization

Recently, I realized I have been On It for years about almost everything: my work, my friendships, my house, my boyfriend, my body, my eating habits, my self-care, my mindset.

Everything, apparently, except my wardrobe, which has somehow remained a reliable pleasure in my life.

With the influence of social media distracting us from real connection, and surface friendships becoming more normal I fell into this trap of focusing on the wrong data and chasing the wrong dream. It was as if I’d forgotten all my Landmark training and how to be empowered regardless of the circumstances, and it was making me truly unhappy.

But once I saw it, I couldn’t unsee it.

The Fix

Thankfully I remembered what was missing. This simple distinction that I could so easily follow if I was willing to put my embarrassment aside, and so I started reaching out.

I invited a few trusted girlfriends over because I needed to get in communication. I had to be truthful about what had been going on and why.

Someone once told me “our minds can be dangerous neighborhoods. You don’t always want to go in there alone.” and I’d been spending wayyy too much time there, by myself, in dark corners, trying to go it alone. And sure, I’m a self-cleaning oven in many ways, but being in dialogue with a committed listener, someone you know cares, beats having to self-clean every time.

The outcome was incredible, and exactly what I needed. I was able to talk through things that had been weighing on me and every person I spoke to gave the same comforting feedback, I went from feeling alone with my problems to feeling like I had a team cheering me on. It was a game changer.

The New Practice

Now I’m putting the words “On It” next to certain people’s names in my contacts. These are the people I trust to help me get clear, not by indulging my spiral, but by listening for the bigger picture of who I am and what I say I want.

Sometimes getting off it means venting.

Sometimes it means problem-solving.

Sometimes it means taking an action.

Sometimes it means saying the thing out loud so it stops living like a ghost in your nervous system.

Either way, I’m remembering something I should never have forgotten:

Being supported by people who can handle your authentic self is pretty rad.

Pretty rad indeed.