I spend a lot of time in my head. We have been the best of friends and the worst of enemies. Lately, we have been at war, probably because I've been thinking a lot. I’ve been asking, searching for answers. Hoping to find out how we can know whether or not we’ve healed from our wounds. I’ve been thinking a lot about life- how one situation can be looked at from many different angles, how there can still be good within the bad, and how our darkest days can refine us into the brightest versions of ourselves.
From many angles, this year has been almost entirely shitty. I’ve lived the last five months trying really hard to step outside of that viewpoint, but my lens was made dirty by the loss of everything that I loved. I've been a different person this year, someone other than myself. I couldn’t see the positive in anything I was going through. My lens constantly refused to become clear. My days were a fight against my doubts, fears, and an overwhelming desire to give up.
I read that once you decide to change your life and raise your vibration, everything is going to fall apart. Becoming better gets harder when things aren’t going the way we think they should. When everything we love seems to be slipping away. When I decided I wanted to change my life and begin a journey of self growth, I had no idea what I was stepping into. Everything changed very quickly, so quickly that I could never quite grasp what was changing until I had already lost what I cared about, been hurt, or had my heart broken. I watched my life fall apart piece by piece. I reached for those pieces as they fell- with them often landing just past my fingertips. I blamed myself, tried to use glue and tape to hold it all together, but I had to go through it. I had to lose my footing so I could learn about me.
I have grown so much over the last three years, and I really thought I was whole, but I didn’t realize I still wasn’t whole enough on my own to withstand my losses. The people and things I loved with every ounce of my being were still crutches on my broken journey to self love. I cried nearly every day from February to July. 146 really awful and hard days. 146 days of really important lessons. 146 days of learning to be and love me. 146 days of convincing myself to keep going.
I am looking at life from a new angle, with brand new eyes. I had to fight for this viewpoint, it was an incredibly painful and lonely journey. I had to learn some hard truths about myself and I had to face my fear- my fear of being alone, of not being enough, of people being mad at me... my fear of jumping without a safety net. Maybe even my fear of being happy. But this month, I started laughing & singing again. I could feel something in my heart, something other than grief. The feeling felt so foreign that I was afraid at first, but I have days where I am excited and hopeful. I am finally starting feel like myself again, except this time I feel really happy to be me. I am incredibly grateful for my moments of joy. I can say I love who I am, because now I know who that is.
Know this: It does not matter one single bit who does or does not love you if you do not love yourself. If you’re chasing acceptance, you will never find it. It's a hustle and it will leave you empty. Start with you.
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Love yourself. Live your truth. Love others. In that order.Â
