RISE ABOVE IT
Often in life, we find ourselves at an intersection. We’re presented with the road we’ve always taken, to the right a new opportunity, to the left procrastination station.
It’s far easier to either stay on the same path wishing desperately on a new horizon or procrastinate in your self-pity. Now neither of these options are helpful, nor do they set us up for success.
So here’s my current state of play…
Recently I’ve found myself finally cracking at the limits I was attempting to succeed at. As mentioned in my last post, I was gunning it and to put it simply, I snapped. The events to follow were dark grey clouds looming in my mind telling me I’d failed, telling me I had no fresh oxygen to breathe and as I believed it, that tunnel only got deeper and before I could catch myself, I was stuck in the deep and dark corners of my cunning mind. That place is tricky to navigate and very easily underestimated.
Depression and anxiety are real. Let’s just clear the air on that fact, please.
So now I find myself exhausted from this negativity following me around like a bad smell. I’ve sat in my pity, I’ve screamed to the moon and smashed valuables in front of my loved ones to try and get them to understand how dark my mind was. I spoke VOLUME to plead for help, but nothing worked.
Now that was certainly not because people didn’t care, in fact, the opposite! It was because I wasn’t listening to them. Their advice and help came in hard truths and they knew it started and ended with me, yet I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want to pick up my fucking shit and put it away. I didn’t want to believe in myself and I certainly didn’t want to make myself feel more shit than I already did by having to admit the places I fucked up or the people I’d failed. No no no, I wanted to cry and scream and have a magic fairy come wave her wand over my head and miraculously, my problems were solved, the sun would shine and my mind would be a bright place once again.
But here’s the catch, that’s not life. No matter how hard we beg, how much we may pray, that’s not how this shit works and until I decided to take a good hard fucking look in the mirror at myself, was anything going to change. Only I could do it, only I could flick the switch in my mind to have the confidence to face reality and evoke change.
Depressing, I know.
I came across this incredible song the other day, called ‘I’d rather go blind’ by Etta James. Now it is indeed a love song, yet for whatever reason it spoke truth and forced me to consider the relationship I had with myself. The way she talks about this man is the way I feel about myself. I so desperately want to be loved, by me, yet I feel like my purity and confidence kept cheating on me and I spent all my time trying to be enough to get her back. You see, I really hated myself. In fact, worse, I despised myself. It’s as if the golden parts of my character had taken a holiday and I was left with all the broken pieces, pathetically trying to patch them up with band-aids. Temporary fixes.
I needed to change.
Why?
You cannot enjoy love if it doesn’t come from you first. Full stop.
It doesn’t matter how many roses you get sent, how often you get taken out and gawked at from across the table, or how many times you get slammed against a wall and fucked. You won’t have the ability to accept and enjoy love unless you give it to yourself first.
I had to find a way to get out of this heavy place and LOVE myself again! I had to be the one to believe in me. I had to be the one to touch myself. I had to fix myself.
But you see, I wasn’t broken. Not at all. All of those magnetic parts of myself still sat there, right where I’d left them. They had been patiently waiting for me to say hello again. I’d simply forgotten they existed, forgotten their magnitude. Hell… I’m still ME after all! No one else is me, only I am me and that’s pretty goddamn exhilarating don’t you think?
So how does this current state of play end?
Well, firstly I started being kinder to myself. Secondly, I took some time to self-reflect and admit the facts of my failings, with no emotion construing the information at hand. Thirdly, I started pouring my time into my dreams again, into the things I love, into the things that fill up my cup. What did this all equal in?
SELF LOVE
I know I know, it’s fucking cheesy, yes but it’s fucking TRUE! That’s how this shit works. It will always and forever start and end with you!