Peace Amidst a Mental Battle

Hi Friend, let’s check-in. How is everything going? How are you doing? What’s stirring within you right now? If you don’t know, take a minute and check-in with yourself. I’ll be here when you come back. 

How are you doing my friend? I hope that was a good centering moment for you. It’s been an incredibly long couple of days for me—How has it been for you? Quite the mental battle for me lately but I am here, I am alive, and I am blessed.

Suppressing Emotions

I’ve been running away and trying to numb myself by consuming a lot of media lately. Between TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, the list could go on. I tend to do this a lot—sometimes even subconsciously— when I’m trying to avoid something. Almost all of those times it’s me that I’m running away from. It’s easier to run away from your problems, distract yourself, and get a quick release of dopamine. I mean, ya girl will spend HOURS scrolling through TikTok, fighting every urge to fall asleep just because I don’t want to lay there for 30 seconds with my thoughts. I’ve convinced myself that it’s easier to do that than to lay there and process the turmoil of emotions running through my body and mind. 

If you know me personally you know that my struggle with depression and anxiety has been a long journey. Depression comes from surpressing and not processing our emotions. It’s when we hold these emotions in or run from them that they come up in this form. The energy and impact that our emotions produce are absorbed into our bodies and the inability to release these emotions will cause the body to shut down or release the tension on its own terms—aka depression/anxiety. 

Process Emotions

I’ve been doing a lot of running and “not processing” lately so I decided for just a weekend, I was going to do a social media detox. Oh mann— when I say your girl was holding a lot in, I was holding A LOT in. Within the first day, I realized just how much emotion I was suppressing and running away from. The loneliness, the exhaustion, the frustration, it all came up so wildly that my mental self just shut down. Honestly, for some time, I didn’t even realize these emotions coming up were emotions that I had been carrying. They came back like a needy dog I had separated from and suddenly it overbearingly wanted all of my attention. Imagine all these surfacing emotions as that anxious overwhelmed puppy. Anyone who has either owns a dog or knows someone who has their own dog knows that as soon as you return home that dog is barking, jumping, whining, literally doing anything they know how to express how much they’ve missed and longed for you, to get your attention. 

My body was detoxing from all of the distractions and dopamine I kept shoving my emotions down with. I found myself reaching for my phone constantly throughout the day. There was an abundance of feelings that day—some of which I have yet to process—I spent a lot of my time drifting from sleep, crying, and longing for something I could not describe or place.

I had gotten to a place in these past few months of great consultation. I was finally able to process my emotions, understanding why I felt certain feelings, or what may have been their triggers. So to step backward and realize I was in that place once again where I felt I had no control, rhyme, or reason for my uprising of emotions, I was at a loss. I began to feel anger, frustration, and even confusion with myself. I spent the end of 2019 and most of 2020 in waves of depression and I starting to feel like I finally caught the wave and was riding it well. I didn’t understand why I was back “here.” I was afraid, I was terrified that all these emotions meant I was falling back under. And I was fearful of having to fight that long and difficult battle again when it felt as if I had just gotten out. 

Seek Support and Comfort

Of course, I did the responsible—and equally difficult thing— I reached out to my support system. I also checked in with a good friend. Amidst everything this person had been on my mind so I decided to call them. There was just something that told me I needed to check in on them. They ended up sharing with me that they too have been having a hard time and they either didn’t want to accept what was emotionally happening in their lives or wasn’t ready to. The advice that I ended up sharing with this friend was the advice that I needed to hear myself. That advice: just be. Simply allow yourself to be.

Whatever you’re going through, just be. So what if you don’t know how you’re feeling? So what if you don’t know why you need to process or if you even have to process anything? So what if you can’t explain why you’re in the state that you are? The point here isn’t to continue to run the opposite direction and ignore what is going on—That’s not the solution. The point is to accept what is going on within you for whatever it is or whatever it may be presenting itself as. Right now, in all of the confusion and turmoil of emotions, I don’t need to solve the issue. I need to simply allow myself to be. To be without judgment. To be without expectations. To be without conditions. To be present, accepted, and loved. 

Sometimes that answer is just that simple. Sometimes, we just need someone to hear us, to validate us, to see us, or to simply just sit with us. This is the affirmation we need so why not give it to ourselves? You don’t need to give yourself the added pressure of trying to process, justify, or explain what you’re going through or what you’ve been through. But what you should can do is affirm yourself. Hear yourself. Validate yourself and your emotions. See yourself in the present moment and whatever extra baggage that comes with it. Do yourself the favor and not judge yourself for it. Instead, let yourself be and simply be there, present with yourself. 

This is me, 

As Myself

Reprogramming Perfectionism

Hi Friends! Lets it’s been a few weeks since we’ve last caught up. Since then, I’ve started school again and had to make some major adjustments in my personal life. In the past 3 weeks, I’ve had more breakdowns than I can remember, accompanied by the occasional anxiety attack. Imagine being thrown in the deep end of a pool, and not knowing how to swim, while everyone around you is trying to help but you can’t stay up long enough to catch your breath. That’s how I can describe what it’s been like. But this post isn’t about that. This post is about what reflecting upon these past few weeks has made me realize. Resurfacing the old habit of over-expectations and above all the need to be and to have all things perfect. 

Perfectionism is a Box that you create yourself. 

Being perfect is something I’ve always struggled with. This stems from the desperate need to be accepted and people-please. I speak briefly about people-pleasing and boundaries here if you’d like to know more about my take on it. Like I said before, I had a really hard time these past few weeks. The more I tried to control everything around me the more difficult things became and without realizing it I had put myself back in that box. The walls around me? Goals, Expectations, and Conditions, mix it with sugar and spice and there is nothin’ nice coming out of it. Let me break down for you.

Too Many Goals 

Goals are great; goals are not bad. In fact, I think you need to set appropriate goals for yourself in order to achieve what you want in life!  But you also need to know yourself and your limits. When you set too many goals and tie them to unrealistic expectations you’re setting yourself up for failure. I do this often. I’d consider myself a very determined person, and with this quality, I’m constantly setting goals to keep me “on the right track” or assure that I’m moving forward, which, isn’t in itself a bad thing. But like I said before, I set too many goals. My timeline for myself at times is unrealistic, and often doesn’t allow me the space to live, or as one would put it “stop and smell the roses.” OR “stop and figure out who farted” (Haha, I don’t know why that phrase popped in my head, I had to share it. Lol sorry.) ANYWAY!

You're only here for a short visit. Don't hurry. Don't worry. And be sure to smell the flowers along the way.

“The Walter Hagen Story”

Unrealistic Expectations 

If you’re a perfectionist like me you know exactly what I’m talking about. Perfectionism, the refusal to accept any standard other than perfect. (Dictionary.com < lol I dont even know if thats how you’re suppose to site. And why did I feel the need to site the dictionary in my own blog?) The definition in itself is an unrealistic expectation. Who and what are actually perfect anyway? I mean, besides God or Beyonce (Not that I’m comparing Beyonce to God but like… come on, the woman is… perfect. I’d bet a few friends would even say BTS is perfection but let’s not get into that here). What I’m trying to say is, as a perfectionist, I’m pretty freakin’ hard on myself. I give myself wayyy too many goals/tasks and set absolutely unrealistic deadlines. I compare myself to others in almost every aspect and then beat myself up when I don’t measure up. And just because I’m also a People Pleaser, I project and assume what is expected of me and do that too. How is that even fair? But the king of Unrealistic Expectations is Time. 

The pressure of time can be its own category in itself! At least for me, I feel like I can never have enough time. Why do you think I set my goals according to a timeline? I always do it and you know what? I don’t think I’ve ever completed a goal within the time frame that I set for myself. But the thing is, it’s not just the timelines that I set but the pressures of meeting social standards as well! A society that expects us to be beautiful, find love, be successful, and all before our bodies have even fully grown into itself. Oh, the American Dream. Yet, another unrealistic expectation for my perfectionistic self. 

Conditions 

Oh, you thought that was it? HA! The excessive goal settings and the unrealistic expectations aren’t even the half of it. As if these things weren’t weighing me down already, I have the audacity to set conditions to it. “If this goal/expectation isn’t met it’s because…” or “...then I am…” typically following with a statement that either belittles me or belittles the things I have accomplished/currently doing. It’s like self-punishment as if we needed another person to beat down on us right?

Living Un-perfectly

I’m not going to sit here and pretend that I’ve figured it out or that I’m suddenly cured of my perfectionism because honestly, 3 weeks of falling back into the hole of the constant need of control are what brought me here. It’s a never ending cycle of trying to control the uncontrollable and then being all dark, depressy, and even frustrated about how I “try so hard and things never go my way.” If you’ve related to this blog post let this be a reminder to the both of us. Life is unpredictable. PEOPLE, are unpredictable, including yourself. Go easy on yourself. You’re doing amazingly. You’ve DONE amazingly up until now even with all your hiccups! Don’t put yourself in a box. I can’t count how many times things didn’t go as planned but always turned out better. So what if you’re not where you thought you’d be at this age and time. Maybe you’re not supposed to be there. Maybe, what you’ve imagined for yourself is nowhere near what has been imagined for you. 

This is me, 

AsMyself