I definitely skipped writing yesterday and feel absolutely no guilt about it. Yesterday I returned from a much needed, yet also exhausting weekend away with a couple of friends. I was energized and excited from the time I got there on Friday afternoon, all the way until waking up yesterday morning knowing I had over a five hour drive home, and then the fatigue kicked in. I was so happy to come home to my love and my fur babies, and just shower away the sweat and filth from the night before. The reason this weekend came about is my friend and I wanted to see Bryce Vine this year, and we decided to meet up in Minneapolis! Saturday night after that incredible show, we met back up with her other friend and went out until bar close. The bars closed at 2am, but then daylight savings happened and suddenly we’re driving back to the apartment at 3am.
I will say, as tired as I felt today, I have zero regrets from this trip and am so happy that I got to see a concert and hang with my girls. We also went to the Mall of America and it was my first time there! Of course we did some shopping and eating, but we also went to the aquarium and the amusement park! We got a free behind-the-scenes and were able to feed the fish at the aquarium, and we even got a free ride at the amusement park! Overall I felt like a giddy child the entire weekend and absolutely lived for it.
Now that I am home I am resetting and refocusing on my current priorities in life, and I want to focus on eating better and taking care of my body more consistently. My boyfriend and I got up this morning and went to the gym before work, and even though it was a short workout for me, I am proud that I went. I am the only person in my way of achieving what I want to achieve, and it is time to take a break and re-prioritize my time and schedule. I always say I want to know how to cook, so I am going to try a new recipe this week. It doesn’t mean I have to switch my whole life in one day and make a new recipe every night of the week, but just making small efforts will help get the ball rolling.
I am excited for this season in my life, as I continue to turn inward and focus on myself and my needs, I will continue to build confidence and more love for myself and others. I truly believe that when people are feeling their best, then they give their best, which is why I never think self-care or self-improvement is selfish. But to some people it is, and with that being said, it’s time for me to start enjoying my selfish era.
I have been in a bit of a funk these past few days and I am sure it is because I still have a residual cough and am not feeling 100% myself just yet. I feel a lot better than I did, but I am ready to completely kick this thing out of my system. Since I’ve been feeling rough I wanted to take some time for gratitude, as life is still beautiful even if I am seeing it through the lens of a tired, sick person.
I am very grateful for tissues, especially the ones with lotion infused in them. These have been a lifesaver while I’ve been sick, as they keep my nose from getting too red and raw. Compared to the toilet paper I was using originally, these tissues are a Godsend LOL. It’s the little things sometimes!
I am grateful for doctors and medical staff, as they were able to asses my illness and do testing to rule out flu, strep and covid. I am blessed to live somewhere where I can go see a doctor same day at an immediate care.
I am thankful for my boyfriend who is always my biggest support system through everything in life. He ran out to get my more tissues and snacks, he was making sure I was drinking water and bringing me ice packs for my head when I needed them. He hates seeing me sick and is always doing what he can to make me feel better. I am forever blessed to have him by my side in this lifetime.
I am grateful to have a job that offers insurance and PTO. Although I didn’t have any to use for this particular situation, it will renew and I am grateful to have these benefits.
I am thankful to have a reliable vehicle to drive that I’m quite fond of! She (yes, my car is a girl LOL) has such good features and great speakers, and she gets me from place to place safely. I am happy to have her for this road trip I am about to venture on!
There are so many more things I am grateful for, but I have to cut this short so I can get ready to leave for work. Although it’s a couple “bad” days (which aren’t really bad, I just feel off) it doesn’t equate to a bad life. I am giving myself grace and I know that I am going to feel a lot better soon.
I am so glad to be spending today at home with my love. I am finally getting over this virus, but unfortunately he has the beginning symptoms of it now. I keep encouraging vitamins and hydration, and today’s important task of rest. Although I will say it definitely is a beautiful day outside, and it wouldn’t hurt to go out and get some fresh air. Vitamin D is a necessity anyways, and I always feel better after a nice walk in nature. Next weekend I am going on a mini vacation and I am super excited to hang with my good friend! We are going to a concert and going to do some shopping, and I am happy that I will be feeling 100% by then!
I keep finding myself feeling upset about the fact that I haven’t been feeing 100% really much this year. I feel like I am either in some sort of pain or I am battling with an illness or allergies, and it has had me feeling pretty down considering I keep wanting to get into a good gym routine and work on my health. To be fair, these ailments have been requiring me to rest and to focus on my health, so I guess that’s what they mean when they say “be careful what you wish for” LOL! I will say I am appreciating the lesson of needing to rest, and I as I said last post I have seen progress in myself as far as not being so hard on myself about falling behind on certain chores. The tasks will always be there, but those aren’t what I want my focus to be on. Yes, I still will be responsible and maintain a decent home, however I refuse to punish myself and make myself avoid pleasure until all chores are done, as that is not how I want to live.
I always tell my boyfriend that once we are married and have children, I don’t want to be so focused on the house being a mess or the laundry needing to be done, but instead on enjoying time with our kids. We only have so much time in this life, why would I want to rob myself of precious moments with my babies to be angry about house chores? I feel like I am learning important lessons now that I will be able to apply to my future self, and I am happy to be present to it. I know that thinking about my future may seem like I am not being present, but I truly feel the difference between when I used to fixate on my future life vs. having these brief, fleeting thoughts about it.
My focuses for now are on regulating my nervous system and focusing on inner peace. Having inner peace is something that I do have, but I want to become more emotionally mature and make it so that no one can ever take that peace away from me. I often get agitated by others and find myself easily annoyed, and that is something I am continuing to work through. For example, I have been sick, so I have been more irritable than usual, and the other day I felt myself becoming so bothered by what someone next to me was doing. Honestly, it was a dumb reason to be annoyed, and instead of fixating on it and allowing myself to let the anger build, I started talking to myself in my head.
I reminded myself that I am ill and that everything feels amplified in that moment, and that what other people do does not have an effect on my life. I sat and told myself that all I can do is what I am supposed to do in the way that I want to, and just as I wouldn’t want others to tell me how to do it, I have no business to comment on what someone else is doing. I do not know what is best for anyone, nor do I need to know; my focus is on myself and how I am handling situations in life. Even if I have shared stories and information with others to help them understand me and my situation, they still have never walked in my shoes or lived through my traumas the way I did, therefore they do not know what is best for me or my life.
Now let’s flip that that the other way around: just because someone has told me about their traumas and stories does not mean I know how they felt or truly understand the impact it had on them or in what ways. It is not my place to ever tell someone how to live their life. However, that does not mean I am not allowed to share my opinion from my own point of view, but it is important to me that I am mindful of other people’s feelings. I also feel that minding my own business tends to be an easier, less emotional approach, although I am trying to practice the art of listening to others’ traumas without taking them on. I have felt a huge difference in this over the past couple of years, and I am extremely grateful for that. A quote that someone I know likes to live by is “be connected to everything, but attached to nothing,” and I feel that completely.
I love human connection and seeing how similar we all truly are, but I cannot become attached to others based on having comparable walks of life. This is how trauma-bonds start forming and it can be a toxic situation to be in. I don’t want to attach myself to anything, as everything is temporary-whether we are talking about feelings or people, nothing is forever. This doesn’t mean I don’t love the people around me or that I don’t seek connection in conversation, it just means that I won’t allow an attachment to distract me from my path. I used to let other people’s problems weigh me down and become my focus, which in turn allowed me to abandon myself and become lost. I didn’t know what I was feeling was my own, or if I was letting others have an influence on me, and ultimately that was to my own demise.
I have come quite far on my self-love journey, and I can see why people say you cannot love someone else until you love yourself. I still disagree in some ways, because I know that I fell in love with my boyfriend at 16 years old and we have spent the last 11+ years growing together and continuing to build this love. However, I also am very blessed to have a partner who has been both patient and respectful throughout the entire relationship. I know that I got lucky, and if I had dated someone who had more malicious intentions or narcissistic tendencies, that I would have easily fallen into a toxic, likely anxious attachment style. I was fortunate enough to be able to have someone who has been supportive, and even encouraging of my healing, and I think that connection has assisted in my progress. However, I also know that I am the one is putting in the hard work, and I am the one who can get myself through anything in life. I am connecting to my inner peace and my healing, and detaching from the outside noise; I am dedicated to being my best self, for myself.
There is this quote I have read before goes something like “if you do not make time to rest, your body will do it for you,” and boy did my body do that. I haven’t been at work the past two days because I have been battling a nasty virus. I was so happy to wake up without a headache today, because yesterday I had probably the worst headache of my life. I spent most of yesterday maneuvering an ice pack around my head in different positions because the pain was literally everywhere, including my neck. When I wasn’t trying to numb away the pain, I was napping to escape it. I definitely got a lot of sleep yesterday, which my body desperately needed. Today I still have an annoying cough and quite a bit of phlegm, but I am feeling a lot better now that I no longer have a migraine. I am taking the Mucinex and Flonase as immediate care recommended to me, and I am continuing to rest and hydrate.
I am honestly proud of myself for not feeling guilty about being home and taking care of myself, because that is almost always how I am. I usually get so stressed out when I am sick and I start worrying about falling behind on work and chores, but this time I truly listened to my body and let myself rest. I feel like this allowed me to heal quicker, and I am planning to go back to work tomorrow. As I had written before, I had a pretty busy weekend full of lots of events and people, and in the future I likely won’t jam pack my weekends like that again. I am a sensitive person and I often need some time to recoup from being around people and in public, and I will keep that in mind moving forward.
In the meantime, I am going to take the rest of today to rest and focus on gratitude. I feel so blessed to have my boyfriend to take care of me and things around the house while I am sick. I am also quite thankful that tissues and Aquaphor exists LOL. I am grateful to have access to over-the-counter medicines to help me, and most of all the fact that we have clean water to drink. As much as I don’t feel 100% like myself, I still want to take time to recognize all of the wonderful gifts around me, and I never want to take the present moment for granted.
I want to take this time to celebrate myself, because I feel like I haven’t taken time to sit and truly reflect on all of the work I have been doing. For over a year, I have been immersing myself in self-help podcasts and books and I have started to make and keep more promises to myself. I have started to take time to prioritize myself by taking time to move my body, even if somedays it is just ten minutes of stretching. I recently started reading a fiction book from an author I used to read all the time; honestly, it feels good to take a break from the self-help books. I am in the middle of a daily challenge that was at the end of the book I just read :”Disease to Please.” I am doing this at my own pace, as some of the challenges I feel require a bit more time, and I am okay with that. I also am better at reminding myself that prioritizing my health and my rest is essential for growth and healing, and that slow progress is still progress- after all, you can’t rush greatness! I am enjoying living slowly and prioritizing my peace, and I find myself being a lot more present in my interactions with friends and with the world around me. There’s something so freeing in slowing down, rather than constantly feeling like I am racing through life to some imaginary finish line.
I have become more self aware, which has been hard and rewarding at the same time. There was something I read in the people-pleasing book I read that really opened my eyes to why I am the way I am. There was a section in the book that was titled: “Adult Children of Alcoholic Parents,” and although it was only one page, it completely blew my mind. Within the page it discussed how children of alcoholic parents try to maintain control by being “good” and doing “nice” things in order to make parents happy and/or keep the peace. It also said the following: “Avoiding disapproval and criticism by keeping a low profile and not drawing parental attention become the safest means of childhood survival in alcoholic families.” After I read this, I immediately thought of how I hate having attention on me. I’ve never wanted a large wedding, I always say that when I have future baby showers I don’t want to open gifts in front of everyone… I have always hated having all eyes on me. This is probably also why I struggle to celebrate myself or share my wins or accomplishments with others. In life I maintain a low profile, and this is to avoid any unwanted attention, and also any unwanted confrontation.
Although I can appreciate the inner parts of me that are trying to protect me from the world, I also recognize how they are hindering me from stepping into my full potential. I don’t want to go through life trying to be invisible and quiet, instead I would like to be able to speak my mind and share my opinions, even if they differ from someone else’s. I am happy to say I have been more vocal when it comes to speaking out when I am bothered, and I am working on getting better at asking for help when I need it and learning about what my needs are. Since I had abandoned myself for so long, I realized that I don’t even know what I want/need from the relationships in my life outside of mine and my boyfriend’s. I have been lucky enough to grow with him throughout the years and we continue to learn about each other as we grow, but I haven’t had that same experience with my friendships or family relationships. I often would default to being “nice” and people-pleasing, rather than saying “no” to things and saying how I really felt, and that is something I refuse to do going forward.
Overall, I am proud of myself. I am prioritizing my health, both physical and mental. I am prioritizing my inner peace as I continue to regulate my nervous system. I am checking in with myself and setting my intentions, all while allowing myself to rest and reset. I am giving myself the grace I deserve as I continue to work through hard truths and emotions. I am showing up for me, for the first time in my life, and it feels good keeping these small promises to myself. And I know I can appear selfish or conceited to others on the outside, but what other people think of me is none of my business. The only approval I need is my own, the other person I care to impress is myself, and I will continue to progress and heal.
For some reason it feels like I haven’t typed up a blog post in a while. That could be the fact that I will often write these posts on my phone, but there is something more satisfying about typing it on my laptop, listening to Anderson .Paak Radio, while sipping on some iced coffee. This year when it starts to get warmer, I want to make time to go to different coffee shops or bookstores so I can have new places to write and maybe spark some more creativity. I absolutely love being home, but I want to make sure I don’t become a total homebody because I also love being outside and exploring new environments.
Yesterday I was thinking about what goals I am currently working on. I had listened to an episode from the Mel Robbins Podcast a few weeks back that talked about narrowing down your goals. She even has a free worksheet available on her site to use (I need to invest in a printer so I can start printing these resources out); although I haven’t even looked at this sheet yet, I did remember that she said to only have one to three goals at a time. The less goals, the more time and effort you have to actually spend on working toward that goal. Overall I have been on a healing journey and been focusing on that, but I wanted to actually list out three goals that I am currently working towards so that I can come back to them and re-focus when I inevitably fall out of it.
My first goal I am working on is being more present. I know I have mentioned this in previous posts, but within the last year it really hit me that I have spent most of my life on autopilot and in a hypervigilant state. According to WebMD, Hypervigilance is defined as: “the elevated state of constantly assessing potential threats around you,” and states that it is often the result of a trauma. Growing up in an unpredictable environment (for me, having alcoholic parents, one of which was an angry drunk), has left my nervous system in a continuous state of dysregulation. Since I spent most of my life planning ahead, coming up with worst-case scenarios so I could be prepared for whatever happened (which btw, is just a lie my anxiety told me), I never was actually in the present moment. I may have been physically there, but mentally I was always elsewhere. I can look back at photos and not even remember that day, which honestly broke my heart when I started realizing how few memories I had. Now I am making a more conscious effort to check in with myself throughout the day so that it becomes more second nature for me to do so. I also decided to start a 2023 memory jar, and whenever I have a fun experience or something brings me joy, I write it on a little piece of paper and fold it up and throw it in the jar! That way at the end of the year, I can remind myself how amazing the year was, and hopefully continue this tradition.
Another important goal of mine is to always find the joy in things, and actively do things that bring me happiness. Now this doesn’t need to be extravagant things like traveling to Caribbean or going on shopping sprees-although those things definitely do bring me joy, but I want to focus on the simple things in life. As I’ve stated multiple times throughout this blog, I absolutely love nature walks and being outside. In the winter I unfortunately let my hatred of the cold win most battles, but I am finding other things that bring me joy within my own home. I love writing, even though I may not always feel like writing, once I start I realize how much I needed it and how great I feel afterwards. I also enjoy reading, listening to podcasts, and of course singing and dancing along to some good jams. I also go in and out of phases of enjoying crafting, which I honestly haven’t done in a while, but I did think about starting to make some crafts again that have to do with mental health and healing! I also still want to start a podcast or at least start streaming again on Twitch, because I honestly love talking and can literally talk to myself for hours, so maybe others will want to listen. I have had multiple friends say we should start a podcast together, so I have thought of just starting one and bringing everyone one as guests. That will require more thought and planning, but either way I will be sure to find the joy in all of it!
The last, but certainly not least, goal of mine that I am focusing on my health, which includes my mental health. I want to consistently work on regulating my nervous system with exercise, meditation and journaling. I also want to be more mindful about my food choices and work on eating/drinking less sugar. I am not a person who does well with diets, as I get very obsessive with calorie/carb counting and it becomes unhealthy, so I am just focusing on being mindful in my day to day choices. I also feel that part of focusing on my health includes not holding onto anger or bitterness, so I am actively working on speaking up when things bother me, and also sharing my opinions even if they differ from others. Constantly muting myself in conversations is only depleting my self-worth and building up resentment; I know that everyone has differing opinions and sometimes I may come off offensive, but as long as my intentions are pure and all with love, then I will continue to be okay with myself and with the outcome. As I said before, I love talking…so I am done silencing myself.
As January comes to a slow close, I am looking forward to working towards my goals this year and continuing to check in with myself. I know that life with bring challenges and hiccups as it always does, but as I continue to regulate my nervous system and focus on my mental health, I will become more emotionally mature and more confident in myself along the way. I have made it through all of my worst days, and I am stronger because of it. I am excited to finally see myself in a different, more accepting light; I appreciate my resilience and the empathy I have for myself along the way. In my opinion, love is always going to be the answer; I am choosing to give my inner child the love she deserves, therefore giving my present self that same love.
Lunch break means it’s time for some affirmations! Some I have in my phone as reminders, some just will come as I write. Feel free to write some in the comments or let me know if any resonate with you!
All is well.
Everything always works out in my favor.
I am loved, I am safe, I am at peace.
I release all fear and allow the universe to work her magic.
I trust that all will work out how it should.
I am capable of more than I realize, as I am divinely supported.
I am a confident in myself and my abilities.
I trust myself to navigate what life brings me.
I am strong and resilient; I have survived all of my worst days.
As I write this, I am winding down with my boyfriend after a nice weekend spent with my family. We celebrated our Christmas, and I love that we always do this in January after the holidays are over, because it just feels a lot less stressful. We always do a white elephant exchange and this time we had a fun twist on the game which made it more interesting; my boyfriend and I somehow ended up taking several gifts home, so if there was supposed to be a winner, I feel like it was definitely us LOL.
It was nice to spend time with family, and I know we will all spend more time with each other this year! I definitely want to go visit again when it gets warmer out, and every year we also have our annual girls’ trip, but I want to make an effort to see family more this year, as well as my friends. I also want to make sure I am getting outside as much as I can, as I always feel happy after a walk through nature or a few hours at the beach.
I am happy to say that I already have a mini girls’ trip planned in March. I am going to meet up with a couple friends in Minneapolis so we can shop and go to a concert! I have never been to the Mall of America, and I also have never been to a concert in MN so I am looking forward to that! Then sometime late summer another friend and I are planning a trip to celebrate our birthdays! I love traveling, I love new experiences, and I am making sure to prioritize that where I can, while still being mindful with money and our future goals.
Life is all about balance, and I definitely feel like I have spent most of my life falling off of the balance beam. But as I am learning about myself and how my brain functions, I am able to understand myself more and I am slowly unlearning unhealthy patterns and coping mechanisms. Part of healing includes seeking joy and doing things that bring life back to you, and I am going to do that this year without feeling guilty about it. I deserve joy and I deserve grace and non-judgment from myself as I continue to heal and improve my mental health.
I truly believe that 2023 is the year where I bloom. I will breakthrough my self-doubt and self-defeating patterns, and I will do it all with love. I will do it with small acts of kindness, both for myself and others. I will do this by keeping the promises I make to myself. I will do this by forgiving those who have hurt me, and forgiving myself for the judgment I hold towards myself. I will give myself that same grace and empathy that I give to those I love, because I deserve it.
I survived Monday! And if you’re reading this, that means you did too! Congratulations! I hope you did something for yourself today, because you deserve it! I am happy to report that I woke up today in less pain than I’ve been in all week, and it really wasn’t a bad Monday! Work was productive, getting adjusted and chatting with the chiropractor’s assistant was pleasant, and doing some stretches in the comfort of my living room while listening to Mel Robbins is honestly quite therapeutic.
I just wanted to write for a second, because I was reflecting on my generally good mood today, and it truly is insane how different my mood was when I was in pain. I mean it makes total sense! Not only was I irritable because of the pain I felt and how slowly I had to move when doing literally anything, but I felt myself getting anxious about the house chores piling up, and of course starting the worst case scenarios: “what if I am in this horrific pain forever?” But when I found myself sobbing softly in the kitchen (because a hard sob would hurt too much) my brain did something different. Instead of letting myself go down that dark rabbit hole of guilt and negative self-talk, during the very worst of the pain I found myself saying, out loud too myself: “This is temporary, I am okay.”
I knew the back pain was temporary, because I had this same pain a month prior. I knew that I’d continue to see the chiropractor and actually start wearing the back brace (so maybe I didn’t wear the brace and maybe I skipped out on my therapies…I wonder why the pain started. LOL) and that I could get help myself out of this pain. I knew the pain wasn’t going to be there forever, and that I would feel myself again… so why not apply this to all of life’s hard times?
If I wanted to relive my past, which quite frankly I am actively trying to live in the present so that doesn’t sound very appealing, I would wish that I could have thought this way in so many moments. To be able to remind yourself that heavy emotions are temporary, the physical pain is temporary, the need for more rest is temporary, that stressful job is temporary…that can ease so much of the weight in those hard times. It’s easy for me to spiral into negative thought patterns and turn on the self-loathing soundboard, so to be able to stop the downward spiral with the simple reminder that “this too shall pass” is honestly a game-changer. I know, I know… I’ve heard that phrase a million times over in my twenty-seven years of life, but this is when it clicked for me.
As I move through the week and face challenges as they come (including hormonal ones, because sometimes I think mother nature f*cking hates me), I will continue to remind myself that everything is temporary. I get to choose what I focus on, and I am choosing to focus on my happiness. And no matter how heavy things may feel, I’ll just remind myself that this too shall pass.
finding light in the dark 